October 12, 2025 • 70 mins
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Hey, this is Dane and this is Scary Stories and Rain.
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(00:22):
And starting now, today, every Sunday, I'm going to release the
ultimate episode 6 to 12 hours long Ultimate Scary Stories for
a rainy night. Subscriber exclusive.
And as a reminder, we are now four months away from my first
movie release in theaters, Gale Yellow Brick Road, a dark and
terrifying reimagining of The Wizard of Oz.
(00:45):
If you want to check out the first trailer, click the link in
the description to this episode.And if you're not following my
other two podcasts, please go check them out, Scary Stories
and Fire and Scary Stories AfterDark.
The links are in the description.
Thank you so much for being hereand I really hope you enjoy this
episode. 20 year old Kelly Berg Dove lived with her four year
(01:13):
old daughter in Bridgewater, VA.She was a popular young woman.
Not a single soul in all of Bridgewater seemed to have a bad
word to say about her, least of all her loving husband, who
she'd been romantically involvedwith since they were both high
school sophomores. She also made a point of keeping
in touch with her mother and sisters almost every single day.
(01:36):
All in all, Kelly was about as wholesome a person as you're
ever likely to find, and even found the time to work night
shifts at a local gas station tohelp support her family.
They weren't exactly strapped for cash, but Kelly valued the
idea of making a contribution that would allow them a taste of
the finer things in life, as well as squirreling a little of
(01:57):
her paycheck away each month forher daughter's college fund.
But sometimes terrible things happen to the most wonderful of
people, and on the night of June18th, 1982, something was about
to happen in the sleepy town of Bridgewater that would send
shock waves through the close knit community.
(02:18):
On the night in question, Kelly was working her usual night
shift at Harrisonburg's ImperialGas station on South Main
Street, Route 11. Kelly had gotten the job because
her three sisters had either worked there in the past or
we're still currently employed by Imperial.
The employer thought it would make the girls more accountable
(02:38):
for their work, and he was right.
Whenever one was sick or couldn't come into work, another
would always take her place. And on this night in particular,
Kelly was covering for one of her sisters for a little extra
college money for her young daughter.
Kelly's mom, Rachel, was also a very loving and attentive person
(03:00):
and would often call the gas station whenever one of her
daughter's was working to check if they needed any food or hot
coffee brought over to help themthrough their shift.
When Rachel spoke to Kelly that night, nothing seems to be a
miss to her. It was just another average
night at a mostly quiet gas station in rural Virginia.
(03:21):
But little did she know, this would be the last time she would
ever talk to her daughter, as the evening's events were about
to take a rather dark and terrifying turn.
At around 2:30 in the morning, long after Kelly's mom had
retired to bed, Kelly apparentlycalled the Harrisonburg police.
(03:43):
The call was to inform them thatshe had been aggressively
harassed by a guy she had described as improperly dressed.
It seems Kelly was far too polite to describe what this
male customer actually did in any kind of detail, but it's
safe to assume that the implied meaning was that he had exposed
himself to her. Just a few minutes after this
(04:05):
first call, Kelly called again, this time pleading with the
dispatcher for a patrol unit to be sent to the gas station.
The same man that had apparentlyexposed himself was calling the
station to make obscene threats,and it seems that Kelly was
growing anxious as she believed he was willing to follow through
(04:26):
with them. The dispatcher promised to get a
unit out to her as soon as possible and that she should
hang tight. However, just moments after the
second call ended, Kelly called 911 yet again, only this time
she was in a complete panic. With a voice that was dripping
with fear, she demanded to know how far away the responding
(04:49):
police officers were, as the same deranged customer had
apparently returned and was sitting in a silver or Gray Ford
that was parked in the gas station's forecourt.
The last thing the 911 dispatcher heard was Kelly
screaming that the man had just gotten out of the vehicle and
was heading towards the gas station's main building.
(05:12):
She then slammed the phone down,apparently preparing to defend
herself. The cops rushed over to the
Imperial gas station, expecting to arrive to a violent assault
in progress. But to their bemusement, when
they arrived at the gas station,the place was as quiet as the
grave. They searched the entire site,
(05:34):
but Kelly was nowhere to be found.
All that remained was her purse.There were no signs of any kind
of violent struggle, no indications the store had been
robbed, but there were also no clues as to where Kelly was.
It was as if she simply vanishedinto thin air.
(05:56):
What's clear is that if the suspect was armed, he could have
forced Kelly into his vehicle injust a matter of seconds.
Kelly's family believe this to be the case, as they insist that
any attempt by an unarmed man tograb her and shove her into
their vehicle would have resulted in Kelly fighting back
vigorously. The police investigation that
(06:17):
followed LED officers to a nearby convenience store where a
clerk informed them that he had been visited by a man driving a
Gray vehicle about 1/2 an hour before Kelly's disappearance.
The clerk told them that the manwas aged between 20 to 25 years
old and had blonde shoulder length hair.
(06:37):
This might seem like an obvious lead, but the cops were unable
to track down this man, so no connection between him and
Kelly's apparent abduction couldever be made.
The police then interviewed Kelly's three sisters, who were
also employed by the gas station.
They were shocked to hear that the obscene kind of phone calls
(06:58):
that Kelly had received that night were commonplace, but that
no one had ever acted on them, believing them to be from some
harmless old pervert whose bark was louder than his bite.
They also didn't entirely believe that the man that had
harassed Kelly that night was the same person making the phone
calls, as there didn't seem to be anything overly threatening
(07:20):
about the lewd calls. While the driver of the silver
or Gray Ford was obviously aggressive enough to show up to
the gas station in person. Yet after news hit that one of
the gas station girls had apparently been abducted, the
phone calls seemed to stop entirely for a while, only
resuming around six weeks later when this apparently harmless
(07:43):
old perv called and made lewd comments to one of the gas
stations new hires. This could well be because
whoever was making the calls simply wasn't involved in the
abduction and didn't want to implicate themselves as a
suspect in such a violent and disturbing crime.
But it could also be because thesame person who made the calls
(08:04):
was satisfied with abducting Kelly and didn't feel the need
to make another call. Not until the same hunger
resurfaced in them around a month and 1/2 after the fact.
When local media outlets contacted Kelly's parents
regarding their daughter's disappearance, they gave a
rather shocking answer to some very probing questions.
(08:26):
When asked if they had any idea who might have kidnapped or
harmed their daughter, and if this person might be a member of
the local community, Kelly's parents unequivocally answered
in the affirmative. Although the police had asked
them not to publicly speak the man's name, they believed her
abductor had been someone Kelly had gone to high school with,
someone who had a long history of indecent exposure and making
(08:49):
obscene telephone calls. And, according to Kelly's
sister, also drove a silvery Gray Ford.
But surely if Kelly had known the man personally, even just by
association, she would have named him in one of the three
911 calls she made leading up toher abduction.
But it's also very possible thatthis person had either obscured
(09:12):
their face somehow, or Kelly hadsimply not recognized him, given
that they had both graduated some time ago.
There's also the possibility that Kelly was so terrified that
she just failed to mention the man by name during one of those
calls. Either way, the police obviously
found the possibility of this man being the culprit so
(09:34):
plausible that they asked Kelly's parents not to use his
name publicly. Yet despite this, he was never
charged with any crime, as therewas simply not enough evidence
to attempt any kind of conviction.
There were several other suspects in the case, and
authorities were sure to question all of them.
(09:55):
But at a time when CCTV cameras and DNA evidence were still just
technological pipe dreams, actually placing A suspect at
the scene that night was all butimpossible.
For all intents and purposes, the person who showed up at the
Imperial gas station that night is a ghost.
Someone who showed up, bundled Kelly Berg, dove into a vehicle
(10:19):
and then seemingly vanished themselves.
Barely a trace of either of themwas left behind, merely a purse
and a vehicle description. Far too little for the cops to
go on to secure a suspect, Kellyor her body.
Almost 40 years later, what happened that night remains
(10:42):
almost a total mystery, with Kelly being declared legally
deceased by local authorities despite her family pouring money
into private investigators to try and find out exactly what
happened, they are no closer to getting any solid answers as
they were almost 4 decades ago. The only truth we have of that
(11:03):
night is the terrifying reality that Kelly went to work that
night not suspecting a thing andended up encountering someone
that caused her to vanish from the face of the earth.
