October 4, 2025 • 77 mins
Check out the first trailer for Gale - Yellow Brick Road: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vfdaizGLg1g
In theatres February 11th, 2026
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Hey, welcome to Scary Stories and Rain, the podcast where
relaxation meets terror. I'm very excited to share that
on February 11th, 2026, my very first feature film will be in
theaters across the United States, with the UK release
right after and the rest of the world to follow.
The film is called Gale Yellow Brick Road, a dark reimagining
(00:22):
of The Wizard of Oz. If you've ever seen The Wizard
of Oz and if you're a horror fan, this is one that you will
not want to miss. And you can be sure this is not
a musical. Mark your calendars February
11th Gale Yellow Brick Road. Also don't forget that I have
two other podcasts, scary Stories and Fire and scary
(00:44):
stories after dark. You can find the links to both
in the description of this episode.
Please give them a follow. And if you're not following this
podcast, please do that as well.Right now we are also running a
PlayStation 5 giveaway. The winner will be announced in
mid-october. And if you'd like to support
this show, you can subscribe forjust 299 a month.
That removes all ads across every single episode and
(01:07):
automatically enters you to all of my monthly giveaways.
And in the description of this episode, you can also find the
link to my Instagram account forthis podcast where I always post
proof of the giveaways. With that being said, thank you
so much for being here and I really hope you enjoy this
episode. The pandemic summer of 2020 had
(01:34):
been a crazy one to remember forsure.
With a year that started with mymom passing away and the whole
world shutting down, what was tofollow would make up for it in
more ways than one. When my mother died, I felt like
everything around me was fallingapart.
All my friendships were fading, and I had to mourn alone during
(01:56):
the lockdown. That was until my neighbor Ryan
reintroduced himself to me. At the time of this story, I was
18 and he was 22, which is why we didn't become best friends
right away. Long story short, he invited me
over to one of his bonfires to have drinks with his friends,
who were all around the same ageas Ryan.
(02:18):
Besides Ryan, two of them I became closest with were Colin
and Aiden. Those two were a sight to
behold. I have never seen two people who
weren't married talk to each other as much as them, and no
one complained about it as much as their girlfriends.
We all became close pretty fast.They all came to my mom's
(02:38):
funeral despite not knowing her,whereas childhood friends were
nowhere to be found. Unfortunately, this story
doesn't end nearly as good as itstarts.
The last Saturday before my freshman semester was coming
around and we all got together despite an unexpected rainstorm
hitting us that day. We were all having a few and
(03:00):
wanted to end the summer with a blast.
Colin pitched us an idea. Colin owned a beat up old Jeep
outside his house. And by owned, I mean his
grandfather gave it to him. He was planning on selling it
that next day and was quietly trying to get me, Ryan and Aiden
to take it out for one last joyride with him.
(03:22):
Red flags popped up when I got the hint that he didn't want him
and Aiden's girlfriends to know.Knowing that we have been
drinking for a little over an hour and that the roads were
really wet and his Jeep had no doors or top, I was initially
worried about the idea and how confident he was with it.
I knew it was a bad idea, but I didn't want to kill the vibe of
(03:45):
the party. I didn't want to be the youngest
guy in the room telling everyoneelse to be careful.
This was when I made the worst decision of my life.
Not only did I begrudgingly decide to keep my mouth shut,
but I also tagged along. I was trying to act cool, but it
was becoming clearer and clearerto me that my much drunker
(04:07):
friends were a bit too far gone.Me and Aiden got in the back,
Ryan sitting in shotgun and Colin sitting in the driver's
seat. As the ride went on and music
continued to blare, my stresses begin to get relieved.
My worries began to fade as I started to think I started to
finally have a good time again. That's when I looked over and
(04:31):
saw that Aiden was standing up without his seat belt on.
I looked at him and then looked at Ryan and Colin and I wasn't
sure if they didn't notice or didn't care, but they definitely
weren't doing anything. I began trying to pull him back
down inside the Jeep, my heart now beating fast inside my chest
(04:53):
as I can see that we're going well over the speed limit.
I can hear the tires kicking bits of water up on the pavement
as we were flying. I am now screaming at the top of
my lungs to get Colin and Ryan'sattention, but due to the music,
I don't think they heard me. Aiden isn't listening as he was
too drunk to understand how dangerous what he was doing was,
(05:17):
and that would be our downfall. While tugging on him to get back
down, I looked back when I hearda funny noise coming from the
tire. That's when I noticed that the
back of the Jeep was swinging back and forth, and before I
could even realize what was actually happening, our wheels
locked up. I was awoken with a ringing
(05:39):
sound blaring inside my head, eyes slowly opening up to the
dead of night other than a few Mumbles and groans from nearby.
I look up and see the night sky above me, trying to clear my
throat before coughing up some blood.
That's when it all hit me. I looked around, seeing that I
(06:01):
was still in my seat belt, but we were no longer on the road.
We were hanging off the road with the side of the Jeep
slammed up against a guardrail in an awkward angle.
You know those moments you have when something so astronomically
bad happens while intoxicated that you instantly become sober?
(06:22):
This was one of them. I pride my seat belt off me
before stumbling out of the Jeep.
I looked back behind me to checkthe Jeep, noticing that Colin
and Ryan were in the front with both of their airbags deployed.
That's when I looked back and didn't see Aiden.
I painfully crouched under to see if he was on the ground on
(06:43):
the other side, but I could not see him while looking under the
Jeep. I began frantically looking
around before panicking, realizing where he might be.
That's when I got a good look atColin and Ryan.
Not because my eyes lingered on them, but because of Ryan's
screams. Those deafening and heart
(07:05):
piercing screams. Ryan had stuck his arm out while
trying to brace himself for impact, and his arm nearly
snapped in half. When I found him, he was in the
midst of screaming his lungs outand trying to put his arm back
together. And then I saw Colin.
We had nothing to stop shrapnel from hitting us with the doors
(07:28):
off, and by the looks of it, hisairbag wasn't as protective as
Ryan's. His face was covered with gashes
and little rocks and pieces of glass shards sticking out of
him. I couldn't focus on them,
though. At least I knew where they were.
I needed to find Aiden. I began calling his name,
(07:50):
screaming it as loud as I could with nothing but the headlights
of this smashed Jeep to help me out.
I began stumbling in the direction the Jeep was facing,
looking around at what was lit by the headlights in hopes of
finding something. A part of me was nervous to find
something. I was injured.
And even if I did find him, whatif he was as hurt as Colin and
(08:13):
Ryan? What was I going to do?
Before I could come up with an answer, the choice was made for
me. I had found him about 40 feet
away from the Jeep, lying face down by a tree.
I began scurrying over to him, calling his name and dropping to
my knees. I could.
(08:35):
See blood in the dirt, but due to it being night, I couldn't
get a good glimpse of it. I gripped his shoulder and
rolled him over, seeing the immense amount of blood begin to
pour as I lied him on his back. I began to cry and scream and
horror as I couldn't believe theamount of blood I saw.
(08:55):
It was like a fountain that never ended.
Not knowing what to do, I did the only thing I could think of,
wipe the blood away. I gripped the bottom of my shirt
and used it to try and wipe the blood away, but it didn't work.
I then took my hand and began wiping some of the blood off his
face. But the realization I would soon
(09:17):
discover would strike horror into my mind for the rest of my
life. I didn't understand why it
wouldn't work. I didn't understand why there
was still so much blood. And that's when I looked at the
palm of my hand. I wasn't just wiping off blood
from his face, I was wiping off entire chunks of his face.
(09:41):
There was more than just blood on my hand, there were pieces of
tissue, flesh, his face resting in my hand.
I immediately let go and began scooting away in horror as I
screamed as loud as I could while beginning to figure out
the true state he was in. At the time I didn't realize it,
(10:02):
but there was nothing I could have done at that point.
I was already 1 joyride too late.
I don't sleep very much anymore.If I do it's only about 3 to 5
hours a night. I don't talk to Colin or Ryan
that much anymore either. They eventually came to that
night before realizing the result of our actions.
(10:26):
Yes, our actions. There was no villain in this
story, no creepy home intruder, no spooky ghost.
Just dumb young adults who made a life ending decision because
of liquor and peer pressure. Unfortunately not every detail
can be shared from this story asthere is still a pending court
(10:49):
case. Hopefully people learn from this
story though and don't have to learn from experience.
I was probably about 17 or 18 when this happened, and my
(11:10):
sister was 20 or 21. I live in a little valley which
is not particularly known for being overly dangerous or scary,
though there have been some occasional serious criminal
activity. But I had been walking around in
the day and at night for years and had never encountered
anything that seemed life threatening.
(11:32):
Here is a quick description of my surroundings during the
incident. The school grounds we were on
had one big building, 2 playgrounds and two big fields.
All of this was enclosed by a little fence which ran around
the whole premises, and outside of the fence was a little side
street which led onto the main road.
(11:53):
The structure we were sitting onwas located across from the main
building and on the edge of the gravel field, and the surface
below us was made of those little playground wood chips.
They lay under swings and slidesand stuff like that.
Now that that's clear, let's begin.
My older sister and I are extremely close and we have
(12:14):
always loved spending time together.
We would regularly go out on late night walks around where we
lived, especially in the summer,and would often end up at the
local elementary school's playground because it had swings
and structures that we could siton.
One night during the summer, as usual, we went to Save On Foods,
(12:35):
one of our local grocery stores for some snacks and drinks, then
walked up to the park to sit on our favorite swing set.
My sister and I had been chilling there for a while,
talking and laughing about the normal BS, when I heard what
sounded like something hard dropping from the sky onto the
gravel a little ways in front ofus.
(12:57):
I don't remember exactly what I thought of it at first, but I
knew that it wasn't rain, hail, or any sort of natural substance
you would expect to fall from the sky.
After a short while, it happenedagain, this time a little closer
than before. That's when I said, Did you hear
(13:18):
that To my sister, who hadn't heard the first sound and was
still in the middle of talking. We both sat and listened in
silence for a bit. Then we heard it again, even
closer. This is when I started to get a
bit scared. Since it was dark and it sounded
(13:38):
like whatever was falling was obviously getting closer.
My child like mind started imagining all kinds of scary
things that it could have been. Since none of my thoughts were
necessarily realistic. It helped keep me slightly calm,
being able to reassure myself that we were fine and safe.
(13:59):
Then something hit the gravel again, very close to us this
time. They were rocks.
What the heck, I thought. Rocks.
It's rocks. I screamed, yet somehow still
keeping my voice at a whisper. I scrambled out of my swing to
(14:20):
step back a little in fear that the next one might actually hit
one of us. Since it was so dark, I had no
way of knowing if it was headingfor the ground or my face.
