The Best TRUE Scary Stories from October | Real Horror That Will Haunt You | Part 1 of 2 - Scary Stories from Bad Vibes

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:06):
I've been working as a food delivery driver for about
eight months now. With how my contract works, I need
to have at least three evening shifts, with two of
those being between Friday and Sunday. I don't really mind
working the evenings since it has a nice vibe to it,
being really calm. Just throw on some headphones, in a

(00:26):
good playlist or podcast and you're good. Plus, I never
worked for more than four and a half hours on
end since I work on an e bike, so I
can't do longer shifts without my battery dying, keeping in
mind that the bike needs to take me home as well.
Apart from some stupid encounters I've had with teenagers trying
to be funny in front of their friends, like biking

(00:49):
after me and asking for food or pretending to be
the customer, I never had anything creepy happen to me.
That was until a few weeks ago. It was a
Thursday evening I had a ship from five thirty until
nine thirty PM where I live. Delivery drivers get paid
per hour instead of per delivery. This has advantages and disadvantages.

(01:14):
More disadvantage being that I can't decline orders on my
own end if we for whatever reason, can't take an order.
We need to talk with the company we work for,
so whatever trip is thrown to us we have to take.
Up until this point, I've been having good close by
deliveries from nice local restaurants. None of my journeys were

(01:37):
too far away places, which was good. The weather was fine.
It was cold, but if you layer yourself well enough,
it's not that bad as long as it doesn't rain,
which luckily it wasn't. It was around eight fifteen when
I got in McDonald's order. The customer lived about twelve

(01:57):
minutes away from the restaurant, which was an ideal, but
it was fine since I only lost one stripe of
batteries so far. The location it was going to was
also a good one since the only time I needed
to get off the bike lane was to cross roads.
Other than that, it was all bike lanes. I picked
up the order after waiting around fifteen minutes. I got

(02:19):
into my bike, chose a playlist, and made my way
over to the customer. The streets were pretty quiet, sending
the vibe. As I got closer to the customer's house,
I made my way onto the sidewalk and cycled slowly
trying to find the house number, which can be a
pain at night. I eventually did and locked up my bike.

(02:41):
I walked over to the door and knocked. After a
few seconds, I heard commotion and placed my back down,
taking out the food. The door opened and the lady
greeted me with a smile. After handing her the food
and telling her to enjoy, she thanked me and after
giving me a tip, closed the door back up. I

(03:03):
got back onto my bike and unlocked it. I had
been charging my phone with my power bank, but wanted
to take the charger off since my phone was now
fool enough, and dealing with a wire sticking out of
my jacket pocket can be a hassle one taking off
and putting on my backpack, I always fall awkward and watched,
especially when they have those doorbell cameras. So I made

(03:25):
my way over to the small alleyway close to the house.
As I turned my bike back off, I took out
my power bank and turned it off. Then I changed
my playlist, and as I was putting the power bank
back into my pocket, I heard slow footsteps creeping closer
to me from behind. Now this alleyway I was standing
in was pretty narrow and small, so I was probably

(03:48):
blocking it. I quickly moved and got off my bike,
holding it close to me, and pressed myself onto the wall.
I excused myself and made a gesture for the person
to pass. Instead of thanking me and walking on, the
person just kept standing there. This is when I looked up.
I was met with a tall, skinny lady standing just

(04:10):
a few inches away. Her face was slim and her
hair came to rest on her shoulders. Her face looked white,
and she looked like a heroin addict. She looked me
dead in the eye without any expression, and was breathing
through her mouth. She was wearing brown jeans and a
blue hoodie. Can I help you, I asked, after painful

(04:34):
moments of silence. She looked at me for a few
seconds and said, you have my food. I froze now.
In her app system, there's no way you can actually
confirm that the customer was the right one, since they
don't have any security codes to ask. Since I was
busy with my power bank, I hadn't clicked finished order yet.

(04:57):
I checked my phone and decided to ask the old
lady question about the order. Oh, I think another driver
has her food I just delivered to someone else, I said,
with a smile, where did you order from? If she
was right, I would be able to help her and
easily get a rEFInd. However, she just stared at me.

(05:17):
Her expressionless face turned into a herd ugly glare. No,
that was my food. Again. I tried to reason with her,
asking her for her name and what food she had ordered.
I'm just trying to help you, ma'am. Check your app
that I AP should tell you how far the driver
is to this. She stepped back and pointed her hand

(05:41):
at me. My food. I need my food. At this point,
I figured she must be homeless and hungry. I have
food if you want, I said, now. I always keeps
snacks on me, just in case I have to wait
long for orders to get ready and have no orders
coming in for a bit. We wait a lot since

(06:01):
we can't turn down orders that take too long to
be made. My go to works next are a protein
granola bar. They're easy to keep since they don't take
up much space and you can eat them fast. I
decided to give her a box and maybe she'll be satisfied.
I took one out of my backpack and handed it
to her. She took it from me, damn near snatching

(06:24):
it out of my grip and stepped closer. I want
my food, I let out of breath, getting really creeped
out now, and once again I asked her to check
her app or give me her name, the name she
put up with her so called order. She took a
big breath, and before I could say anything else, she
exhaled and screamed to fucking bloody murder, making me flinch

(06:47):
and pressed myself onto the wall. In the process, I
accidentally moved my bikes throttle. This thing alone doesn't get
past four kilometers per hour. I had some struggle, but
I eventually got on my bike and pedaled away, the
lady still screaming behind me. I got to the fence
that prevented cars from coming in and had to slow

(07:08):
down a bit. This was enough time for the lady
to catch up to me and grab onto the back
of my bike. I let out a yelp as I
could feel her trying to push me back. I also
heard something scrap the wall next to me. I didn't
want to look, and instead put my bike on a
higher assist mode, which I normally never do and always

(07:29):
kept it to two three to spare battery life. I
don't even like my life depended on it. I got
past the fences. I then put it on even higher
and cycled away. I could hear the lady yelling and
calling me a food thief. As I looked back, she
had the box of granola bars over her head and
she threw them at me. They landed about a meter

(07:52):
away from me, and I noticed what this scraping noise was.
She was holding a knife in her hand. I focused
back on the and cycled away, hearing the lady still screaming, yelling,
and trying to run after me. Eventually, I went back
on the app and finally clicked finished order open to
get a new one. Says I didn't want to aimlessly

(08:13):
cycle around in fear of running into her, since I
thought she might know all the shortcuts. I got in
a new order from a kebab place nearby, around eight
minutes away. This place was one that I got sent
to a lot, and the owner was very friendly, always
asking drivers if they wanted something to eat or drink
and saying it was on the house. I got there

(08:36):
and I was slightly out of breath. He asked me
what happened and gave me some water to drink and
help me calm down. They gave me some food after
I told him. He talked to the company, saying I
was in no state to keep doing deliveries. My work
agreed to allow me to end my shift earlier. One
of my coworkers came for the pickup, and since his

(08:59):
delivery was just out of the city center, I biked
with him to the city center where it was still busy,
and went home after that. I'm very glad for the
timing of that order, my coworker, and for the owner
of the cup Bob store. I don't even want to
know what that lady would have done to me. She
had successfully pulled me off my bike. When I was

(09:27):
about four. This was in nineteen ninety seven, my mom
and my brothers went to a water park on a
weekend during the summer. The park was set up so
that you walked through the entrance and run directly into
the food court with a little information map station. To
the left was the inside of the arcade area with
a little roller coaster. Directly outside of it, and behind

(09:50):
the arcade building was an enormous wave pool. To the
right of the entrance was a kittie park, and then
behind the kittie park was the Lazy River and all
the water slides. Says my brothers were older and wanted
to ride the big slides. My mom and me split
from them and head to the kittie park. I remember

(10:10):
playing for a little while, making friends with other kids,
when this one little boy asked me if I wanted
to go to the wave pool. Since I was little,
my mom told me I was not allowed to go
to the wave pool without an adult, so I told
him I couldn't. He then said that there was no problem.
My dad is waiting for us, and he already told
your mom he was going to watch us well, being

(10:33):
a dumb kid and marveling at the wave pool. Since
we got here, I pretty much was sold and followed
him over there. My mom probably didn't notice at the
time because the lawn chair she was sitting in around
the kiddie pool was blocked by a little kid slide
and a billion other little children. We headed to the
wave pool and met the kid's dad. He immediately took

(10:55):
my hand and guiding me into the wave pool. I
remember only being in there for like two minutes tops
until he picked me up and carried me back out
of the pool. I don't think I even asked him
where we were going. I assumed to the food court
because that's where we were headed. I then remember reaching
the entrance gates and a lifeguard approached us and asked

(11:15):
if my name was Crystal. I said yes and started
crying because I guess I thought I was in trouble.
The lifeguard grabbed me from the dude's arms, and I
see my mom running up sobbing. Years later, we're revisiting
the story and she tells me that she knows I
was missing pretty quickly and told a lifeguard to close

(11:35):
off the entrance to the park. I was wearing a
yellow bathing suit with pink flowers on it and two
ribbons in my hair, so the description gave me away instantly.
When the man tried carrying me out, I asked my
mom about the kid, and she said she had no
idea what I was talking about. She said it was
just a singular man and he ran into his car

(11:56):
in the parking lot as soon as the lifeguard took
me out of his arms. There was no kid with him,
so weirdo At the water park. Let's not meet. I'm
a seventeen year old female. Long story short, there was
this man who looked to me in his thirties staring

(12:17):
me down at the train station on my way home
from school a couple weeks ago. Initially, I had been
waiting near the station's exit because it was absolutely pissing
down outside and I didn't have an umbrella on hand.
I ended up waiting there for a while after the
rain had stopped because of that man who had waited
near me for what I presumed to be the same reason,

(12:39):
had been staring at me the entire time. I hoped
he would leave before me, but seeing as he didn't,
I eventually brushed it off and left the station. Of course,
the man followed me, because I wouldn't be running this
if he hadn't. He practically chased me down and managed
to catch up to me at a red light. At