And that, horrifyingly enough, is something that could happen
to each and every one of us. I grew up in an extremely small
(11:33):
rural town in Florida on a farm.The population of our town was
less than 1000 people. The closest city, Gainesville,
FL was about an hour away. The nights were pitch black dark
because there were no St. lightsor light pollution like in the
city except for the light of a million stars.
(11:55):
My great grandfather passed awaywhen I was about 8 years old,
leaving my granny heartbroken. We lived a field away from my
great grandmother who was about 75 at the time.
Unfortunately, Granny had already started getting early
Alzheimer's and sometimes didn'tact like herself.
The family besides me decided that it would be best if I moved
(12:18):
in with her so that she didn't have to be alone in the evenings
and at night. Granny lived in an old farmhouse
that she had helped build by hand with my granddaddy in the
1930's. The house was constructed of
wood with a tin roof. We did have electricity at this
time, but no air conditioner or telephone.
(12:40):
The front door was wood and the top half of the door was a glass
window pane with a small decorative curtain across the
very top, the kind you might seeon a kitchen window.
Needless to say, anyone could see inside the house as clearly
as we could see them. The door lock was the original
one made by my granddaddy. It wasn't really a lock at all.
(13:03):
It was a piece of wood nailed tothe frame that you turned
horizontally when you closed thedoor, meant to keep someone from
pushing the door open. I slept in the room with my
granny. Our bedroom was at the very
front of the house, right next to the front door, and my bed
was pushed directly up to the window that looked out over the
(13:24):
front porch and yard. I always felt safe because my
family and aunts and uncles lived in the adjacent farms all
around us. In 1990, that all changed.
I was 10 years old. By now, Granny was getting more
forgetful, sometimes wandering around the house at night.
(13:45):
In the nearby city, something awful had occurred.
A man had broken into apartmentsof several college students in
Gainesville, murdered them, and done horrible things to their
bodies. There were no suspects.
The police called him the Gainesville Ripper.
Rumors spread through the community like wildfire.
(14:08):
Some said the killer was dressing up like a cable man or
electric man to get people to let him in their door.
Fear and anxiety grew daily as the police had no leads.
My dad decided it was time to teach me how to use our family
weapon just in case. Dad took me out in the woods and
I practiced. That night I fell asleep with
(14:31):
the weapon beside the head of mybed with clear instructions to
not open the door for anyone we didn't know.
As a 10 year old, I felt like this was a pretty big
responsibility and my anxiety kept me from sleeping much.
Those next few nights. They reassured me that I would
never have to use the weapon, but better to be safe than
(14:52):
sorry. Until the next night, which was
the most terrifying night of my life up until this point.
I was laying in bed looking at the digital clock on Granny's
dresser, three O 5:00 AM in bright red digits.
Granny had gotten up to wander around the kitchen.
(15:13):
She did this often and I just let her do what she thought she
needed to do. I heard a tap on the front door
window pane. I listened intently, and then
silence. Suddenly the porch light flipped
on, illuminating through my little window.
What was Granny doing? I scurried out of bed to the
(15:36):
front door just in time to reachfor Granny's hand as she was
trying to turn the piece of wood, keeping the door locked at
the same time. I looked out the window, my eyes
meeting the eyes of a strange man standing there.
The porch light was behind him and I couldn't see his face very
well, but his hair was long and unkempt.
(15:57):
I did not know him. He jiggled the handle and pushed
hard on the door with all his weight.
I was terrified and I excitedly screamed at Granny, asking what
she was doing. She told me Granddaddy was at
the door. She sometimes thought Granddaddy
was still alive. There was no convincing her it
(16:17):
wasn't him. With the man pushing furiously
against the door, I had to drag Granny with both hands into the
bedroom so I could reach the weapon.
Without giving her a chance to open the door, I grabbed the
weapon and ran into the living room, aiming directly at the
front door, my finger on the trigger.
The stranger was gone. I had no telephone to call for
(16:40):
help. We were trapped.
I sat in the recliner by the front door, staring out into the
darkness beyond the porch light with weapon in hand for the rest
of the night, unable to swallow,shaking so hard I could barely
aim the weapon, I waited for theman to return to try one of the
(17:00):
flimsy windows or the back door.Every moving shadow, distant dog
bark, bump in the night or snap of a twig had my heart racing
and blood rushing through my ears.
The wind would blow and make thescreen door creak open and fall
shut with a bang. It was torture.
(17:22):
My arms ached from holding the weapon, my nightgown was soaked
with sweat, and I was on the verge of bursting into soul
wrenching sobs. But I had a job to do guarding
us from the Ripper. Oblivious Granny tottered around
the kitchen getting ready to make breakfast because
Granddaddy would be wanting his coffee soon.
(17:45):
I didn't argue or care what she did as long as she stayed away
from that front door. I never saw another glimpse of
the stranger, but I felt like hewas out there watching us.
After staying wide awake all night, terrified, holding vigil,
I made sure Granny was back to sleep, slipped out the back door
(18:07):
and ran straight across the hay fields, home to Mom and Dad for
help once the sun came up in themorning.
The police eventually caught theGainesville Ripper and it was
not the same man I saw at our front door that night.
My family hired an elderly lady to stay with Granny and I moved
home permanently. To this day I don't know who was
(18:30):
at the door on that pitch black night, but I still panic looking
out of windows at night into thedarkness.
So this story takes place in thewinter last year.
(18:50):
I work as a chef in a hotel based in the UK and as the hotel
is in the middle of nowhere theyare able to provide staff
accommodation. We also get a lot of people from
abroad come and work here for work experience as most of the
staff are quite young who live in accommodation.
This of course means quite a lotof partying.
(19:13):
One night me and my friend AJ are finishing a long shift and
decide to have a few quiet beersand not attend any of the
parties. We go to my room and start
chatting about the day's events and the conversation after a few
beers, moves on to the paranormal and what we both have
experienced. AJ is from Mexico and he starts
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telling me about stories from his hometown.
I find out that he used to be quite the urban explorer,
visiting abandoned locations anddocumenting them.
That's when he tells me about Randonautica.
For those of you that don't know, Randonautica is basically
an app that asks for your GPS data and sends you a location
(19:55):
using randomly generated nearby coordinates.
Little did I know at this point.That there had been some true
horror stories by people who have used this app.
I really wouldn't advise it, especially at night.
As we were a few beers down at this point and AJ already had
the app downloaded. We decided it would be fun to go
(20:17):
for a walk and see what was at the location selected by
Randonautica. It asked us to think about what
our purpose was, for example, find something scary or
something unexpected. As it was nearing 2:00 AM, of
course we went with something scary.
It popped up with three nearby locations.
(20:40):
As neither of us had a car, we decided to take the one that was
closest. As I said before, we live in a
hotel in the middle of nowhere, surrounded only by woodland and
fields, so this meant that we would be walking along back
roads in the pitch black with only our phone torches as light.
As we started walking, everything seems to be
(21:02):
amplified, the wind whistling through the trees, the animals
rustling in the hedgerows. We walked down a hill near the
hotel and towards the bottom we could see traffic lights
illuminating the path ahead. We were talking and feeling
positive, maybe a bit merry fromthe beers we had before.
(21:22):
Nevertheless we were getting closer to the location and I
started to feel a bit on edge. We crossed into some fields and
this is where things started to get weird.
Our path was blocked off by somegates.
The gates were padlocked shut but they were small enough to
climb over. The location was past the gates,
(21:44):
through the field and off to theleft hand side.
I looked at AJ and suggested we head back, but we both came to
the mutual agreement that we hadcome too far to just turn and
walk away. We both jumped over the gate and
started walking through the muddy field.
Now it was really dark, the moonhad gone behind some clouds and
(22:07):
it seemed to get colder. It was nearing 3:00 AM.
We both pointed our torches in the way the app was telling us
to go and suddenly we could see what looked like an old storage
container just sat there in the middle of the field.
Is that it? I asked.
No, said AJ, it's over in that direction, and pointed to his
(22:31):
left. We both continue to walk towards
the storage container, though don't ask me why, I think it was
just out of curiosity. We both stopped at exactly the
same time. Our torch lights lit up the
front of the container. There someone had spray painted
a clown. A sinister looking clown.
(22:53):
I was frozen. If we had stumbled across this
during the day it would have been scary enough, let alone at
3:00 in the morning When we werewalking towards the unknown.
AJ broke the silence by letting out a nervous laugh.
It's just a clown, bro. I just looked at him.