My sister was nervous too, so itstill kept a slight attitude of
Nah, it can't be that. But then another one came down
(14:44):
and actually touched the wood chips this time causing my
sister to also scramble out of her swing to step back with me.
Both of us were now blindly attempting to shield ourselves
with the thin metal poles of thestructure we were just on.
We both had realized now that the rocks were being thrown and
(15:05):
they had to be thrown by someone.
This scared me even more knowingthat a person not only had been
lurking in the dark watching us for God knows how long, but they
were actually trying to hurt us for some reason and we didn't
even know where they were. We were both frantically
(15:25):
scanning the area, looking to see someone standing near us or
behind a wall looking at us. And that's when I saw him
standing on the roof of the school.
A tall silhouette of a man wearing a trench coat or a Cape
or some sort of clothing which hung all the way down to his
(15:47):
ankles with a hood pointed up over his head.
I couldn't see his face, but judging from his structure I
assumed it was a man. I felt all of the blood drain
from the top half of my body. I couldn't stop looking at him,
I was so utterly confused as to who this guy was and why on
(16:09):
earth he was on the roof of a school in the middle of the
night throwing actual stones at 2 girls he didn't know.
Oh Lord. My sister said once she also
noticed the man standing there. She let out a nervous giggle and
so did I, but I think we both knew how scary the situation was
(16:31):
and how scared we both were at this point.
The man just kept still. I felt kind of stupid for
feeling as scared as I was, because it was probably just a
stupid bored teenager who got a kick out of scaring the crap out
of random people. But once the next rock hit the
(16:51):
pole right in front of us, making a perfect ping noise, I
didn't really care if it was just a dumb teen, I wanted to
get out of there. I timidly ducked out of the
cover of our makeshift shield and began to quickly gather my
things, holding one hand in front of my face, attempting to
(17:12):
protect myself from any other rocks that were possibly heading
for my head. This time, my sister was doing
the same. That is when we heard it.
Probably one of the creepiest sounds I have ever heard someone
make in real life. Like something out of a horror
movie. The man let out the most bone
(17:33):
chilling, screechy yet bellowy scream.
It sounded like it would have been in the movie World War Z,
almost like he was making the sound by breathing in super
aggressively, but somehow it wasstill so loud.
We both gasped and my gaze shot up to him so quickly that it
(17:56):
hurt the back of my neck, as if the sound had found its way into
my body to rattle my organs. My stomach dropped to the floor
and I could feel my heartbeat inmy throat.
I guess this is when my fight orflight really kicked in, because
I remember my whole body suddenly feeling cold and super
(18:17):
shaky, like it was hard to keep my jaw from shivering.
Both my sister and I hardly waited a second.
We booked it out of there as fast as we possibly could,
bolting out of the gap in the fence onto the little side
street. We kept running up the street,
(18:37):
now with our heads facing backwards, both of us expecting
to see the man come sprinting out of where we had just exited,
coming to hurt us, kidnap us, orworse.
We eventually started to slow down, still keeping our eyes on
the fence. My sister, trying to break the
(18:58):
tension with some laughs jokingly broken up by heavy
breathing, started to say imagine he just comes running
out there after us making that noise.
I quickly interrupted her, now crying with some abrupt and
inaudible babbles, trying to tell her to please stop
describing such a horrifying scenario, because to me, that
(19:22):
joke could easily have come truein that moment.
This story, fortunately for us, does not have a bad ending.
The man never emerged, never came after us, never followed
us, and we never had an encounter like it again in the
future. My sister and I are now 20 and
(19:45):
23 years old. Although the scary thing was
that when we eventually made it around the 2 fields that sat
across from the school building that the man was standing on, he
was nowhere to be seen. We couldn't see him on the roof
walking around the school, and we didn't see him on the street.
(20:06):
When we eventually started our abrupt return journey home, he
was just gone. Though my sister and I both made
it out of their totally unharmedwith merely a spooky story to
share, and it probably was simply a bored person who
thought it would be funny and harmless to pull a prank on a
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couple of girls, it still scaredthe life out of both of us.
Remember that even though in themoment you might think that your
pranks and jokes are totally harmless, you never know how
they might affect someone when that someone feels that they are
genuinely. In serious danger years ago now.
(20:53):
Back when I was about 8 or 9, myfolks and I lived in this huge
weird old house that was like right on the edge of this small
town in rural Pennsylvania. The local school districts also
happened to be in the middle of this big restructuring, so even
though me and my little brother were only a couple of grades
apart, we went to different schools and took different
(21:15):
buses. This meant I was the last person
to leave the house every morning, but also the first
person to get home every afternoon since my school was
much closer than his. But this also meant that it was
also my job to make sure all thelights were off and all the
doors were locked when I left every morning to head off to
school. So this one morning I became
(21:37):
aware of the fact that the lightwas on in the basement and that
the door was open. So before I left, I saw to it
that the light was off and the door was locked.
Then later when I got home that afternoon, I saw that the light
was on and the door was open again.
I remember thinking I was losingmy mind or something, that I had
(21:59):
totally just imagined locking itup.
I mean, I was pretty tired most mornings after staying up late
playing Overwatch, so it wasn't out of the question that I had
just forgotten to do it. So I went over to turn off the
light and close the door, but when I got to the top of the
basement staircase, I looked down to see that there was a big
(22:20):
shadowy figure standing at the bottom.
I freaked out, slammed the door and pushed a cabinet up against
it, and then bolted to hide upstairs in my room.
For months I didn't tell my family because I was positive
that what I had seen was a ghostand I didn't think anyone would
believe me. It was Halloween time.
(22:40):
I was young and dumb, and happens to have fostered a firm
belief in the paranormal. Then, about six months after
that weird little incident, my mom and dad realized that things
have been going missing around the house.
They blamed me and my brother atfirst, but after we insisted
that we were innocent, we all walked around the place with
(23:02):
flashlights, trying to figure out how anyone might have gotten
inside without actually breakingin.
It turns out the thing I'd seen in the basement was an actual
man, and he had been climbing inthrough a small hole on the
outside of the house, worming his way through a crawl space,
then coming up into the house through the basement.
(23:24):
Recognizing I've been alone in that house with him on at least
one occasion was one of the worst, most terrifying
realizations I've ever had in mylife.
Needless to say, I don't believein ghosts anymore.
(23:50):
This happened to me when I was 11 and I was staying at a
friend's house who I will call Kit.
Kit was one of those cool kids in school who was always up to
trouble. Looking back, I don't understand
how I managed to remain friends with him for so long as I was
anything but cool and never did anything he did.
(24:11):
One night I was staying over at his place on a Friday after
school and we started playing touch football in the backyard
one-on-one. After playing for about 20
minutes, he asked if I'd heard of a game called Mop, which I
had not. He explained to me that the way
the game works as you hide by the road and when someone walks
(24:32):
or drives past, you shout the word MOP, hoping to get some
kind of reaction. I suppose the game can be known
by any other name, but in my case he called it MOP.
I agreed, so we went down to hisfront yard and looked up and
down the road to see if anyone was heading our way.
I should note that Kit's house isn't actually on a main road,
(24:55):
so the only reason you would drive down on the left is if you
were going to a house further down.
And there were only a few houseson the street past Kit's house,
so I wasn't expecting many people to pass by.
I hid behind the garage bins which were by the driveway fence
and Kit was hiding in the opposite side in the garden.
(25:16):
At this point it was about 4:00 PM so it was still light out,
which to me made the game less fun.
About two minutes in, a car drives by and Kit shouts out
MOP. Nothing happened, which was no
surprise. I knew someone driving by
wouldn't be able to hear us. Not long after a man and woman
(25:39):
were walking their dog and as they were walking by Kit shouted
MOP at them. The man and woman stopped and
looked around confused for about5 seconds and then they started
walking again. That was the exact reaction I
was expecting. After about 10 or more
disappointing reactions I was starting to get bored but Kit
(26:02):
was having too much fun. Eventually I noticed a homeless
looking man making his way over.Kit couldn't have seen him yet
so I gave him the signal that someone was near and he waited.
As the man was getting closer I could see that he was talking to
himself like he was arguing withsomeone.
(26:23):
As he got closer I could see that he was at least in his 40s.
I could see how dirty he looked.He had long greasy black hair
and his face was covered in dirt.
I was starting to get nervous when the man was passing us.
I heard Kit shout out something that I cannot repeat.
(26:44):
It was really, really bad. The man looked right towards the
house in an instant, looking absolutely furious.
I was freaking out as the man could have easily spotted me
hiding behind the bins. The man started passing back and
forth with his eyes fixed on theHouse, looking around and
muttering to himself. Eventually he started walking
(27:07):
back the way he was heading and once he was out of my view I got
out from behind the bins and made my way over to Kit.
I was about to yell at him and tell him how stupid it was what
he said, but then he said let's follow him.
I told him that was a terrible idea, but as a stupid 11 year
old kid I eventually agreed. We kept at a distance and
(27:31):
followed the man off the road and at the entrance to the brush
we hid behind a car and watched the man.
I wish I could say we headed back right then but Kit wanted
to see where he was going so we followed.
Kit went first and I followed close behind.
I was walking as quietly as possible but the leaves were all
(27:52):
so dry so they crunched really loud as we walked over them.
About 5 minutes into this Kit stopped dead in his tracks and I
heard him whisper. Oh crap.
I walked up next to him and justahead behind some rocks there
(28:12):
was the man crouching down looking right at us.
I didn't have time to react as the man stood up and started
sprinting towards us. Kit and I turned and ran
screaming. I could sense that the man was
closing in on us and I feared that any second he would grab me
and that would be the end. Lucky for us, we heard the man
(28:36):
trip and fall. I remember just feeling the air
move under the man's body just inches behind me.
I was easily in arm's reach. Hearing the man fall.
I slowed down and looked back and saw him lying flat on his
stomach and he let out an angry growl.
I turned and continued running. I couldn't see Kid at this
(28:59):
point, but I could hear the crunching of the leaves and
branches, so I knew he was stillclose.
Eventually I got out of the brush and started running on the
road back to the house. When I got there, Kit was
already there, out of breath andsweating.
I started to cry due to the realization that we could have
(29:20):
both just been seriously injured.
I never spoke of this story to anyone and I don't think Kit has
either. I haven't been to Kids House
since. My deepest apologies to that man
who my friend and I mistreated. It was a very stupid thing to do
and I've always felt bad about it, but I would say he got his
(29:43):
revenge simply because of how scared we were.
So this story is going to be partly from my perspective as
well as my brother's perspective, and it's going to
be a long one. This is a true story that
(30:05):
happened last night while I was at my grandma's house.
So before this all took place, Iwent to get McDonald's in the
nearest city to us, which is about 20 minutes away.