(13:00):
this point, I was alarmed because the route I had
to take to reach my house is usually vacant and
just generally not a safe area to go through alone. Immediately,
he started to talk to me, offering to take me
to lunch and buy me things. I was polite, but
very clearly dismissive, and while he talked to me, I

(13:20):
quickly decided to turn in the opposite direction to reach
one of the main streets where there would likely be
more people so I wouldn't have to be alone with
him any longer. He followed me there too, and kept
insisting on buying me an umbrella, even though it had
stopped raining. I politely declined and walked faster, but you
just seemed to get frustrated and followed me the whole

(13:42):
time until I reached the store. He didn't stop there,
of course. He walked into the store with me, and
the cashier seemed oblivious to how uncomfortable I was. I
tried to distance myself by going through one of the aisles,
which was quite narrow, and the guy took this as
opportunity to grab me by the waist and run his

(14:02):
hands down my lower back, and I just froze. At
that point, I felt defeated and decided to play along,
so I told him to write down his number at
the exit, and he seemed happy with that. He kept
touching me, and I feel disgusted just at the memory
of that. I'm not even sure how many times he
had his hand around me. In the span of a

(14:23):
few minutes, he hugged me and at some point grabbed
me by the hand and wrist, and I just barely
dodged a kiss. Luckily, I seemed convincing enough, and he
didn't follow me all the way home like he was
insisting on. I didn't see him again for a week,
so I started to let my guard down. But as

(14:44):
of a few days ago, I keep finding him sat
in front of the train station at the time that
I needed to come back from school. I've seen him
four days in a row now. Although it's probably a
coincidence and I shouldn't think much of it, it's a
really unpleasant reminder every time I see him sitting on
the bench on the street I have to cross. He

(15:05):
just sits there and stares at me. It's beyond creepy.
So this literally happened to me Wednesday night. My boyfriend
lives in the town over and he orders me a
lyft back and forth to see him. We've been doing

(15:27):
this for over seven months without problems. We spent a
day together and had an amazing time as always, and
he ordered me a lift back home. The guy pulls
up and my boyfriend puts me in the car and
gives me a passionate kiss goodbye. The drivers from Cuba
hardly speaks a lick at English and is using Google

(15:48):
Translate the entire time to talk to me. First, it
started off as do you mind sitting in the front seat?
I don't like for people to sit behind me. Okay,
no problem. However, instead of letting me out of the car,
he asked me to climb over the sea, which made
me feel a bit uncomfortable, and then I realized he

(16:08):
was staring at me the whole time I was doing so.
Then he proceeds to tell me, I hope I'm not
being too daring, but you are very beautiful. Okay. I
get this compliment all the time, so I say thank you,
but I'm a bit put off by this. He goes
on like a regular driver, asking me if the music

(16:29):
was okay and the volume, you know, regular stuff. Then
he starts asking me about the address I'm going to.
Am I taking you to your home? I reply, yes,
I'm going home. He then asked can I go home
with you? I laugh at this and say no. He

(16:49):
asked me about the guy that put me in the
car if he was my boyfriend or my husband? He's
my boyfriend? Am I soon to be husband? He asked,
Can I be your boyfriend too? I say absolutely not.
He asked me why not. I say, I'm totally against
that that. I'm in love with my boyfriend very much

(17:10):
and I'm extremely loyal and faithful to him. He says
he doesn't have to know. In Cuba, we believe in
having multiple partners and not all of them know about
each other. I say, it's definitely not a thing for me.
I don't believe in that one bit. He says, your
boyfriend made a mistake of sending you home alone. I

(17:32):
would have taken you myself to make sure you got
there safe. I'm getting very upset at this point, and
I'm only laughing at what he says, trying to maintain
a friendly composure because I know how ugly things can
turn if I start giving him attitude. He doesn't speak
again for a while, and when he does, he asked
me if he could come home with me. I tell

(17:54):
him no again, and he says, you are just so beautiful.
I really want to be your boyfriend. I don't even
say anything but shake my head no and start fidgeting
with my phone. He tells me that he has lots
of money and that he would take care of me.
I told him I don't care about that and that
I wasn't interested. He asked if he could give me

(18:16):
his number so that we could text each other, and
I say no. After what seemed like an eternity, we
pulled up to my house and he gets out to
help me with my bags. I declined his help, and
he tells me hold on, pulls out his phone one
more time and asked, can I come inside with you?
I tell him to have a good night and to

(18:36):
have a safe trip back, and dart inside as fast
as I could, locking all the locks behind me, calling
my boyfriend immediately so he could report this weirdo because
I don't want this unpleasant experience to happen to anyone else.
The only thing lifted was give my boyfriend a five
dollar credit to his account for the unpleasant experience. He

(18:57):
wasn't even able to tell them why it was unpleasant.
So yes, ladies, creepy drivers are definitely a thing. Please
be careful out there. It happened in a small Russian
village sometime around two thousand and eight, or two thousand

(19:18):
and nine, when I was about eight, the kind of
place where everyone knew each other, or at least pretended to.
It was late, around ten pm, but warm. The street
lights bathed the road in a dull orange glow. Everything
was quiet except for the hum of our bike tires
on the pavement. I was with a few kids I

(19:40):
sort of knew, not really friends, just familiar faces. We
weren't talking, just riding and letting the night stretch on.
Then he stepped out of the dark. I recognized him instantly.
Everyone did, some drunk who lived in the village, always
lurking around, always wasted. I had never spoken to him,

(20:05):
never needed to, but now he was right in front
of me. Before I could process what was happening, he
grabbed me. The smell hit me first, booze, sweat, and
something sour. His grip was tight, fingers digging into my arm. Then,
in a slow, slurred voice, he spoke, where are my cigarettes?

(20:29):
I had no idea what he was talking about. I
wasn't carying any I didn't even smoke. I stammered out
the first thing that came to mind. I don't know.
His grip tightened, his breath reeked as he leaned closer.
Where are my cigarettes? Panic set in. I tried to

(20:49):
pull away, but he wouldn't let go. My voice cracked
as I repeated myself, I don't know. It was like
he didn't even hear me. His voice was slower this time,
almost a growl. Where are my cigarettes? That's when I
lost it. I screamed, a full, terrified, gut wrenching scream,

(21:11):
no words, just pure, uncontrollable fear. And that's when they ran.
Every single kid who was with me bolted the second
I screamed. There was even a sixteen year old among us, bigger, older,
stronger than me, but he ran too, no hesitation, no
looking back, just gone. And that's when it really hit me.

(21:34):
I was alone. Maybe that's what saved me, because as
soon as I started jittering and screaming, the drunk lost
the interest. His grip loosened. Maybe he thought I was
having a seizure or something. I didn't care. The second
I felt his fingers slip, I bolted. Home wasn't far,
just a house at the end of the long driveway

(21:55):
leading straight to the main road where we had been
riding in it down the driveway part slamming against my
ribs and crashed through the door. I couldn't even form
a proper sentence, just panics, shouting word stumbling over each other.
As I tried to explain, My grandma and Grandpa turned
to me alarmed. But before I could even finish, my

(22:18):
grandma glanced out the window just in time to see him.
He was still there, still coming towards the house. She
didn't hesitate. She grabbed a wooden stick from behind the
door and stormed outside, moving faster than I had ever
seen her. She hadn't seen what happened, but she had
heard me. She saw him chasing after me. That was enough.

(22:41):
The second she reached him, she on leashed tell. She
didn't yell, She screamed, calling him every name under the sun,
then started swinging hard. Each hit landed with a sickening thud.
The guy stumbled back, too drunk to fully process what
was happening, mumbled something as he tried to shield himself.

(23:03):
She didn't stop until he finally turned around, eventually disappearing
into the dark. A week later, I saw him again,
still drunk, still stumbling around the village. He looked right
past me like I wasn't even there. This happened back

(23:25):
in twenty fifteen when my ex boyfriend and I went
camping in Mendocino, California. A few sites over was this teeny, green,
one person tent the guy that barely fits a body.
What struck me right away was how empty the site looked.
No cooler, no chair, no lantern, no shoes outside, just

(23:48):
this little tent zipped up tight. We went to bed,
and sometime after ten pm it started laughter. Not a
group around fire, not drunk campers, and definitely not an animal.
I know what owls and coyote sound like. This was
human laughter. At first I thought maybe it was a

(24:11):
radio or a bluetooth speaker, but it never stopped, not
once all night long until sunrise. Same tone, same rhythm,
no positive for breath, too repetitive to be a person
in psychosis or on drugs. It sounded mechanical, like a loop.

(24:32):
That's what makes it worse, because if it wasn't someone
actually laughing, then it was someone who had recorded laughter
beforehand and brought it out into the woods to sit
in a teeny tent in the dark and listen to
for hours. When we woke up around seven am, the
laughter was still going. We packed up as fast as
we could and left without seeing who or what was inside.

(24:56):
And even now, years later, I can't shake the thought
that this was actually how someone wanted to spend the
night A tent, a recording of endless laughter and silence
of the woods around them. Let's not meet. I'm a

(25:18):
teen female. I was playing with my cousin at nine
years old, and we were forced to stay on the
porch so we didn't wander. Then a truck slows down
and stops by our house. There's a man in the
truck with a kid in the back. He tries to
talk to my five year old cousin, says that he

(25:39):
knows her mom and even gives the name of her mom.
My cousin, being stupid, is about to go up to
the truck, but I grab her arm and pulled her aside.
My memory isn't the best, but I'm pretty sure he
drove away, and my aunt didn't exactly know him from
what I said. So, yeah, was this is a potential

(26:00):
kidnapping situation. For context, this was very long ago and
I was only nine. I was seventeen years old, and
I lived close to a buddy of mine named John.
He lived three blocks away with a circle k on

(26:22):
the way. It was a random weekend night around eleven pm,
and he asked me if I wanted to come over
play zombies and smoke because his parents were out of town.
So I agreed. Of course, my parents weren't cool with it,
but I have done it before and decided to worry
about the consequences later. I snuck through the back door

(26:44):
and made my way to his house. I lived in
an older duplex, run down suburb, but it was very homey,
quiet and chill. It was late summer early fall in
West Texas, so I didn't need a sweater. As I
approached the circle k, I spot a man on a

(27:05):
bike across the street and he began to pedal towards me.
He was about fifty years old, baggy, stretched shirt, ripped pants,
and messed up hair and teeth. He asked in Spanish
if I had a dollar. He spotted the yellow bick
lighter I had in my hand and asked for it.