(23:14):
Yeah mate, it's just a clown spray painted on a random
storage container in a random field with no one around for
miles. After a few seconds he said
let's keep walking. At this point the hair on the
back of my neck was standing on end.
Something really didn't feel right.
(23:35):
I'm not actually scared of clowns, it's just I really
didn't expect to see that and something was off.
It's just over there bro, he said, pointing at a tree line.
Absolutely not, I thought to myself, not a chance.
Am I walking up to those trees? It was the start of a vast
(23:57):
forest that ended at the hotel nearly 2 miles away.
I am not running through the forest and getting lost if
there's something out there waiting for us, I said in a
shaky voice. Again, we both came to an
agreement not to turn back. We edged closer towards the
forest until we could see a little opening.
(24:19):
It's in there, he said. I looked and started walking
faster towards it. I didn't want this to be drawn
out any more than it had to be. Something stopped me in my
tracks. My blood ran cold.
We were on the tree line at thispoint, and through the trees I
saw a light. Someone or something else was
(24:43):
there. I knew where that light was.
It was in the pinpointed location.
I turned for what only could have been a split second to tell
AJ we were in danger when we heard it.
Twigs and branches breaking. Whatever it was, it was moving
closer. I looked back, even though I
(25:04):
knew I shouldn't have, and a tall black figure was standing
in between two large oaks. I didn't get a better look.
I couldn't. My legs just geared up and I
ran. I ran without looking back.
Me and AJ were sprinting now, faster than we ever had before.
(25:24):
We didn't even know what direction we were heading in.
We didn't know how far we ran until we saw that illuminating
glow of the traffic lights. We both slowed down, panting and
spluttering. It felt like my throat was
bleeding as the cold night air hit my face while running and
through gasping breaths had cut my windpipes like glass.
(25:47):
We looked around and couldn't see anything.
I think we're in the clear. AJ said through staggering
breaths. We walked quickly up the hill
towards the hotel. I have never been so happy to
see the lights in my entire life.
This is a warning. Never download Randa Nautica and
(26:09):
if you ever do, only use it in the day.
Later, it came to my attention that people have gone to
locations only to find dead bodies, and some people say it's
associated with the dark web. I don't know what that thing was
or who they were. I guess I never will.
(26:30):
What makes this story more scary?
I don't think it was paranormal.I think it was a human lurking
in the trees waiting for us. Hi, my name is Lindsay.
I'm a 19 year old female living in Pennsylvania with my parents
(26:53):
and two of my sisters. We live in a pretty rural area
and there isn't much that goes on out here.
I listen to your stories every morning at work and always
wished I had a scary story of myown to share.
Well tonight I got my scary story.
To preface this story a bit, me and my older sister have only
(27:14):
been hiking one time before thisexperience so we are by no means
pros. We do however always bring some
items for safety such as pocket knives, flashlights, and the
medical kits. For this story I will not use my
sisters names for the sake of their anonymity.
My older sister will be called Mand my younger sister will be
(27:37):
referred to as F. So today is F's birthday and she
has never been hiking before andwe figured we would bring her on
a little hiking trip to take advantage of the beautiful
weather. The area we hiked at prior is
actually part of the state game Lands.
Hikers are permitted on the mountain trails during the
offseason of hunting. However, not many folks know
(27:59):
about this spot because there are no signs or anything until
you walk the mile or so into thewoods.
By then you reach a small parking lot of sorts, which is
always empty. There are two main trails that
are marked with the occasional blue dot on a nearby tree.
If not for these spray paint dots to mark the path, you might
(28:20):
not even know it is a trail because of how little use these
paths see. Probably not the best first
hiking spot for a couple of newbies like us, I know, but
it's super close to us and makesfor a quiet hike with lots of
scenery. So we decided to once again hike
that trail because we were somewhat familiar with it.
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We were decently excited and ready to have a nice relaxing
hike through the mountain and hopefully get some cool
pictures. We started walking from our
house all the way to the bottom of the mountain where we would
begin our hike. On our way there, we were
telling F about the trail and how beautiful it was.
M then expresses concern that there could be animals of all
(29:04):
sorts nearby. Because the area isn't normally
frequented by many humans. I figured there would be
animals, of course. It is the woods after all.
But I never imagined anything like what I'm about to describe
in this story. After walking for about 15
minutes, we reached the parking lot.
(29:25):
M led the way, with me in the middle and F following closely
behind. The first couple of steps onto
the trail require you to walk upa small but steep hill.
M crested the hill before F and I, and as she did, we heard a
pretty loud rustling noise off to our left.
I naturally chalked the noise upto some birds or maybe a
(29:48):
squirrel messing around in the tree, but then M suddenly
stopped in her tracks, causing Fand I to also pause briefly.
Just as I was about to ask what the problem was, M calmly said.
Turn around guys. Me and F just looked at her
confused, not understanding whatshe meant.
(30:11):
I just started asking why and she said probably the scariest
thing I have ever heard. There is someone over there.
Run. Now that sentence was a lot more
scary to me and F because we know M very well and she doesn't
scare easily, so to hear the clear panic in her voice as she
(30:33):
ordered us to run away from something that neither F or I
saw was terrifying. M&F immediately started
sprinting back down the small hill as I was still standing in
my place. I quickly looked behind me, but
I saw nothing. I did hear something though I
(30:54):
was still very confused because I hadn't actually seen anything
and M never saw what she saw. I ran over to M&F who are
waiting for me just before the entrance to the parking lot.
I think part of the reason I hesitated running right away was
because I thought M might be exaggerating a little.
(31:14):
I should have known by the look on her face that she was not
messing around. I had a miniature hatchet, multi
tool and a pocket knife on my belt and you better believe I
had them at the ready. I had no idea what I was
expecting, but I knew that whatever might run out of those
woods behind us was going to geta full face of stainless steel.
(31:37):
When I reached my sister's I asked em what exactly we were
running from. She just told us to keep moving
as she constantly looked back atthe trail we had just come from.
She even told us to jog just in case it was following us.
We did. After maybe jogging 1/4 mile or
so, M finally told us what we were running from.
(32:00):
She said she looked in the direction of the noise we had
all heard and what she saw was aGray figure hunched over about
10 feet off the trail. She described it as being at
least the height of F, who is around 5-6.
She said it looked to be bipedal, but she didn't stick
around long enough to take in every detail about the figure.
(32:22):
However, she did note that it looked as if it was shuffling
towards us. I believe that's what made her
get us out of there so fast. She must have feared that we
were being chased. Now, I never have believed in
monsters of cryptids or anything, but M said she
honestly has no idea what the thing was.
(32:44):
We don't have any type of animalin Pennsylvania that matches
that description, at least as far as I know.
I know that black bears stand ontheir hind legs sometimes, but
they are not Gray and it didn't sound big enough to be a bear.
The only other thing it might have been is a human.
But why would someone hear us obviously distressed and not
(33:07):
call out to let us know they were there and were not a
threat? Unless the person was not there
as a friendly hiker, possibly a person living on the mountain,
maybe someone doing drugs and we're afraid they would get
busted, I don't know. That seems to be the only
logical explanation, but I'm notfully convinced it was a person.
(33:33):
I don't believe in Bigfoot or anything else like that, but who
knows. By the time we were almost home,
M told us that she used to go tothe bus stop with two of the
neighbor kids years ago. She said they would always talk
about a mystery animal that theywould see walking around in the
woods near their house, which isvery close to the state game
(33:54):
lands. At first she didn't believe them
because she had never seen such a thing.
But one time when the neighbor kids grandmother was with them
at the bus stop, M asked about this mystery animal.
The grandmother is and has always been a religious person
and didn't seem to be the type of person to believe in
something like her grandkids hadexplained.
(34:17):
But to M's surprise, the grandmother said she also
witnessed the mystery animal lurking around.
What's more is our houses just across the lawn from where our
neighbors claimed to spot this unknown creature.
I am not sure if these two experiences are related besides
that was years ago, but could the figure M encountered in the
(34:40):
woods tonight be the mystery animal?
Maybe it was a human, maybe it was an animal, who knows for
sure. But what I do know is I don't
think we'll be hiking on that state game lens again anytime
soon. Back in the late 70s I was a
(35:11):
little girl around 7 or 8 years old.
I loved spending time out on my uncle's farm as I found it to be
a source of stability in my life.
My mom couldn't sit still as my grandma would say.
