ATRD Ep. 148 - 3 Hours Of True Scary Halloween & October Stories
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If you have a true scary story you'd like to share with the podcast, go to astheravendreams.com and click the button to send it my way. Also, if the platform you're on has the option to rate the podcast or leave a comment, please consider doing so. And as always, thank you. My sister and I never missed Halloween as a kid. We always tried to get the most creative costume and would trick-or-treat until we didn't see any more lights.

I'm sure that our parents wished we would grow tired of it after an hour or so like other kids, but by the age of 14, my parents allowed us to go out by ourselves. And as long as we stayed within the area, we could ride our bikes to the gas station on the corner which was about two blocks from our home. We were allowed to go that far while trick-or-treating, and a block in the other direction. The year was 2005.

I was 15, my sister was 12. At the time, my sister was obsessed with Spongebob, so that's what she dressed as. I tried to dress as Sandy, which included a giant plastic clear container on my head and a white windbreaker suit. My dad actually drilled holes in my makeshift helmet so my mom could sew it to my jacket, which helped to steady it. I thought it looked pretty dang good for what we used.

Anyways, since our house was three away from the corner, we took the shorter path to the end, planning on going up the next street over, and back down to the other side, and continuing the same path on the next street over. There was a decent number of kids around the neighborhood, so sometimes we would walk up to the houses in a group. Some of them were alone, some with parents following behind.

The younger ones didn't seem as interested in it, so the group would dwindle down the further we went along. We made it up the street, crossed, and were starting to head back down when we saw what we thought at first was a kid on a tricycle, now riding down the other side of the street in the opposite direction that we were walking. When we started leaving one of the houses, I saw him slowly moving along and stopping, and then he looked over at us.

They were wearing all black and had a jigsaw mask. I think it was the second Saw movie that had recently released around this time, so it didn't surprise me that someone would choose to dress like him. While I did enjoy scary movies, I wouldn't have even considered it. They even seemed to be in character because they didn't do or say anything. They slowly turned their head to look at us, looked back, and then just kept going.

I took a second to appreciate their dedication to the holiday and we continued along our path. Another point on our trip, I started hearing that familiar sound of tires on the road, the sound I was used to hearing when riding our bikes. I looked behind us and saw Jigsaw crossing the road, now coming up behind us. I thought it was odd since he was going the opposite direction of us, but was now following behind. Now that he was closer to us, I noticed something interesting.

This person, dressed as Jigsaw, was much older. Based on his size, he had to either have been an adult or maybe in high school. I didn't really notice from when he was across the street, but his knees went out to the side because of how big he was. If he was a teenager, I wouldn't care about him trick-or-treating. I think it should be a holiday for anyone, but if they were an adult, what were they doing?

I didn't see anyone else with him, so he was definitely alone. If he was trying to just scare kids that walked by, I could also see that, but to follow them around? That's a bit strange in my opinion. Either way, I just looked back at them, smiled, and kept us moving. But then my paranoia only grew when I noticed Jigsaw wasn't approaching the houses.

He would stop a few feet back from the house we went to and watch us as we walked up to the door. Once we got back to the sidewalk, they would start moving again. I looked back at them several times and they would do nothing but stare ahead and pedal until we stopped. We reached the end of the street and crossed to the next block and Jigsaw stopped at the corner. I thought, again, maybe it was just an older kid playing a prank but was told not to go any further than that street.

I was actually starting to feel a little relieved when I then heard the sound of the tricycle moving again. I looked back, and once more he was crossing and coming up right behind us. Once he was on the same side as us, I tried to poke a little to see if I could get anything out of them. I asked if they were lost or scared, and they just remained still and didn't speak. They didn't nod or shake their head,

They didn't wave or shrug, and they didn't say a word. I asked them if they were trick-or-treating, and still nothing. I don't know if I was more scared or annoyed by them, but I rolled my eyes and told my sister that we should just keep going. The further along we went on the street, the more my anxiety started to grow. Why was this person following us? What were their intentions? But then my thoughts started spiraling.

What if they were just trying to blend in with the others, but then were planning to kidnap us? I finally looked back and said one more thing to them. This time I told them they were being weird for following us, and said something about crossing the street and asking them to stay on that side. They once again said nothing, so I grabbed my sister's arm and we darted across the street. Between being a bit freaked out and the air turning cold, we had to stop and catch our breath.

I looked to see Jigsaw still on the other side of the road, but he was just staring at us with those creepy dark eyes. It gave me the chills. We began walking to the houses again, and we both agreed to just skip that side of the street and go home after this row of houses. Jigsaw was obviously getting to my sister too, and I didn't want them to ruin her night. We continued on to a few more houses until I heard the trike move again.

and it was crossing the street. I'd had enough. Don't get me wrong, I was freaking out on the inside. I didn't want to approach this thing, but I felt like I had no choice. I waited for him to cross, and then I approached him. I shouted at them that they were being a creep, and to just leave us alone before we told our parents. I stood there firm on my choice of words, as my sister shouted something at them too. Then it fell silent again.

Everything seemed still. I could hear the slight shuffle of the trees and my own breathing, but there was nothing else. I stared at this person watching the shiny red cheek spirals glisten off of the moonlight. They didn't say anything back. Didn't apologize for their behavior. Nothing. Feeling a bit defeated, I went to turn around when I saw Jigsaw's head snap to the side. I thought maybe I was going to get a response after all.

and as I went to say something, I started hearing a low chuckle. It was deep and slow at first, but then his head snapped back straight, and then the loud laugh began. It was some bone-chilling laugh, like from a movie, like he had some kind of speaker or something playing it, its jaw bounced up and down as if it was really moving or laughing. I felt frozen in place as I watched this thing just laugh.

I could hear my sister behind me saying that he was scaring her and yelling at him to stop. The laughter was so loud that it was unnatural. I turned to go back to my sister when she just screamed. I then turned back around to see Jigsaw now barreling towards us on his little trike. I didn't even think. I grabbed my sister's arm and yelled for her to run and we both took off. I could hear the trike speeding up and getting closer.

We made it to the end of the street and we crossed back over to our block. Now we just had to run up the incline to the end of the street to get back home. The hill was going to wear us out, but I was hoping that Jigsaw would have more trouble getting over the hill than us. I think I was right, too. We were exhausted as we reached the top, but I think the pure fear and adrenaline kept us going.

As we reached the top, I took one last look as I could still hear the laughter, but it was quieter. For some reason, the possibility of them getting off the trike didn't even cross my mind, but to my horror, as I turned around, I saw Jigsaw climbing the hill on foot, dragging along the trike in his hands. Now standing, this person looked huge, which made it even worse in my mind that this guy was following us.

I had approached him a couple of times. He could have easily grabbed me and I wouldn't have been able to fight him. I once again pulled my sister to keep going and we ran until we got home. We burst through the doors and my mom was sitting on the couch asking us what was wrong. I tried explaining between breaths as my lungs burned. My mom hollered for my dad and they went outside looking for this person. And by looking I mean they went to the end of the driveway and looked both ways.

They then came back in and told me that it must have been someone just playing a bad prank. They honestly didn't make it seem like it was that big of a deal. We decided to end our trick-or-treating then, neither of us interested in going back outside. We did get to stay up, so we camped out in my room and played games until we fell asleep. We never heard anything else about the jigsaw, on the news or at school or even from anyone in the neighborhood. It really did seem like we were targeted.

Maybe my parents were right. Maybe it was just someone messing around, but it really scared the hell out of us young kids. I get being creepy. Maybe doing the laugh when someone gets too close, but to follow and chase children? That's not okay. That could be taken very wrong. Hell, now that I'm older with a little boy of my own, I would be hunting that person down if he came home telling me something similar.

So, all I have to say there is, yeah, if you are an adult, don't chase kids around. And if you're a parent, take your kids seriously when they come to you scared and tell you about something. Do it before they don't come to you at all. This happened in 2018, on Halloween night. I was taking my two kids out trick-or-treating, and it was going to be the first year that my youngest actually went with us.

Before then, he just stayed with my mom while I took my oldest, but now at the ages of 6 and 4, they were both going and they were both really excited about it. Since my youngest didn't really care what costume he was wearing as long as he got one, I decided to do the cheesy mom thing and get matching costumes.

What I didn't expect was my oldest wanting to do it with us, so he went with Cat in the Hat, and my boys were Thing 1 and Thing 2. We were really cute, and my youngest seemed to love the idea of my hat and whiskers. We started at my mom's place so that she could see us and get pictures of us looking our best, and then we walked her neighborhood first.

She lived in a nice area, and the majority of the people were retirees, so they loved seeing the kids and handing out lots of candy. We'd been doing well, and we were all in good spirits, my youngest not showing any signs of slowing down. He was always trying to be in front of us, and was adamant about trying to ring the doorbell before we got to it. This one particular house was no different."

There were two carved pumpkins resting in the grass, lining the sidewalk, and the porch light was on, our typical signs that we could try knocking. We approached the door, and after my youngest, Ruben, rang the bell, we stepped back and waited as they excitedly held out their bags. After the normal allotted time that you would wait, no one came to the door.

Ruben was ready to press the button again, so I had to explain to him that if they didn't answer, you walked away. This all took place probably within the span of just a few minutes, so after explaining this, I told them it was time to go and started ushering them to the gate. As we started walking out, I could hear a door being unlocked, like the loud clunking sound of a deadbolt,

and turned around to see the door being opened. Ruben noticed too, and immediately went back to the door, holding out his bag again. But the moment that the door creaked open, I was hit with a sight that would never leave my conscience. It was a frail-looking woman, and her appearance was nothing short of alarming. She had on this raggedy old tank top. You could tell it was once white, but was now a very off-white.

There was a hole near the side and a dark brown or red colored stain towards the unraveling hem. Her bottom attire looked just like a pair of men's boxers, also very dirty and old looking. As bad as this sounds, her face just added to the unsettling feeling. Her eyes were sunken in, one of them was bloodshot, as if something had happened to her, but her eyes remained wide open and constantly moving like she was looking for something or someone.

Her hair was a tangled mess. Bunched up, resting on her shoulder like it was once in a bun. I felt an immediate wave of unease wash over me as I rested my hands on my kid's shoulder. She seemed to notice this, which made me instantly feel bad for reacting the way I did. Maybe she was just ill or something, and we disturbed her. I smiled politely at her as my kid said trick-or-treat and waited for candy.

After staring at us, she looked over us, scanning the area as if she was trying to find someone. She stepped back into her home and grabbed something from behind the door and returned with a transparent bowl full of loose M&Ms. She then took handfuls of them and threw them in my kid's bags. I don't mean packages of them either.

I mean opened, poured into a bowl that you would keep and eat yourself, but just handfuls of it, now just tossed into their bags. I was already distracted enough by that and her appearance, so I was taken aback when she started talking to me, but not because she was striking up a friendly conversation and commenting on our costumes. It was pleading. Help me...

She said in a trembling whisper. I didn't know how to respond, or if I'd even heard her correctly, so I just responded with a, um, pardon me? She persisted, now whispering a bit louder as her eyes remained wide open and staring at me. Help me, please. He won't let me leave. Help me. I was still in shock, racing to comprehend the situation. Was this real?

Did she really need help, or was this some kind of ruse? Or maybe even a really bad prank? If so, I couldn't fathom anyone finding this kind of scare amusing. I had young children with me, and the way that Ruben backed up into me told me that he was already feeling uncomfortable. I tried to remain calm and speak in a controlled tone to not give away that I was either falling for a prank or scared.

"'Are you okay? I can call the cops for you.' Her eyes softened some, and she let out what I can only describe as a small whimper. She looked so sad as she slowly shut the door on our faces. I never saw or heard another person, even though she mentioned a he, but either way, I couldn't shake the feeling that something was wrong. People wouldn't joke about something like that, right?'

or at least wouldn't end the interaction like that. So, with this heavy on my mind, I took my kids out of the yard, walked down to the front of the next house, and called the police. I tried to keep my kids distracted by asking them questions and checking out all the goods they've gotten while I waited for the police.