(27:25):
He asked what I needed it for and asked if
I smoked weed. I said, yeah, I do. He then
said he doesn't and that he smokes ice instead. I said, cool,
man and fast walked into the store. I didn't have
any money, but I knew how to get into a
welllit area away from that guy. After about ten minutes,

(27:49):
I crossed the stoplight street and got to John's house
to see him waiting for me in the front yard.
I told him about it, but we didn't dwell on it.
After a couple bong ribs, joints, zombie rounds, and red
velvet cake, I knew it was that time, and I
knew it couldn't stay the night. I said my goodbyes,

(28:10):
thank John, and made my trek home. I was still
stoned and mainly paranoid about the cops since I was
seventeen and had a little pot on me. But after
I crossed the street and passed the circle k, I
felt better since I could see my duplex. As I
walked towards my home, I heard a bike pedaling around,
and because it was three a m. You could hear everything.

(28:34):
I saw the same bike guy from earlier, and he
was eagerily riding in circles under the street lamp at
the very end of my block. My heart sank. I
darted to my apartment, and when I did, he spotted
me and yelled OI. I ignored him and ran the
same direction he was peddling towards. But I made a

(28:54):
sharp turn left and hopped into my backyard and snuck
back inside. He was about two hundred feet away from
me when I jumped into my yard. I locked the
doors and kept the lights off and went to the
front window, where I could have a better view of
the street. I saw him looking through the neighbor's driveway.
He eventually peddled away, but safe to say I didn't

(29:17):
sleep out all that night. I live in the city now,
but when I was younger, I used to regularly visit
my grandmother's house with my dad. My cousins were almost
always there too, and we used to play together. When

(29:39):
I was little in the village well more like a
smaller town. When me and my cousins went to play
at the park, there was always this abandoned club nearby.
It used to be popular back in the day, but
now all the windows were broken, the door was made
of glass, and almost everything was vandalized and graffeited everywhere.

(30:02):
I was always curious about what was inside, but I
never had the gusts to even ask my cousins to
go in there. Even during the day, the club felt
so off. I don't even know why. Maybe because it
was surrounded by trees and it just had this weird vibe.
When I was thirteen or fourteen, I don't remember exactly,

(30:23):
I had a friend who was in the same grade
as me, but he moved to another country. He'd visit
every summer, and every time he came back he'd call
me up. One summer, we were really bored and I
came up with this idea that we should finally go
into the abandoned club. He was braver than me, so
he said he'll go on first, because there's no way

(30:44):
I had the balls to go first. At ten pm,
we arrived there on our bikes. It was pitch dark,
with maybe two or three lamp posts based far apart,
so the lighting was really dim. We stood in front
of the club, it felt eerie. We spent twenty minutes
just trying to gather enough courage to go in. Finally

(31:07):
we did. We climbed over broken glass at the door
and squeezed through. Once we were inside, we turned on
our phone flashlights. The place was a complete mess, garbage
bags all over the walls, some needles on the ground,
which was honestly scary to see, and the whole interior

(31:28):
was just weird. It was a pretty big space with
this odd architectural pass that led around in circles for
no reason. Me and my friend were scared shitless. We
tried to stay as quiet as possible so we wouldn't
wake up any of the junkies or whatever else might
be living in there. Then, while I was staring at
the bar counter for like five seconds, my friend disappeared.

(31:52):
My heart dropped. I did a full three sixty with
a flashlight and he was gone. I yelled his name,
and then something jumped on me from behind. It was him,
laugh is so hard. While I was having a heart attack.
While I was mad, I was also super relieved. But

(32:12):
while he was laughing, I suddenly heard another laugh that
wasn't his. I actually heard it at first, but I
didn't fully register until it clicked that laugh wasn't supposed
to be there. I turned my flashlight towards the sound,
and there was this guy, a hobo I think, tall,

(32:33):
skinny with long, messy hair. I couldn't see his face properly.
I screamed and bolted out of there with my friend.
We jumped on our bikes and pedaled so hard back
to my grandma's house. That was seriously one of the
scariest things I've ever experienced. Later that night, when we
finally talked about it, I asked, how did we not

(32:56):
hear him? We were dead silent. Every step we made
so loud, so how in the hell did he get
that close without a sound? And the fact that he
was laughing with us made it so much scarier. He
was probably insane or something. This is a situation I

(33:21):
found out about around eight months ago, but it stayed
in my mind ever since. For context, as a child,
I had severe speech delay. I was completely mute up
to a few weeks before kindergarten. This caused me to
have a speech impediment, which I technically still have to
this day, but to a lesser extent. I'm lucky enough

(33:44):
that the letters I have trouble with match up with
the letters I often drop in certain accents, so to
the untrained ear, I sound British or Australian, depending on
who you ask. Because of this, often just confirmed the
accent assumptions, because this is easier to lie about being
British than to explain the speech impediment thing and face

(34:05):
any stigma that goes with it. The only people that
know the truth are very close friends and family. Onto
the story, I, eighteen year old female was dating a
girl eighteen year old. We were at a social event
when we met up with one of her friends, nineteen
year old female. I've technically known this girl since grade

(34:28):
nine as well, but not as well. So we as
a group are talking randomly, completely unrelated to the current conversation.
Friend asked me how my mom was doing. I'm caught
off guard because that's not usually something you throw into
a conversation without knowing, said mom. So I asked back,

(34:51):
why do you know her? The friend goes on to explain,
my mom used to be her EA and it helped
her work on her behavioral issues all through elementary and
middle school. Now that was weird because although my mom
did work in school for a brief time, she was
a lunchtime supervisor and only ever worked in one elementary.

(35:14):
At elementary school, I know the friend didn't go to.
So I asked the friend, is she sure it was
my mom because she wasn't an EA. She confirms, because
my mom used to talk to her about me all
the time, and when my friend was deciding which high
school to go, my mom recommended my high school because

(35:34):
that was the school her daughter went to. Now, within
my high school, there were a few people with the
same name as me. My name is as basic white
bitch as they come. So I asked the friend, are
you sure it was me who she was talking about
and not one of the other people with my name.
She once again confirms it was definitely me, because my

(35:56):
mom would tell her details about my life and told
her about my time I'm going to speech therapy. Now,
hold up, As I said earlier, I'm very secretive about
the fact that I have a speech impediment. This friend
is clearly someone I've never told, although I'll admit it's
not impossible to guess, and the girl I was dating

(36:17):
at the time could have told her, But I have
never and I never told anyone about going to speech therapy.
That's just never a detail I share when telling my
life story. It's clear that someone who knows me like
family is telling her this stuff. There's no way this
friend could have accurately guessed so many details about my life.

(36:40):
So just to confirm that somehow my room. Mother doesn't
have a double life. I asked my friend what my
mother looks like. She responds that she's somewhat short with
curly brown hair. This is not my mother. My mother's
tall and blonde. This, though, is exactly what my first
speech therapist look like. She was hired through the school

(37:03):
district and I saw her for about two years before
she switched to another school. She also works with a
variety of special needs, meaning very likely she went on
to become my friend's EA. But all this to say,
somewhere out there, this speech therapist is for some reason
pretending to be my mother and to some extent stocking me,

(37:26):
as she would have had to do research on me
to find out what high school I went to. Additional
bonus story that I remembered while writing this post. When
I was a child, but after I had switched speech
impediment therapist, I was in the store with my mother
and there was a shiny blue guitar. Me, being a

(37:46):
child and liking shiny blue things, I really wanted this guitar.
My mom clearly said no, as it was expensive and
I've shown little interest in playing a guitar besides watching
my dad play bass. I was disappointed but understood. Out
of the blue, my first speech therapist shows up and

(38:06):
buys a guitar for me. My mom told her that
she didn't have to, but my speech therapist insisted. At
the time, this just seemed like a nice thing that
she did, albeit overly generous. But now knowing she's pandering
around pretending to be my real mom, it definitely paints
the situation in a different light. I don't know how

(38:29):
to feel about that gift. Now. There's not much I
can do about the situation, as I don't even remember
what the speech therapist's name was, So let's just hope
we don't meet again. I was eleven the first time

(38:50):
I saw him. I had just gotten out of school,
and I remember being hot and tired, but still excited
because I had tore money in my backpack eat bucks
and some change crumpled into my bag next to my
mechanical pencil I found on the floor. That's high quality shit.
That was enough for a happy meal, nuggets, fries, a

(39:12):
little toy I would pretend I didn't care about, and
a sprite heaven. The McDonald's was only a few blocks
from school and up the hill from my apartment. My
mom wasn't crazy about me walking around alone, but she
also worked two jobs and couldn't pick me up most days.
If I got home before five and didn't talk to strangers,

(39:35):
she didn't ask too many questions. I kept my phone
on fifty percent brightness to save the battery, pretended like
I was grown, and slid my earbuds in like I
had somewhere important to be. That McDonald's became my little kingdom.
Boothed by the window, shoes kicked off under the table,
watching YouTube fine compilations on a crack phone while I

(39:57):
slipped on Sprite like it was Champagne. I had just
discovered Tumblr that year. I was reposting Melanie Martinez fan
at its and thinking I understood what the word aesthetic meant.
I was eleven going on twenty, or at least I
thought I was. That's probably why I didn't think it
was weird when he sat near me. He didn't work there,