We moved all the time, 12 times just in one year alone.
(35:32):
My uncle worked a full time job and had to run his farm so when
Drifters would come by he would offer a place to stay and good
home cooking courtesy of my aunt, in exchange for an extra
helping hand around the farm. One Saturday after a long day of
work, my uncle took one of thesefarm hands out for dinner to the
(35:52):
local restaurant, which was alsothe bar, gas station and market.
He lived in a tiny village with the only other establishment
being a church at that time. My uncle returned home without
his farm hand, we'll call him Tom, moving forward, stating
that he had stayed behind at thebar to hang out with the other
(36:12):
patrons. Later that night, my cousin Rick
came home and had decided to sleep on the couch in the living
room instead of risking waking my aunt and uncle as he tried to
sneak to his bedroom. You see, Rick was only about 15
or 16 if I remember correctly, and had gotten home way past his
curfew. He had only been laying down for
(36:33):
about 30 minutes or so when the front door opened.
It was Tom and he was covered inblood.
Now, my cousin knew that Tom wasa farmhand and could possibly
have been butchering an animal, but he couldn't understand why
he'd be doing that at this time.All he knew is that something
(36:54):
told him to keep his eyes closedand pretend to be sleeping.
So we did. Tom stood there for an unusually
long amount of time, just staring at him before he finally
walked away. Rick could then hear what
sounded like the washing machinestart up, then the shower
turning on. He recalls thinking the entire
(37:16):
situation was odd, but did eventually manage to fall
asleep. The next day started out like
any other until my aunt returnedhome from church.
She had to deliver the terrible news to my uncle that his
lifelong friends that owned the local restaurant, bar, market,
et cetera, had been brutally hacked to death the night before
(37:39):
with an axe. They were a husband and wife
that had their home attached to their business.
Upon hearing the news, my cousinRick thought back to Tom coming
in that night covered in blood. He took my aunt aside to tell
her what he had witnessed and tosee if maybe Tom would have been
working that late. But of course the answer was no.
(38:03):
She called the Sheriff's Office who came out right away.
Luckily some blood was left on the washing machine and even
though DNA evidence was nothing back then like it is today, they
were still able to trace the blood to one of the victims.
The thing that scares me the most about this is that it came
out in court that Tom had statedto the sheriff that when he
(38:25):
returns to my uncle's home that night, if anyone had been awake
he was going to kill them all and now wishes that he had.
You see, I was sleeping on the couch opposite of my cousin that
night. My mom never let me spend the
night again. I was around 17 when this
(38:58):
incident happened. I was in junior college and had
rented out a tiny apartment in astand alone building.
This building was right behind aconstruction site, meaning that
not many people were around thisplace, especially in the night.
For context, I was living with another girl, let's call her
(39:18):
Nancy, who is completing her education too.
One day, I had to go attend a friend's birthday party.
There were about 12 people that attended the party that evening.
I didn't expect it to be late bythe time I'd get back home, so I
did not see it as a problem thatmy friend wouldn't be able to
accommodate me in case somethingwere to go wrong.
(39:41):
However, things did not go as I had planned.
Being young and stupid, I gave in to my friend's request to
stay at the party until late that night.
This meant that I would be on myown when I was to go back home
since there simply was no space for me in my friend's tiny
apartment, especially not when she had five more people staying
(40:04):
over that night. To avoid going back alone, I
brought two of my companions fora sleepover, Sandra and Kathya.
Our Uber dropped us off in frontof the construction site.
Since that night, the conditionswere less than ideal to drive to
the building I lived in. The workers had just been
careless and left piles of concrete in the way.
(40:27):
We were left with no choice but to cross the construction site
to get home. I remember how Sondra kept
saying that she was a little apprehensive and she should have
taken her pepper spray along with her.
I tried to act brave but honestly was a little scared.
Katia, on the other hand, was carefree and we followed her
(40:48):
lead. We were walking through the
construction site when we saw something that took us aback.
We saw a bizarre flickering, blazing light coming from one of
underneath the construction buildings.
It was really odd as there was no chance that it was a
construction worker. At 2:30 AM in the middle of the
(41:09):
night, before we had time to register what was going on, we
heard something that made our hearts stop for a moment.
It was a shrill, frantic cry of a woman coming from the same
building. Judging by the sound of her
voice, she was in excruciating pain.
What happens next gives me nightmares to this day.
(41:32):
We saw someone falling from the building literally meters away
from us, causing an earth shattering thud.
Sandra almost yelled in terror, but Katya was able to quickly
grab her mouth to make the soundfade.
Thinking on her feet, she grabbed us both by the arm and
pulled us behind 1/2 constructedwall of another building just to
(41:55):
be sure that no one could see us.
We stayed behind this wall for what seemed like forever.
Suddenly we saw someone wearing a bright yellow jacket exiting
the building with a gas cutter in his right hand and an
amputated arm in the left. We couldn't see his face because
the place was not well lit and it was almost pitch black there.
(42:20):
Honestly, considering the absolute horror that we were in,
that was the last thing that would cross our minds.
After another eternity of makingsure that we were now safe, we
made it back home. Still trembling with fear, we
called 911. The police came and
(42:40):
investigated. After a few days, we learned
that it was a homeless woman whowas murdered brutally that
night. Her arm was cut off with a
gaslighter and she was pushed out of the fifth story and left
to bleed and die. However, to this day, after
several failed attempts, investigators have no clue as to
(43:04):
who the murderer was. This happened to me when I was
around 10 or 11 years old, back in the early 1990s.
Every summer when I was a child,my mother would send me and my
(43:25):
younger brother to stay with ourcousins in Mexico.
It was always a great time. We would spend countless hours
playing, going to the beach, eating delicious food and
renting movies. We would normally all sleep in
the same room, but on this particular night an argument
ensued between me and my cousinsand they kicked me out of the
(43:47):
room. Me, also displeased with them,
was just fine with that and decided to sleep in the living
room while everyone else slept in their respective rooms.
I went to bed around 10:30 PM or11:00.
I managed to fall asleep within minutes sometime during the
night. I do not know the exact time,
(44:10):
maybe around 2:00 or 3:00 AM I heard someone knocking on the
back door which led to a backroom which was used for
storage. That part of the house was under
construction and a construction crew was coming every day to
work on that room and they were supposed to build a wall and
close that room up which at the moment was open and anyone could
(44:32):
have access to it. Now I heard the knocks followed
by pleadings saying in Spanish, Miss, please open, please open
please. Like I said, I was sleeping in
the living room which was located in the front area of the
(44:52):
house and the knocks were comingfrom a room that was all the way
down the hall. On both sides of the hall were
different rooms, which is where my aunt and uncle slept and my
cousins. I was concerned about the
pleadings and wondered if that man needed help, but I was also
perplexed about the fact that noone else seems to hear what I
(45:13):
was hearing. I actually mustered the courage
to get up and investigate, made my way down the hall and
actually attempted to open the door.
I twisted the handle several times and the door would not
open. All the while this man continued
to plead for someone to open thedoor.
I even attempted to talk to him and said hello Sir, do you need
(45:37):
help, but he did not respond. I've just continued to plead for
someone to open the door. As I was unable to open the door
and also becoming a little frightened, I decided to run
back to the sofa bed and get under the covers.
Not long after that I passed out.
The next morning everyone was up, Auntie was cooking breakfast
(46:01):
and my cousins were no longer mad at me.
I was ready to tell them about my experience the night before
while we all gathered to sit at the table, but decided to wait
and see if anyone else would mention anything about it.
And big surprise, no one did. It seems I was the only one who
heard that man and the Knox. Summer came to an end and I was
(46:27):
getting ready to say goodbye to my cousins.
I was getting ready to have one more ball game with my cousins.
The construction crew had also finished the construction of the
house and they were sitting chitchatting and drinking beers.
My cousin kicked the ball a little too hard and it went
long. One of the construction men saw
(46:48):
the ball coming and picked it upand made his way to me.
As I ran towards him he said here's your ball.
I said thank you as I grabbed the ball from him and then he
asked why didn't you open the door for me little girl?
I bolted back to my cousins. My mother picked me and my
(47:10):
brother up shortly after that. I continued to go back there a
couple more times for the summer, but thankfully I never
saw that man again. Yeah.
(52:16):
Yeah. Yeah.
(01:06:01):
Yeah. Yeah.
Hey, this is Dane and this is Scary Stories and Rain.