When they did arrive, I explained everything that I saw and heard, and they asked if I would stand by to confirm who came to the door, and I agreed. We stood behind one of the cop cars as they approached the door and knocked, but when she answered, I couldn't believe what I was seeing. It was the same woman that I had just met less than 20 minutes ago, but she looked completely different.

Her hair was now pinned back, but the ends were blunt, like it was obviously just cut. She was wearing a long black dress and appeared to have applied makeup. I couldn't see the dark circles around her eyes, and she was obviously wearing dark lipstick. She stood there smiling at the police officers, talking with her hands and even laughing. My heart sank as I watched her offer the officers a candy bar, not some loose M&M's from a bowl.

After a few minutes, the officers returned to us, explaining that the woman did confirm the incident was a prank. She claimed to live alone and assured them that she was perfectly fine. I couldn't help but feel skeptical. If it was all a prank, why had she changed her clothes? Why not simply say, ''Yeah, it was a joke.'' Especially to the person you're trying to prank. The same person that said they were going to call the police.

And there's no way that she didn't see me standing there. Why not apologize to me? And even more perplexing, why would she cut her hair? It's not something you can undo, so what was the purpose of it? I shared my doubts with the officers, trying to emphasize the gravity of the situation and how sincere her pleas were. What if she was in genuine danger? What if she had to change because the person she spoke of noticed her?

However, they told me they would look further into it, assuring me that they would reach out if they needed further information. We finished our night shortly after that, the exhaustion catching up to us after that whole event. And as days turned into weeks, I never got a call or update from the police. My mom said that she never even heard or saw anything in the week or two that followed. She said she even drove by the house a few times and there was never any motion going on out there.

I want to believe that it was a prank, but the fact that she's never even seen outside only cements my thoughts that someone doesn't want her to be seen. I've even disturbingly looked over obituaries and missing person reports to see if maybe I could spot her, but there was nothing. Of course, we have gone trick-or-treating since that year, including that same neighborhood. My mother still lives in the same place.

However, since then, the porch light has been off, so we haven't even tried approaching the door. I just can't help but think about it. I often think about her, especially as Halloween approaches. I hope that it was just a terrible prank, and that she was terrible at it, but I still fear that something sinister was happening, and her one chance that she took failed.

and that she still could be in trouble. This happened about a decade ago, and was one of the most terrifying things that had and has ever happened to me in all my years alive. I came out of it mostly unscathed, but mentally, I was distressed for a long time after this happened.

It was a chilly Halloween night, the kind that kind of bites at the nape of your neck and drags you down, making you tired within the first hour or two. My husband, Mike, had taken our little girl, Sophie, out for her very first trick-or-treating experience, and I got to stay home and hand out candy.

"'I wasn't upset about that. I wanted her to have a good time, but I also knew that we were going to have a lot of trick-or-treaters coming through as we have every year that we've lived there. I wanted to be there to see how she managed. But Sophie has always been a daddy's girl, so she wanted him to go with her. It's alright. I get it. I was the same way at her age.'"

I set up a cozy little area by the window, complete with my blanket, hot chocolate, and my old Kindle, just waiting for the doorbell to go off. I would read a few pages and have to set it down to give out the candy to the kids that came by. I was actually enjoying it, having some alone time but getting to talk to some kids about their costumes. There were some pretty fun ones. There was one girl that was a zombie hot dog that was amazing.

and I remember just how happy that little girl was when I told her how much I loved her costume. As the night went on, the rush obviously started to dwindle, and I was getting more and more of my book read in between each doorbell ring. It was around 8.45ish when the doorbell rang again, the first time in quite a while. I opened the door, expecting to see a group of kids smiling at me,

but instead I was met with a lone, tall figure. He wore a grimy, tattered suit and a grotesque mask that seemed strangely out of place. It was simple, mostly just plain and white, but splattered with red to look bloody. "'Bit old for trick-or-treating, aren't ya?' I tried a joke, but I could hear my voice wavering slightly. The man didn't reply to me at all. He just lifted his hand as if he was expecting candy."

I was all for ending this interaction, so I dropped a few pieces of candy in his hand, and after a few moments of us just standing there silently, I kind of smiled and said something like, "Um, well, happy Halloween." He sort of tilted his head at me and didn't move, so I went ahead and shut the door and locked it.

I tried to shake off the odd feeling, telling myself that it was Halloween, and he was just really playing the character, so the creepiness should have been expected. But my comfort was short-lived. A few minutes later, I heard what sounded like a tapping coming from the back of the house. I initially thought that it may have just been a branch tapping on the window or something like that. I walked into the kitchen, and I glanced out into the backyard.

and what I saw caused my heart to skip a beat. There, standing on my back porch, seemingly just standing there and studying the back door, was the man in the suit with the bloody mask. I could see what looked like a pry bar in his hand, and he was holding it like he was about to use it to pry the door open. I stood there for a few moments, shocked and scared, but after a few seconds, he glanced over and we made eye contact.

When we did, he lifted his free hand and waved, which freaked me right the hell out. As soon as I pulled back, I heard him starting to kick the door, trying to bash it open with his foot. I'm gonna be honest, I didn't really know what to do. This man was trying to kick the back door open, and I didn't know if I should hide or run, and where I would run to.

I decided that running was my best bet, and within seconds, I was making a dash to the front door, unlocking it, and running out onto the front sidewalk. I figured if nothing else, this would put some distance between myself and him, and if he was trying to get to me, then he would have to run around the house and jump the fence, which gave me some time to get to the neighbor's house or something, which is actually what I did.

As soon as I got out onto the front sidewalk, I ran to the left towards the closest house with the lights on, and started banging on the door. An older gentleman answered the door, holding a candy bowl and holding a bit of an annoyed look on his face. His stare changed to confusion when he saw me, and I started telling him that someone was trying to break into my house, and that I needed him to call the cops.

Thankfully, we did kind of know each other in passing. We weren't close, but he knew who I was, and I knew who he was. So, he mentioned for me to come inside, and asked me what all had happened. I told him about the creepy guy that came to the door, and then told him that, before I ran out of the house, that same man was trying to kick in the back door. He nodded, grabbed his phone, and quickly dialed 911.

After about seven minutes, the police pulled up in front of his house with their lights flashing, and I went out to meet them. They asked me to tell them again what had happened, and I explained the whole situation to them. When they checked the house, the man was no longer there, thankfully, but every room between the back door and the living room looked like it had been ransacked.

He had thrown the dining room furniture all around the room, and had pretty much destroyed the living room. But, nothing was missing, and he was already gone. I described him to the cops, and they said that they would be on the lookout, but without knowing what he actually looked like, there was very little chance of ever finding him. Mike and Sophie got back home while all of this was unfolding, and I had to tell Mike about the man and explain the whole thing.

He was obviously not very happy that this happened. There was never any indication that they actually caught the guy, and with the exception of the door being messed up, a couple of busted dining room chairs, and my Kindle being completely destroyed, nothing else had been damaged. We turned the lights off after that in an attempt to dissuade any late trick-or-treaters from stopping by. That Halloween actually did scar me mentally.

Every time the doorbell rang, I would tense up and jump slightly, even though I knew that it wouldn't be him. After that, the spookiness of Halloween kind of lost its appeal to me, and when that night rolled around the next year, we both went with Sophie to do her trick-or-treating. There was no way in hell I was going to stay home alone again after all of this played out.

Admittedly, I was a foolish and immature teenage girl when I graduated high school 23 years ago. While others were focused on securing military futures and/or furthering their education, I was really only looking forward to moving out of my parents' home and moving in with my high school sweetheart. It would end up being a huge mistake that I regret to this day, but I digress.

For the sake of anonymity, we'll call him Jack. Though we lived in different towns and attended different schools, Jack and I had been dating for a few years prior to graduation. When we weren't in school, we were inseparable, so it was no surprise to anyone when we started looking for a place to rent and move in together.

What did come as a surprise, however, was Jack's suggestion to share a place with two of his friends so that we could all split the bills. It wasn't quite what I had in mind, but I was familiar with both of them and eventually, against my better judgment, agreed to having roommates. The four of us soon moved into the upstairs apartment of an old two-story house in a seedy neighborhood.

Of course, it wasn't long before stuff hit the fan, as neither of the roommates consistently paid their share of the rent, and the place was overrun by people who didn't live there. The constant drug use, fighting, property damage, kicking out random people sleeping on the couch, etc. It was pure chaos, and I was just an outcast, living somewhere that I clearly didn't belong.

But the worst part of it all for me was that Jack and I had grown apart. It was as if I never really knew Jack at all. No pun intended. Living in a house full of potheads and drug addicts for several months made me hate drugs, and even weed to be honest. Yet I continued to smoke it myself in an attempt to find some semblance of peace and happiness.

My own friends would visit often, which also helped me to cope with the hell that I was living to some extent. But still, anytime I had a reason to get out of that house, I did, and so was the case on Halloween night of that year. My friend Steph, not her real name, had stopped by to hang out. We both smoked for a bit before getting the munchies and realizing it was Halloween, and

Being that there was never any food in the house, because someone would always steal it, we quickly recognized the solution to our problem and set out on foot to relive our youth and score some free chocolate bars. Now, I know what you might be thinking. Yes, we were too old for trick-or-treating. Yes, we should have been ashamed of ourselves for taking candy. That was meant for little kids.

Yes, we were selfish and immature, and no, we did not care. We were just hungry. The timing was perfect, as people had just started filing down the street with kids in goofy costumes racing from door to door. Steph and I weren't wearing costumes because, well, we were bums. And that's the answer we gave every time we knocked on a door and they asked.

I'm sure the ones who didn't question us had already figured that out when they saw the used wrinkly Walmart bag that we held open for candy though. Having satisfied our munchies while eating candy along our little adventure, we decided to keep walking and knocking as long as we could to increase our future candy stash. It wasn't until the streets were silent and empty, with nearly every porch light turned off,

before we finally called it quits and began our long trek back to the apartment in the dark. The mood soon changed on the walk back, though. Up to that point, it had been a fun and memorable night, but for some reason, neither of us could shake this awful feeling of impending doom, as if we were about to star in our own real-life horror movie. From a rational perspective, this fear was simply due to walking in the dark on Halloween.

But the fact that we never told anyone where we were going, or what we were doing, stuck in our minds. We weren't even sure if anyone knew that we had left the apartment. Not that any of them would have cared, but the mere thought of nobody having a shred of information to share if we went missing somehow, it was suddenly quite unsettling.

The night air grew colder by the time we finally found ourselves speeding down the hilly block of houses that led to my apartment, and we were both glad to see that the porch light in front of my door was still on. We slowed our pace toward the bottom of the hill as we crossed the street towards the sidewalk, and our fears soon became reality. From behind a vehicle parked in our neighbor's driveway, a very tall man quietly stepped out of the darkness.

As silly as it sounds, he was wearing what appeared to be a large hairy werewolf mask draped over his entire head, paired with Freddy Krueger gloves on his hands. He stared intently, gently tapping the long spiky claws of one of the gloves against his chest as he rounded the bumper of the vehicle before slowly moving towards us with each step.

It was actually quite terrifying at first, but I quickly assumed that it must have been someone we knew from the apartment trying to scare us. So, brave little me started laughing and mocking his stupid outfit. What the man did next, though, chilled me to my core. Still silent, he stopped moving, cocked his head to one side, and lowered his hand from his chest.

Then, he suddenly started speedwalking right towards us. A second wave of fear coursed through my veins as Steph and I instantly bolted across the sidewalk toward the front door. Steph made it to the threshold first, and I leapt inside soon after, quickly trying to slam the door and lock it. I saw the wolf mask facing me immediately behind the door as I did so.