After that, I decided to go downto my grandma's house instead of
going straight home. For context, she lives down a
long farm road to which you alsohave to turn off down a half
(30:27):
mile dirt driveway just to get to her house.
I arrived there at around 9:00 PM and I went in and visited
with my grandmother and my brother who lives with her ever
since my grandpa passed away so that she won't have to live down
there all alone. My brother and I took out my
grandma's dog to go pee at around 10:30 PM and we just sat
(30:49):
outside listening to music and talked for a while.
At that point I was starting to get cold because this is East
Texas and I'm not yet used to itgetting down into the low 40s at
night, so I was about ready to head inside.
I noticed something moving in the corner of my eye near the
large metal shop that sits a few100 yards from the house.
(31:12):
I didn't really take too much notice though because it is not
uncommon for deer or raccoons tocome snooping around in the yard
and plus my grandma's dog wasn'tbarking so I thought that it
might have just been my eyes playing tricks on me.
We finally headed back inside and my grandma went to sleep
around 11:00 PM so me and my brother stayed up and played
(31:34):
among us and watched YouTube fora while.
At around 2:30, AMI was very tired and ready to go home so I
asked my brother to walk with meto the door and make sure that I
got out to my car because I'm always paranoid especially at
night. He joked around and said that he
would turn the light off on me and lock the door and I freaked
(31:56):
out and begged him to walk me out to the car to which he
finally did. I got in my car and immediately
locked the doors and I saw the porch lights turn off as I was
driving off back down the dirt Rd.
I got home within 10 minutes andfixed myself some ice cream
before I sat down and enjoyed some creepy horror stories on
(32:18):
YouTube. Another 15 or so minutes passed
and I got a FaceTime call from my brother, to which I picked up
almost immediately. I could tell that he was freaked
out about something, but he wasn't saying anything right
away, so I asked him what was wrong.
The following is my best attemptto paraphrase what my brother
(32:39):
told me. He said that after I left, he
went back outside to listen to some music and sit on the porch.
He had the music on his phone uppretty loud, which would usually
mask any noises of animals coming from the nearby woods.
After a few minutes of listeningto music, he said that he heard
what he thought to be sounds of metal banging around, so we
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quickly paused the music and listened to see if he could hear
the sound again. He stood up and looked towards
the shop in the boat shed, whichare adjacent to each other and
are a few 100 yards away from where he was standing.
He saw a faint light shining around near the boat shed, but
then it quickly flicked off. At this point he was freaking
(33:24):
out, so we quietly crept back inside the house and locked the
door behind him. He said that he ran to his room
in the back of the house, I guess not thinking to wake up
our grandma, and he grabbed his weapon.
He quickly ran back outside and saw the glow of the flashlight
move around and then quickly shut off.
As soon as he noticed it. He walked out to the edge of the
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concrete carport and stared out towards the boat shed with his
weapon down at his side. The only thing illuminating the
boat shed was the faint light coming from the house.
He said that he tried to muster up the most intimidating voice
he can manage and said who is out there, to which there was no
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immediate reply except for a slight bumping sound.
Which solidified the fact that someone was indeed there.
Now keep in mind this is out in the middle of the country in a
town with a population of just over 1000 people and the nearest
house is across the lake or miles down the farm Rd.
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So no well meaning person would just happen to stumble across my
grandma's house this late at night.
Also my grandma has had problemswith people snooping around the
property in the past so this is not something any of us take
lightly. And for the life of me I can't
tell you why my brother didn't just call the police.
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But you also have to remember there is only a few cops in the
entire town and it is 3:00 AM and so it would take at least 30
minutes for the cops to even show up.
So my brother again called for the person to show themselves
and repeated his question and asked the person to identify
themselves. He said that he practically
(35:08):
crapped his pants as a tall, lanky figure slowly emerged from
the boat shed with a flashlight in hand.
Although my brother couldn't seeany distinct features about the
person, he could definitely tellthat it was an older man and
that it was no one that we knew.It was especially not anyone
that should be in our boat shed at 3:00 AM.
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At this point he raised the weapon up to point at the man
and again shouted who are you? The man was still silent and
began slowly walking towards him.
My brother took a step forward and gave one last verbal warning
to the man and said I swear I'lluse this now who are you and why
(35:52):
are you here? The man quickly raised his hands
up and said whoa whoa whoa, calmdown man, in a taunting voice as
he continued walking towards my brother.
My brother fired a single shot just above the man's head, to
which he finally took that as his cue that my brother meant
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business. The man hurriedly took off on
foot back down the driveway and my brother screamed don't come
back. My brother then quickly ran
inside to wake up my grandma whohad somehow slept through the
entire commotion. She didn't seem worried enough
to actually call the police. But of course after hearing this
(36:35):
all I could think about was whatwere the true intentions of that
man? Was he just some druggie
snooping around looking to stealsome tools or money?
Or were his intentions much moresinister?
Another question that haunts me about this whole situation is
how many times has this happenedafter my grandma and brother
(36:55):
went to bed and we just didn't know?
And was he watching us from the shadows all night?
Was he watching me as I walked out to my car?
What would have happened if my brother had actually turned out
the lights and locked the door before I could get to my car?
I have a pretty good imagination, but I really don't
like to use it thinking about the possibilities.
(37:19):
And to the stranger who tried torob us or do God knows what at
3:00 in the morning, I hope you learned your lesson.
A few years ago, I was part of aTrue Scary Story server on
Discord. It was a place where people
(37:40):
would share their own personal stories of scary or spooky
things that had happened to themin their lives, and for a while
it was honestly a lot of fun. Sure, a lot of the story sounded
made-up and generally involved stuff like I saw a shadowy
figure at the end of my bed and other stuff that sounded like
they were lifted straight out ofa bad horror movie.
(38:02):
But every so often someone wouldshare a story that didn't have a
hint of the supernatural in it, something that was actually
believable. And occasionally these stories
were genuinely terrifying. I read a lot of seriously spine
chilling stuff on that server, but a lot of it I have forgotten
over the years. Probably because although they
(38:23):
were creepy, they just weren't disturbing enough to actually
stick with me. But there was one story in
particular that I have never forgotten because it genuinely
made me shudder when I read it. I hope the user in question
doesn't mind if I share their story, and if they happen to
hear this, I would like to thinkthey would let me know in the
(38:44):
comments and maybe correct anything I got wrong because I
am telling this from memory. Here it goes.
The poster began their story by assuring us that their story
wasn't just some fabrication, and that although they were
pretty young when it happened, just thinking or writing about
it as an adult was a pretty stressful experience for them.
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They went on to explain that their early years were marred by
tragedy, how their dad had died when they were really young from
a drug overdose, so they were raised by a single mom living in
a small apartment just down the street from their grandma's
house. Mom did some dating though,
obviously trying to do the rightthing and find them a stepdad to
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give them some kind of father figure in their life.
The incident in question happened while she was out on a
date. Usually speaking, their grandma
would babysit for them anytime mom needed to do anything that
meant she couldn't bring them along.
But on the night of her date, the grandma was working.
So although it wasn't ideal, a 9or 10 year old storyteller was
(39:51):
left unsupervised in their mom'sground floor apartment.
Sounds kind of irresponsible at first, but the storyteller was
quick to reassure the members ofthe server.
That was back when Yu-gi-oh was popular.
As long as they had their cards in the box set of the cartoons
to keep them occupied, being left alone for like an hour or
two certainly wasn't an issue for them.
(40:14):
It's not like they were going towander out of the apartment or
get up to any mischief while their precious Yu-gi-oh was
keeping them busy. But at some point during the
evening, they are sitting there playing with their cards and
watching TV when they heard a tapping on the window.
Remember, they lived in the ground floor apartment, so
pretty much anyone could have just walked up and started
(40:36):
tapping on the glass. No climbing or levitating or any
of that stuff was involved, so there was nothing inherently
worrying or creepy about someoneknocking on the glass.
The storyteller then gets up, walking towards the window
before drawing back the curtains, only to reveal the
face of a complete stranger. Not their grandfather, not an
(41:00):
uncle, but a complete and utter stranger.
Surprised and confused, they back up from the window, letting
the curtains slide back into place before this horrendous
crash sounds. Broken glass tumbles onto the
carpet at the foot of the curtains before another smash
sends more glittering shards onto the floor in front of them.
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At that point, they said they just tossed their Yu-gi-oh cards
onto the floor and bailed, rushing out of the back door of
the apartment and over to a neighbor's house, pounding on
the door in a state of abject terror as they looked over their
shoulder every so often to ensure the mysterious predator
wasn't hot in pursuit. But thankfully, the neighbor
(41:45):
answers the door let's our storyteller in before taking the
time to calm them down to get the full story out of them.
Naturally, they called the cops immediately, who rushed over
since they were given the description of a home invasion
in progress. The neighbor then gets in touch
with storyteller's mom to let her know the awful news, who
(42:06):
immediately rushes home to comfort their terrified son.
Then after that, both the neighbor and the storyteller's
mom accompany them back to the apartment, where the cops are
still searching the property andsurrounding area for any sign of
the attempted intruder. Apparently one of the cops
approaches the mom at this pointand shows her something in a
(42:27):
clear plastic evidence bag. The mom stares at it, turns
pale, then kneels down and hugs our storyteller tight, fighting
to hold back tears as the neighbor says Oh my gosh, They
both ended up staying at the grandma's place for like a week
after while the window was repaired.
(42:50):
And if that seems like a bizarreamount of time to fix a window,
and that something else might bebehind them staying away from
the apartment for a while, you would be right in thinking that
our storyteller had their suspicions for a little while,
but they were too young to really understand the
implications of what had happened.
The kind of danger they had beenin wasn't clear until many years
(43:13):
later when their mom explains tothem just what had happened that
evening. You see, it wasn't just the
window that was being replaced. The entire apartment was being
fitted with new, incredibly sturdy locks, CCTV cameras, just
about everything short of a panic room, all being paid for
(43:35):
by grandma and grandpa. The whole family was absolutely
terrified, and it was all down to the piece of evidence that
the cop showed the mom that night.
The little thing in the clear plastic evidence bag that made
her turn ashen and squeeze our storyteller in a big trembling
bear hug. What was in that plastic bag?
(43:58):
It was a photograph. A photograph of a young boy
curled up in bed, sleeping soundly.
And that boy was our storyteller.
The mom told a much older storyteller that the photo
couldn't have been taken long before the attempted break in.
Something about the sheets on the bed being fairly new or
(44:20):
something, I can't quite remember.
Or maybe it was a new haircut that the storyteller had gotten.
But either way, it was some detail in there that made it
clear that the attempted intruder had broken into the
apartment somehow, maybe only a week prior, and I'd taken a
photograph of our storyteller while they were sleeping.