Please join my family and followthis podcast on Spotify or
Apple. And if you want the ultimate
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win all of my giveaways every month by subscribing for just
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single giveaway automatically entered.
(00:22):
And starting now, today, every Sunday, I'm going to release the
ultimate episode 6 to 12 hours long Ultimate Scary Stories for
a rainy night. Subscriber exclusive.
And as a reminder, we are now four months away from my first
movie release in theaters, Gale Yellow Brick Road, a dark and
terrifying reimagining of The Wizard of Oz.
(00:45):
If you want to check out the first trailer, click the link in
the description to this episode.And if you're not following my
other two podcasts, please go check them out, Scary Stories
and Fire and Scary Stories AfterDark.
The links are in the description.
Thank you so much for being hereand I really hope you enjoy this
episode. 20 year old Kelly Berg Dove lived with her four year
(01:13):
old daughter in Bridgewater, VA.She was a popular young woman.
Not a single soul in all of Bridgewater seemed to have a bad
word to say about her, least of all her loving husband, who
she'd been romantically involvedwith since they were both high
school sophomores. She also made a point of keeping
in touch with her mother and sisters almost every single day.
(01:36):
All in all, Kelly was about as wholesome a person as you're
ever likely to find, and even found the time to work night
shifts at a local gas station tohelp support her family.
They weren't exactly strapped for cash, but Kelly valued the
idea of making a contribution that would allow them a taste of
the finer things in life, as well as squirreling a little of
(01:57):
her paycheck away each month forher daughter's college fund.
But sometimes terrible things happen to the most wonderful of
people, and on the night of June18th, 1982, something was about
to happen in the sleepy town of Bridgewater that would send
shock waves through the close knit community.
(02:18):
On the night in question, Kelly was working her usual night
shift at Harrisonburg's ImperialGas station on South Main
Street, Route 11. Kelly had gotten the job because
her three sisters had either worked there in the past or
we're still currently employed by Imperial.
The employer thought it would make the girls more accountable
(02:38):
for their work, and he was right.
Whenever one was sick or couldn't come into work, another
would always take her place. And on this night in particular,
Kelly was covering for one of her sisters for a little extra
college money for her young daughter.
Kelly's mom, Rachel, was also a very loving and attentive person
(03:00):
and would often call the gas station whenever one of her
daughter's was working to check if they needed any food or hot
coffee brought over to help themthrough their shift.
When Rachel spoke to Kelly that night, nothing seems to be a
miss to her. It was just another average
night at a mostly quiet gas station in rural Virginia.
(03:21):
But little did she know, this would be the last time she would
ever talk to her daughter, as the evening's events were about
to take a rather dark and terrifying turn.
At around 2:30 in the morning, long after Kelly's mom had
retired to bed, Kelly apparentlycalled the Harrisonburg police.
(03:43):
The call was to inform them thatshe had been aggressively
harassed by a guy she had described as improperly dressed.
It seems Kelly was far too polite to describe what this
male customer actually did in any kind of detail, but it's
safe to assume that the implied meaning was that he had exposed
himself to her. Just a few minutes after this
(04:05):
first call, Kelly called again, this time pleading with the
dispatcher for a patrol unit to be sent to the gas station.
The same man that had apparentlyexposed himself was calling the
station to make obscene threats,and it seems that Kelly was
growing anxious as she believed he was willing to follow through
(04:26):
with them. The dispatcher promised to get a
unit out to her as soon as possible and that she should
hang tight. However, just moments after the
second call ended, Kelly called 911 yet again, only this time
she was in a complete panic. With a voice that was dripping
with fear, she demanded to know how far away the responding
(04:49):
police officers were, as the same deranged customer had
apparently returned and was sitting in a silver or Gray Ford
that was parked in the gas station's forecourt.
The last thing the 911 dispatcher heard was Kelly
screaming that the man had just gotten out of the vehicle and
was heading towards the gas station's main building.
(05:12):
She then slammed the phone down,apparently preparing to defend
herself. The cops rushed over to the
Imperial gas station, expecting to arrive to a violent assault
in progress. But to their bemusement, when
they arrived at the gas station,the place was as quiet as the
grave. They searched the entire site,
(05:34):
but Kelly was nowhere to be found.
All that remained was her purse.There were no signs of any kind
of violent struggle, no indications the store had been
robbed, but there were also no clues as to where Kelly was.
It was as if she simply vanishedinto thin air.
(05:56):
What's clear is that if the suspect was armed, he could have
forced Kelly into his vehicle injust a matter of seconds.
Kelly's family believe this to be the case, as they insist that
any attempt by an unarmed man tograb her and shove her into
their vehicle would have resulted in Kelly fighting back
vigorously. The police investigation that
(06:17):
followed LED officers to a nearby convenience store where a
clerk informed them that he had been visited by a man driving a
Gray vehicle about 1/2 an hour before Kelly's disappearance.
The clerk told them that the manwas aged between 20 to 25 years
old and had blonde shoulder length hair.
(06:37):
This might seem like an obvious lead, but the cops were unable
to track down this man, so no connection between him and
Kelly's apparent abduction couldever be made.
The police then interviewed Kelly's three sisters, who were
also employed by the gas station.
They were shocked to hear that the obscene kind of phone calls
(06:58):
that Kelly had received that night were commonplace, but that
no one had ever acted on them, believing them to be from some
harmless old pervert whose bark was louder than his bite.
They also didn't entirely believe that the man that had
harassed Kelly that night was the same person making the phone
calls, as there didn't seem to be anything overly threatening
(07:20):
about the lewd calls. While the driver of the silver
or Gray Ford was obviously aggressive enough to show up to
the gas station in person. Yet after news hit that one of
the gas station girls had apparently been abducted, the
phone calls seemed to stop entirely for a while, only
resuming around six weeks later when this apparently harmless
(07:43):
old perv called and made lewd comments to one of the gas
stations new hires. This could well be because
whoever was making the calls simply wasn't involved in the
abduction and didn't want to implicate themselves as a
suspect in such a violent and disturbing crime.
But it could also be because thesame person who made the calls
(08:04):
was satisfied with abducting Kelly and didn't feel the need
to make another call. Not until the same hunger
resurfaced in them around a month and 1/2 after the fact.
When local media outlets contacted Kelly's parents
regarding their daughter's disappearance, they gave a
rather shocking answer to some very probing questions.
(08:26):
When asked if they had any idea who might have kidnapped or
harmed their daughter, and if this person might be a member of
the local community, Kelly's parents unequivocally answered
in the affirmative. Although the police had asked
them not to publicly speak the man's name, they believed her
abductor had been someone Kelly had gone to high school with,
someone who had a long history of indecent exposure and making
(08:49):
obscene telephone calls. And, according to Kelly's
sister, also drove a silvery Gray Ford.
But surely if Kelly had known the man personally, even just by
association, she would have named him in one of the three
911 calls she made leading up toher abduction.
But it's also very possible thatthis person had either obscured
(09:12):
their face somehow, or Kelly hadsimply not recognized him, given
that they had both graduated some time ago.
There's also the possibility that Kelly was so terrified that
she just failed to mention the man by name during one of those
calls. Either way, the police obviously
found the possibility of this man being the culprit so
(09:34):
plausible that they asked Kelly's parents not to use his
name publicly. Yet despite this, he was never
charged with any crime, as therewas simply not enough evidence
to attempt any kind of conviction.
There were several other suspects in the case, and
authorities were sure to question all of them.
(09:55):
But at a time when CCTV cameras and DNA evidence were still just
technological pipe dreams, actually placing A suspect at
the scene that night was all butimpossible.
For all intents and purposes, the person who showed up at the
Imperial gas station that night is a ghost.
Someone who showed up, bundled Kelly Berg, dove into a vehicle
(10:19):
and then seemingly vanished themselves.
Barely a trace of either of themwas left behind, merely a purse
and a vehicle description. Far too little for the cops to
go on to secure a suspect, Kellyor her body.
Almost 40 years later, what happened that night remains
(10:42):
almost a total mystery, with Kelly being declared legally
deceased by local authorities despite her family pouring money
into private investigators to try and find out exactly what
happened, they are no closer to getting any solid answers as
they were almost 4 decades ago. The only truth we have of that
(11:03):
night is the terrifying reality that Kelly went to work that
night not suspecting a thing andended up encountering someone
that caused her to vanish from the face of the earth.