And, just as I locked the deadbolt, he tried turning the handle from the other side of the door to get in. We were merely a split second away from whatever that was. Steph and I collapsed on the floor trying to catch our breath as we heard him scratching at the door with his claws. Someone eventually looked down the stairwell to see what the commotion was about, but by that time the scratching ceased.

As we made our way upstairs to see who was, and who wasn't, in the apartment, I was shocked to see a room full of people that included both of the guys I suspected of pulling the prank, as they were similar in height and build to the man outside. One of the guys did go outside to see who might be trying to get in, but the man was long gone.

Everyone in the apartment denied having anything to do with it, and they all couldn't have cared less, including Jack, so... It really didn't seem like they were behind it. The only other possibility that crossed my mind was the guy who lived below us with his wife and baby on the first floor. But when I later asked the wife about it, she told me that it couldn't have been him because they were all inside that night, and they didn't have any company.

Steph and I never did learn the true identity of the Wolfman, and we will never know what his true intentions were that night. Perhaps it was a well-orchestrated prank by someone we knew, or maybe it was simply a prank by a random stranger. I prefer to think of it as a prank either way because, regardless of who was behind the mask, the thought of this being anything other than a prank is very disturbing.

As for Jack, our relationship finally ended when I left him. After I moved out, he kicked his friends out of the apartment for not paying rent, and he was stuck cleaning up the mess they left behind. Great time to man up, Jack. To anyone who made it this far, trust your instincts. Stay smart, stay safe, and stay sane out there. I was a pretty dumb teenager or preteen growing up.

I always tried to push the boundaries of what I was allowed to do or what I could get away with. I had a couple of younger siblings too, and one older than me, so I guess you could call it the middle child syndrome. I wanted the freedom my older brother had, as he had his own car and was able to go wherever he wanted, with little question from my parents. I also ended up watching my little sister and brother at times when I wanted to hang out with my friends.

So, when my parents told me that I was too old to trick or treat, but said that I could stay home and hand out candy, I became a little upset. I was okay with not going with them to trick or treat, but I certainly did not want to stay cooped up at home during the holiday. So, I voiced my concerns. Thankfully, they finally saw my side of things and agreed to let me stay with a friend for the night.

I quickly packed a small bag of things, called my friend to have their parents pick me up, and I was free for the night. The thing is, we made plans, so I was hopeful that my parents would agree to let me go. My friend, Charlie, his brother Mikey, who was two years older than us, and I were all going to meet up with a few other friends at an old cemetery.

We were just going to walk around, tell stories, and maybe try our hand at ghost hunting. All in all, it was the three of us plus Mikey's friend that they called Trout, plus our other three friends Becca, Lance, and Mira. We lived in a pretty small town with very little crime, and everyone kept to themselves.

Not only was crime uncommon, but anything really worth talking about, which meant there was little life going on after dark. This was how we got away with going to the cemetery. It was a pretty old one, and I couldn't recall ever seeing a service ever being held there, so I think it was just kept as it was, and that was that. It was also within walking distance, so we all met there.

There weren't any trespassing signs when we got there, just a small gate to keep cars from going in it. We could practically just step over it. The girls became nervous right from the start, but we did our best to keep them calm so we didn't have to leave before we even did anything. So we got in and started walking around, looking at the different headstones and trying to find the oldest one.

After looking at them all, and some of the harmless but eerie sayings on them, we made our way over behind the small building that was there. There was a small clearing behind it with a couple of milk crates, a bucket with water and cigarette butts in it, and some other random stuff, and then the back of the cemetery was lined with trees. We stopped there for a bit and just talked, teasing each other,

Mikey and Trout told us some creepy story about a kid who unalived himself in the gym locker rooms at the old high school several years ago, and that he was now haunting it, claiming that that's why they built the new school. The old high school is now for the board or something, so it's not really used a lot. The girls were definitely freaking out, and Charlie kept affirming everything he was saying, but...

I think the rest of us were a little skeptical. They mentioned that they wanted to try to break in there to see, but argued with Charlie and I about going, saying that if he got caught, he didn't want us to get into trouble too. After some time, we got more on the topic of ghosts, and again, Mikey and Trout tried to spook us saying there was definitely paranormal stuff going on here.

While we joked around, the girls were getting more scared and started saying that we should leave. The rest of us weren't really ready to head back though, so they said they would just walk back alone. Becca lived the closest, and she was pretty much down the street from the cemetery, and Mira was staying the night with her too.

While it was a mood kill, I would like to think that I was still some kind of gentleman, so I agreed to walk them out, just to make sure they got out okay, and that way I could see them most the way down the sidewalk. Lance said that he would go with us too, so the other three stayed where they were until we got back. The cemetery went pretty far back, and the entrance was to the side a bit more, so we would lose sight of the others from the front for sure.

Not to mention the fact that there were no lights in there. The only light that we had was from the flashlights that we brought, and from those that had cell phones. I was not one of those people, but the girls shared a flashlight, and I had mine as well. We didn't talk much on our way to the front, but then Becca turned around and asked me what I had said. When I said that we didn't say anything, she looked confused or suspicious, but continued on.

That's when I presume I heard what she did. It sounded like someone whispering very quickly, so I couldn't make out what was being said. I brought it up, and they all agreed that they heard it too. We tried to ignore it, but the girls only seemed to be more worried. That's when from the corner of my eye to the right, opposite of the building, I saw a dark figure run across the grounds.

I assume that Becca saw it too because she screamed. Lance and I tried to calm them and tell them just to hurry up, so they started running. The next thing I know was we started picking up the pace to keep up with them when I felt someone push me from behind. I fell to the ground and everything went immediately pitch black. It made no sense to not be able to see anything.

I could at least make out dark shapes of the plots, my friends, or hell, wherever my flashlight landed, but there was nothing. Then, the gurgling sounds started. It was like someone was right by my ear choking on water or something, and lastly was the pressure. I couldn't breathe. It felt as if someone was covering my face.

I remember swinging my arms in front of me trying to grab or push off whatever was on me but nothing was working. Then, out of nowhere, I could hear Lance yelling my name and I was being pulled to a streetlight. I looked around confused, not understanding what just happened but ironically, all three of them were as pale as a ghost. I asked them what happened,

when they explained that they had just heard the thump of me falling to the ground. Lance ran over to me and watched horrified as my eyes were wide open, seemingly trying to look around while my arms flailed in front of me like I was fighting something. He said there was nothing there though. He finally found an opening to grab my arm and pretty much dragged me out of there until I stood on my own feet. I sat on the curb while he called Charlie, telling him that we needed to leave.

They finally walked back to the front, all looking a bit concerned. Lance explained what he saw, and then I explained my side of it. Mikey didn't seem to take it serious at first, saying that we were just messing with him, but Charlie seemed convinced of what happened. I certainly wasn't ready to go back in there after whatever the hell that was, so we finally convinced Mikey and Trout to go.

We walked the girls back to Becca's place, and I did my best to act like I was fine so as to not worry them, but honestly, that scared the hell out of me. I don't want to say that I thought I was going to die, but the fact that I seemed to go completely blind and couldn't breathe was pretty damn terrifying. The rest of us walked to a nearby gas station to be in the light, and we talked about what happened a bit more.

Charlie, Mikey, and Trout claimed that they were behind the building the whole time, and even thought that we were trying to pull some kind of prank because they could hear the whispering and gurgling too. I don't think they were trying to mess with us either, since Lance ran for me and clearly didn't see anyone around. We ended up going back to Charlie's house for a while to chill before Trout and Lance went home too. I didn't really sleep that night.

I was still pretty shaken up and wondering what that could have been or meant. I am past it now that I'm an adult, but I still tell people about it because it was one of the most terrifying things to happen to me. If anyone out there knows what that could have been or meant though, I'm all for hearing your thoughts. Oh, and no, I did not and will not be going back to that cemetery.

I have a thing that happened to me that I'm not really sure how to categorize, but I thought I would send it your way because I know you'll have a place for it. I used to work at a really old library in my small town. It was a quaint little building that had been updated and renovated so many times that it was pretty much a brand new building.

You know that old saying about replacing parts of an old ship until it's a completely new ship? Yeah, it was like that. It was a neat little place, one I was glad my town actually spent money on, because we were always busy. This was a long time ago before the internet was a huge thing for everyone all the time, and we were one of the first public places here to actually have computers connected to the internet.

Not really relevant, but it does give you a sense of place and time, I suppose. The thing about the library was that, while it was part of the town, it was built closer to the outskirts. So, the building itself was sitting there at the end of a road, with a modest parking lot out front, but behind and beside it, was nothing but woods.

Come October, the entire place was absolutely gorgeous. All the trees would turn at the same time, and would paint this picturesque scene of an older-looking building in the autumn woods. This whole thing actually happened at the beginning of October. I know this because we had just set up a spooky stories display kind of thing in the kids' section, which we did on the last day of September.

On this day, my coworker that helped me man the fort until close, Susan, had called in, so it was just me working the entire place until we closed at 9. Not really a complaint. It was a Monday, and I knew that we were going to be pretty slow, so I wasn't overly concerned with that fact. Around 8pm, I was in the main section reshelving some books when some guy walked in.

He looked kind of... off. Like, he seemed pretty normal at first glance, but then it kind of clicked that he looked like he was wired and breathing heavily. It looked like he'd been running to get here, like full-on sprint, but while wearing jeans and a button-down shirt that looked like it needed to go through the wash a couple of times to get rid of the pit stains. I eyed him as he walked in and looked around the library from the door, almost in a panic.

I stopped what I was doing and slowly approached him, asking him if I could help. When it finally occurred to him that I was talking to him, and not someone else, which took a strangely long amount of time considering we were completely empty, he cleared his throat and stood up straight like he was trying to act normal. And then, he nodded with a smile. I remember he asked me for books on folklore and religious texts.

which were two things that literally no one had ever asked me for in my time working there. I motioned towards one of the back corner shelves, and said that religious texts would be back there, and that a few shelves forward should be the folklore books. He thanked me and immediately made his way to the back corner. As he started walking there, I went ahead and informed him that we would be closing within the hour, so I was going to be doing a lot of sorting and cleaning,

but if he had any questions to just holler out since we were empty. Then, I went back to doing what I needed to do for closing and figured that that was that. About 30 minutes later, he shouted out asking for me, and I went over to the front desk. This guy had 7 or 8 books on random folklores and copies of like 4 different religious texts.

I made a joke about how he was going to be doing a lot of reading over the next couple of weeks, and he just stared at me with the most serious of stares and said, ''You don't understand what's lurking out there. I need these for my protection. A bit heavy if you ask me, but...'' I nodded and said, ''Hey, I get it. Faith can be a powerful thing.''

He nodded in agreement like what I had just said was the most profound thing he'd ever heard. I finished scanning in the books, scanned his card, and printed off the slip for the due dates of the books. I also mentioned to him that if he needed any of them extended for an extra week, he could call us and we could go ahead and do so, since he had so many books. He grabbed the books and looked me straight in the eyes for a moment, saying,

Then, without blinking, said, ''Look, you've been very kind to me, so I want to warn you. Something is out there. It only comes out in October, when the moon is hidden.'' I blinked a few times at him and smiled and then said, ''Duly noted. I hope you have a great night and please stay safe out there.'' He nodded again and just walked away from the counter and out the door with this ridiculous stack of books.

I chuckled to myself, nervously thinking, wow, that was absolutely the weirdest five minutes of my life, but then got back to my end of shift duties. Skip ahead the rest of the hour, and I was finished cleaning up and putting books away. I hit the lights and locked the door, and then headed to where my car was parked at the back of the lot.