(44:42):
I can only imagine they had doneso to several other children
too, making a little catalog of potential victims, pursuing them
for hours on end before finally deciding the one they liked the
most. I think that's what makes my
blood run cold back when I read their story.
The idea that the intruder had taken this perverse liking to
(45:04):
them, one that was strong enoughfor them to be unable to resist
their urges or whatever kind of sick, twisted desires had them
smashing that window. That evening, the family only
felt safe again. When they heard news.
That a creeper whose MO was eerily similar to their own
experiences was caught by policeand jailed after being
(45:26):
extradited to another state. But they kept the whole thing a
secret from our storyteller until he was in his late teenage
years. There was no more details after
that. There wasn't any grand
conclusion, just that it was something that had haunted him
for years. I never read anything as
horrifying as that on that discord server.
(45:48):
It made everything else seem tame in comparison and I stopped
reading shortly afterward. It's weird how we seek out scary
stories sometimes. Just to give ourselves a little
thrill, but end up being genuinely traumatized not by the
spoopy skeleton stories, but by things that we know could have
(46:10):
easily happened for real. Quick preface, my uncle was a
sheriff's deputy and search and rescue officer in the Northwest
United States back in the 1990s.This experience is told from my
(46:30):
uncle's view with a few explanations for myself.
He asked that I keep the location hidden for anonymity
purposes. So it was the summer of 1992.
It was a couple years into my job with the County Sheriff's
Office. Summers were busy.
A ton of people would go campingup here, so naturally people
(46:52):
would occasionally get lost. S&R was something I was volun
told to do as a rookie, but I learned to love it.
Helping people, especially in life or death situations, was
the reason I became a deputy, soS&R gave me that rush as my
normal law enforcement duties were almost always mundane in my
(47:13):
small town. We received a call from a lady
in Arizona one Tuesday morning. She claimed her husband and
young grandson had driven up here on a Friday for a weekend
camping trip. They hadn't returned Monday as
scheduled and she was worried that they were lost.
So we geared up the SNR team consisting of myself, four other
(47:34):
deputies, 15 civilian volunteers, and two Bloodhound
SNR dogs. We made it to their camping site
around noon. Upon first inspection,
everything in the camp seemed relatively normal.
We searched their tent and foundall their belongings sitting
inside. Truck keys, wallet, map, water,
(47:58):
food all sat in the tent undisturbed.
A small pot filled with water and now extra soggy macaroni
noodles sat above a long dead fire pit.
It was obvious they had left in a hurry.
No tracks were visible to determine what directions they
went, so we used a pair of sockswe found in the tent as a base
(48:20):
smell for the hounds. They caught the scent and
started leading us north of the campsite.
As we walked I looked at my partner and we both shook and
lowered our heads north of theircampsite.
With 10s of thousands of acres of dense woods, we knew this was
going to be a long search. As we searched, we used a grid
(48:44):
pattern. A grid pattern is roughly an
acre sized square on a map that SNR used to determine a more
precise direction that someone might have gone.
The weirdest part was that the hounds would pick up their scent
in one square, but not in any ofthe squares directly next to
that square. This happened multiple times.
(49:06):
It was as if someone plucked these guys up from their
campsite and placed them in random sections of the forest
repeatedly. I began to get a very bad
feeling after this. Something just didn't seem right
about the situation. The team had covered roughly 3
miles of area as the day startedto wind down as dusk began to
(49:28):
hit. It was just myself, my buddy
Rob, and his hound Rust that stayed behind.
The rest of the team made their way back home and we would be
back out tomorrow morning. I always stayed out overnight
when a child was lost. I had a feeling of guilt being
in a warm, safe bed while a child was cold and scared out in
(49:49):
the wilderness. We eventually found a small
clearing to make camp. By the time night fell, we had a
fire blazing and our sleeping bags laid out in the grass.
Rob and I went over the next day's search plan for a bit, ate
dinner, and eventually hunkered down for the evening.
I laid on my sleeping bag and quickly dozed off.
(50:14):
I woke up sometime later. I sat up and looked around as my
eyes began to adjust to the darkness.
I felt like someone was watchingme.
The urge to look around to ensure that no one was sneaking
up on me was intense. I called out.
Hello Sam. Frank, is that you?
(50:37):
We're looking for you. Are you there?
I didn't hear any response, so Ilaid down and tried to fall back
asleep. Just a few minutes later I heard
it. Somewhere to my left, past the
tree line, came a loud. Wolf whistle.
A wolf whistle. Is the whistle you hear in
(50:58):
movies or TV when a man sees a very attractive woman?
I sprang up out of my sleeping bag and began frantically
scanning the tree line. At this point Russ was up to his
ears were peaked and he was whining in the direction of the
whistle. I called out again.
Hello, I am a deputy with the Sheriff's Office.
(51:20):
Do you need help, Sam Frank? I received no response.
Rob was awake now and as I was explaining the situation, the
whistle came again but this timeto our right.
I drew my sidearm and flicked onmy flashlight as Rob took out
his large buck knife and stood beside me.
(51:43):
We scanned the tree line but we didn't see anything.
We continued scanning the tree line and calling out for another
10 minutes before we decided to get the fire going again and
wait until dawn to search the area.
We didn't hear another whistle for the remainder of the early
morning. As dawn broke, Rob and I
searched the area. We found two pairs of boot
(52:06):
prints in the fresh mud. We decided to head back home,
get some rest and return later in the day to continue
searching. We were only about 200 feet from
the clearing when 2 simultaneouswolf whistles came from behind
us. As I turned, I scanned the
trees. I didn't see anything at first
(52:28):
but as I looked. Farther.
Back towards the entrance to theclearing, I saw two silhouettes
standing out in the open. We couldn't see any features or
clothing as the morning sun was blinding us.
I called out and started making my way towards them.
When they took off running. I was going to chase them when
Rob stopped me. I was puzzled.
(52:52):
I said Rob what? We're looking for two people and
there they are, stop wasting time.
He replied with stop and think for a second.
We are looking for one male adult and 1 male child.
Unless this kid is the next Randy Brewer, there's no way
that he's that tall at age 11. That's when the realization hit
(53:14):
me. He was right.
Those two silhouettes, obviouslywe're not the two people that we
were searching for. If I was alone or with another
deputy, I would have chased them, but I wasn't willing to
put a civilian volunteer in danger.
We decided to just continue our way back to the trailhead and
(53:36):
debrief the team and sheriff on the events that had transpired
the rest. Of the hike.
Back to the trailhead was uneventful.
We met up with the search team and the sheriff when we arrived
as they were getting geared up to head back out.
We received a few scoffs and eyerolls when retelling the events
that occurred, but the sheriff surprisingly believed our
(53:57):
claims. We even had one of the deputies
carry an M16 for the remainder of the search.
We continued our search for 13 days never finding the 2 missing
individuals. A few people claimed they heard
wolf whistles while out searching, but I never did
again. This mission still haunts me.
(54:20):
I have wondered all these years what happened to those two and
if the two silhouettes. That I saw.
Had something to do with their disappearance.
Just to give you a bit of background, I live in a country
(54:42):
that is classed as post Soviet as we used to be part of a
Soviet Union until it collapsed.Anyway, the story is not about
that. Currently, I'm in my final year
of police training me specifically training to become
a detective and murder organizedcrime cases.
Throughout my training, I've seen a lot of gruesome things
(55:06):
and cases, read a lot of past cases that are now solved.
So to say that I'm not breaking any law by talking about it.
Back in the 1990s, right after the Soviet Union had collapsed,
small countries that were now independent, we're trying to set
up their governments and law enforcement systems.
(55:26):
People were mostly poor and organized crime started to arise
and by that I mean a lot of mafia groups were forming in
various bigger cities as there was no effective law enforcement
to stop them from doing crimes and the units that were formed
were mostly corrupted and afraidof the mafia.
(55:47):
Lucky me, I was born in one of these cities that had one of the
strongest and influential mafia gang in the whole country.
The time from 1990s until the early 2000s, it was like 1 big
crime scene in whole of the country.
Daily shootings, corpses and rivers, robberies, carjackings,
(56:10):
you name it, it was there. During my early training years
in 2018, as part of my studies, I went to Police Archive and
came across a few cases from thepast that will stay in my mind
for some time. I will tell about one of them in
my story. So the case story goes like
this. In 1992, early autumn, when it
(56:33):
was still warm, a young man wentsuddenly missing.
Police knew that he had some ties with the local mob, but for
a week they weren't able to findhim or his body.
Right then, when the search was going on, three teenage boys
aged 12 through 14 went fishing to a local river.
(56:55):
To give you a better idea of thelocation, there was a main road
and by that main road there was a school and there was a trail
leading through the school's playground right to the
riverbank. It was a 3 minute walk from the
playground to the riverbank. So the boys took their fishing
gear and as they were walking through the playground, they saw
(57:15):
and waved hello to the school's principal as he was outside
talking to a groundskeeper. The boys being known for their
mischievous behavior in school and just wanted to taunt the
principal by waving at him. He ignored them and the boys
went to the river. It was a warm evening, the sun
was still up. It was around 5:00 PM.
(57:38):
The boys got ready to fish and cast their rods. 10 minutes past
nothing. 15 minutes past nothing.
One of the boys got impatient and decided to recast his rod.
Just as he started to reel back,something heavy was on the line.
(57:58):
He got excited and started to shout.
I got something, I got one. I got a bite.
The other boys ran to him and excitedly waited for the huge
fish to finally show. But instead, as he was reeling,
their faces went pale. There was no fish on the line.
(58:18):
Instead, the fishing hook got stuck in flesh.
Human flesh. The boy who was holding the
fishing rod threw up when he sawthat he had.
Caught. A human head?
Yes, a rotting human head. The boys panicked.
They didn't know what to do with.
There were no cell phones and the closest building with an
(58:41):
adult was the school. The boys dropped their fishing
gear and ran back to the school hoping to find the principal who
they saw earlier. He was nowhere to be seen
outside so the boys ran into theschool straight into his office.
They were panicking and screaming for the principal to
come because there was somethinghorrible by the river.
(59:03):
The principal looked at them confused and refused to come as
he thought this was one of theirpranks, but when he noticed how
greenish, pale and panicked theywere, he said in a serious
voice. This better not be one of your
silly pranks. Now come on, show me what's
going on. They took him right where they
dropped their fishing gear and showed him the head which still
(59:27):
had the fish hook in it. The principal stood in silence
but there was pure terror on hisface.
Quickly he took the boys back tohis office and rang the police.
The police came and of course the forensic team was called.
The statements were taken from the boys and the principal.
It was the missing man's head. The 22 year old man was killed
(59:51):
by the mob because he owed them money, then cut into several
pieces and thrown into the river.
Only his head and torso were recovered.