And that, horrifyingly enough, is something that could happen
to each and every one of us. I grew up in an extremely small
(11:33):
rural town in Florida on a farm.The population of our town was
less than 1000 people. The closest city, Gainesville,
FL was about an hour away. The nights were pitch black dark
because there were no St. lightsor light pollution like in the
city except for the light of a million stars.
(11:55):
My great grandfather passed awaywhen I was about 8 years old,
leaving my granny heartbroken. We lived a field away from my
great grandmother who was about 75 at the time.
Unfortunately, Granny had already started getting early
Alzheimer's and sometimes didn'tact like herself.
The family besides me decided that it would be best if I moved
(12:18):
in with her so that she didn't have to be alone in the evenings
and at night. Granny lived in an old farmhouse
that she had helped build by hand with my granddaddy in the
1930's. The house was constructed of
wood with a tin roof. We did have electricity at this
time, but no air conditioner or telephone.
(12:40):
The front door was wood and the top half of the door was a glass
window pane with a small decorative curtain across the
very top, the kind you might seeon a kitchen window.
Needless to say, anyone could see inside the house as clearly
as we could see them. The door lock was the original
one made by my granddaddy. It wasn't really a lock at all.
(13:03):
It was a piece of wood nailed tothe frame that you turned
horizontally when you closed thedoor, meant to keep someone from
pushing the door open. I slept in the room with my
granny. Our bedroom was at the very
front of the house, right next to the front door, and my bed
was pushed directly up to the window that looked out over the
(13:24):
front porch and yard. I always felt safe because my
family and aunts and uncles lived in the adjacent farms all
around us. In 1990, that all changed.
I was 10 years old. By now, Granny was getting more
forgetful, sometimes wandering around the house at night.
(13:45):
In the nearby city, something awful had occurred.
A man had broken into apartmentsof several college students in
Gainesville, murdered them, and done horrible things to their
bodies. There were no suspects.
The police called him the Gainesville Ripper.
Rumors spread through the community like wildfire.
(14:08):
Some said the killer was dressing up like a cable man or
electric man to get people to let him in their door.
Fear and anxiety grew daily as the police had no leads.
My dad decided it was time to teach me how to use our family
weapon just in case. Dad took me out in the woods and
I practiced. That night I fell asleep with
(14:31):
the weapon beside the head of mybed with clear instructions to
not open the door for anyone we didn't know.
As a 10 year old, I felt like this was a pretty big
responsibility and my anxiety kept me from sleeping much.
Those next few nights. They reassured me that I would
never have to use the weapon, but better to be safe than
(14:52):
sorry. Until the next night, which was
the most terrifying night of my life up until this point.
I was laying in bed looking at the digital clock on Granny's
dresser, three O 5:00 AM in bright red digits.
Granny had gotten up to wander around the kitchen.
(15:13):
She did this often and I just let her do what she thought she
needed to do. I heard a tap on the front door
window pane. I listened intently, and then
silence. Suddenly the porch light flipped
on, illuminating through my little window.
What was Granny doing? I scurried out of bed to the
(15:36):
front door just in time to reachfor Granny's hand as she was
trying to turn the piece of wood, keeping the door locked at
the same time. I looked out the window, my eyes
meeting the eyes of a strange man standing there.
The porch light was behind him and I couldn't see his face very
well, but his hair was long and unkempt.
(15:57):
I did not know him. He jiggled the handle and pushed
hard on the door with all his weight.
I was terrified and I excitedly screamed at Granny, asking what
she was doing. She told me Granddaddy was at
the door. She sometimes thought Granddaddy
was still alive. There was no convincing her it
(16:17):
wasn't him. With the man pushing furiously
against the door, I had to drag Granny with both hands into the
bedroom so I could reach the weapon.
Without giving her a chance to open the door, I grabbed the
weapon and ran into the living room, aiming directly at the
front door, my finger on the trigger.
The stranger was gone. I had no telephone to call for
(16:40):
help. We were trapped.
I sat in the recliner by the front door, staring out into the
darkness beyond the porch light with weapon in hand for the rest
of the night, unable to swallow,shaking so hard I could barely
aim the weapon, I waited for theman to return to try one of the
(17:00):
flimsy windows or the back door.Every moving shadow, distant dog
bark, bump in the night or snap of a twig had my heart racing
and blood rushing through my ears.
The wind would blow and make thescreen door creak open and fall
shut with a bang. It was torture.
(17:22):
My arms ached from holding the weapon, my nightgown was soaked
with sweat, and I was on the verge of bursting into soul
wrenching sobs. But I had a job to do guarding
us from the Ripper. Oblivious Granny tottered around
the kitchen getting ready to make breakfast because
Granddaddy would be wanting his coffee soon.
(17:45):
I didn't argue or care what she did as long as she stayed away
from that front door. I never saw another glimpse of
the stranger, but I felt like hewas out there watching us.
After staying wide awake all night, terrified, holding vigil,
I made sure Granny was back to sleep, slipped out the back door
(18:07):
and ran straight across the hay fields, home to Mom and Dad for
help once the sun came up in themorning.
The police eventually caught theGainesville Ripper and it was
not the same man I saw at our front door that night.
My family hired an elderly lady to stay with Granny and I moved
home permanently. To this day I don't know who was
(18:30):
at the door on that pitch black night, but I still panic looking
out of windows at night into thedarkness.
So this story takes place in thewinter last year.
(18:50):
I work as a chef in a hotel based in the UK and as the hotel
is in the middle of nowhere theyare able to provide staff
accommodation. We also get a lot of people from
abroad come and work here for work experience as most of the
staff are quite young who live in accommodation.
This of course means quite a lotof partying.
(19:13):
One night me and my friend AJ are finishing a long shift and
decide to have a few quiet beersand not attend any of the
parties. We go to my room and start
chatting about the day's events and the conversation after a few
beers, moves on to the paranormal and what we both have
experienced. AJ is from Mexico and he starts
(19:34):
telling me about stories from his hometown.
I find out that he used to be quite the urban explorer,
visiting abandoned locations anddocumenting them.
That's when he tells me about Randonautica.
For those of you that don't know, Randonautica is basically
an app that asks for your GPS data and sends you a location
(19:55):
using randomly generated nearby coordinates.
Little did I know at this point.That there had been some true
horror stories by people who have used this app.
I really wouldn't advise it, especially at night.
As we were a few beers down at this point and AJ already had
the app downloaded. We decided it would be fun to go
(20:17):
for a walk and see what was at the location selected by
Randonautica. It asked us to think about what
our purpose was, for example, find something scary or
something unexpected. As it was nearing 2:00 AM, of
course we went with something scary.
It popped up with three nearby locations.
(20:40):
As neither of us had a car, we decided to take the one that was
closest. As I said before, we live in a
hotel in the middle of nowhere, surrounded only by woodland and
fields, so this meant that we would be walking along back
roads in the pitch black with only our phone torches as light.
As we started walking, everything seems to be
(21:02):
amplified, the wind whistling through the trees, the animals
rustling in the hedgerows. We walked down a hill near the
hotel and towards the bottom we could see traffic lights
illuminating the path ahead. We were talking and feeling
positive, maybe a bit merry fromthe beers we had before.
(21:22):
Nevertheless we were getting closer to the location and I
started to feel a bit on edge. We crossed into some fields and
this is where things started to get weird.
Our path was blocked off by somegates.
The gates were padlocked shut but they were small enough to
climb over. The location was past the gates,
(21:44):
through the field and off to theleft hand side.
I looked at AJ and suggested we head back, but we both came to
the mutual agreement that we hadcome too far to just turn and
walk away. We both jumped over the gate and
started walking through the muddy field.
Now it was really dark, the moonhad gone behind some clouds and
(22:07):
it seemed to get colder. It was nearing 3:00 AM.
We both pointed our torches in the way the app was telling us
to go and suddenly we could see what looked like an old storage
container just sat there in the middle of the field.
Is that it? I asked.
No, said AJ, it's over in that direction, and pointed to his
(22:31):
left. We both continue to walk towards
the storage container, though don't ask me why, I think it was
just out of curiosity. We both stopped at exactly the
same time. Our torch lights lit up the
front of the container. There someone had spray painted
a clown. A sinister looking clown.
(22:53):
I was frozen. If we had stumbled across this
during the day it would have been scary enough, let alone at
3:00 in the morning When we werewalking towards the unknown.
AJ broke the silence by letting out a nervous laugh.