This is where it went from, this was a weird night, to, holy crap, was that dude being serious? As soon as I put my hand on the door handle to my car, I started to hear movement in the woods behind me. I turned to look, but when I did, whatever this was jumped down behind the tree line so I couldn't see it. Now, I'm not trying to say that this was some kind of cryptid or something-

But it was a weirdly shaped... thing. It didn't really look like a person, but it also wasn't some kind of beast or monster. I don't know what it was. It almost seemed... shapeless. As soon as I saw this thing move away from my line of sight, I got these terrible chills down my spine, like I was instinctually supposed to be afraid of it.

I then glanced up at the sky, which was dumb, but when I did, I realized that there was no moon. The sky was filled with clouds, and the moon wasn't visible. At that point, all rational thought went out the window. I jammed my key in my door and jumped into the seat, and sped off like a bat out of hell.

I sped home, which wasn't exactly a far drive, and I ran into my house, locking the door immediately. It was the stupidest thing. There was no rationality to what the guy had said. There was no way that there was something sinister in the woods that wasn't just a possum or a coyote. But there I was, running from some possibly supernatural entity that was lurking in the woods by the library,

because some rando mentioned that there was something out there. Skipping ahead to the next day, when I got to work, I obviously mentioned the whole thing to Susan, who was back after having called in the day prior. She was as confused as I was. About halfway through the shift, the man came in again, with his whole stack of books in hand. At first, I was thinking, is this going to be a regular thing?

Like, is he going to end up being a stalker of some sort? But he walked up to the desk in a much calmer way, placed the books down, and simply said that he needed to return them. I joked and asked if he had changed his mind on needing the protection. He smiled and said, Oh, no. I was up all night reading through them. And they worked. I took care of it.

After the night prior, and what he had just said, I was done with this situation. So, I just scanned them all back in, put them on the cart, and told him that he was good to go. He thanked me, and simply just walked out of the library. Strangely enough, I never saw him again, and I never had any sort of experience with anything creepy outside of the library that wasn't just a random raccoon or possum.

Now, I'm not saying that there was a thing that existed out there. I'm not saying that this guy was some kind of demon or spirit hunter or something. But what I am saying is that this was the weirdest thing to have ever happened. And be it a prank, or just some dude on drugs, or maybe even a guy with mental issues. It was the scariest damn thing that I had ever dealt with.

in my time as a librarian. One of my favorite things to do for Halloween with some of my close friends was to go to the haunted houses near us. I say near, but one we actually drove an hour and a half to check it out, and it was well worth it. I've never had an issue with the houses where the actors would grab you or chase you either, but I know some of my friends didn't like it, which was understandable.

Some of the places even sold glowstick necklaces that meant they didn't want to be touched. Those were always a win-win too. One year we decided to check out a somewhat local haunted house that we hadn't been to for a while. It started getting a bit cheesy so we stopped going, but then we saw reviews and posts about it being under new management and how much it had improved. So we wanted to check out how accurate that was.

It was going to be my boyfriend, Bryce, and I, as well as our friends Miguel and Angela. We met up at my boyfriend's place and rode together to save on parking, remembering that it can get pretty hectic downtown. There was already a decent-sized line at the entrance, so we took our place and waited. They typically had people walking around the outside, entertaining us.

Some of them sold little trinkets like the little hands-off lights, but none of us bought one. Some people just walked around and spoke to the guest. Some even recorded the lines and themselves. There were also a few actors in costume, and they were great at not breaking character. They may be chasing each other for the show, but some of them may even try to scare some of the people waiting. It was all part of the experience.

There was one person that seemed especially good at his job. Based on their build, I assumed it was a male. First, they were very tall and lanky. They had on a pair of dirty torn-up jeans, a white tank top that appeared to be stained with fake blood and more dirt, and then they had a plaid sleeveless shirt that was fraying at the shoulders. Then, there was his mask.

It covered his entire head, and the eyeholes were probably just barely big enough for his eyes. You could tell when he would look to the side, and you could just see the whites of his eyes. The mouth part was cut pretty wide, but then it looked to be stitched back together. To be honest, it was one of the best scarecrow costumes I've ever seen, but then his movements made it that much better.

He moved with this unnatural, jerky gait, and would stop to stare at people in line with his head cocked at an almost unnatural-looking angle. It was giving off those creepy, uncanny vibes, and I think that's what made it that much worse. When he got closer to us, he seemed to linger a bit longer. He approached us, and as we were all laughing nervously, waiting for that jump scare, he instead let out this weird groan and kept moving down the line.

It was weird and definitely had us on edge for a moment, but we quickly moved on, knowing what we were here for. It was finally our turn, and after getting our tickets, we approached the entrance ready for a good, innocent scare. Inside the house, I could already tell there were improvements made. There were well-established themes in each room, instead of just creepy stuff everywhere and simple jump scares.

There was a cannibalistic kitchen, a decrepit nursery with some realistic yet creepy-looking baby dolls, and even a decent-looking morgue completed with moving bodies. The actors were all really good. Not only with the jumping out at you, but their screams of pain and horror were almost too good. They definitely kept the unsettling feelings high. Then there was one room that seemed to bother me more than the others.

This room was lit up more than the rest. There were fake candles that lined the entire room, which illuminated all of the tools on the walls. It looked like any and every tool you might find in a repair shop was hanging on the walls, all of which looked old, used, with something caked to the bottom of them all. And in the back corner of the room, standing as if caught off guard...

It was the same scarecrow that we had seen outside while we waited. He was also now holding one of those small metal handrakes in one hand, and a rope in the other. We talked about this room later, and the closest thing we could think of was... It was either supposed to be a torture room, or maybe a crazy farmer or something. It didn't make a lot of sense to us at the time, and while it was pretty tame looking compared to the rest of the house...

It definitely had quite a huge unsettling impact on me. I didn't want to linger long in that room, and I think Angela was getting the same feeling by the way she was gripping onto Miguel. As we walked by, the scarecrow followed us with his head until we were almost out of the room. The exit was closest to the corner in which he was standing, so I hardened myself, expecting a jump scare.

but instead, he said in a soft and very monotone voice, ''This room is not for you.'' I looked at him, and continued to push along with the rest of my group, ready to just get out of there. I know it was a haunted house, and I could handle being chased or maybe even grabbed or pushed, but something about that person in that room made me feel really uncomfortable.''

Once we were out of there and started walking down the hall, the feeling dissipated, and I looked forward to the rest of the event. We were back to enjoying the normal spooks of the haunted house, until we made our way down a steep set of stairs that I believe led to the basement. Now, that room was really set up to look like a torture room and dungeon. There were fake bodies and blood splatter everywhere,

One actor appeared to be chained to a wall and was screaming for help. This room was very creepy, but I couldn't help but wonder, if this was supposed to be the torture room, then what was the earlier room we were in with the scarecrow? We continued to the other side of the room when, out of nowhere, all of the lights went out. The actors started crying and mumbling about how they were on their way and to run and escape. It sounded pretty normal for a haunted house, but...

but then I felt something brush against me, causing me to yelp. We all nervously chuckled and picked up our pace to get out of there, still in the pitch-black darkness. Then, I heard Angela scream. It was an honest, scared scream, and I assumed that someone may have touched and scared her, too. We continued walking until we were in a small hallway.

There were a few hanging candles, illuminating the hall slightly, and we all looked around at each other as a way to check in and make sure that we were all okay. But that's when my heart dropped. Angela wasn't behind me. Looking around us, she was nowhere to be found. We waited in the hall, thinking maybe she got lost in the dark, until we heard people coming. But it was just another couple, and not Angela. We thought maybe there was another hidden path that she had found somewhere,

I had heard of some haunted houses and similar having alternate paths, so maybe that's what happened to her. We had to proceed with others coming up behind us, and shortly after there was a tunnel that led to a door that you had to climb out of, and then you were back outside. There was a canopy with some end-of-event items with directions to get back out front. We went outside, looked around, but still saw no sign of Angela.

We saw one of the workers and asked them if there was alternate routes, and she confirmed that there was just the one. Angela should have exited the same way, but she wasn't out there waiting for us, and she didn't come out after. So where was she? We told the worker out there that she was missing, and at first she seemed uninterested, saying she was probably just lingering or got turned around, assuring us that one of the others inside would direct her where to go.

So, all we could do was wait. We became very impatient after about 10 minutes, and Miguel was about ready to barge back in to find her. We were close to the exit, so there was no reason that it should take that long to get out, even if she did get turned around. Finally, the worker asked us more about where we got separated.

We explained what happened in the basement, and she immediately looked at us funny when I explained being touched. She said that the actors in that room were actually not supposed to touch us, per their terms since it was dark and we couldn't see them, and therefore were not supposed to grab or separate groups. She said that she would get a manager and walked off. They returned and got a description of Angela and what she was wearing.

They stopped allowing groups to go in, and the manager and someone else started walking through, refusing to let us go with them. It took us about 40 minutes to walk through, but without stops and the lights peeing on, I'm sure you could get through it a lot faster. This made sense when finally the manager burst through the exit in 20 minutes, with Angela in front of him.

I was relieved to see her, but Angela looked traumatized and obviously had streaks of tears running down her face. We asked her what happened, with the manager still standing with us, and she explained how she was grabbed. When the lights went out in the basement, she felt someone grab her, which made her scream. She thought it was part of the event, even though it still scared her.

but they seemed to be dragging her along, with their arms crossed over her chest. That's when she began to panic. Something told her that even if they do touch people, they shouldn't be dragging them away. She said they stopped and whispered something to her, and then seemed to leave her where she was. It was still dark, so she felt around to get back to us, but realized that she must have been in a small room based on how close the walls were.

She found a doorknob, but it wouldn't open. She said that she screamed for help, but no one answered, and she feared that people may have thought that she was part of the show. That is, until the manager opened the door holding a flashlight. The manager looked confused and livid. He apologized to us and assured us that that was not part of the show. He said the actors were not supposed to touch us at all, and he had no idea who could have done it.

Because of the situation, the manager had to call the police and make a report, even if we didn't plan on pressing charges. We provided our experience, once again, and all the encounters we had, and we were asked if we noticed anything odd. Noticed anyone favoring us, etc. That's when I remembered the scarecrow.

I told them how he acted outside and even in the room we saw him in, and the others agreed that it was definitely strange behavior. We had to wait around while the police spoke with some others and tried to locate our suspicious scarecrow. Sure enough, the manager came back around with the scarecrow walking beside him, but this time he didn't have his mask on. We confirmed it was the same guy, and the manager said that he had something to say to us.

That's when he apologized to Angela for grabbing her. I knew something about him seemed off, but I honestly wasn't expecting that. What I wasn't expecting even more was how he smiled at her as he apologized. He very obviously did not mean it. Apparently the scarecrow was a new actor, and even after being told and warned that this place was hands-off, he was adamant on it to make it creepier.

I can't help but wonder if there was more to it than that, by the way that he looked at Angela. She ended up pressing charges on him and the manager refunded us for our tickets, assuring us that he was being terminated and that it wouldn't happen again. But sadly, the damage was already done. Angela was too freaked out, for good reasons too, and she was no longer interested in haunted houses.

Bryce and I still go to them sometimes, but we're always holding hands, or my arms are wrapped around his, hoping to prevent something like this from ever happening again. I'm the second oldest of five kids, and while I didn't have a bad childhood, my parents were pretty strict, which I think was part of why I had a rebellious side.

Those of you out there with similar parents should understand, or maybe you might remember being told you couldn't do something, or weren't allowed to go somewhere, and it only made you want to do it more, right? So this happened to be the result of one of those nights for me. My friends and I loved trick-or-treating. It started out as a small competition between a few of us to see who could get the most candy,

and then we wanted to see who could come up with the creepiest costume. We started putting together some of our own ideas, and my mom was at least willing to let me use any old clothes that my older brother couldn't wear anymore. In this particular year, I'd put together a kind of a mad scientist look.