His family was gutted. They couldn't even bury his body
properly. Me now, reading their statements
after more than 20 years got me to tears.
(01:00:14):
How terrible it must have been for the boys to discover the
head and for the man's family tohear that their son had been
discovered in pieces. I am not a faint hearted person
or anything like that as I chosemy career to be a murder
detective, but some cases and witness statements who are
crying their souls out asking tofind the people who did that to
(01:00:36):
their loved ones sometimes gets me crying also.
That just gives me the motivation and strength to find
and fight these horrible people.Stay safe everyone.
(01:06:31):
Yeah. Yeah.
(01:14:48):
Yeah. Yeah.
Hey, welcome to Scary Stories and Rain, the podcast where
relaxation meets terror. I'm very excited to share that
on February 11th, 2026, my very first feature film will be in
theaters across the United States, with the UK release
right after and the rest of the world to follow.
The film is called Gale Yellow Brick Road, a dark reimagining
(00:22):
of The Wizard of Oz. If you've ever seen The Wizard
of Oz and if you're a horror fan, this is one that you will
not want to miss. And you can be sure this is not
a musical. Mark your calendars February
11th Gale Yellow Brick Road. Also don't forget that I have
two other podcasts, scary Stories and Fire and scary
(00:44):
stories after dark. You can find the links to both
in the description of this episode.
Please give them a follow. And if you're not following this
podcast, please do that as well.Right now we are also running a
PlayStation 5 giveaway. The winner will be announced in
mid-october. And if you'd like to support
this show, you can subscribe forjust 299 a month.
That removes all ads across every single episode and
(01:07):
automatically enters you to all of my monthly giveaways.
And in the description of this episode, you can also find the
link to my Instagram account forthis podcast where I always post
proof of the giveaways. With that being said, thank you
so much for being here and I really hope you enjoy this
episode. The pandemic summer of 2020 had
(01:34):
been a crazy one to remember forsure.
With a year that started with mymom passing away and the whole
world shutting down, what was tofollow would make up for it in
more ways than one. When my mother died, I felt like
everything around me was fallingapart.
All my friendships were fading, and I had to mourn alone during
(01:56):
the lockdown. That was until my neighbor Ryan
reintroduced himself to me. At the time of this story, I was
18 and he was 22, which is why we didn't become best friends
right away. Long story short, he invited me
over to one of his bonfires to have drinks with his friends,
who were all around the same ageas Ryan.
(02:18):
Besides Ryan, two of them I became closest with were Colin
and Aiden. Those two were a sight to
behold. I have never seen two people who
weren't married talk to each other as much as them, and no
one complained about it as much as their girlfriends.
We all became close pretty fast.They all came to my mom's
(02:38):
funeral despite not knowing her,whereas childhood friends were
nowhere to be found. Unfortunately, this story
doesn't end nearly as good as itstarts.
The last Saturday before my freshman semester was coming
around and we all got together despite an unexpected rainstorm
hitting us that day. We were all having a few and
(03:00):
wanted to end the summer with a blast.
Colin pitched us an idea. Colin owned a beat up old Jeep
outside his house. And by owned, I mean his
grandfather gave it to him. He was planning on selling it
that next day and was quietly trying to get me, Ryan and Aiden
to take it out for one last joyride with him.
(03:22):
Red flags popped up when I got the hint that he didn't want him
and Aiden's girlfriends to know.Knowing that we have been
drinking for a little over an hour and that the roads were
really wet and his Jeep had no doors or top, I was initially
worried about the idea and how confident he was with it.
I knew it was a bad idea, but I didn't want to kill the vibe of
(03:45):
the party. I didn't want to be the youngest
guy in the room telling everyoneelse to be careful.
This was when I made the worst decision of my life.
Not only did I begrudgingly decide to keep my mouth shut,
but I also tagged along. I was trying to act cool, but it
was becoming clearer and clearerto me that my much drunker
(04:07):
friends were a bit too far gone.Me and Aiden got in the back,
Ryan sitting in shotgun and Colin sitting in the driver's
seat. As the ride went on and music
continued to blare, my stresses begin to get relieved.
My worries began to fade as I started to think I started to
finally have a good time again. That's when I looked over and
(04:31):
saw that Aiden was standing up without his seat belt on.
I looked at him and then looked at Ryan and Colin and I wasn't
sure if they didn't notice or didn't care, but they definitely
weren't doing anything. I began trying to pull him back
down inside the Jeep, my heart now beating fast inside my chest
(04:53):
as I can see that we're going well over the speed limit.
I can hear the tires kicking bits of water up on the pavement
as we were flying. I am now screaming at the top of
my lungs to get Colin and Ryan'sattention, but due to the music,
I don't think they heard me. Aiden isn't listening as he was
too drunk to understand how dangerous what he was doing was,
(05:17):
and that would be our downfall. While tugging on him to get back
down, I looked back when I hearda funny noise coming from the
tire. That's when I noticed that the
back of the Jeep was swinging back and forth, and before I
could even realize what was actually happening, our wheels
locked up. I was awoken with a ringing
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sound blaring inside my head, eyes slowly opening up to the
dead of night other than a few Mumbles and groans from nearby.
I look up and see the night sky above me, trying to clear my
throat before coughing up some blood.
That's when it all hit me. I looked around, seeing that I
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was still in my seat belt, but we were no longer on the road.
We were hanging off the road with the side of the Jeep
slammed up against a guardrail in an awkward angle.
You know those moments you have when something so astronomically
bad happens while intoxicated that you instantly become sober?
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This was one of them. I pride my seat belt off me
before stumbling out of the Jeep.
I looked back behind me to checkthe Jeep, noticing that Colin
and Ryan were in the front with both of their airbags deployed.
That's when I looked back and didn't see Aiden.
I painfully crouched under to see if he was on the ground on
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the other side, but I could not see him while looking under the
Jeep. I began frantically looking
around before panicking, realizing where he might be.
That's when I got a good look atColin and Ryan.
Not because my eyes lingered on them, but because of Ryan's
screams. Those deafening and heart
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piercing screams. Ryan had stuck his arm out while
trying to brace himself for impact, and his arm nearly
snapped in half. When I found him, he was in the
midst of screaming his lungs outand trying to put his arm back
together. And then I saw Colin.
We had nothing to stop shrapnel from hitting us with the doors
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off, and by the looks of it, hisairbag wasn't as protective as
Ryan's. His face was covered with gashes
and little rocks and pieces of glass shards sticking out of
him. I couldn't focus on them,
though. At least I knew where they were.
I needed to find Aiden. I began calling his name,
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screaming it as loud as I could with nothing but the headlights
of this smashed Jeep to help me out.
I began stumbling in the direction the Jeep was facing,
looking around at what was lit by the headlights in hopes of
finding something. A part of me was nervous to find
something. I was injured.
And even if I did find him, whatif he was as hurt as Colin and
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Ryan? What was I going to do?
Before I could come up with an answer, the choice was made for
me. I had found him about 40 feet
away from the Jeep, lying face down by a tree.
I began scurrying over to him, calling his name and dropping to
my knees. I could.
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See blood in the dirt, but due to it being night, I couldn't
get a good glimpse of it. I gripped his shoulder and
rolled him over, seeing the immense amount of blood begin to
pour as I lied him on his back. I began to cry and scream and
horror as I couldn't believe theamount of blood I saw.
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It was like a fountain that never ended.
Not knowing what to do, I did the only thing I could think of,
wipe the blood away. I gripped the bottom of my shirt
and used it to try and wipe the blood away, but it didn't work.
I then took my hand and began wiping some of the blood off his
face. But the realization I would soon
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discover would strike horror into my mind for the rest of my
life. I didn't understand why it
wouldn't work. I didn't understand why there
was still so much blood. And that's when I looked at the
palm of my hand. I wasn't just wiping off blood
from his face, I was wiping off entire chunks of his face.
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There was more than just blood on my hand, there were pieces of
tissue, flesh, his face resting in my hand.
I immediately let go and began scooting away in horror as I
screamed as loud as I could while beginning to figure out
the true state he was in. At the time I didn't realize it,
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but there was nothing I could have done at that point.
I was already 1 joyride too late.
I don't sleep very much anymore.If I do it's only about 3 to 5
hours a night. I don't talk to Colin or Ryan
that much anymore either. They eventually came to that
night before realizing the result of our actions.
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Yes, our actions. There was no villain in this
story, no creepy home intruder, no spooky ghost.
Just dumb young adults who made a life ending decision because
of liquor and peer pressure. Unfortunately not every detail
can be shared from this story asthere is still a pending court
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case. Hopefully people learn from this
story though and don't have to learn from experience.
I was probably about 17 or 18 when this happened, and my
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sister was 20 or 21. I live in a little valley which
is not particularly known for being overly dangerous or scary,
though there have been some occasional serious criminal
activity. But I had been walking around in
the day and at night for years and had never encountered
anything that seemed life threatening.
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Here is a quick description of my surroundings during the
incident. The school grounds we were on
had one big building, 2 playgrounds and two big fields.
All of this was enclosed by a little fence which ran around
the whole premises, and outside of the fence was a little side
street which led onto the main road.
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The structure we were sitting onwas located across from the main
building and on the edge of the gravel field, and the surface
below us was made of those little playground wood chips.
They lay under swings and slidesand stuff like that.
Now that that's clear, let's begin.
My older sister and I are extremely close and we have
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always loved spending time together.
We would regularly go out on late night walks around where we
lived, especially in the summer,and would often end up at the
local elementary school's playground because it had swings
and structures that we could siton.
One night during the summer, as usual, we went to Save On Foods,
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one of our local grocery stores for some snacks and drinks, then
walked up to the park to sit on our favorite swing set.
My sister and I had been chilling there for a while,
talking and laughing about the normal BS, when I heard what
sounded like something hard dropping from the sky onto the
gravel a little ways in front ofus.
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I don't remember exactly what I thought of it at first, but I
knew that it wasn't rain, hail, or any sort of natural substance
you would expect to fall from the sky.
After a short while, it happenedagain, this time a little closer
than before. That's when I said, Did you hear
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that To my sister, who hadn't heard the first sound and was
still in the middle of talking. We both sat and listened in
silence for a bit. Then we heard it again, even
closer. This is when I started to get a
bit scared. Since it was dark and it sounded
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like whatever was falling was obviously getting closer.
My child like mind started imagining all kinds of scary
things that it could have been. Since none of my thoughts were
necessarily realistic. It helped keep me slightly calm,
being able to reassure myself that we were fine and safe.
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Then something hit the gravel again, very close to us this
time. They were rocks.
What the heck, I thought. Rocks.
It's rocks. I screamed, yet somehow still
keeping my voice at a whisper. I scrambled out of my swing to
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step back a little in fear that the next one might actually hit
one of us. Since it was so dark, I had no
way of knowing if it was headingfor the ground or my face.