It's just a clown, bro. I just looked at him.
(23:14):
Yeah mate, it's just a clown spray painted on a random
storage container in a random field with no one around for
miles. After a few seconds he said
let's keep walking. At this point the hair on the
back of my neck was standing on end.
Something really didn't feel right.
(23:35):
I'm not actually scared of clowns, it's just I really
didn't expect to see that and something was off.
It's just over there bro, he said, pointing at a tree line.
Absolutely not, I thought to myself, not a chance.
Am I walking up to those trees? It was the start of a vast
(23:57):
forest that ended at the hotel nearly 2 miles away.
I am not running through the forest and getting lost if
there's something out there waiting for us, I said in a
shaky voice. Again, we both came to an
agreement not to turn back. We edged closer towards the
forest until we could see a little opening.
(24:19):
It's in there, he said. I looked and started walking
faster towards it. I didn't want this to be drawn
out any more than it had to be. Something stopped me in my
tracks. My blood ran cold.
We were on the tree line at thispoint, and through the trees I
saw a light. Someone or something else was
(24:43):
there. I knew where that light was.
It was in the pinpointed location.
I turned for what only could have been a split second to tell
AJ we were in danger when we heard it.
Twigs and branches breaking. Whatever it was, it was moving
closer. I looked back, even though I
(25:04):
knew I shouldn't have, and a tall black figure was standing
in between two large oaks. I didn't get a better look.
I couldn't. My legs just geared up and I
ran. I ran without looking back.
Me and AJ were sprinting now, faster than we ever had before.
(25:24):
We didn't even know what direction we were heading in.
We didn't know how far we ran until we saw that illuminating
glow of the traffic lights. We both slowed down, panting and
spluttering. It felt like my throat was
bleeding as the cold night air hit my face while running and
through gasping breaths had cut my windpipes like glass.
(25:47):
We looked around and couldn't see anything.
I think we're in the clear. AJ said through staggering
breaths. We walked quickly up the hill
towards the hotel. I have never been so happy to
see the lights in my entire life.
This is a warning. Never download Randa Nautica and
(26:09):
if you ever do, only use it in the day.
Later, it came to my attention that people have gone to
locations only to find dead bodies, and some people say it's
associated with the dark web. I don't know what that thing was
or who they were. I guess I never will.
(26:30):
What makes this story more scary?
I don't think it was paranormal.I think it was a human lurking
in the trees waiting for us. Hi, my name is Lindsay.
I'm a 19 year old female living in Pennsylvania with my parents
(26:53):
and two of my sisters. We live in a pretty rural area
and there isn't much that goes on out here.
I listen to your stories every morning at work and always
wished I had a scary story of myown to share.
Well tonight I got my scary story.
To preface this story a bit, me and my older sister have only
(27:14):
been hiking one time before thisexperience so we are by no means
pros. We do however always bring some
items for safety such as pocket knives, flashlights, and the
medical kits. For this story I will not use my
sisters names for the sake of their anonymity.
My older sister will be called Mand my younger sister will be
(27:37):
referred to as F. So today is F's birthday and she
has never been hiking before andwe figured we would bring her on
a little hiking trip to take advantage of the beautiful
weather. The area we hiked at prior is
actually part of the state game Lands.
Hikers are permitted on the mountain trails during the
offseason of hunting. However, not many folks know
(27:59):
about this spot because there are no signs or anything until
you walk the mile or so into thewoods.
By then you reach a small parking lot of sorts, which is
always empty. There are two main trails that
are marked with the occasional blue dot on a nearby tree.
If not for these spray paint dots to mark the path, you might
(28:20):
not even know it is a trail because of how little use these
paths see. Probably not the best first
hiking spot for a couple of newbies like us, I know, but
it's super close to us and makesfor a quiet hike with lots of
scenery. So we decided to once again hike
that trail because we were somewhat familiar with it.
(28:41):
We were decently excited and ready to have a nice relaxing
hike through the mountain and hopefully get some cool
pictures. We started walking from our
house all the way to the bottom of the mountain where we would
begin our hike. On our way there, we were
telling F about the trail and how beautiful it was.
M then expresses concern that there could be animals of all
(29:04):
sorts nearby. Because the area isn't normally
frequented by many humans. I figured there would be
animals, of course. It is the woods after all.
But I never imagined anything like what I'm about to describe
in this story. After walking for about 15
minutes, we reached the parking lot.
(29:25):
M led the way, with me in the middle and F following closely
behind. The first couple of steps onto
the trail require you to walk upa small but steep hill.
M crested the hill before F and I, and as she did, we heard a
pretty loud rustling noise off to our left.
I naturally chalked the noise upto some birds or maybe a
(29:48):
squirrel messing around in the tree, but then M suddenly
stopped in her tracks, causing Fand I to also pause briefly.
Just as I was about to ask what the problem was, M calmly said.
Turn around guys. Me and F just looked at her
confused, not understanding whatshe meant.
(30:11):
I just started asking why and she said probably the scariest
thing I have ever heard. There is someone over there.
Run. Now that sentence was a lot more
scary to me and F because we know M very well and she doesn't
scare easily, so to hear the clear panic in her voice as she
(30:33):
ordered us to run away from something that neither F or I
saw was terrifying. M&F immediately started
sprinting back down the small hill as I was still standing in
my place. I quickly looked behind me, but
I saw nothing. I did hear something though I
(30:54):
was still very confused because I hadn't actually seen anything
and M never saw what she saw. I ran over to M&F who are
waiting for me just before the entrance to the parking lot.
I think part of the reason I hesitated running right away was
because I thought M might be exaggerating a little.
(31:14):
I should have known by the look on her face that she was not
messing around. I had a miniature hatchet, multi
tool and a pocket knife on my belt and you better believe I
had them at the ready. I had no idea what I was
expecting, but I knew that whatever might run out of those
woods behind us was going to geta full face of stainless steel.
(31:37):
When I reached my sister's I asked em what exactly we were
running from. She just told us to keep moving
as she constantly looked back atthe trail we had just come from.
She even told us to jog just in case it was following us.
We did. After maybe jogging 1/4 mile or
so, M finally told us what we were running from.
(32:00):
She said she looked in the direction of the noise we had
all heard and what she saw was aGray figure hunched over about
10 feet off the trail. She described it as being at
least the height of F, who is around 5-6.
She said it looked to be bipedal, but she didn't stick
around long enough to take in every detail about the figure.
(32:22):
However, she did note that it looked as if it was shuffling
towards us. I believe that's what made her
get us out of there so fast. She must have feared that we
were being chased. Now, I never have believed in
monsters of cryptids or anything, but M said she
honestly has no idea what the thing was.
(32:44):
We don't have any type of animalin Pennsylvania that matches
that description, at least as far as I know.
I know that black bears stand ontheir hind legs sometimes, but
they are not Gray and it didn't sound big enough to be a bear.
The only other thing it might have been is a human.
But why would someone hear us obviously distressed and not
(33:07):
call out to let us know they were there and were not a
threat? Unless the person was not there
as a friendly hiker, possibly a person living on the mountain,
maybe someone doing drugs and we're afraid they would get
busted, I don't know. That seems to be the only
logical explanation, but I'm notfully convinced it was a person.
(33:33):
I don't believe in Bigfoot or anything else like that, but who
knows. By the time we were almost home,
M told us that she used to go tothe bus stop with two of the
neighbor kids years ago. She said they would always talk
about a mystery animal that theywould see walking around in the
woods near their house, which isvery close to the state game
(33:54):
lands. At first she didn't believe them
because she had never seen such a thing.
But one time when the neighbor kids grandmother was with them
at the bus stop, M asked about this mystery animal.
The grandmother is and has always been a religious person
and didn't seem to be the type of person to believe in
something like her grandkids hadexplained.
(34:17):
But to M's surprise, the grandmother said she also
witnessed the mystery animal lurking around.
What's more is our houses just across the lawn from where our
neighbors claimed to spot this unknown creature.
I am not sure if these two experiences are related besides
that was years ago, but could the figure M encountered in the
(34:40):
woods tonight be the mystery animal?
Maybe it was a human, maybe it was an animal, who knows for
sure. But what I do know is I don't
think we'll be hiking on that state game lens again anytime
soon. Back in the late 70s I was a
(35:11):
little girl around 7 or 8 years old.
I loved spending time out on my uncle's farm as I found it to be
a source of stability in my life.