Now, I was in middle school, I believe 14 at the time, so we didn't have class parties, but a lot, if not most, of the kids still dressed up for Halloween. This year it happened to fall on a Friday, and I was pretty excited. I had dressed up, gotten everything ready to have a sugar-filled weekend, and then I was hit with the, "'You're too old to trick-or-treat,' by none other than my parents."

That's what I mean by they were strict. Two years old, no more pacifier no matter what. Six years old, no more nightlight. You should not be scared. I hated it. While my friends were going to be out collecting their own goods, they expected me to stay home and hand out candy with my older brother. But I had better plans. If they weren't going to let me go, then I would complain until they let me go to a friend's house instead.

That worked. So from there, I would be able to hang out and trick-or-treat with some other friends that lived in the same area. I'm just gonna make up some names here. I stayed the night at Zach's house, and Brian and Jeff rode their bikes over so that we could all hang out. Zach's parents were super chill too. He was the oldest of three, but his two younger siblings were too young to go out, so his parents didn't care if we went around the block together.

They were pretty familiar with the neighborhood, and I even heard Zack and his parents talk about certain neighbors, so I think everyone assumed it was a safe place for us to walk around, and we weren't the only kids out there either. But that didn't mean that we were always successful. Towards the top or end of the street, we started running into some other kids that were trick-or-treating with their parents.

When we saw other people, we were still polite. We let them go first, and we watched what we said. We may have cursed and probably said some inappropriate things when there weren't any adults around. However, there were a few houses that, when we were up there with the other kids, they would actually look at us funny, and some even made those remarks. "'Aren't you getting too old for this?'

Usually, they would just give us a single piece of candy, unlike the younger kids around us. We actually had a few that just flat out refused to give us any candy. To say that we were pretty disappointed or annoyed was probably an understatement. We hadn't been doing anything wrong, and we were all even dressed up. I didn't understand why it was such a big deal. However, we still made up for it.

Before I continue, I just want to say that I know what we did was still wrong. Even if those people chose not to give us candy, it was their choice. But at the time and age, all I saw was unfairness and I wanted revenge for it. So if a house denied us candy, we became a little mischievous. If there was a pumpkin or other decoration out front, we would smash it.

We may take one of their fake bones sticking out of the ground or tear down their fake spider webs. We were always quick about it, not lingering very long in case they heard or saw us, but it was our way of saying, "Next time just give us the treat." So we planned on circling the block by going to the right and back down the street behind Zack's house and back around. There was one house on the other street that we stopped at, just like all the others.

They didn't have any decorations out front, but they did have their porch light on, so we all agreed to try it anyways. We stepped back and talked while we waited for someone to answer the door. Shortly after, someone did. It was an older guy. He was shirtless and just wearing some shorts and slippers, with a cigarette hanging out of his mouth. We all let out some kind of laugh, taking in his appearance, and greeted him with our normal chant.

However, in a gruff and unfriendly tone, the man declared, ''I don't give a candy to little brats like you,'' and waved his hand in a way that I can only describe as a shoe motion. Brian then asked why he even bothered answering the door, and the guy only laughed, flicked his cigarette onto the porch, and then slammed the door on us.

The disappointment of not only being denied candy, but the irritation of being called little brats, mind you this is the PG version of what he called us, had all of us pretty damn upset. Zack yelled out that he should turn his porch light off, and I remember yelling about how he should put a shirt on next time. We all started walking away from the house, making fun of the guy, when all of a sudden we heard the door being slammed open.

We turned around to look just in time to see that same guy now pointing a gun at us. From that point on, it felt like it was all in slow motion. Before any of us could move, the guy fired. We all scattered, just trying to get out of his line of sight. I remember I ran to the right, the direction that we were already headed, and tried to hide behind a large tree in the neighbor's yard. From that angle, the side of the guy's house was blocking the view.

Unless he left his yard and actively looked, he wouldn't find me. But my bigger concern was where my three friends were. Were they okay? Were they hurt? As I hid behind the tree, my heart racing, I saw the neighbor's door open and an older couple looked around. The woman spotted me quickly and pointed to me. The only thing on my mind at that point was getting help, and I needed an adult for that.

I quickly yelled for them, saying the guy next door shot at us. The man walked towards me on the sidewalk and looked over at the other house, so I moved my head around the tree to look too. When I didn't see anyone, the man motioned for me to come over. I ran to them and started pleading with them that I needed to find my friends. The man told his wife to go back inside with me and call the cops. Shortly after, the man came inside, pushing along Brian in front of him.

He looked terrified, as he held up his bag with a big burn hole in it. We both sat silently in their living room as we waited for the cops to show up. When they arrived, we explained to them what had happened and they confirmed they got a call from someone else that heard the shots. They said they were going to go talk to the guy and then asked about calling our parents.

As scared as I was, I did not want to involve my parents, so I just told them that I was staying with Zach and gave directions to their home. They put me and Brian in the back of their car, and we watched as they finished speaking to the older couple and then the guy next door. Of course, he never answered, so one cop stayed there while the other one took us back to Zach's place.

Thankfully, Zack made it back to his place, and Jeff rode his bike home from there. When Zack got home, he told his parents, who had also called the cops and my parents. They arrived shortly after. That was one of the longest nights ever, explaining what happened over and over and trying to convince my parents that we did nothing wrong. Apparently, the guy claimed that he did it just to scare us off and defend his property.

even though we had actually done nothing to him nor his property. Yes, we may have smarted off to him, but it was because of the way he talked to us. But afterwards, we just left. And if he wasn't trying to shoot us, why did my friend end up with a bullet hole in his bag? That seemed pretty damn deliberate to me. The police told all of our parents that they would look into the matter further,

But my parents basically said that his actions and how scared we were was punishment enough. They were not convinced that we were entirely innocent. But I still stand by this story to this day, now that I'm in my thirties. Nothing that we did that night warranted having a gun pointed at us. A bunch of fourteen year olds. So that ended up being the last night that I tried trick or treating.

I even got nervous when my parents started taking my younger siblings out. Because overall, who knows what his real goal was there? And what would he have done if he ended up hitting one of us? And was that normal for him? Now that I'm older, I wish that I could talk to that older couple and see what their experience was like living next to that psycho. Anyways, my point to this is that that was a very traumatic experience for all of us.

And I really wish people would just let all kids trick or treat and avoid anything like this happening to anyone. I have a bit of a creepy story for you, Raven. One that you may be a bit surprised to find hits a bit close to home for you. No, I'm not a creep that's stalking you or anything. I just know that you live in Kansas, as you have mentioned it. And I happened to be on a job in the Kansas City area.

I have to travel a lot for work doing network administration for the bank that I work for. And, fun fact, the bank that I work for has a massive data center in a city called Overland Park, just on the outskirts of Kansas City. In October of 2021, I was sent out to head up a major server upgrade for the data center out there.

One thing I was a bit surprised to find was just how cold and wet the month of October can be for you all in Kansas. I was born in the South, and while we do get some cold weather, we don't get the half-rain, half-snow that you guys are plagued with just before Halloween. How do kids go trick-or-treating when it's so damn cold? Anyways, distracting tangents aside, the job was boring. That's not where things happened.

I was back at my hotel one night, and it was, of course, raining and cold out. I had the room temp up a little warmer than I should have, but not being used to the cold, I had to. I had wrapped up some reporting that I had to deliver to my boss, so I shut off my laptop and just wanted to spend the night relaxing and doing a whole hell of a lot of nothing. So, I sat up on the bed and grabbed the remote to flick through the channels.

Nothing was really catching my attention, but after a bit, I landed on a documentary show about haunted places in the US. Ironically, the episode that was on was about a place called Sally House in Atchison, Kansas. For those that don't know what Sally House is, it's apparently this notoriously haunted house in Atchison where a young girl named Sally died.

It was in the early 1900s, and she was being seen by a doctor in the house for pain in her abdomen. And they botched the appendectomy, and it killed her. Ever since then, the house has been plagued by paranormal activity, a bunch of reports of objects moving, noises, cold spots, and such. There have even been reports of physical attacks on the people that have occupied it. I was oddly drawn into this show.

And maybe it's because the house was like 40 minutes away from where I was staying, but it was really interesting to me. Now, obviously watching this documentary isn't a scary story, I'd be silly. What was scary was the feeling I was getting while watching it. The whole time they were talking about the house, what happened, and walking around showing the rooms, I was getting this weird chill down my spine, and the hairs in my arm were standing up.

It may sound weird, but I was feeling like I was connected to the house. Not like I knew anything about it, but like I was supposed to be seeing this episode. I'm not trying to say that this was like a past life thing or anything, but there was definitely something. Something, I guess, paranormal about the whole thing. During the episode, I was just immensely gripped by the story.

They were showing stuff about EVPs, pictures that showed figures, and one of the people was even showing off a bruise they had seemingly randomly got while there. It was terrifying. One of the investigators even claimed to have seen Sally's spirit in the room upstairs, a little girl with a white dress that was stained in blood. He then mentioned that when he tried to get closer, she vanished, and this is where I started to get freaked out.

because the second he said vanished, the TV in my room shut off. It wasn't like it was on a sleep timer or an inactivity timer or anything, because it had only been about 20 minutes, but the TV just turned off. I jumped a bit, because it kind of freaked me out given the circumstances, but I tried to turn it back on with the remote, only to find that it wasn't working.

I was annoyed, obviously. I was getting into the show and as soon as it was getting good, this would happen. I got up from the bed to turn it back on with the button on the set. The second I reached out to touch the button, I felt this cold air rush across me. And I swear on everything in my life, I felt an icy hand grab the back of my neck. Like, I felt the fingers wrap around the back of my neck.

and just straight up grabbed me. I freaked out to the point that I literally fell onto the floor as I flung myself around, to see what had touched me. But of course, there was nothing there. I literally just sat on the floor for like 5 minutes, staring into an empty room, and feeling like I was freezing.

At that point, I was done, so... I stood up, changed into my pajamas, and jumped under the covers. Like, completely under the covers, including my head. I didn't even turn the light off. I did fall asleep after a bit, so... At least I wasn't too freaked out. The next morning, though, actually scared the hell out of me. When I got up and went to the bathroom to do what I needed to do for the day...

I looked at myself in the mirror. Much to my surprise, there was a bruise on my neck, just on the side. It looked to be the size and shape of two fingers. It was like someone had grabbed me really hard, or hit me with their hand on the side of my neck. It wasn't a super ugly or dark bruise, but it was definitely a dark red with a blue hint, and it was very visible.

Thankfully, I had a collared shirt that was able to cover it pretty well. But it was terrifying to know that whatever had touched me was real enough to bruise my skin. That was literally the only paranormal event I experienced in that hotel. Nothing else weird happened for the rest of the week that I had to stay. Thankfully. I didn't watch any more TV after that, though. If I wasn't on my laptop, I was sleeping. I didn't want to risk it.

Anyways, that's my creepy story that I wanted to share with you, and I thought you would find it even more interesting being so close to you. I'm pretty new to your podcast, and I love it, so please do keep up the great work. Oh, and please do let us know if you ever get the chance to check out the Sally House. It sounds like a downright creepy place. I think this happened back around 2003, when we lived in Mississippi.

I was about 14 at the time, and my little brother would have been around 9. We'd gone trick-or-treating for several years now, and last year we did a lot of it around our neighborhood by ourselves. I always loved going door-to-door, and it was even more fun when it was just the two of us. I felt like a grown-up being in charge of my little brother."

I was also really looking forward to this year because my brother and I really enjoyed the movie Lilo and Stitch, and he wanted to dress up as Stitch. I was really close to my brother, so I decided I would go as Lilo and make us a cute matching pair, as well as an easy costume for me. While I do love Halloween and trick-or-treating, I had a sensory issue and still do.

so I don't like to wear a lot of things or layers at once. I already had long dark hair, so I didn't even really need a wig. Just a cute little red dress, really. The problem I'd had with this year, though, was what I was hearing on the news. There had been a report of at least a couple of kids that had gone missing that were close to my age.