My sister was nervous too, so itstill kept a slight attitude of
Nah, it can't be that. But then another one came down
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and actually touched the wood chips this time causing my
sister to also scramble out of her swing to step back with me.
Both of us were now blindly attempting to shield ourselves
with the thin metal poles of thestructure we were just on.
We both had realized now that the rocks were being thrown and
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they had to be thrown by someone.
This scared me even more knowingthat a person not only had been
lurking in the dark watching us for God knows how long, but they
were actually trying to hurt us for some reason and we didn't
even know where they were. We were both frantically
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scanning the area, looking to see someone standing near us or
behind a wall looking at us. And that's when I saw him
standing on the roof of the school.
A tall silhouette of a man wearing a trench coat or a Cape
or some sort of clothing which hung all the way down to his
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ankles with a hood pointed up over his head.
I couldn't see his face, but judging from his structure I
assumed it was a man. I felt all of the blood drain
from the top half of my body. I couldn't stop looking at him,
I was so utterly confused as to who this guy was and why on
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earth he was on the roof of a school in the middle of the
night throwing actual stones at 2 girls he didn't know.
Oh Lord. My sister said once she also
noticed the man standing there. She let out a nervous giggle and
so did I, but I think we both knew how scary the situation was
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and how scared we both were at this point.
The man just kept still. I felt kind of stupid for
feeling as scared as I was, because it was probably just a
stupid bored teenager who got a kick out of scaring the crap out
of random people. But once the next rock hit the
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pole right in front of us, making a perfect ping noise, I
didn't really care if it was just a dumb teen, I wanted to
get out of there. I timidly ducked out of the
cover of our makeshift shield and began to quickly gather my
things, holding one hand in front of my face, attempting to
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protect myself from any other rocks that were possibly heading
for my head. This time, my sister was doing
the same. That is when we heard it.
Probably one of the creepiest sounds I have ever heard someone
make in real life. Like something out of a horror
movie. The man let out the most bone
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chilling, screechy yet bellowy scream.
It sounded like it would have been in the movie World War Z,
almost like he was making the sound by breathing in super
aggressively, but somehow it wasstill so loud.
We both gasped and my gaze shot up to him so quickly that it
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hurt the back of my neck, as if the sound had found its way into
my body to rattle my organs. My stomach dropped to the floor
and I could feel my heartbeat inmy throat.
I guess this is when my fight orflight really kicked in, because
I remember my whole body suddenly feeling cold and super
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shaky, like it was hard to keep my jaw from shivering.
Both my sister and I hardly waited a second.
We booked it out of there as fast as we possibly could,
bolting out of the gap in the fence onto the little side
street. We kept running up the street,
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now with our heads facing backwards, both of us expecting
to see the man come sprinting out of where we had just exited,
coming to hurt us, kidnap us, orworse.
We eventually started to slow down, still keeping our eyes on
the fence. My sister, trying to break the
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tension with some laughs jokingly broken up by heavy
breathing, started to say imagine he just comes running
out there after us making that noise.
I quickly interrupted her, now crying with some abrupt and
inaudible babbles, trying to tell her to please stop
describing such a horrifying scenario, because to me, that
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joke could easily have come truein that moment.
This story, fortunately for us, does not have a bad ending.
The man never emerged, never came after us, never followed
us, and we never had an encounter like it again in the
future. My sister and I are now 20 and
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23 years old. Although the scary thing was
that when we eventually made it around the 2 fields that sat
across from the school building that the man was standing on, he
was nowhere to be seen. We couldn't see him on the roof
walking around the school, and we didn't see him on the street.
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When we eventually started our abrupt return journey home, he
was just gone. Though my sister and I both made
it out of their totally unharmedwith merely a spooky story to
share, and it probably was simply a bored person who
thought it would be funny and harmless to pull a prank on a
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couple of girls, it still scaredthe life out of both of us.
Remember that even though in themoment you might think that your
pranks and jokes are totally harmless, you never know how
they might affect someone when that someone feels that they are
genuinely. In serious danger years ago now.
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Back when I was about 8 or 9, myfolks and I lived in this huge
weird old house that was like right on the edge of this small
town in rural Pennsylvania. The local school districts also
happened to be in the middle of this big restructuring, so even
though me and my little brother were only a couple of grades
apart, we went to different schools and took different
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buses. This meant I was the last person
to leave the house every morning, but also the first
person to get home every afternoon since my school was
much closer than his. But this also meant that it was
also my job to make sure all thelights were off and all the
doors were locked when I left every morning to head off to
school. So this one morning I became
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aware of the fact that the lightwas on in the basement and that
the door was open. So before I left, I saw to it
that the light was off and the door was locked.
Then later when I got home that afternoon, I saw that the light
was on and the door was open again.
I remember thinking I was losingmy mind or something, that I had
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totally just imagined locking itup.
I mean, I was pretty tired most mornings after staying up late
playing Overwatch, so it wasn't out of the question that I had
just forgotten to do it. So I went over to turn off the
light and close the door, but when I got to the top of the
basement staircase, I looked down to see that there was a big
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shadowy figure standing at the bottom.
I freaked out, slammed the door and pushed a cabinet up against
it, and then bolted to hide upstairs in my room.
For months I didn't tell my family because I was positive
that what I had seen was a ghostand I didn't think anyone would
believe me. It was Halloween time.
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I was young and dumb, and happens to have fostered a firm
belief in the paranormal. Then, about six months after
that weird little incident, my mom and dad realized that things
have been going missing around the house.
They blamed me and my brother atfirst, but after we insisted
that we were innocent, we all walked around the place with
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flashlights, trying to figure out how anyone might have gotten
inside without actually breakingin.
It turns out the thing I'd seen in the basement was an actual
man, and he had been climbing inthrough a small hole on the
outside of the house, worming his way through a crawl space,
then coming up into the house through the basement.
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Recognizing I've been alone in that house with him on at least
one occasion was one of the worst, most terrifying
realizations I've ever had in mylife.
Needless to say, I don't believein ghosts anymore.
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This happened to me when I was 11 and I was staying at a
friend's house who I will call Kit.
Kit was one of those cool kids in school who was always up to
trouble. Looking back, I don't understand
how I managed to remain friends with him for so long as I was
anything but cool and never did anything he did.
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One night I was staying over at his place on a Friday after
school and we started playing touch football in the backyard
one-on-one. After playing for about 20
minutes, he asked if I'd heard of a game called Mop, which I
had not. He explained to me that the way
the game works as you hide by the road and when someone walks
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or drives past, you shout the word MOP, hoping to get some
kind of reaction. I suppose the game can be known
by any other name, but in my case he called it MOP.
I agreed, so we went down to hisfront yard and looked up and
down the road to see if anyone was heading our way.
I should note that Kit's house isn't actually on a main road,
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so the only reason you would drive down on the left is if you
were going to a house further down.
And there were only a few houseson the street past Kit's house,
so I wasn't expecting many people to pass by.
I hid behind the garage bins which were by the driveway fence
and Kit was hiding in the opposite side in the garden.
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At this point it was about 4:00 PM so it was still light out,
which to me made the game less fun.
About two minutes in, a car drives by and Kit shouts out
MOP. Nothing happened, which was no
surprise. I knew someone driving by
wouldn't be able to hear us. Not long after a man and woman
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were walking their dog and as they were walking by Kit shouted
MOP at them. The man and woman stopped and
looked around confused for about5 seconds and then they started
walking again. That was the exact reaction I
was expecting. After about 10 or more
disappointing reactions I was starting to get bored but Kit
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was having too much fun. Eventually I noticed a homeless
looking man making his way over.Kit couldn't have seen him yet
so I gave him the signal that someone was near and he waited.
As the man was getting closer I could see that he was talking to
himself like he was arguing withsomeone.
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As he got closer I could see that he was at least in his 40s.
I could see how dirty he looked.He had long greasy black hair
and his face was covered in dirt.
I was starting to get nervous when the man was passing us.
I heard Kit shout out something that I cannot repeat.
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It was really, really bad. The man looked right towards the
house in an instant, looking absolutely furious.
I was freaking out as the man could have easily spotted me
hiding behind the bins. The man started passing back and
forth with his eyes fixed on theHouse, looking around and
muttering to himself. Eventually he started walking
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back the way he was heading and once he was out of my view I got
out from behind the bins and made my way over to Kit.
I was about to yell at him and tell him how stupid it was what
he said, but then he said let's follow him.
I told him that was a terrible idea, but as a stupid 11 year
old kid I eventually agreed. We kept at a distance and
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followed the man off the road and at the entrance to the brush
we hid behind a car and watched the man.
I wish I could say we headed back right then but Kit wanted
to see where he was going so we followed.
Kit went first and I followed close behind.
I was walking as quietly as possible but the leaves were all
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so dry so they crunched really loud as we walked over them.
About 5 minutes into this Kit stopped dead in his tracks and I
heard him whisper. Oh crap.
I walked up next to him and justahead behind some rocks there
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was the man crouching down looking right at us.
I didn't have time to react as the man stood up and started
sprinting towards us. Kit and I turned and ran
screaming. I could sense that the man was
closing in on us and I feared that any second he would grab me
and that would be the end. Lucky for us, we heard the man
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trip and fall. I remember just feeling the air
move under the man's body just inches behind me.
I was easily in arm's reach. Hearing the man fall.
I slowed down and looked back and saw him lying flat on his
stomach and he let out an angry growl.
I turned and continued running. I couldn't see Kid at this
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point, but I could hear the crunching of the leaves and
branches, so I knew he was stillclose.
Eventually I got out of the brush and started running on the
road back to the house. When I got there, Kit was
already there, out of breath andsweating.
I started to cry due to the realization that we could have
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both just been seriously injured.
I never spoke of this story to anyone and I don't think Kit has
either. I haven't been to Kids House
since. My deepest apologies to that man
who my friend and I mistreated. It was a very stupid thing to do
and I've always felt bad about it, but I would say he got his
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revenge simply because of how scared we were.
So this story is going to be partly from my perspective as
well as my brother's perspective, and it's going to
be a long one. This is a true story that
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happened last night while I was at my grandma's house.
So before this all took place, Iwent to get McDonald's in the
nearest city to us, which is about 20 minutes away.
After that, I decided to go downto my grandma's house instead of
going straight home. For context, she lives down a
long farm road to which you alsohave to turn off down a half
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mile dirt driveway just to get to her house.
I arrived there at around 9:00 PM and I went in and visited
with my grandmother and my brother who lives with her ever
since my grandpa passed away so that she won't have to live down
there all alone. My brother and I took out my
grandma's dog to go pee at around 10:30 PM and we just sat
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outside listening to music and talked for a while.