(40:20):
I knew that much. He was too old to be
hanging around during school hours, and he didn't have a uniform.
But the first time I assumed he was just waiting
for someone. He had a navy hoodie sleeves pushed up
a raggedy backpack next to him, like he was also
getting out of school. He looked maybe seventeen eighteen at

(40:41):
the oldest, with a face like he just started growing
into it. Tall white boy, deep voice. He looked like
one of those SoundCloud emo rapper dudes. You draw, he asked,
not even at my sketchbook. I shrugged, trying to act
and bothered, kind of, I said, not like for real, real,

(41:03):
you got talent, he said. I felt my chest puff
up a little. Nobody ever says stuff like that to me,
especially now older boys at school. Most of the guys
my age were busy with whatever the popular trend was.
This one. He looked me in the eye when he talked,

(41:23):
made me feel seen. The next time, he was already there,
same booth, same backpack, same easy smile. When I walked
in you again, he said, you're following me or something.
I laughed a little too loud. He always knew what
to say to make me feel grown. He asked about school,

(41:47):
about my drawings, about music. Then he started asking about
other stuff, like what my background was. Now, what guys
I liked? He said, I didn't talk like the other
black girls. He knew whatever that meant. I didn't even
know how to respond to that one, but still I
came back week after week, sometimes twice a week if

(42:09):
I had extra change, and he was always there, like
it was planned. The first few weeks, the conversation felt
like a secret game. He'd show up to McDonald's like clockwork,
sometimes early afternoon, sometimes after school, and we would talk
about everything. I liked that he made me feel special,

(42:31):
like I was this rare thing, not just a kid
with a happy meal in a sketchbook, but someone worth
paying attention to. When he asked me for my number,
I thought, this is it. I'm officially grown. I still
remember the moment I handed him my phone, watching him
punch in the digits. It felt thrilling, like I was

(42:53):
stepping into a world I wasn't supposed to know yet.
My fingers brush the screen hesitated for a second, then
I pressed sent on the first text I ever wrote him, Hey,
it's me. His reply came almost immediately, You're cute. You
always gonna be my favorite artist. That first text stay

(43:14):
with me for days. I showed it to my best
friend like it was a badge of honor. He thinks
I'm cool, I told her my voice a little higher
than usual. He really listens. She shrugged, told me to
be careful, but I didn't want to hear it. Middle
school kids always try to act like they're grown anyway,
everyone's pretending. I was just pretending better. Sometimes he would

(43:39):
ask me stuff that fell off, but he always said
it like it was a joke, so I played along
like out of nowhere. He'd be like, do you say
the N word? Be real? Or what would you do
if someone called you that at school? And then one
day he asked, so, can I get an nword? Pass?
You know? I'm cool like that right? I remember laughing,

(44:02):
but not because it was funny, more like I didn't
know what else to do. Then he hit me with
I trade you five bucks on a sprite if you'd
be my personal slave for the day. And when I
froze a little, he was like, chill, I'm just joking. Damn,
you're sensitive. He'd sometimes tried to talk hood around me,

(44:22):
saying stuff like on gang or yo, you're trying to
wild out in this fake deep voice that didn't even
sound like him. At the time, I didn't know what
the hell he was on, but looking back now. He
was testing me. The text started, innocent, what's you're drawing now?

(44:43):
Did you finish your homework? You watching the new Stranger things?
He even sent me links to music playlist. He said
it reminded him of me. But over time things got
a little different, a little heavier. He'd asked me stuff
that made me pause, Questions about my body, if I

(45:04):
started changing yet, who I liked, if anyone had kissed me.
I felt weird, but also proud to answer, like I
was a grown woman sharing secrets with a friend. Sometimes
I get texts when I was supposed to be asleep.
Bet you look at in your pjs? You staying up
late thinking about me? I told myself it was a joke,

(45:27):
that he was just being funny. It was part of
the game. I learned the rules. I wanted to be
in on it. After all, kids at school were trading
stories about boys and crushes like it was some kind
of competition. I didn't want to be the only one
who had never been talked to like that. But even then,
there were moments when my stomach flipped when he asked

(45:50):
if I started growing hair yet, or sent me a
picture of him gripping his pillow. I didn't know what
to say, so I didn't say anything. I didn't want
to lose him, And besides, I thought I was grown
enough to handle it. I thought I knew what I
was doing. Still, I kept going to McDonald's, even on
days I didn't have much money. Sometimes I sit farther away,

(46:14):
pretending not to notice him watching me. I told myself
I was just being cautious. I told myself I was
in control. But the truth was, it was getting harder
to breathe when he was around, like the air was thicker, heavier,
and I didn't know how to make it stop. It
wasn't like I told my mom about any of it.

(46:34):
I knew she wanted to understand. She was busy with work,
bills and trying to keep everything together. I was supposed
to be a kid, not dealing with this stuff. So
I kept it all inside, tucked away under layers of
laughs and texts and drawings. Looking back now, I can
see the signs I missed, the ways smiles sometimes didn't

(46:57):
reach his eyes, the ways question and stopped being about
me and started being about control. But back then I
was eleven, and I thought I was grown, and that
was my mistake. I thought blocking his number would end it.
When my mom found the text, she didn't scream or
curse like I thought she would. She just stared at

(47:19):
me emotionless. Then she said, real quiet, he blocked that boy,
don't answer, don't go back there. Understand me. I nodded.
She didn't say anything else, just walked out of the
room and left me sitting there with my heart pounding
and my phone locked in her hand. I told her

(47:40):
i'd stopped going to McDonald's, and for a while I did.
I stayed home after school, watched anime reruns on my tablet,
sketched it in silence. My bestie kept texting me to
hang out, but I kept saying no. I wanted to
be good, I really did, but something about the quiet

(48:00):
made me feel itchy. I missed the way he made
me feel seen, like I wasn't just some awkward kid
in velcrow sneakers. I missed the attention, even if the
words were weird, sometimes, even if the questions made my
stomach twist. So one Friday, when my mom had a
double shift, I walked back to McDonald's. I told myself

(48:22):
I wasn't going to talk to him. I just sit, eat, leave.
That was it. I had ten bucks from babysitting my
cousin the weekend before I ordered a happy meal. Even
though I told myself I wasn't a little kid anymore,
it just felt safe, familiar. He was already inside, same hoodie,

(48:43):
same old backpack, same smile. But it didn't look soft
this time. It looked sharp. He watched me sit down
at the booth by the window, like he had been waiting.
I thought he maybe give me a nod from across
the room. Instead, he walked straight up and slid it
next to me, not across next to me, right there

(49:05):
on the same side, his body pressed against mine. I stiffened,
staring at the tray in front of me, my hands
shaking a little bit as I opened the teeny milk jug.
You've been avoiding me, he said, low and flat. I
tried to laugh now, I've just been busy, homework and stuff.

(49:26):
He didn't laugh back. Instead, his leg pressed harder against me,
and I could feel how much taller, how much bigger,
he was. He was taking up all the space. I
suddenly felt how small my arms were, how my hoodie
sleeves are bunched up at the wrist because I hadn't
hit my Grozburg yet. I wasn't growned, I wasn't even clothes.

(49:49):
He leaned in, his hot ass breath hitting my face.
I thought you were different. I thought you could handle
grown up things. But you're just like the rest of
them little girls. Scared. My whole body went still. Then,
without warning, he put his hand on my thigh hard.
He gripped it tight, his fingers digging in like he

(50:11):
was trying to leave a mark. I winced, but I
didn't say anything. My whole brain just shut off. He
wasn't even looking at me anymore, just staring straight ahead,
his fingers still pressing into the soft part above my knee.
I thought you were actually mature, he said, almost like
he was sad. I guess I was wrong. I don't

(50:35):
even remember standing up. I just remember the sound of
the tray clattering to the floor, my fry spilling under
the table, the little toy bouncing out of the box
and rolling near his foot. I didn't stop to grab it.
I didn't look back. I walked out the front door
like I had somewhere to be. Then I ran. The
second my feet hit the sidewalk. I didn't cry until

(50:56):
I got home. I didn't tell my mom, I didn't
tell my friend. I just went straight to my room,
curled up under a blanket and felt my thigh throbbing
where his fingers had been. After that, I didn't go
anywhere but school on home. Even walking past McDonald's made
my stomach twist. That Friday was the last Friday I

(51:17):
tried to have grown. It was the last time I
let myself believe that I was in control. Looking back now,
he saw me alone. He saw how eager I was
to be taken seriously, how easy it was to plant
compliments like seeds and wash them grow into something he
could use. And I gave him room. I let him

(51:38):
sit next to me. I left when he said creepy things.
I answered texts. I didn't even know how to read write,
but I was eleven. I just knew I wanted to
feel special, and he knew exactly how to use that.
I think about that grip on my thigh more than
I want to admit, not because it hurt, but because

(51:59):
it changed something to me. That moment snapped the fantasy
clean in half. I wasn't grown. I was a little
girl in a hoodie too big and a heart too
soft to carry the weight he put on it. I
remember how fast the fear came rushing in, how fake
all the flirting fell after that. I remember silence afterwards.

(52:21):
That kind of sticks with you. To the high school
boy who saw a little girl and thought she was
something to play with, Let's not ever meet again. I

(52:43):
was about thirteen when this happened, and I lived right
on the beach. If you walked about one point five
kilometers down the beach from my house, you would get
to a place where some of the ocean would be
left behind to form a sort of light where me
and a lot of my friends liked to hang out.
It was next to two dirt roads anyway. I had

(53:05):
a German shepherd, and my mom used to kick me
out of the house every weekend for a few hours
to go play with a dog, which I did not mind.
Above the beach was a forest covered cliff that overlooked
the water. You could walk along it to reach the lake,
and I've done it countless times before. It was quiet

(53:26):
and shaded, a nice alternative to trudging through the hot sand,
especially on days like this one when the heat was unbearable.
As I made my way through the forest, my dog
ran ahead off leash, sniffing and exploring like usual. That's
when I heard something wellful footsteps behind me. The thing was,

(53:48):
it was almost impossible to walk quietly in this forest
because of all the dried leaves and branches. It didn't
sound like someone was just walking. It sounded like someone
was trying not to be heard. I didn't look I
just ran. I bolted straight towards the forest exit, and
the whole time I felt like the footsteps were getting

(54:08):
louder closer. I didn't look back, just kept running until
I broke out of the tree line into the open
space around the lake. I was relieved. It was bright, open,
and I spotted a friend of mine, a girl I knew,
already down by the water. My dog was splashing around nearby.