I wasn't good with locations, so I don't remember what city it was in exactly, but I do remember that it took place close to us. It honestly scared me, as I realized how many times I was alone. My parents often left me at home with and without my brother when they had to run to the store or something short like that.

I had to walk down the street to go to the bus stop, and my parents wouldn't even be able to see me from the front door. I even rode my bike around the block or down to the little gas station by myself. Hearing the stories of the kids coming up missing alarmed me, but my parents didn't seem to think there was anything to worry about. When the news story came up, my mom would always make remarks about how stupid can you be,

and would criticize the parents and blamed them for not watching their kids closely. However, she still told us to walk the block by ourselves, and when I asked if it was safe, she pretty much said, "Yeah, why wouldn't it be? Parents of the year, right?" So we got all dressed up, and I made sure to bring my dad's shop flashlight, because it was made of some pretty hefty metal, and I stuffed it in my candy bag.

I figured it would be good to have as both a light source and a possible weapon. I also made a mental note while we were out to keep a close eye on our surroundings. I was a little nervous since this whole night involved us going to strangers' houses alone, but because Halloween was also one of my favorite holidays, I was determined to remain vigilant and also have a good time, so as to not worry or frighten my little brother.

We made our way uphill first, as there were only three houses that way before we rounded the corner. After the turn, there was an empty house, because I remembered them recently renovating it, and then the road curved into a cul-de-sac that has four houses on it. We went to each one of those, and between just those few houses that we had gone to so far, our bags were already feeling pretty full. Between our candy load and how excited my brother was-

I was starting to loosen up a bit and have more fun with it. We left the dead end and continued down the road, making our way to a house that had really gone all out. The whole yard was covered in creepy decorations from a gory graveyard, moving ghosts in the tree, and they even made a path that you had to walk through to get to the door. One guy was even in a Grim Reaper costume, standing still until you walked by, and then he would scare you.

I was surprised that my brother wanted to go through it, and in fact, he laughed after getting scared. When we got to the door, the older couple complimented our costumes, gave us a big handful of candy, and asked us a few questions. After chatting, we left through the other side of the yard, and then back through the front gate. As we walked a bit, my brother was getting excited about one of the little toys he noticed the last house had handed out.

and he started digging into his bag while we walked. He was wanting to carry it with him, but I was trying to get him to stop until we got to the corner where there was better light. Unfortunately, the exact thing that I was wanting to avoid happened when we nearly ran into someone in front of us. At first, I looked up to see this tall man wearing some kind of hooded poncho or something. When I think back to this event, I start to realize that I had no idea where this guy had come from.

There was a small group of kids and adults ahead of us, but they had already moved on, and no one had walked by us since we left the house. I suppose he could have been behind us and gotten ahead when we stopped at the house, but I don't recall ever seeing someone ahead of us. Anyways, I gasped a bit as I stepped backwards and apologized to the man. His response to this was saying in a really creepy way,

"'Oh, it's alright, baby girl. Are you okay?' My parents don't even call me that, so it immediately made me feel weird. So I just said I was fine and grabbed my brother's hand and walked around him. I started feeling like I was being watched, so I looked back and saw the guy still standing there in the same spot, now facing towards us. I turned back around and tried to get my brother to speed up so that we could get to the next house.'

As we left the next one, that poncho guy was standing on the sidewalk right by the house. He was smiling and made a comment about our bags looking heavy, and asked if we needed help carrying them. Now, I wasn't very well-mannered when it came to being scared or people that made me uncomfortable, so I just said, "'No!' as firm and grown-up as I could, and again pulled my brother along."

I was really starting to become more panicked at this point, wondering what this guy's true intentions were. Surely it wasn't a ruse to take our candy. He was an adult, or at least looked like it, so he could have just gotten some on his own. So if not the candy, what else would he want with young kids like us? It started freaking me out more when I thought about the kids that had been kidnapped recently. Was this guy responsible for them?

Was he trying to find a good opportunity to grab us too? I started looking around to see if there were any adults nearby, or even the group of children that I saw earlier thinking we would at least be safer with them, but they were even gone. My last hope was Ms. Marsha's house. Marsha was an older lady that worked at the front desk of the office where my mom worked. She was very sweet.

and she always gave my brother and I some kind of treat when we went there with my mom for any reason. She actually lived on the road parallel, or behind our home, basically, which was also the road that we were on. It was a few houses down after the corner, so I started telling my brother that we should go to her house first. He didn't seem to mind, possibly because he was reading the situation too, or he was just getting tired.

As we passed that first house, I heard the familiar creepy voice say, "Hey, you missed one, didn't you?" Before I could say anything though, my brother yelled out, "You're being weird!" So I again held his hand as we ran. I was scared that this guy could get mad at my brother's comment, although I was glad he said it, and possibly chase us, so I wanted to get there fast.

We made it to her house, and I pushed my brother ahead of me as I grabbed his bag from him and he started knocking on the door. Thankfully, she was home and had a bowl of candy in her arms. I frantically asked her if we could come in as I looked behind me and didn't see the guy. She of course invited us in, shutting the door behind us and asking what was going on.

I started explaining the situation to her, and she said that I did a very smart thing by trying to avoid him, and going to her house immediately. She gave us both some water, and we watched TV while she went to call our mom. After a short time, there was a knock on the door. I was trying to keep calm, thinking it was Halloween after all, and was thinking it was probably just some kids. But when Marsha answered the door, it was the same guy.

He tried giving her some story about us being his kids, and apologized for us running into her home. Marcia, knowing our parents of course, told him off, saying he needed to leave as the cops had already been called. I remember his face clearly at this point, trying to look past her at us, and I heard him say, ''Oh, I must have the wrong house. Good night.'' And he walked away."

She shut the door, but went and sat at the window, presumably watching where he went. It didn't take long for my parents to show up, and then the cops around the same time. We told them what had happened while we were out there, and described the guy to the best that we could, since it was dark. I remember giving Marsha a big hug before we left, being incredibly thankful that she was there.

as I would have been shy just asking some random person to come in their house. As far as I'm aware, the guy was never found, which is still terrifying, but sometimes I still wonder what his intentions were, and could it have been the same guy from the news? Also, we just went home that night from there, and my parents followed us in the car the following years. I guess at least they agreed to do that.

Back in high school, I was invited to a friend's Halloween party. It was actually being hosted by this girl, Iris, who had practically grown up with us, so we had always been really close. She had also recently broken up with her boyfriend, Blaine, so I was hoping to be there for support and to make sure that she had a good time, keeping her mind preoccupied. Now, this dude was a real jerk.

He was very possessive and controlling, so I was glad that she ditched him. He didn't like her hanging out with several of her friends, including me or other guys. He was the jealous type, or maybe he was just projecting because he did cheat on her. He obviously was not invited to the party, and her parents even said that to not only her but me.

while her mom explicitly told me that if he did show up to call them immediately. So, yes, this wasn't some secret party or anything. Her parents allowed it, as they were going to go out that night, literally leaving the house to us. The party was going to actually be in the garage, though. It was one of those two-car garages, and there was only going to be about a dozen kids max, so there was plenty of room.

This way, we also weren't in the way or a bother to them if they came home early. They bought some decorations, snack foods, candy, and drinks for us. Her dad even got an old stereo and TV from some thrift store and set it up in there to have music or watch movies.

The day of Halloween, and the party, was going to be that Saturday, so I went over there after school on Friday to help her decorate and to organize the place. Going to the day of the party now, I dressed up in something simple yet creepy. I had a black suit and tie, and I found a plain white head and face cover with small mesh spots for the eyes and mouth.

I was abnormally tall for my age, so I was going as Slenderman. It was pretty good, even if it was a lazy attempt, I suppose. I was just excited for the party and to have fun with my friends. I entered through the side door as the garage door itself was covered in decorations. We also didn't want to have to open the whole thing each time someone came or went.

Iris and two other girls were already there and chatting, so I went over and talked with them. I helped her bring out the last few food items, and as more people arrived, her parents came in to check on us and let us know that they were leaving, so we were all left to ourselves. The last few people showed up, so we turned up the music and just talked, laughed, and ate for about an hour or so.

A song came on the radio, so a couple of the girls, Iris included, started doing some dumb dance to it while the rest of us watched. Once it was over, I went to approach Iris, and I noticed that her face turned sour. She seemed to be looking past me, so I turned around to look and saw none other than Blaine grabbing a handful of pretzels.

He'd been dressed up as Ghostface, so no one noticed that it was him. Granted, we were kind of dumb, I guess, to not double-check faces, but there was really only a small group of people that were going to be there. And, since he wasn't exactly invited, and everyone that was there knew that, we didn't expect him to show up under a mask to try to get in.

I told her that I would tell him to leave, but she declined, saying that she would take care of it. If I had known what I knew about him now, I would not have let her. She approached him, and I heard her saying something about him not being invited. The other guests noticed too, so we were trying to give them privacy, but we also couldn't look away.

I got into a small conversation with one of the other guys there, but it wasn't long after that that I heard Blaine's outburst. He shouted something like, "You didn't even give me a chance to explain!" Iris was shouting back, so I decided to step in, not only for safety, but at the request of her parents. I told him he was not allowed to be there, and that he needed to leave when he backed up and started making comments about Iris and I.

He said he was going to call the cops on us for having an illegal party, which made Iris laugh. She said that her parents set this all up, and she encouraged him to call the cops as he would be the one arrested. This seemed to anger him more, so he pulled out what we thought was a fake knife for his costume, but quickly realized that was not the case. He made some loud, threatening comments, causing everyone to stop and watch at this point.

I held my hands up and tried to calm him down as I slowly stepped in front of Iris. Unfortunately, he noticed my maneuver, and he immediately shoved me to the side, cutting me in the shoulder, and he went straight for Iris. She tried running back to get to the door, but he grabbed her by the arm and was waving the knife in her face. I don't know what came over me.

Maybe it was just the dumb teenage adrenaline, but I kicked him in the back of the knee, and he dropped like a bag of bricks. I felt bad since he did have a knife and was in Iris' face, but thankfully, he dropped the knife as he fell, and she just got headbutted by him as he went down. Before I could process my actions, I'd kicked him in the side hoping to knock the wind out of him and to keep him down.

and one of the other guys there got on his back to hold him down. I dropped down to sit across his legs to stop him from kicking, and I yelled to have someone call the cops. It was exhausting holding him down, but it probably didn't take as long as we thought it did. The police showed up, talked to all of us, and he was left in the back of the cop car as we waited for her parents to get there.

The cops talked to her parents and made it seem like it was just a bunch of teenage drama. Her parents got pretty mad at them about this, and even escorted them into the house to show them their knives, to show the one that he had wasn't from their place. He did leave with the cops, and their parents decided to stay home for the rest of the night, but they didn't bother us. The rest of the night went fine.

We just had to cheer up Iris a bit as she felt her party had been ruined when, really, it gave us something to laugh about. And, to be honest, I felt like we made a good team of guys protecting the girls. We did later learn that, since he was technically a minor, they didn't really hold him. They brought him in, called his dad to come get him, and once he did, he was free to do whatever he wanted to again.

Her parents had to press charges and file a restraining order when he slashed the tires on one of their cars, before they finally took action. Shortly after the party, he seemed to only go to school with the sole purpose of harassing Iris and sending us both death threats until he just stopped showing up. I'm unsure if he just dropped, or if he had to change districts due to the charges.

This recently came up as I'm still close friends with Iris, and I'm actually the godfather to her two young girls. We started talking about school, and we both went to look him up, and found out that he is serving a 12 year sentence for aggravated assault, kidnapping, and a couple other charges. It really freaked her out. Iris was always a friendly outgoing girl, and I truly think she had feelings for him,

but that soon changed when his true demeanor also came out. I am thankful that she got away from him before something else happened to her. I just feel bad for anyone else that was unfortunate to be involved with him. So, yeah. That was probably one of the most eventful Halloweens that I ever had. Hey, so, I guess it's time for me to share my story too.