At that point I was starting to get cold because this is East
Texas and I'm not yet used to itgetting down into the low 40s at
night, so I was about ready to head inside.
I noticed something moving in the corner of my eye near the
large metal shop that sits a few100 yards from the house.
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I didn't really take too much notice though because it is not
uncommon for deer or raccoons tocome snooping around in the yard
and plus my grandma's dog wasn'tbarking so I thought that it
might have just been my eyes playing tricks on me.
We finally headed back inside and my grandma went to sleep
around 11:00 PM so me and my brother stayed up and played
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among us and watched YouTube fora while.
At around 2:30, AMI was very tired and ready to go home so I
asked my brother to walk with meto the door and make sure that I
got out to my car because I'm always paranoid especially at
night. He joked around and said that he
would turn the light off on me and lock the door and I freaked
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out and begged him to walk me out to the car to which he
finally did. I got in my car and immediately
locked the doors and I saw the porch lights turn off as I was
driving off back down the dirt Rd.
I got home within 10 minutes andfixed myself some ice cream
before I sat down and enjoyed some creepy horror stories on
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YouTube. Another 15 or so minutes passed
and I got a FaceTime call from my brother, to which I picked up
almost immediately. I could tell that he was freaked
out about something, but he wasn't saying anything right
away, so I asked him what was wrong.
The following is my best attemptto paraphrase what my brother
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told me. He said that after I left, he
went back outside to listen to some music and sit on the porch.
He had the music on his phone uppretty loud, which would usually
mask any noises of animals coming from the nearby woods.
After a few minutes of listeningto music, he said that he heard
what he thought to be sounds of metal banging around, so we
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quickly paused the music and listened to see if he could hear
the sound again. He stood up and looked towards
the shop in the boat shed, whichare adjacent to each other and
are a few 100 yards away from where he was standing.
He saw a faint light shining around near the boat shed, but
then it quickly flicked off. At this point he was freaking
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out, so we quietly crept back inside the house and locked the
door behind him. He said that he ran to his room
in the back of the house, I guess not thinking to wake up
our grandma, and he grabbed his weapon.
He quickly ran back outside and saw the glow of the flashlight
move around and then quickly shut off.
As soon as he noticed it. He walked out to the edge of the
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concrete carport and stared out towards the boat shed with his
weapon down at his side. The only thing illuminating the
boat shed was the faint light coming from the house.
He said that he tried to muster up the most intimidating voice
he can manage and said who is out there, to which there was no
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immediate reply except for a slight bumping sound.
Which solidified the fact that someone was indeed there.
Now keep in mind this is out in the middle of the country in a
town with a population of just over 1000 people and the nearest
house is across the lake or miles down the farm Rd.
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So no well meaning person would just happen to stumble across my
grandma's house this late at night.
Also my grandma has had problemswith people snooping around the
property in the past so this is not something any of us take
lightly. And for the life of me I can't
tell you why my brother didn't just call the police.
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But you also have to remember there is only a few cops in the
entire town and it is 3:00 AM and so it would take at least 30
minutes for the cops to even show up.
So my brother again called for the person to show themselves
and repeated his question and asked the person to identify
themselves. He said that he practically
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crapped his pants as a tall, lanky figure slowly emerged from
the boat shed with a flashlight in hand.
Although my brother couldn't seeany distinct features about the
person, he could definitely tellthat it was an older man and
that it was no one that we knew.It was especially not anyone
that should be in our boat shed at 3:00 AM.
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At this point he raised the weapon up to point at the man
and again shouted who are you? The man was still silent and
began slowly walking towards him.
My brother took a step forward and gave one last verbal warning
to the man and said I swear I'lluse this now who are you and why
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are you here? The man quickly raised his hands
up and said whoa whoa whoa, calmdown man, in a taunting voice as
he continued walking towards my brother.
My brother fired a single shot just above the man's head, to
which he finally took that as his cue that my brother meant
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business. The man hurriedly took off on
foot back down the driveway and my brother screamed don't come
back. My brother then quickly ran
inside to wake up my grandma whohad somehow slept through the
entire commotion. She didn't seem worried enough
to actually call the police. But of course after hearing this
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all I could think about was whatwere the true intentions of that
man? Was he just some druggie
snooping around looking to stealsome tools or money?
Or were his intentions much moresinister?
Another question that haunts me about this whole situation is
how many times has this happenedafter my grandma and brother
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went to bed and we just didn't know?
And was he watching us from the shadows all night?
Was he watching me as I walked out to my car?
What would have happened if my brother had actually turned out
the lights and locked the door before I could get to my car?
I have a pretty good imagination, but I really don't
like to use it thinking about the possibilities.
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And to the stranger who tried torob us or do God knows what at
3:00 in the morning, I hope you learned your lesson.
A few years ago, I was part of aTrue Scary Story server on
Discord. It was a place where people
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would share their own personal stories of scary or spooky
things that had happened to themin their lives, and for a while
it was honestly a lot of fun. Sure, a lot of the story sounded
made-up and generally involved stuff like I saw a shadowy
figure at the end of my bed and other stuff that sounded like
they were lifted straight out ofa bad horror movie.
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But every so often someone wouldshare a story that didn't have a
hint of the supernatural in it, something that was actually
believable. And occasionally these stories
were genuinely terrifying. I read a lot of seriously spine
chilling stuff on that server, but a lot of it I have forgotten
over the years. Probably because although they
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were creepy, they just weren't disturbing enough to actually
stick with me. But there was one story in
particular that I have never forgotten because it genuinely
made me shudder when I read it. I hope the user in question
doesn't mind if I share their story, and if they happen to
hear this, I would like to thinkthey would let me know in the
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comments and maybe correct anything I got wrong because I
am telling this from memory. Here it goes.
The poster began their story by assuring us that their story
wasn't just some fabrication, and that although they were
pretty young when it happened, just thinking or writing about
it as an adult was a pretty stressful experience for them.
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They went on to explain that their early years were marred by
tragedy, how their dad had died when they were really young from
a drug overdose, so they were raised by a single mom living in
a small apartment just down the street from their grandma's
house. Mom did some dating though,
obviously trying to do the rightthing and find them a stepdad to
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give them some kind of father figure in their life.
The incident in question happened while she was out on a
date. Usually speaking, their grandma
would babysit for them anytime mom needed to do anything that
meant she couldn't bring them along.
But on the night of her date, the grandma was working.
So although it wasn't ideal, a 9or 10 year old storyteller was
(39:51):
left unsupervised in their mom'sground floor apartment.
Sounds kind of irresponsible at first, but the storyteller was
quick to reassure the members ofthe server.
That was back when Yu-gi-oh was popular.
As long as they had their cards in the box set of the cartoons
to keep them occupied, being left alone for like an hour or
two certainly wasn't an issue for them.
(40:14):
It's not like they were going towander out of the apartment or
get up to any mischief while their precious Yu-gi-oh was
keeping them busy. But at some point during the
evening, they are sitting there playing with their cards and
watching TV when they heard a tapping on the window.
Remember, they lived in the ground floor apartment, so
pretty much anyone could have just walked up and started
(40:36):
tapping on the glass. No climbing or levitating or any
of that stuff was involved, so there was nothing inherently
worrying or creepy about someoneknocking on the glass.
The storyteller then gets up, walking towards the window
before drawing back the curtains, only to reveal the
face of a complete stranger. Not their grandfather, not an
(41:00):
uncle, but a complete and utter stranger.
Surprised and confused, they back up from the window, letting
the curtains slide back into place before this horrendous
crash sounds. Broken glass tumbles onto the
carpet at the foot of the curtains before another smash
sends more glittering shards onto the floor in front of them.
(41:23):
At that point, they said they just tossed their Yu-gi-oh cards
onto the floor and bailed, rushing out of the back door of
the apartment and over to a neighbor's house, pounding on
the door in a state of abject terror as they looked over their
shoulder every so often to ensure the mysterious predator
wasn't hot in pursuit. But thankfully, the neighbor
(41:45):
answers the door let's our storyteller in before taking the
time to calm them down to get the full story out of them.
Naturally, they called the cops immediately, who rushed over
since they were given the description of a home invasion
in progress. The neighbor then gets in touch
with storyteller's mom to let her know the awful news, who
(42:06):
immediately rushes home to comfort their terrified son.
Then after that, both the neighbor and the storyteller's
mom accompany them back to the apartment, where the cops are
still searching the property andsurrounding area for any sign of
the attempted intruder. Apparently one of the cops
approaches the mom at this pointand shows her something in a
(42:27):
clear plastic evidence bag. The mom stares at it, turns
pale, then kneels down and hugs our storyteller tight, fighting
to hold back tears as the neighbor says Oh my gosh, They
both ended up staying at the grandma's place for like a week
after while the window was repaired.
(42:50):
And if that seems like a bizarreamount of time to fix a window,
and that something else might bebehind them staying away from
the apartment for a while, you would be right in thinking that
our storyteller had their suspicions for a little while,
but they were too young to really understand the
implications of what had happened.
The kind of danger they had beenin wasn't clear until many years
(43:13):
later when their mom explains tothem just what had happened that
evening. You see, it wasn't just the
window that was being replaced. The entire apartment was being
fitted with new, incredibly sturdy locks, CCTV cameras, just
about everything short of a panic room, all being paid for
(43:35):
by grandma and grandpa. The whole family was absolutely
terrified, and it was all down to the piece of evidence that
the cop showed the mom that night.
The little thing in the clear plastic evidence bag that made
her turn ashen and squeeze our storyteller in a big trembling
bear hug. What was in that plastic bag?
(43:58):
It was a photograph. A photograph of a young boy
curled up in bed, sleeping soundly.
And that boy was our storyteller.
The mom told a much older storyteller that the photo
couldn't have been taken long before the attempted break in.
Something about the sheets on the bed being fairly new or
(44:20):
something, I can't quite remember.
Or maybe it was a new haircut that the storyteller had gotten.
But either way, it was some detail in there that made it
clear that the attempted intruder had broken into the
apartment somehow, maybe only a week prior, and I'd taken a
photograph of our storyteller while they were sleeping.
(44:42):
I can only imagine they had doneso to several other children
too, making a little catalog of potential victims, pursuing them
for hours on end before finally deciding the one they liked the
most. I think that's what makes my
blood run cold back when I read their story.
The idea that the intruder had taken this perverse liking to
(45:04):
them, one that was strong enoughfor them to be unable to resist
their urges or whatever kind of sick, twisted desires had them
smashing that window. That evening, the family only
felt safe again. When they heard news.
That a creeper whose MO was eerily similar to their own
experiences was caught by policeand jailed after being
(45:26):
extradited to another state. But they kept the whole thing a
secret from our storyteller until he was in his late teenage
years. There was no more details after
that. There wasn't any grand
conclusion, just that it was something that had haunted him
for years. I never read anything as
horrifying as that on that discord server.