(54:29):
I didn't think much of what had happened in the woods,
at least not yet. A few minutes later, we noticed
a man approaching us. He was tall, probably close to
two meters, and very slim. He spoke to us kindly
at first, polite, even re responded in kind. At that age,

(54:49):
we didn't think much of being polite to strangers. I
didn't immediately connect him to the footsteps I heard in
the forest. The realization would come later. Asked us a
lot of questions, where we were from, if we were
here alone, and if anyone else was nearby. Slowly my
friend and I started to feel uneasy. The questions felt

(55:12):
a little too specific, a little too interested. We told
him we were meeting our other friends and walked off
to a different part of the lake. We sat down again,
trying to shake it off, when my dog suddenly started growling.
She never growled at people. It startled me. I looked
up and saw what set her off, and there he was,

(55:35):
now standing about fifteen meters behind us, just standing there watching.
We moved again, and once again he followed, this time
getting even closer. Now we knew for sure he was
following us. We were alone, and we were being stalked.
My friend called her mom to come get us, but

(55:57):
she was over an hour away. That man. We were
stuck with this man lingering nearby for at least an hour.
The more we moved, the closer he come. I put
my dog back on the leash, but she was growling
non stop, now practically foaming at the mouth, lunging at him.
It only seemed to encourage him. Every time we turned around,

(56:21):
he was smiling at us the same unsuddenly smile like
we were in on some kind of joke with him,
like we were friends. Eventually we saw my friend's mother's
car pulling up to one of the dirt roads about
two hundred meters away. The only way to get there
was to cross right path where the man was standing. Now,

(56:42):
her mom was a sense that something was wrong, because
she suddenly started running towards us. That made the man
take notice, and that was our cue to run. I'd
let go of the leash and sprinted. I don't think
I've ever ran that fast in my life. My dog
ran with us, bar look mad. We dove into the

(57:03):
car just as the man started running towards us. We
locked the doors. He reached the car seconds later, screaming
and throwing rocks at us. We called one, one, two
and waited inside, trying not to panic, while he continued
to outburst outside. Eventually, he ran off. When the police arrived,
they questioned and searched the area, but never found him.

(57:27):
Even now, I sometimes wonder if he's still out there
in the forest waiting for the next kid. To wander alone.
I didn't even know my friend would be there that day.
I didn't have a phone, no way to call for help,
and honestly, if it had just been me, I don't
know if my dog could have stopped him. So to
the man who stocked two kids and tried to corner

(57:48):
us at the lake, let's not meet again. I was
sixteen and I had just made a kid down the
street from my house. He said that he saw me
around and we should go hang out. I figured why not,
so I gave him my number and told him to

(58:09):
hit me up. The next week comes around and I
get a text from him asking if I wanted to
play basketball. Of course I did. He asked if I
smoked weed. I did, and asked me to bring some,
which isn't out of the ordinary for teenagers. I brought
a couple friends since we were going to play sports.

(58:32):
To be honest, I was really fucking stone by the
time I got there. It was a little out of
our neighborhood, but wasn't in a bad area, so I
wasn't bothered. I was an idiot. It was a gang
who ambushed us as soon as we got out of
the car. They violently beat me and my two friends,
and I got it the worst. There were three of

(58:54):
them on each of us. They stabbed my best friend,
luckily not very bad. They took me unconscious how I
got into my head and pistol whipped me. They ran
my pockets and got my cell phone and wallet. I
swear at one point, and I actually died because I
literally shipped myself. When I went unconscious, I was drenched

(59:16):
in my own blood. My nose was broken, both eyes
swell shut. Later, they had to wake me up because
I drove stick and none of my friends could drive
my car. My attacker literally had to resuscitate me in
order for me to leave. I stopped at a gas
station because I had shipped my pants and I couldn't
see with the blood in my eyes. As soon as

(59:39):
I got in, the clerk's jaw dropped. Where's the bathroom?
He pointed the way. I cleaned up the best I could,
then drove home. I got home, called the cops, and showered.
The cops obviously thought it was my fault for being
an idiot. Nonetheless, an undercover showed up and knew exactly

(01:00:00):
who robbed me because they lived on the same street
two plucks apart. Turns out they had turned to informant
and he renegged on the deal and robbed the buyers,
and they controlled by I told them how violent they
were and swore that they would kill someone. I did
a photo lineup, but they all looked the same to me,

(01:00:20):
so no case. Two months later, the cops knock on
my door. My mom was super pro cop and told
them that I was sleeping in my room and turned
them loose on me. They woke me up and held
a photo and said, who's this? How would I know?
I've never seen that person before. You called this person

(01:00:41):
from your cell phone, the cell phone I reported stolen
in a violent robbery to the police. They looked stunned
and stupid. They beat me almost to death. You should
probably go ahead and read the police report. They apologized
and explained that my cell phone had been used to
set up a robbery and the person in the photo

(01:01:02):
had been shot to death. I replied with I told
you guys, they would kill the next guy. They came
in blazing glory and left in shame. I have PTSD
now and I've kept tabs on my assailant for seventeen years.
I have no ability to trust anyone, not even those
closest to me. Anyway, let's not meet again. I've been

(01:01:34):
a longtime lurker, but I thought it was finally time
to share something that stuck with me for years. Back
in their early two thousands, my family and I lived
in Liverpool, in the northwest of England. The area we
were in had a reputation high levels of deprivation, a
long standing issue with substance abuse, and a general roughness

(01:01:56):
that everyone just sort of accepted. I'm the youngest of
four and by the time I was in high school,
my siblings were already starting families of their own, so
it was just me and my mom at home. She
worked as a nurse and often picked up night shifts,
which meant I was usually left alone in the evenings.
The neighbors would check in now and then, but I

(01:02:19):
didn't mind the solitude Mama Mom was at work. I
do little things around the house to help out, cleaning, cooking,
putting the washing out. We didn't have a back garden,
so the clothes line was in front of the house
facing the street. During the summer, I would often leave
the front door open for the breeze and it wasn't unusual.

(01:02:42):
Most families in the state did the same, kids running
in and out of each other's houses, doors always swinging open.
That's when I started to notice it. Clothes would go
missing off the line. At first, I thought it was
just the wind, or maybe a kid playing a prank.
But it kept and it was always the same type

(01:03:02):
of clothing, my underwear, mainly, even when no one was outside,
even on calm days, items would vanish, and as more
and more things disappeared, stranger things began to happen. I'd
come downstairs to find the front door wide open after
I definitely closed it. Sometimes the entire washing line would

(01:03:22):
be pulled down, with only certain clothes taking from the pile.
I noticed handprints on the window. I told myself they
were mine, just opening and closing them, but the thought
kept gnawing at me. I was scared. I didn't want
to be alone at night anymore. My imagination was getting
the better of me. But something felt wrong. I told

(01:03:45):
my brother what was going on and asked if he
could pick me up just for the night. The next morning,
my brother got a call from my mom. She was furious.
She said I needed to come home and clean up
the mess I had left behind. He came with me,
ready to explain that I wasn't in a good place,
mentally hoping she would go easy on me. But when

(01:04:07):
we walked in, everything changed. There were muddy footprints across
the floor, too big to be mine. They hadn't been
there when I left. The living room was in disarray,
pillows thrown around, dirty dishes left out, glasses tipped over.
My mom was pacing, frustrated and exhausted after a long shift.

(01:04:29):
She kept asking who else could have done it, telling
me I was the only one in the house after all.
She told me to tidy up while she went upstairs
to get some rest. But as she reached the top
of the stairs, she stopped cold and called up to
my brother. Every door upstairs was open. Every room had
been rifled through. Our underwear drawers had been pulled open,

(01:04:53):
close scattered across the floor. The beds looked like someone
had been in them, slipping them even cigarette but were
on the carpet, mashed into the flooring. Someone had been
in our house, and it looked like they made themselves comfortable.
My brother sent me and my mom downstairs and called
the police while we waited, he checked the rest of

(01:05:14):
the house. That's when he found the bathroom light on
tub was full, a dirty ring left around where the
water had sat undrained, a used teacup rested by the sink.
But the worst part was when I found sitting on
top of the toilet several pairs of our underwear, soiled

(01:05:34):
and left behind. That's when he had to step out
of the room. When the police arrived, they told us
it was most likely a homeless person or someone under
the influence, someone looking for a warm place to sleep.
They didn't steal anything, not even the jewelry that was
clearly visible from my mom's dresser. They said there wasn't

(01:05:56):
much they could do other than advised us to keep
the doors and windows locked at all times. After that,
I was no longer allowed to stay home alone at night.
Nothing quite like that ever happened again. But even after that,
the underwear would still occasionally go missing from the line.
To this day, I'm not sure what to think. Was

(01:06:19):
it a coincidence, just a desperate person passing through. Where
was someone watching the house, watching me? I still don't know,
but the memory inn settles me even now. Just yesterday

(01:06:39):
I went to a friend's house for a small git together.
It was great. We laughed a lot, had fun, and
left around nine pm. I had rode my bike there
from home, but when it was time to leave, I
realized my phone was dead. No GPS, no flashlight, just
me and my bike in the dark. I started zigzagging

(01:07:01):
through unfamiliar streets, trying to find my way home. At
one point, I stopped at a crosswalk to catch my breath.
That's when I noted someone behind a tree wearing a
blue hoodie. He raised his arm and waved at me.
It was weird. I didn't wave back. I just got
on my bike and kept moving. A few streets down,

(01:07:22):
I suddenly heard heavy breathing and fast footsteps behind me.
I turned around and it was the guy in the
blue hoodie, the white male, running straight at me. I
pedaled like hell, and as I sped away, I heard
him yell fuck you. I made it to a barbecue
restaurant opening a duck inside, but it was already closed.