I don't know much about Aboriginal folktales or anything like that. I can't really even say that I know a lot about the Australian cryptids or things. It is something I would like to get to know more of, and I think there is something like the Yowie and the Bunyip. I don't know. Anyways, this was in the early 2000s, so social media wasn't like how it is now. It was still very much in its early stages.

People spent more time on forums rather than MySpace or Facebook. I liked to browse and find interesting and free places to go. One post mentioned a small, abandoned ghost town where there had been actual sightings of ghosts and other strange things happening. At the time, I thought that maybe people wanted to see ghosts so much that they just ended up seeing them.

A small group of friends and I decided to go out into one of the country areas to celebrate Halloween. We were at that age where we couldn't all get into any of the clubs, and we were too old to do any trick-or-treating. None of us had the funds to have a decent house party either, and none of our parents would have agreed to it, so we all decided to give this a try. Fortunately for us, Halloween fell on a weekend.

So, we didn't need to worry about school. Not that it was a priority for any of us at the time. It wouldn't have been the first time that we skipped school for one reason or another. So this is what we decided was best to do. We got some grog, or alcoholic drinks, some snacks, and some other things. You know, more naughty things if you get the drift.

We drove out into the middle of nowhere, you know, where the skies are clear from the smog of the city and we wouldn't bother anybody. You know when people say that the veal between the living and the dead is weaker on Halloween? Well, I think that's true. We found an abandoned town. It was so far gone that the roofs were no longer on the buildings and only had the exposed brick. What we didn't realize at first was that we were near an old graveyard.

We played some music, got the drinks out and started having a good time. We were drunkenly singing along with the music, eating, and we just didn't have a single care in the world. It was an amazing night. As the night drew on, we started talking about ghost stories in order to fit the theme of the night. One of my mates started telling us some stupid story that I'm pretty sure was quoted from some awful horror movie, hoping to pass it off as his own.

We laughed, and one of my friends, one of the ones who wanted more scary things to happen, wanted for all of us to use an Ouija board. All of us instantly said no to that. The same friend who said his stupid story started going on about a BS Ouija story, one that was about him and his other group of friends. He's always kind of questionable when it comes to integrity.

As the night went on, though, both his jokes and stories began to get a lot better to listen to. It got really chilly, though, and I wrapped a picnic blanket around my shoulders. We all complained about the cold, and little things started to happen. We felt like we were being watched. You know that feeling when you can sense eyes on you? We had that. We could have sworn we heard the faint sounds of children whispering and laughing around us,

Whenever we turned to look, it would be quiet again. Now, we weren't exactly clear-minded, if you know what I mean. I don't want to incriminate myself with that, but you get my drift. You know that feeling you get when you shouldn't be somewhere, and if you stay you're going to get into trouble? I was starting to get that. The radio started to get a lot of static, something that hadn't been an issue before, and I was wondering what the hell it could have been.

You know how you never notice noise until everything suddenly goes quiet? All the crickets and other insects went dead quiet out of the blue. We then started talking about how it was best for us to sober up and probably leave. I had a mate tell me after that, that that was what happens when there's a predator or something dangerous around. None of us wanted to mess around and find out to see what it was.

We started to pack up the car with all the stuff that we brought with us, and we put out the fire, making sure to put it out completely. We didn't want to be the cause of any brush fires. We all sat awkwardly in the car while my mate who was driving was sobering up, drinking coffee and whatever. To be fair, I don't think he was under the limit yet, but we figured we would try our luck anyway.

As he was about to drive off, we started hearing that laughing and talking again. That was enough for us. We were out of there. He began to speed up down the deserted road. I decided to look back through the rearview window at the place that we had been, and I swear I saw what looked like a group of shadow figures watching us. Even a flickering light there too. I don't ever want to go back to that place again. So, yeah.

Be careful what you do on Halloween. I didn't used to believe in spirits or ghosts before, but this experience has turned me into a believer. I don't want to think about what would have happened to us out there if we had stayed. My Halloweens are quiet nowadays, and I hope to keep it that way. When I was a kid, I used to go trick-or-treating with my friends.

I live in Australia, so keep in mind that Halloween isn't as popular here as it is in the US. A lot of people tend to think that it's an American tradition. It has begun to grow in popularity though, and more people do take part in it every year. It's something that I'm going to take my kids to do, provided things go well, and I do live in a safe area.

People also sometimes dress up at work, or there are Halloween parties. This was in the late 90s, so keep that in mind that things were different back then. My friends and I were 15, and none of us had really been trick-or-treating before. I had a younger brother who I took out trick-or-treating, and managed to get some of his candy out of it too.

My friends and I dropped him off at home and told my parents that we were going to be out for a while longer. It was the weekend, so none of us had to be home to go to bed for school or anything. There were three boys and three girls along with myself, so seven in total. A couple of people commented on our lack of effort, and they weren't wrong.

We were also told that we were a bit old to be trick-or-treating, and yeah, we were. As for our costumes, we didn't bother to dress up, and we wore our usual street clothes. We were pretty lazy about it. All we wanted was some free candy, and maybe we could get a can of drink or something. The area that we lived in was pretty safe.

Mostly families, but it was in a low-income area, so the type of kids here tended to vary a lot. It wasn't uncommon for kids to be out playing late in the afternoon, or staying out until the streetlights came on. So, around 6 or 7pm. We generally had a good idea about the types of people who lived around here, and adjusted our behavior accordingly depending on who was around.

We walked and knocked on several doors along the stop. Quite a few people told us that they weren't interested, and some just blatantly told us to screw off. We weren't surprised and joked about how we would come back later to egg their house. We were absolutely full of it because we weren't going to. We were laughing and carrying on like idiots while we walked, and walked toward the dimly lit house at the end of the street.

Usually, when people didn't leave their lights on, it was a sign that they weren't interested and to just leave them alone. We were being little a-holes though, so I guess you could say that we did invite this to happen to us. We ran up to the door, knocked loudly, and giggled. We could hear the faint sound of the TV in a nearby room. I can't remember what was on the TV at the time though.

There were no signs that this person was going to get up to open the door. No footsteps or sound of keys. We knocked again, even louder this time, and a man came to the door. He opened it roughly, and stared down at us with an exhausted and angry expression. When he opened the door, I smelled the aroma of garbage, and I think that he may have been a hoarder too.

He looked rough as guts. He smelled like he hadn't showered for a long time. His beard was messy and had food scraps in it. His pajamas were stained and smelled disgusting. There were dark circles under his eyes, and looking back, he looked like he was going through a pretty rough time. I regretted knocking on the door and stepped backwards. I think I murmured an apology or something.

Before he had the chance to ask us what we wanted or what we were doing, my friends were being jerks and called out aloud, "'A trick or treat!' at him while holding up their plastic bags open in hopes of treats being put inside. The man blinked to himself and murmured that Halloween was an American tradition and that he didn't celebrate it, that he wanted us to leave him alone, and that he didn't have anything he could give us anyways."

It was difficult to understand what he had been saying because he was mumbling under his breath. He tried to close the door, but one of my friends kicked at it and threatened to egg his house if he didn't give us anything. Sure, we were kids, but I have to admit that I was pretty shocked to hear my friend behave like this. We could be pretty obnoxious at times, but that was something else. I can't remember if I told them to stop or not.

I was so surprised by what happened. My friend must have pushed the man too far, because the man reached for a baseball bat he had by the side of the door and swung it at our friends. He screamed at us, telling us that he was going to mess us all up and not to come near his house ever again, or we would get what was coming to us. We all screamed and began to run away as fast as we could to escape him.

Yeah, we were cowards, and we wasted no time in running away as fast as possible. For someone who looked the way he did, he could move really fast. I looked back now and then, and when we went around the block, he must have stopped, and we all caught our breaths at one of the local parks. We were breathing, and started laughing. I don't think we ever tried to go trick-or-treating after that."

I'm a parent myself now, and you can bet that I make sure my children are always incredibly respectful when we go trick-or-treating these days. Okay. So, I've been going trick-or-treating since I was a little kid. It's something I love doing, and it is one of my happiest childhood memories.

I lived in one of the few suburbs in my country that really got into Halloween and trick-or-treating, so I was really lucky to be able to go when I was young without being told people weren't interested. I still go, but technically I'm taking my younger siblings out, and I keep an eye on them to make sure they don't get into trouble. My parents don't like the idea of kids being constantly watched or overprotected,

and wanted us to grow up without needing constant supervision. That being said, they didn't really want my younger siblings to be unsupervised. I was about 17 or 18 at the time when this happened. Anyway, about Halloween, I guess you could say that I'm a big kid at heart. I took my two siblings, Jake, who was 8, and Nala, who was 6, out trick-or-treating.

I was also roped into taking Nala's best friend, Stacy, and Jake's best friend, Thomas. I didn't mind though. I've known the kids since they were really young, and it would give me some time with my girlfriend, Sarah. I didn't bother to dress up, but Sarah brought some fake fangs in order to be a vampire. She and I held hands and talked while the kids would run in front, but we told them to always stay in view. They did. Mostly.

There were plenty of other kids and families around walking and getting lollies. Most people were dressed up. We took them from house to house, their bags began to fill up, and every so often they would run back to show us what they got. We got dibs on some tasty lollies, and overall it was a nice night. No rain or anything that would ruin it. My parents told me not to keep them out too late because they needed to make sure they would be ready to go to bed.

Tomorrow was a school night, so she understandably didn't want them to be too tired. A lot of people were making little goodie bags filled with candy and extras to give to the kids, mainly to stop one greedy little kid from taking a massive handful and not leaving any for anyone else. It was what my parents did too. I only mention this because it is relevant for later on.

The streetlights were on, and it was darker than I wanted it to be. I herded up the kids and began to walk home. My girlfriend and I listened as my siblings both excitedly told me about how much they got, what compliments they received, and what other awesome costumes they saw. They were already talking about what they wanted to wear next year.

By this point, I'd already began to mentally drown out their conversation. It was pretty cute. But I dropped my girlfriend off and the other kids off at their home, and we stayed a bit for a chat with her parents, and then walked my siblings home. I stayed out too late and got a text message telling me to come back. My parents weren't very happy with me, and they told me to bring them home now. I guess you could say that I lost track of time,

My younger siblings and I began to walk quickly back home. I jokingly said it was time for them to pay up, and reached into their bags to take some of the candy. The price of taking them out, I guess. I reached in and opened their bags to their half-arsed whining. I pulled out one of the small goodie bags and opened it up. Expecting to see something tasty, I was confused by what I saw there. It was just empty wrappers.

Okay, kind of mean but a trick so pretty harmless. My siblings ran in the house screaming happily about what they received while I stopped on the front step. I tipped out the containers of the bag and I saw a rusty razor blade. I held it in my hand for a few moments. There was also a rock, a piece of dried broccoli or something.

I didn't care about the random extras. Without the rusty razor blade, it almost would have been kind of funny. But a rusty razor blade? I was completely taken by surprise by this. I very well could have cut my hand when I reached in, and I figured that that was their plan, too. I could have needed a tetanus shot if it hurt me.

I've heard rumors about old wives tales of people trying to pamper with lolis, but I never believed it. I asked my brother which house this one came from and he couldn't remember. I asked my sister and she couldn't remember either. I told my mom about it and she called her friends to warn them. Soon, it passed around the grapevine to check all the bags.

A few other kids had rusty razor blades in their goodie bags as well, along with other unwanted items. Fortunately, it wasn't anything more dangerous than that. None of the kids could remember which house they went to. There were so many, and do keep in mind that these were all our neighbors, and people we've known for a long time. No one really would have ever expected this to happen.