(45:48):
It made everything else seem tame in comparison and I stopped
reading shortly afterward. It's weird how we seek out scary
stories sometimes. Just to give ourselves a little
thrill, but end up being genuinely traumatized not by the
spoopy skeleton stories, but by things that we know could have
(46:10):
easily happened for real. Quick preface, my uncle was a
sheriff's deputy and search and rescue officer in the Northwest
United States back in the 1990s.This experience is told from my
(46:30):
uncle's view with a few explanations for myself.
He asked that I keep the location hidden for anonymity
purposes. So it was the summer of 1992.
It was a couple years into my job with the County Sheriff's
Office. Summers were busy.
A ton of people would go campingup here, so naturally people
(46:52):
would occasionally get lost. S&R was something I was volun
told to do as a rookie, but I learned to love it.
Helping people, especially in life or death situations, was
the reason I became a deputy, soS&R gave me that rush as my
normal law enforcement duties were almost always mundane in my
(47:13):
small town. We received a call from a lady
in Arizona one Tuesday morning. She claimed her husband and
young grandson had driven up here on a Friday for a weekend
camping trip. They hadn't returned Monday as
scheduled and she was worried that they were lost.
So we geared up the SNR team consisting of myself, four other
(47:34):
deputies, 15 civilian volunteers, and two Bloodhound
SNR dogs. We made it to their camping site
around noon. Upon first inspection,
everything in the camp seemed relatively normal.
We searched their tent and foundall their belongings sitting
inside. Truck keys, wallet, map, water,
(47:58):
food all sat in the tent undisturbed.
A small pot filled with water and now extra soggy macaroni
noodles sat above a long dead fire pit.
It was obvious they had left in a hurry.
No tracks were visible to determine what directions they
went, so we used a pair of sockswe found in the tent as a base
(48:20):
smell for the hounds. They caught the scent and
started leading us north of the campsite.
As we walked I looked at my partner and we both shook and
lowered our heads north of theircampsite.
With 10s of thousands of acres of dense woods, we knew this was
going to be a long search. As we searched, we used a grid
(48:44):
pattern. A grid pattern is roughly an
acre sized square on a map that SNR used to determine a more
precise direction that someone might have gone.
The weirdest part was that the hounds would pick up their scent
in one square, but not in any ofthe squares directly next to
that square. This happened multiple times.
(49:06):
It was as if someone plucked these guys up from their
campsite and placed them in random sections of the forest
repeatedly. I began to get a very bad
feeling after this. Something just didn't seem right
about the situation. The team had covered roughly 3
miles of area as the day startedto wind down as dusk began to
(49:28):
hit. It was just myself, my buddy
Rob, and his hound Rust that stayed behind.
The rest of the team made their way back home and we would be
back out tomorrow morning. I always stayed out overnight
when a child was lost. I had a feeling of guilt being
in a warm, safe bed while a child was cold and scared out in
(49:49):
the wilderness. We eventually found a small
clearing to make camp. By the time night fell, we had a
fire blazing and our sleeping bags laid out in the grass.
Rob and I went over the next day's search plan for a bit, ate
dinner, and eventually hunkered down for the evening.
I laid on my sleeping bag and quickly dozed off.
(50:14):
I woke up sometime later. I sat up and looked around as my
eyes began to adjust to the darkness.
I felt like someone was watchingme.
The urge to look around to ensure that no one was sneaking
up on me was intense. I called out.
Hello Sam. Frank, is that you?
(50:37):
We're looking for you. Are you there?
I didn't hear any response, so Ilaid down and tried to fall back
asleep. Just a few minutes later I heard
it. Somewhere to my left, past the
tree line, came a loud. Wolf whistle.
A wolf whistle. Is the whistle you hear in
(50:58):
movies or TV when a man sees a very attractive woman?
I sprang up out of my sleeping bag and began frantically
scanning the tree line. At this point Russ was up to his
ears were peaked and he was whining in the direction of the
whistle. I called out again.
Hello, I am a deputy with the Sheriff's Office.
(51:20):
Do you need help, Sam Frank? I received no response.
Rob was awake now and as I was explaining the situation, the
whistle came again but this timeto our right.
I drew my sidearm and flicked onmy flashlight as Rob took out
his large buck knife and stood beside me.
(51:43):
We scanned the tree line but we didn't see anything.
We continued scanning the tree line and calling out for another
10 minutes before we decided to get the fire going again and
wait until dawn to search the area.
We didn't hear another whistle for the remainder of the early
morning. As dawn broke, Rob and I
searched the area. We found two pairs of boot
(52:06):
prints in the fresh mud. We decided to head back home,
get some rest and return later in the day to continue
searching. We were only about 200 feet from
the clearing when 2 simultaneouswolf whistles came from behind
us. As I turned, I scanned the
trees. I didn't see anything at first
(52:28):
but as I looked. Farther.
Back towards the entrance to theclearing, I saw two silhouettes
standing out in the open. We couldn't see any features or
clothing as the morning sun was blinding us.
I called out and started making my way towards them.
When they took off running. I was going to chase them when
Rob stopped me. I was puzzled.
(52:52):
I said Rob what? We're looking for two people and
there they are, stop wasting time.
He replied with stop and think for a second.
We are looking for one male adult and 1 male child.
Unless this kid is the next Randy Brewer, there's no way
that he's that tall at age 11. That's when the realization hit
(53:14):
me. He was right.
Those two silhouettes, obviouslywe're not the two people that we
were searching for. If I was alone or with another
deputy, I would have chased them, but I wasn't willing to
put a civilian volunteer in danger.
We decided to just continue our way back to the trailhead and
(53:36):
debrief the team and sheriff on the events that had transpired
the rest. Of the hike.
Back to the trailhead was uneventful.
We met up with the search team and the sheriff when we arrived
as they were getting geared up to head back out.
We received a few scoffs and eyerolls when retelling the events
that occurred, but the sheriff surprisingly believed our
(53:57):
claims. We even had one of the deputies
carry an M16 for the remainder of the search.
We continued our search for 13 days never finding the 2 missing
individuals. A few people claimed they heard
wolf whistles while out searching, but I never did
again. This mission still haunts me.
(54:20):
I have wondered all these years what happened to those two and
if the two silhouettes. That I saw.
Had something to do with their disappearance.
Just to give you a bit of background, I live in a country
(54:42):
that is classed as post Soviet as we used to be part of a
Soviet Union until it collapsed.Anyway, the story is not about
that. Currently, I'm in my final year
of police training me specifically training to become
a detective and murder organizedcrime cases.
Throughout my training, I've seen a lot of gruesome things
(55:06):
and cases, read a lot of past cases that are now solved.
So to say that I'm not breaking any law by talking about it.
Back in the 1990s, right after the Soviet Union had collapsed,
small countries that were now independent, we're trying to set
up their governments and law enforcement systems.
(55:26):
People were mostly poor and organized crime started to arise
and by that I mean a lot of mafia groups were forming in
various bigger cities as there was no effective law enforcement
to stop them from doing crimes and the units that were formed
were mostly corrupted and afraidof the mafia.
(55:47):
Lucky me, I was born in one of these cities that had one of the
strongest and influential mafia gang in the whole country.
The time from 1990s until the early 2000s, it was like 1 big
crime scene in whole of the country.
Daily shootings, corpses and rivers, robberies, carjackings,
(56:10):
you name it, it was there. During my early training years
in 2018, as part of my studies, I went to Police Archive and
came across a few cases from thepast that will stay in my mind
for some time. I will tell about one of them in
my story. So the case story goes like
this. In 1992, early autumn, when it
(56:33):
was still warm, a young man wentsuddenly missing.
Police knew that he had some ties with the local mob, but for
a week they weren't able to findhim or his body.
Right then, when the search was going on, three teenage boys
aged 12 through 14 went fishing to a local river.
(56:55):
To give you a better idea of thelocation, there was a main road
and by that main road there was a school and there was a trail
leading through the school's playground right to the
riverbank. It was a 3 minute walk from the
playground to the riverbank. So the boys took their fishing
gear and as they were walking through the playground, they saw
(57:15):
and waved hello to the school's principal as he was outside
talking to a groundskeeper. The boys being known for their
mischievous behavior in school and just wanted to taunt the
principal by waving at him. He ignored them and the boys
went to the river. It was a warm evening, the sun
was still up. It was around 5:00 PM.
(57:38):
The boys got ready to fish and cast their rods. 10 minutes past
nothing. 15 minutes past nothing.
One of the boys got impatient and decided to recast his rod.
Just as he started to reel back,something heavy was on the line.
(57:58):
He got excited and started to shout.
I got something, I got one. I got a bite.
The other boys ran to him and excitedly waited for the huge
fish to finally show. But instead, as he was reeling,
their faces went pale. There was no fish on the line.
(58:18):
Instead, the fishing hook got stuck in flesh.
Human flesh. The boy who was holding the
fishing rod threw up when he sawthat he had.
Caught. A human head?
Yes, a rotting human head. The boys panicked.
They didn't know what to do with.
There were no cell phones and the closest building with an
(58:41):
adult was the school. The boys dropped their fishing
gear and ran back to the school hoping to find the principal who
they saw earlier. He was nowhere to be seen
outside so the boys ran into theschool straight into his office.
They were panicking and screaming for the principal to
come because there was somethinghorrible by the river.
(59:03):
The principal looked at them confused and refused to come as
he thought this was one of theirpranks, but when he noticed how
greenish, pale and panicked theywere, he said in a serious
voice. This better not be one of your
silly pranks. Now come on, show me what's
going on. They took him right where they
dropped their fishing gear and showed him the head which still
(59:27):
had the fish hook in it. The principal stood in silence
but there was pure terror on hisface.
Quickly he took the boys back tohis office and rang the police.
The police came and of course the forensic team was called.
The statements were taken from the boys and the principal.
It was the missing man's head. The 22 year old man was killed
(59:51):
by the mob because he owed them money, then cut into several
pieces and thrown into the river.
Only his head and torso were recovered.
His family was gutted. They couldn't even bury his body
properly. Me now, reading their statements
after more than 20 years got me to tears.
(01:00:14):
How terrible it must have been for the boys to discover the
head and for the man's family tohear that their son had been
discovered in pieces. I am not a faint hearted person
or anything like that as I chosemy career to be a murder
detective, but some cases and witness statements who are
crying their souls out asking tofind the people who did that to
(01:00:36):
their loved ones sometimes gets me crying also.
That just gives me the motivation and strength to find
and fight these horrible people.Stay safe everyone.
(01:06:31):
Yeah. Yeah.
(01:14:48):
Yeah. Yeah.
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