(01:07:45):
I looked back he was still following me. I kept pedaling,
heart pounding, until I reached the AutoZone near my house.
When I finally glanced behind me again, he was gone.
For a second, I thought it was over until I
heard a voice near the front of the AutoZone. A
male voice laughing manically laughing, faded into the distance like

(01:08:09):
he was walking away. I booked at home, locked everything,
and tried to sleep, but the paranoia kept me awake.
So to the guy in the blue hoodie, with a
crazy laugh, let's not meet again. This happened a few

(01:08:31):
years ago, and I've never told anyone about it. I
don't know why I'm posting it here now, but it's
been on my mind and I guess I just needed
to get it out. At the time, I lived pretty
far out in the country, just me and my dog,
no close neighbors, and it was usually really quiet. I
liked it that way. One night, I woke up in

(01:08:54):
the middle of the night to my motion sensored light
going off outside. At first I thought it was just
an animal, maybe a deer or something, but when I
looked out my window, I saw a man standing at
the end of my driveway. He wasn't moving, just standing
there facing my house. I don't know why, but I froze.

(01:09:15):
I stood there staring at him, and he didn't move
at all. The light went off after a while, and
everything went back to dark and quiet. I didn't sleep
much after that. The next night it happened again. The
light came on and there he was, same spot, same stillness,

(01:09:36):
just standing there, staring at my house. By this point,
I was starting to get really freaked out. I called
the sheriff department and they sent someone to check it out.
By the time they got there, he was already gone.
The deputy told me that it was probably some drunk
guy or someone passing through and that I shouldn't worry
about it unless he started coming closer. This did it

(01:10:00):
make me feel better, but I tried to move on.
This went on for about a week. Every night, late clockwork,
I wake up and see him standing there at the
end of the driveway. It was always the same. He
never moved, never said anything, just stood there staring at
my house. It got to the point where I started

(01:10:20):
closing the blinds at night, but it still felt like
I could feel him out there. And then, just like that,
it stopped. I never saw him again after that week,
no explanation, no reason. It just ended. I never told
anyone about this before. It's probably not a big deal,
but it's something that stuck with me. I just needed

(01:10:43):
to write it down. My brother and I were driving
between two medium sized cities one late night a couple
weeks ago. We lived in Sweet so it was pitch black.
On the stretch up road there's nothing but forest, and

(01:11:05):
at this time of night, the road is pretty empty.
It's kind of a narrow road without much space on
the sides as a low railing along the sides, and
behind them were high fences to prevent wildlife. Suddenly, we
see a person on the inside of the railing in
our headlights, ten meters in front of the car. My

(01:11:26):
brother was driving over eighty kilometers per hour, so we
didn't have a chance to make a maneuver. We drove
by that person no more than half a meter in
full speed. We were shocked, and after a few seconds
we both wondered what the hell that was It happens
so fast, but we agreed that it was a young
woman dressed in black who was leaning or sitting in

(01:11:47):
a strange way against the railing. Behind her, on the
other side of the railing stood a man in black
hugging her, holding her from behind with both arms. Behind
them was the high fence. So how did they even
get there, there were no cars nearby, and there wasn't
even anywhere to stop with the car. After a minute,

(01:12:08):
we decided to call the police. They asked us to
turn around to see if they were still there. We
got back, but unfortunately they were gone. The police came
and started searching with headlights, and we continued driving home.
My brother and I were shaking up, and this still
haunts me. What was to deal with these people? Did

(01:12:30):
the guy hold the girl so she wouldn't run in
front of the car. Did the woman try to escape
the man? The only possible way forward for them was
into the forest, but they had no lamps, it was cold,
and we were far away from any houses. In retrospect,
it's easy to be wise, and of course we should
have stopped at once. I was walking to a bus

(01:12:59):
stop after an appointment around two pm and I heard
honking and noticed a car doing a U turn. He
rolled down his window and honked and motioned for me
to come over. I thought he wanted directions and approached
his vehicle. He then asked me are you busy? I

(01:13:20):
told him I'm not, and he asked me to get
into his car. I told him no, I'm sorry and
quickly walked away. I'm a very anxious person and don't
go out much, so I want to know what he
wanted from me. He looked to be in his sixties
with gray hair, sunglasses, so much much older than me.

(01:13:44):
I was wearing leggings with an oversized X file t,
so not exactly dressed to impress. I really feel dumb
for getting that close to his vehicle, as it's a
quiet area away from the main road. Did you think
I was a prostitute or something? So I'm pretty sure

(01:14:09):
I'm overreacting when I think about it, but just in
case background info, I'm a fifteen year old girl and
the man in this situation was, from my view, a
middle aged Middle Eastern man. Exactly one week ago, I
was in Sydney for the holidays and it was my
first time in the city. It was around eleven am.

(01:14:33):
I was walking by myself around Hyde Park and I
was tearing up. I got into a fight earlier with
my mom, so I ran off trying to find a
secluded area. I was kind of doing that thing where
you walk fast and you try not to cry. I
was walking on the street where the bus stations were
and this man stopped me and asked if he could

(01:14:55):
take a picture. At first, I was skeptical. Of course,
I thought it was a scam where he would ask
for money for the pigs or he was going to
do something. I was kind of caught off guard in
the moment because I was in distress, so I just
stood there and said nothing with an unsure face. Then
he whipped out his iPad and showed me his profile

(01:15:17):
on the site called Flicker. I've now searched it up
and it's a photography website, so I kind of feel
bad now. I saw pictures of girls smiling. The background
of the picks looked like the park. There were trees,
so I felt less cautious and asked him in this
park right? He responded that it would just take ten

(01:15:39):
to fifteen minutes and that we would go find somewhere
to take the picture. I thought about it for five
seconds and ended up saying no because I wasn't in
the right state of mind. Even if I was, I
think I would have said no. Then he kept trying
to say that it would only take ten to fifteen
minutes and that we should go, but I just said

(01:15:59):
no and walked away. I still feel kind of bad
about the whole thing, because his reaction after was kind
of a disappointed smile. But now that I think about it,
I don't think he even had a camera. Maybe he did,
I don't remember. I was overwhelmed, and immediately after I
went into the park and found an empty space on

(01:16:20):
the grass and started bawling. I told my family, and
of course they all agreed that he had bad intentions.
But I'm still really unsure about how I feel about
the whole thing. What if it's his actual job. I
don't think he picked me because he thought I was
a tourist or a miner. Is I've gotten hidden on

(01:16:40):
by older guys, and some people think I'm older than
I actually am. The fact that I was visibly vulnerable
from being on the verge of breaking down and the
guy still try to convince me and talk to me
gives me doubts. But who knows. Stuff like this has
been happening to me a lot recently. I constantly get
stares from people. Most are men who just act so

(01:17:02):
weird around me, either go quiet when I near them,
or some of them try to start combos with me.
This is making me really paranoid of everyone around me.
I'm kind of scared to go out by myself. Even
when I go out with my mom, sometimes weird stuff happens.
I don't know what to do. When I was fourteen,

(01:17:28):
my family moved from our home in England to the
Republic of Ireland. We lived there for the next six years.
Our first stop was the northwest of the country, but
after a year we relocated again to Irish Midlands. After
my dad got a new job in Dublin. My parents
bought a small cottage on the outskirts of the teeny village,

(01:17:52):
the kind of place that felt more like a rest
stop between two larger towns than a real destination. There
was almost nothing to do, but not long after settling in,
I took to explore the surrounding countryside with our border collie, Mazie.
That's how I discovered this vast stretch of bogland, dotted
with a man made forest and crisscross by a railway

(01:18:15):
line used to transport Pete. It became my go to escape.
I walked to the bogland with Mazie, following the tracks
for hours. After several months of this routine, I stopped
going I'm not sure exactly why. Maybe it was the
constant blisters from the uneven terrain, or maybe it was
the vague sense that I wasn't supposed to be there,

(01:18:38):
even though I wasn't trespassing. Whatever the reason, I started
to avoid it. Instead. I began visiting the public forest
near the town where I went to school. Since it
was about a twenty minute drive, my dad would drop
me in, Maizie off and come back a couple hours later.
I liked this forest more. It was peaceful, rarely crowded,

(01:19:01):
and felt safe. Occasionally we would walk past another dog
walker or jogger, but for the most part, we had
this place to ourselves. One evening, my dad dropped us
off as usual. The sun was already beginning to set,
and I didn't want to be caught out there in
the dark, so I decided to take a short cut

(01:19:22):
back towards the car park. I veered off the main
trail onto a narrow side path that wound deeper through
the trees. As I followed the trail, Maizie trotted ahead
of me. We came across a small teepee like shaped
hut made of logs. I used to play little games
there with Maizie hiding inside the structure while she circled around,

(01:19:46):
confused trying to find me, unaware that she could just
walk inside. I don't remember if we played that game
that day, but I remember turning around suddenly and seeing someone.
A man had just stepped onto the same side trail.
He was about twenty meters behind me. Something about him
immediately unsettled me. I couldn't tell you exactly why. Maybe

(01:20:10):
it was because of the way he was walking, or
the way he appeared so suddenly, but I felt it then,
instinct of gut level discomfort. I quickly clipped Maisie's lead
back on and picked up my pace, heading back towards
the main trail. By the time I reached it, the
light had faded even more. I glanced back again. The

(01:20:32):
man was still there, now only ten meters behind. I
told myself I was overreacting. Maybe he was just out
for a walk like me. Maybe it was a coincidence,
but something still fell off. I pulled out my phone
to call my dad, just to check if he was
waiting at the car park. No answer. I assumed he

(01:20:55):
was still driving and hoped he would be there soon.
When we finally made it to the car park. It
was nearly pitch black. Only one car was there, and
it wasn't my dad's. I sat on the bench near
a picnic table with Macy beside me and waited. I
checked my phone, no calls, no texts. Then I hear footsteps.