My mom couldn't sit still as my grandma would say.
We moved all the time, 12 times just in one year alone.
(35:32):
My uncle worked a full time job and had to run his farm so when
Drifters would come by he would offer a place to stay and good
home cooking courtesy of my aunt, in exchange for an extra
helping hand around the farm. One Saturday after a long day of
work, my uncle took one of thesefarm hands out for dinner to the
(35:52):
local restaurant, which was alsothe bar, gas station and market.
He lived in a tiny village with the only other establishment
being a church at that time. My uncle returned home without
his farm hand, we'll call him Tom, moving forward, stating
that he had stayed behind at thebar to hang out with the other
(36:12):
patrons. Later that night, my cousin Rick
came home and had decided to sleep on the couch in the living
room instead of risking waking my aunt and uncle as he tried to
sneak to his bedroom. You see, Rick was only about 15
or 16 if I remember correctly, and had gotten home way past his
curfew. He had only been laying down for
(36:33):
about 30 minutes or so when the front door opened.
It was Tom and he was covered inblood.
Now, my cousin knew that Tom wasa farmhand and could possibly
have been butchering an animal, but he couldn't understand why
he'd be doing that at this time.All he knew is that something
(36:54):
told him to keep his eyes closedand pretend to be sleeping.
So we did. Tom stood there for an unusually
long amount of time, just staring at him before he finally
walked away. Rick could then hear what
sounded like the washing machinestart up, then the shower
turning on. He recalls thinking the entire
(37:16):
situation was odd, but did eventually manage to fall
asleep. The next day started out like
any other until my aunt returnedhome from church.
She had to deliver the terrible news to my uncle that his
lifelong friends that owned the local restaurant, bar, market,
et cetera, had been brutally hacked to death the night before
(37:39):
with an axe. They were a husband and wife
that had their home attached to their business.
Upon hearing the news, my cousinRick thought back to Tom coming
in that night covered in blood. He took my aunt aside to tell
her what he had witnessed and tosee if maybe Tom would have been
working that late. But of course the answer was no.
(38:03):
She called the Sheriff's Office who came out right away.
Luckily some blood was left on the washing machine and even
though DNA evidence was nothing back then like it is today, they
were still able to trace the blood to one of the victims.
The thing that scares me the most about this is that it came
out in court that Tom had statedto the sheriff that when he
(38:25):
returns to my uncle's home that night, if anyone had been awake
he was going to kill them all and now wishes that he had.
You see, I was sleeping on the couch opposite of my cousin that
night. My mom never let me spend the
night again. I was around 17 when this
(38:58):
incident happened. I was in junior college and had
rented out a tiny apartment in astand alone building.
This building was right behind aconstruction site, meaning that
not many people were around thisplace, especially in the night.
For context, I was living with another girl, let's call her
(39:18):
Nancy, who is completing her education too.
One day, I had to go attend a friend's birthday party.
There were about 12 people that attended the party that evening.
I didn't expect it to be late bythe time I'd get back home, so I
did not see it as a problem thatmy friend wouldn't be able to
accommodate me in case somethingwere to go wrong.
(39:41):
However, things did not go as I had planned.
Being young and stupid, I gave in to my friend's request to
stay at the party until late that night.
This meant that I would be on myown when I was to go back home
since there simply was no space for me in my friend's tiny
apartment, especially not when she had five more people staying
(40:04):
over that night. To avoid going back alone, I
brought two of my companions fora sleepover, Sandra and Kathya.
Our Uber dropped us off in frontof the construction site.
Since that night, the conditionswere less than ideal to drive to
the building I lived in. The workers had just been
careless and left piles of concrete in the way.
(40:27):
We were left with no choice but to cross the construction site
to get home. I remember how Sondra kept
saying that she was a little apprehensive and she should have
taken her pepper spray along with her.
I tried to act brave but honestly was a little scared.
Katia, on the other hand, was carefree and we followed her
(40:48):
lead. We were walking through the
construction site when we saw something that took us aback.
We saw a bizarre flickering, blazing light coming from one of
underneath the construction buildings.
It was really odd as there was no chance that it was a
construction worker. At 2:30 AM in the middle of the
(41:09):
night, before we had time to register what was going on, we
heard something that made our hearts stop for a moment.
It was a shrill, frantic cry of a woman coming from the same
building. Judging by the sound of her
voice, she was in excruciating pain.
What happens next gives me nightmares to this day.
(41:32):
We saw someone falling from the building literally meters away
from us, causing an earth shattering thud.
Sandra almost yelled in terror, but Katya was able to quickly
grab her mouth to make the soundfade.
Thinking on her feet, she grabbed us both by the arm and
pulled us behind 1/2 constructedwall of another building just to
(41:55):
be sure that no one could see us.
We stayed behind this wall for what seemed like forever.
Suddenly we saw someone wearing a bright yellow jacket exiting
the building with a gas cutter in his right hand and an
amputated arm in the left. We couldn't see his face because
the place was not well lit and it was almost pitch black there.
(42:20):
Honestly, considering the absolute horror that we were in,
that was the last thing that would cross our minds.
After another eternity of makingsure that we were now safe, we
made it back home. Still trembling with fear, we
called 911. The police came and
(42:40):
investigated. After a few days, we learned
that it was a homeless woman whowas murdered brutally that
night. Her arm was cut off with a
gaslighter and she was pushed out of the fifth story and left
to bleed and die. However, to this day, after
several failed attempts, investigators have no clue as to
(43:04):
who the murderer was. This happened to me when I was
around 10 or 11 years old, back in the early 1990s.
Every summer when I was a child,my mother would send me and my
(43:25):
younger brother to stay with ourcousins in Mexico.
It was always a great time. We would spend countless hours
playing, going to the beach, eating delicious food and
renting movies. We would normally all sleep in
the same room, but on this particular night an argument
ensued between me and my cousinsand they kicked me out of the
(43:47):
room. Me, also displeased with them,
was just fine with that and decided to sleep in the living
room while everyone else slept in their respective rooms.
I went to bed around 10:30 PM or11:00.
I managed to fall asleep within minutes sometime during the
night. I do not know the exact time,
(44:10):
maybe around 2:00 or 3:00 AM I heard someone knocking on the
back door which led to a backroom which was used for
storage. That part of the house was under
construction and a construction crew was coming every day to
work on that room and they were supposed to build a wall and
close that room up which at the moment was open and anyone could
(44:32):
have access to it. Now I heard the knocks followed
by pleadings saying in Spanish, Miss, please open, please open
please. Like I said, I was sleeping in
the living room which was located in the front area of the
(44:52):
house and the knocks were comingfrom a room that was all the way
down the hall. On both sides of the hall were
different rooms, which is where my aunt and uncle slept and my
cousins. I was concerned about the
pleadings and wondered if that man needed help, but I was also
perplexed about the fact that noone else seems to hear what I
(45:13):
was hearing. I actually mustered the courage
to get up and investigate, made my way down the hall and
actually attempted to open the door.
I twisted the handle several times and the door would not
open. All the while this man continued
to plead for someone to open thedoor.
I even attempted to talk to him and said hello Sir, do you need
(45:37):
help, but he did not respond. I've just continued to plead for
someone to open the door. As I was unable to open the door
and also becoming a little frightened, I decided to run
back to the sofa bed and get under the covers.
Not long after that I passed out.
The next morning everyone was up, Auntie was cooking breakfast
(46:01):
and my cousins were no longer mad at me.
I was ready to tell them about my experience the night before
while we all gathered to sit at the table, but decided to wait
and see if anyone else would mention anything about it.
And big surprise, no one did. It seems I was the only one who
heard that man and the Knox. Summer came to an end and I was
(46:27):
getting ready to say goodbye to my cousins.
I was getting ready to have one more ball game with my cousins.
The construction crew had also finished the construction of the
house and they were sitting chitchatting and drinking beers.
My cousin kicked the ball a little too hard and it went
long. One of the construction men saw
(46:48):
the ball coming and picked it upand made his way to me.
As I ran towards him he said here's your ball.
I said thank you as I grabbed the ball from him and then he
asked why didn't you open the door for me little girl?
I bolted back to my cousins. My mother picked me and my
(47:10):
brother up shortly after that. I continued to go back there a
couple more times for the summer, but thankfully I never
saw that man again. Yeah.
(52:16):
Yeah. Yeah.
(01:06:01):
Yeah. Yeah.
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