(01:21:20):
The same man emerged from the forest. I braced myself,
staring at my phone, pretending to be distracted, hoping that
he would just walk past, and thankfully he did. But
instead of leaving, he got in his car in the lot,
turned on the engine in headlights and just sat there.
He wouldn't leave. I waited five minutes, ten fifteen. My

(01:21:46):
dad still hadn't arrived. The man still hadn't moved. I
kept trying to call my dad and text my dad,
but I got no response. I kept telling myself there
could be a simple reason why this man hadn't driven off,
but none of those reasons felt convincing. All I could
hear was the low hum of his engine and the

(01:22:07):
stillness of the force behind me. Maizie, who was already
a naturally anxious dog, started whining. She was digging ferociously
at the ground under the bench, creating a shallow hole
for a pause. She wouldn't settle down. It only made
me more nervous. I couldn't help, but wonder if she

(01:22:27):
was picking up on something I couldn't. Finally, after what
felt like forever, the man put his car in reverse
and pulled out of the parking lot, disappearing down the road.
He hit his engine and headlights running the whole time,
yet waited nearly twenty minutes before leaving. About ten minutes later,
my dad finally showed up, his excuse he forgot he

(01:22:51):
was supposed to pick me up. To this day, I
don't know if this man was actually following me. I
don't know why he sat there for so long with
its end running, but I do know this. Always trust
your guy, and never go walking in the forest alone
as it's getting dark. I've never posted here before, but

(01:23:17):
I think this encounter might be worth sharing. It certainly
scared the crap out of me at the time. It
was two thousand and one. I was a single mom,
thirty four years old at the time, and my son
was ten. I took my son to his elementary school
on the way to work. My schedule allowed for it,
and it was nice to start our days out together.

(01:23:40):
I dropped him off and had to work. That was
about ten minutes away. I had to cross over the
river that ran through the city. I've always hated stopping
on bridges at traffic lights, and this light seemed extra along.
Glancing around as I waited, I was watching people in
their cars, the river, and the traffic light that seemed

(01:24:01):
to be stuck on red. Looking in my rear view mirror,
I noticed the little, white haired old lady driving a
little car. She was watching me in my roarview mirror
as well. I was curious, so I kept looking at her,
and she threw her head back and laughed or cackled.
Then she looked hard at me in the mirror, made

(01:24:21):
us slashing across the neck sign, then made a cradle
of her arms, rocking it back and forth, and then
she pointed at me. The longer I watched her, the
more disturbed I was. She kept doing this over and
over again and laughing. If you are a parent, you
know this is not something you prank other cars about.

(01:24:43):
It felt evil, but no paranormal stuff here. Well, it
had me pretty rattled, and once the light turned green,
I flew up the street to get to work, and
of course I got more anxious the longer I was driving.
By the time I got to work, I was in
full panic and went to my office and called the school.

(01:25:05):
My son was in a special class alongside his regular
assigned class. If he got too restless, he could go
to the special class as an accommodation, so I was
able to speak directly to his teacher. Immediately. I told
her what happened. She said, boy, that sounds scary, and
assured me my son was okay. I often looked back

(01:25:26):
at this event, and I don't know if it was
a harbinger of doom or just an encounter with the crazy,
but my son died suddenly, just weeks before his nineteenth birthday.
The last thing I said to him was I love you, baby.

(01:25:50):
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 One's Day along with my cousins and siblings. Both
houses are at the bottom of two hills and have
long driveways. Every Wednesday, we would see a van parked

(01:26:12):
on the 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 as fast as we could

(01:26:32):
to the door. As soon as we got inside, they
sped away as they saw another vehicle at the house.
My grandmother started picking 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,

(01:26:53):
I wanted some ice cream and went to the grocery store.
It was just about dark was quite 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

(01:27:15):
the car, I noticed the passenger door of the truck
open and an 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
begin this job at Burlington. We had a regular customer
that always came to my register. He seemed a little strange,

(01:27:38):
but never really talked to me. After I got off,
I noticed a 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

(01:27:59):
ord and I 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 to lately. I go out to eat, he's there.

(01:28:21):
I go to the store, 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 not sure 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. My friend sixteen

(01:28:49):
and I, seventeen year old female, have been drinking at
our friend's place, and we're pretty drunk. At five am,
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
complimented my friend, saying that they were good looking. Without

(01:29:13):
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 he was looking for the

(01:29:35):
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 him that they were not comfortable with answering.
That's when we actually started to realize the true nature
of the situation. Fortunately, that's also when a younger guy

(01:29:58):
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.

(01:30:18):
The younger man was 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.

(01:30:42):
We were both 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.

(01:31:05):
He had noticed that we had left the bus, and
at the last minute decision, decided to follow us. He
literally walked towards us fists 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.

(01:31:25):
He sat down very close to us and started telling
us about how we would killed those men and that
he knew where they lived. My friend and I decided
to get off the stop earlier then we had planned
to at that stop. We immediately started running till it
reached the shady walkway where we could still see the stop.

(01:31:46):
We stayed 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 to my friend's place,
but holy hell, I was scared. My friend, female twenty one,

(01:32:14):
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 an eye contact since

(01:32:36):
he has 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

(01:32:58):
will use you and 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

(01:33:20):
been in class 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

(01:33:42):
you be 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

(01:34:05):
wasn't doing 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

(01:34:28):
to talk to 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 a neighbor could have.
To me, it wasn't like she was over at his
house or that he would come over to hers, so

(01:34:49):
I didn't see the harm. But 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

(01:35:10):
camping this weekend? Also, 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.

(01:35:31):
It's like it was okay if he was on his property,
Like if 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

(01:35:53):
and from wherever she was going, even if he wasn't outside.
As far as I know, nothing never happened with this sky,
but the image of him and his driveway or on
his porch is still there in my mind. I lived

(01:36:16):
in New Mexico for several years before moving to the Midwest.
My friend Amy and I, both females, would spend many
days exploring the remote corners of New Mexico, discovering abiding
ghost towns and joining the quiet, desolate beauty of the desert.
One afternoon in March twenty ten, we were traveling from

(01:36:36):
Merduso to Albuquerque. Always up for exploring, we took a
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

(01:36:57):
New Mexico is a flat and desolate desert. You can
see for miles. There's virtually nothing except dirt and rock
between towns and towns could be miles apart. So we're
on the NM 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

(01:37:20):
the middle of the highway, blocking both lanes. We were
about a mile away from him, and as we were
getting closer we began 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

(01:37:44):
away from him when he pulled to the opposite side
of the highway, but his truck was still pointed 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

(01:38:06):
his eyes off of us, and he was talking into
a walkie talkie. A few seconds after we 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

(01:38:27):
we were getting nervous. We realized how alone we really were.
We had seen no other traffic on this road and
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.

(01:38:48):
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
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

(01:39:09):
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 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

(01:39:31):
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 pulled 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,

(01:39:54):
and for the first and only time in my life,
I felt hunted. They stayed right behind us. We watched
for obstacles in 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

(01:40:16):
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 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

(01:40:36):
edging closer made it appearent that he was trying to
bump us. I watched helplessly as he got within inches
of our back bumper. Amy floored it. We were passing
eighty miles per hour 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.

(01:40:59):
The white picu 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 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?

(01:41:23):
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 Missions National Monument, and
it pointed towards the road to the left and ran.
At that moment, a blue pickup truck pulled out over
that road and onto the highway in front of us.

(01:41:43):
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 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

(01:42:05):
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. This area is very near Berlin,
New Mexico, which is where Tara 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.

(01:42:29):
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 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

(01:42:53):
on out there, it's not good, so let's not ever
meet or have anyone 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

(01:43:14):
over there to help out and help train staff. Being
a guy in my late twenties, 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 would usually fly up there, but some occasions, when
I needed to bring equipment or materials, I would drive.

(01:43:35):
This particular time was about seventeen years ago. We had
bought a bunch of equipment wholesale and needed 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

(01:43:55):
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 rental truck.
I always prefer 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

(01:44:19):
occasional rest stops to take care of nature. At some
point near the California Oregon border is when 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

(01:44:40):
of the parking lot was empty. Now at this point
I wasn't thinking anything creepier out of 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 noticed a vehicle park next to mine. I was

(01:45:02):
literally like, this whole parking lot and this person pulls
up next to me. Oh well, I jump 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

(01:45:23):
vehicle goes out interior lights, running lights, and headlights. 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 sixty miles per hour in
the middle of what seemed to be a scene out

(01:45:44):
of Tails from the dark Side. But I pound my
fist on the dashboard and scream at the truck. Almost instantly,
everything came back on. I felt like Phonsie. 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

(01:46:07):
as long inside the restroom and walked back out to
the truck. I remember my thoughts were should I stay
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

(01:46:30):
walk up, he starts a conversation about the weather or something.
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

(01:46:53):
you having mechanical problems? I stopped in my tracks and
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,

(01:47:15):
if I needed to take this guy out, I 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

(01:47:38):
last few stops. How does this guy know I was
having 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 wiry 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

(01:48:00):
the next gas station I will stop. I pull up
to the gas station and in organ 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.

(01:48:21):
I see some smears, but not really sure if it's
from the road, snow or what 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

(01:48:45):
just freaking myself out seeing shadows 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.

(01:49:06):
As I continue driving, the 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 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

(01:49:30):
already going 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

(01:49:51):
gas station 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 calm 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

(01:50:12):
old man. She 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
stopped 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.

(01:50:36):
I look around and not see the car anymore. I
decided 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,

(01:50:57):
and 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

(01:51:17):
he 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 a m.
And I decided enough was enough. I get up, check out,

(01:51:38):
go have a big breakfast, and continue to my office
without 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 week weekend, I'd wake

(01:52:00):
up 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

(01:52:22):
being on the freeway before six am, almost everyone was
going at least ten miles per hour over the speed limit.
I'd drive most of the time on the main interstate
before turning off onto a small highway, which I'd only
use for about a mile or so. This highway was
three lanes on each side. People also drive fast on here,
but usually not more than seventy five miles per hour

(01:52:44):
or so, and while you'd have some unsafe drivers in
the morning, most people aren't squerving 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

(01:53:06):
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. Now as the Dan you'd see

(01:53:26):
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 him off, while the one behind it would change
lanes to remain behind him. They kept this up the
entire time. I was on the highway near them, weaving

(01:53:48):
in 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,

(01:54:09):
I'll 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

(01:54:32):
surrounded 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

(01:54:53):
did so. We were just used to it context. I'm
a woman. I was twenty five 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

(01:55:14):
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,

(01:55:38):
worried it was moving left to right under 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

(01:55:59):
car also hit the one behind it, and it backtracked away.
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.

(01:56:22):
It was like he had fallen asleep and left his
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

(01:56:44):
drove backwards and parked away from the scene. I was
shaking non stop. I called my mom and told her everything.
She told me that the guy might be dangerous and
that I should go home by another route like right now,
that I might not be sick. So I did what
she told me and drove home. To this day, I

(01:57:04):
sometimes think that I had an hallucination because I was
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
I moved away two years later. I want to breakface

(01:57:37):
this story with the day that we moved into our
new town home. My brother and I had lived together
for a long time, so moving in together wasn't unusual.
One day, on the very first morning in a new place,
I stepped outside to smoke a cigarette. My brother followed
me and we were talking about football when he suddenly

(01:57:58):
froze towards the wooden frame of our covered patio. Written
in big black marker was my name Ryan. Neither of
us had family or friends over yet, because we moved
everything ourselves and it hadn't been there the night before.
We stood there, confused but never figured out how it

(01:58:21):
got there. Now, fast forward two months. One night, I
went to a bar down the street with a good
friend while my brother stayed home. It was a normal night.
I left the bar, grabbed some food, and got back
around one am. My brother was already asleep, so I
ate went upstairs with their German shepherd and crashed. The

(01:58:45):
next morning, I noticed something immediately wrong. My bedroom door
was wide open and my dog wasn't in the room.
That never happens. My brother doesn't enter my room when
I'm asleep, and he definitely doesn't let my dog out. Still,
I prushed it off until I went downstairs. The first

(01:59:05):
thing my brother asked me was did you bring someone
home last night? I told him no. His face instantly
changed fear, not confusion. He asked, again, are you sure
no one came back with you? I swear I hadn't.
I didn't even talk to anyone besides I'm my best friend.

(01:59:26):
That's when he told me what happened. At around three am,
he heard loud noises downstairs. Thinking I was putting together
my akia desk I had just bought, he got out
of bed to yell at me for being so loud.
When he reached the landing halfway down the staircase, he
flicked on the light. At the bottom of the stairs

(01:59:48):
was a girl. She was standing there calmly picking up
my desk box that had fallen over. She leaned against
the wall, then she looked straight at him. Neither of
them said a word. I asked him, why didn't confront
her or call the police. He said, my German shepherd

(02:00:09):
was standing right next to her, completely relaxed, so he
assumed she was someone I brought home. What unsettled him
most was that she didn't panic at all when she
saw him. She acted like she belonged there. After locking eyes,
she casually walked into the living room instead of going
out the front door, which was literally two feet behind her.

(02:00:32):
He turned off the light and went back to bed,
deciding to ask me who she was in the morning.
That's when everything clicked. My bedroom door was wide open
and my dog wasn't with me. Whoever this girl was
at some point she had been in my room. Whoever
you are, let's not meet. When I was about twenty three,

(02:01:01):
my friend Emily was using tender and matched with the guy.
She sent him a photo of me, and he told
her that his friend was interested. Before I knew it,
we were playing in a double date. Their idea of
a hangout a hike. The guys picked us up and
drove us to a deserted like trail where you could

(02:01:21):
see the city in neighborhoods from far off. I already
felt a little uneasy, but I hadn't promised anything. I
was just along for the ride. We started climbing higher
up the trail. At some point, Emily and her date
walked ahead, turned a corner, and disappeared down the hill.
That left me alone with him. The second that they

(02:01:45):
were out of sight, I felt his arm wrap around me.
Something pressed against my neck. I looked down and realized
it was a pocket knife. I let out a nervous laugh,
probably pure shock, and he actually grinned and said, you laugh,
You're my kind of girl. Then he slipped a knife
back into his pocket and kept his arm around me

(02:02:06):
like nothing happened. I tried to move forward quickly and
get through the rest of the hike. Afterwards, they brought
us back to his family's house. Apparently they were really wealthy.
I left my sweatshirt there by accident. Later he sent
a picture of it to Emily, saying, I get it
back next time she comes over. There was no next time.

(02:02:30):
I never saw him again. So I was telling the
coworker this story, and she suggested I share it here.
Sorry in advance if I ramble. I tend to remember
more random details every time I tell it. Back when

(02:02:53):
I was about seventeen around two thousand and nine, I
worked as a courtesy clerk at a grocery store, bagging
groceries and bringing in the carts. My mom and sister
also worked there, so this place felt like family. Most
of the guys I worked with were very protective of me,
which honestly was a blessing. I got hit on by

(02:03:16):
older men all the time. My boss would even follow
me home some nice just to make sure no creeps
were trailing me. One incident, though, has stuck with me.
It was an insanely hot day. I just finished wrangling
a mountain the carts and ducked into a little pizzeria
corner of the store to cool down. Out of nowhere,

(02:03:38):
this man in his twenties or thirties came up to
me and handed me his number. He didn't say much,
if anything, and just walked off. I was too overheated
to react. The next day, a silver minivan pulled up
next to me outside I noticed baby shoes hanging from
the rear view mirror. Man tried talking to me, and

(02:04:01):
I remember cutting him off and saying I'm seventeen and
I have a boyfriend. Usually that would scare men away,
this one didn't. That night, near closing time, my cashier
whispered that someone was watching us. I turned and saw
the same man from the mini van standing around the corner,

(02:04:23):
just staring. I told my night manager, who immediately opened
his office door while counting tills to keep an eye
on things. The guy eventually left the store, but just
waited outside. My manager ended up following me home that night.
A few days later, my aunt randomly texted me, which

(02:04:44):
was unusual. We hardly talked. She sent me a link
to a Craigslist misconnections post and asked if it was
about me. It was. This post is something like saw
you working in the grocery store. You were cute, You
wore bowing your hair, suspenders hanging from your shorts, a

(02:05:06):
bunch of wristbands, and had bright colored hair. Your name
tag said Garrett. I'm forty and would like to meet up.
The Garrett part really freaked me out because Garrett wasn't me.
My coworkers and I used to switch name tags sometimes
just to mess with customers and see their reactions. So

(02:05:28):
not only was this guy watching me closely enough to
describe my entire outfit, but he also memorized the fake
name I just happened to be wearing that day. I
ran to my day manager and showed him the post.
He immediately replied with too young for you parent. After
that things got weirder. I'd see the same silver van around,

(02:05:52):
but sometimes I wasn't sure if it was even the
same guy. Once I rushed aside after spotting it, and
suddenly the man was already following me down the aisle.
There was no way he could have parked that fast
and got it inside. When I screamed, he bolted before anyone
else saw him. The police got involved and gave me

(02:06:13):
an escort home every night that week. Eventually I was
transferred to another store in a different town, and I
never saw the van or that man again. Being hit
on by creepy old men unfortunately never stopped. But that
Craigslist post still gives me the chills to this day.
I wish I could find it again. It was so

(02:06:34):
unsteadily reading how he described me. So to the man
who wrote the Craigslist post about a seventeen year old girl,
it's not me. Update not too long after this happened.
The cops posted a sex trafficking ring in my area
and arrested around forty people. When I saw that on
the news, it really made my stomach drop. I'll never

(02:06:57):
know if that guy was connected, but honestly feels like
he could have been. Thinking back on how he looked
at me, the way he lingered, and how off everything fell.
I still get chills. Hello read it. I'm a nineteen

(02:07:19):
year old guy living with my parents. I'm about to
start university, and since at the start of these summer holidays,
I've been feeling like I'm being spied on. Whether there's
actually someone around my house, either inside or outside, just
wandering around. Tonight at twelve fifteen am, I notice strange

(02:07:40):
things happening, and honestly, I think I might be going crazy.
I live in a small town where there's not much
going on here, really nothing at all. I hear footsteps
in my attic or behind the wall of my bedroom.
You should know that the only way to get there
is to go through my mom's room and then through
the at catch, but the only way to access it

(02:08:02):
is from within the house. For example, right now, there's
a horrible smell like wet grass mixed with something burnt
and something rotten. It's disgusting. But what really made me
realize something was wrong was that when I leaned closer,
I heard a video, maybe YouTube or someone talking to

(02:08:24):
someone else, but I couldn't understand the words, and there
was literally no one outside. I wanted to smoke outside
in my garden, but I couldn't. My brain was telling
me not to go out because even outside I could
hear the noises. I don't understand. I feel like I'm
losing my mind, but even when my mom's heard the
footsteps though outside. She went out at four am to

(02:08:49):
check what was going on but found absolutely nothing. No one.
Sometimes I hear noises on the roof tiles, like someone's
trying to get through my window, but there's absolutely no one.
This has been happening for a few days now, and
I don't know what to do. I sleep with the
windows open but the shutters closed. I sometimes panic, but

(02:09:13):
I tell myself it's nothing. I'm really scared that there's
actually someone in my house, especially since almost all the
houses around mind have been broken into or squatted. Anyways,
I don't know what to do

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}The Best TRUE Scary Stories from October | Real Horror That Will Haunt You | Part 1 of 2