Our local suburb went from being a place where kids felt safe, to where parents ended up being more careful and even kind of suspicious of each other. I'd heard about the rumors of razor blades and candy in the US, but I didn't think it would happen over here in my country. From what I know, it never happened again afterwards. So, it was a one-off incident, but the damage was done.

My siblings grew out of trick-or-treating and didn't want to go anymore. I haven't heard of any tricks in the bag in the years that followed, and I like to think it was just some edgy teenager who wanted to cause issues, but you never know. I kind of worry sometimes that it was some suburban Karen who finally lost it and wanted to lash out at kids. Who knows? Maybe she or whoever it was will start up again someday.

This actually happened to me just a few years ago, when I had started a guy that I knew back in high school, named Chance. We added each other on Facebook and started talking, and had agreed to meet up. We were both very different people in school, and I think we definitely matured and changed, which made it work out. He was typically in the spotlight in class, but he wasn't really a jock or anything-

He was on the wrestling team, but he didn't make it his personality. He just had a way with people. He was very charismatic, so everyone got along with him. Me, on the other hand, I was the quiet girl that always avoided attention. I had friends and I wasn't bullied or anything, but I just kind of kept to myself.

Our paths didn't really cross much while in school, so it was a bit of a surprise when he added me and wanted to have dinner. I had no idea why he would have had an interest in me, but I decided to move forward with it. Color me surprised when we actually hit it off. He was quiet when we went out, and didn't act at all like the person from school. He said that he gave up wrestling after school because he wasn't really interested in it,

His mom wanted him to play football, but he was actually afraid to play and get seriously injured, so they both agreed with wrestling. He was actually a graphic designer now, and was making decent money. I told him what I did after school, which was more schooling, as I wanted to be a veterinarian, but then realized it was a lot harder mentally than it seemed.

Seeing injured and dying pets was very hard, so instead I became a vet tech. I pet house sat, and I volunteered at shelters a lot. I got to see a lot more of the happier side of animals that way. He didn't make fun of me and said that that was very honorable as well. We actually started dating after that, and I realized he was completely different from who I thought he was in high school.

We started hanging out a lot, him at my place more than anything because he also lived with his mom still, but we still had a great time. I learned that he was very affectionate, which was really sweet at first, but then he started becoming more and more clingy. It started as just asking me where I was going when I left the living room, but it got kind of annoying when he did it every time. Like, when I was making dinner...

I would go sit down for a bit and then get back up to check on it, and he would still ask me. Of course, that was just something small, so it wasn't enough to make me end the relationship or anything. But then, it would just get worse. He would call me at 6.01 on the dot, when I got off work, to ask me what I was doing.

If I was out too long at the grocery store or visiting my parents, he would call or text me consistently. I was under some stress as my mom had been battling cancer, so when he did this when I was with her, I got pretty upset. I talked with him about it too, telling him that it was too much. He freaked out and kept apologizing and pleading for me to not leave him. Again, I had no intentions of leaving him.

I still thought that it was something that could be worked on and assured him of that, but we just needed to make some changes. To which he agreed. Things started getting better though. He wasn't as clingy, but he still did have his moments. I even stayed at his place one weekend and that was when I met his mom, Lynette. After meeting her, I could definitely tell that he was a mama's boy.

He was very sweet to her, always willing to help her do anything strenuous, helping with setting the table or doing the dishes. Lynette always involved me with making dinner too, saying it was a woman's job and that she had to make sure her baby was well fed by making sure I could cook. The way she said it, I just thought it was a joke at first."

I know that we were in a pretty steady relationship as we had been together for about 6 months or so, but I wasn't making any life plans just yet. She often talked to him like he was still a kid too, which was weird to me. I also wasn't allowed to sleep in the same room as him, and she made me sleep in her room while she slept on the couch. I mean, come on, we were grown adults.

Anyways, still, I got past it and moved on from there. Apparently me not immediately running after meeting his mom was a sign of acceptance to him, so he started talking about long-term plans, as he put it. He started asking about getting married and how many kids I wanted to have. This caused me to finally slam the brakes.

I told him that I was in no way ready to think about any of that, as we hadn't been together for that long, which did seem to upset him, but I was sure to put my foot down on the matter. Unfortunately, things got even worse. While he didn't make plans, he still continued talking about marriage, and to add to the stress, my mother passed away.

I was grieving and it was very difficult as I was so close to her. I thought for sure that I would be able to rely on Chance because I needed comfort. I needed someone to help me get through this, but that would never happen. He comforted me the first day, but then after that, he always tried to one-up me. I'm a mess, going through my mom's stuff, and he just kept complaining about being bored or feeling tired or this and that.

I told him that he didn't have to stay there if he didn't want to, and he started complaining more, wanting me to go somewhere with him. I let it go, but I started noticing that he was taking advantage of my vulnerability. He would try to convince me to do things that he wanted, and he would always phrase it like I was neglecting him because of my mom, or even saying things like, ''Don't you think your mom would have wanted this?''

All the way to the point that he was trying to convince me to have kids. Maybe part of it was the grieving, but I'd had enough. I told him that we needed some time apart so I can get through this, and then maybe we could try again. I thought maybe I was really being a bit much, but I also had just lost my mom. To my surprise, he understood, and he took it way better than I thought.

Maybe it was the fact that we had agreed to get back together that he held on to, but either way, I appreciated that he didn't make it difficult. So, I decided to try to move forward. I went to the funeral alone. I finished going through her stuff alone and was just alone. One night while I was home, I actually got a phone call from Chance's mother, Lynette.

She wanted to give me her condolences, and said that she wanted to make a wellness basket for me. I thought it was very kind of her, and I agreed, but what I thought was a genuine care call turned into almost a stern talking to about when Chance and I were going to get back together, and how selfish it was of me to break up with him. I told her to forget the basket, and hung up.

This didn't stop her from showing up at my work, and even my dad's house looking for me. It was typically easy to get her to leave, but then her appearance was getting worse. Instead of just asking for me to talk, she started saying things to others about me, like telling guys that she saw at my work to avoid me because I was a harlot and I wasn't a virgin.

I was so mortified, but I went out there and personally told her to leave, in a not-so-nice way. She then started stalking me, watching me as I left work, when I went to the store, and even to my doctor's appointments. I'd finally had enough when she actually showed up to the Halloween party my work was having. She showed up, stopping people as they entered, to warn them about me.

I won't repeat what she called me, but she was claiming that I had numerous diseases. When I did confront her, I told her to leave me alone and reminded her that Chance and I were not together anymore. She would just ignore that and talk about how we were meant for each other, and that I could just be baptized to become a virgin again.

I told her that I was not interested in her son or her crazily obsessed family anymore, and I left. I reported it to the police, but of course they said they couldn't do anything about it because she hadn't actually done anything to me. Of course, I finally got them to do something when she started hanging up flyers on and around my neighborhood with my picture and some pretty awful things being said about me.

I got her restraining order, and she was also told that if she made any flyers or anything of that sort about me again, it would also violate the order. To my surprise, that actually seemed to stop her. I don't know whose idea it was, either Chance or Lynette, but after the order, Chance tried calling and texting me too, except he was a little easier to get to back off.

I told him I didn't want anything to do with him or his mom ever again, and he just stopped calling. I later told some of my friends about what all had happened, because all they really knew was that we were dating. He was clingy, and we broke up. One of them thought that he had a few screws loose as she remembered the way he acted when she was taking pictures in high school for one of the wrestling games.

They were both very affectionate towards each other, like more than just a mom and son should be. Like, gee, I guess thanks for the warning, right? Anyways, it may not have been all that creepy for some, but being stalked by my ex would have been one thing, being stalked by his mother was even worse. The humiliation that she caused was bad enough, but I was just thankful that I had worked at that company for so long.

It at least didn't hurt my reputation with them. They even joked about it with me, thankfully. I've stayed single since this happened, and I'm not sure that I want to even think about dating any time soon. But as for Chance and Lynette, I really hope that we never ever meet again. I have a story from when I was young that is 100% true.

but I honestly have no way to prove it, and I'd guess that a lot of people won't believe it. Obviously you can use it if you want to, I just want to tell someone the story that might believe it, or at least enjoy it. So, here goes. When I was around 12, my best buddy, Jordan, and I used to spend a lot of time out of the house.

Like, a lot of the time we would go to school, and the minute we got off the bus we would go in, drop off our book bags, and then we'd be out in the woods until almost 9, or whenever our parents yelled for us. We would typically skip dinner because we were both young nature enthusiasts, and genuinely loved spending a lot of time out on the trails.

Thankfully, Jordan had an excellent sense of direction, and could almost always get us home without issues. Me, on the other hand, I was so bad at figuring out where we were that I could walk 20 feet to the north of where the forest started and be completely lost. I liked bugs and trees though, so I was always all for it. Now, all of that explains what I loved about being in the woods with Jordan,

and how we always had a good time. However, there was a stretch where things weren't quite so fun or comfortable. This happened back in the 80s. I don't remember when exactly, but like I said, I was around 12 or possibly 13. I remember it was in October because all of the trees were a bright red-orange, and it was my favorite time of the year.

If you've never seen a midwestern fall in the middle of the woods, I highly recommend it. The trees were all covered in oranges, reds, yellows, and the ground plants were starting to die off, so it was a major contrast between the dead tan and the colorful trees. The first time that I knew something was off was one of the random trips that we took out into the woods.

We were playing, and it was starting to get pretty dark pretty early by then. I think we were pretending to be soldiers or something, which is what we typically did, and were stealthily treading through enemy territory. We were hiding behind trees and splitting up to take down the base, when I remember hearing something in one of the trees. At first I thought it was just a squirrel, and I looked up to see if I could find it,

but I didn't see what it was. I ignored it, and I moved back on with what we were playing. After a few more minutes of doing this, I remember I heard a branch above me snapping and thinking, dang, that must be a fat squirrel. But when I looked again, the thing that I saw was not a squirrel.

I couldn't tell what it was at first, but I remember laughing because I looked over at Jordan and said, "Hey, is that a monkey?" Which was a dumb question. I live in the Midwest, and we very clearly do not have monkeys here. We both kind of stood there and just stared at it, but we couldn't figure out what it was. Because it wasn't really moving, just standing in the trees looking away from us,

and swaying back and forth. And by swaying, I think the best way to describe it is like a praying mantis. If you've ever seen a praying mantis that feels threatened, they kind of sway back and forth. It was like that. We just watched it for several moments, and then we tried to kind of walk around the tree to see the front of this thing,

But as soon as it noticed us, it ran up the tree and hid to the point that we couldn't find it again. We made plans to come back up the next day and try to see if we could figure out what this thing was, because I was stumped. I was pretty well versed in most of the fauna of our area, because that's what I was really into at the time. But this thing was weird.

The only thing I could seriously think that it looked like was a monkey of some sort. I asked my parents that night if there were any monkeys or apes around us, just to be absolutely certain, and they confirmed that there weren't. Well, aside from the zoo. Obviously, no one had heard anything about an escaped animal from the zoo on the news, so I was back to just being stumped.

The next day, Jordan and I brought our binoculars to see if we could get a better view trying to spot this thing. We didn't do much beyond just sitting on a log and watching the trees, seeing if this thing came back. And it did, but it kind of seemed like it was trying to avoid the area that we were waiting in. So, it was like it was aware of us. More than something like, say, a squirrel or a rodent or whatever.

It wasn't until the fourth day of us staking out the woods that we actually got to see this thing clearly. It was a Saturday, so we had the entire day to stake out the area and see if we could find it. And, much to our surprise, when we got into the woods in the morning, we did see it. Except this time, it wasn't in the trees.

We walked into the wooded area and no more than 100 feet or so, this thing was on the ground. It looked like it was eating something like a hedge apple because it was smashing it into the ground and peeling it apart. We went into full stealth mode and crouched behind some of the brush and crept really slowly over to the side so that we could see this thing.

This is where everything went from this fun "what is this thing that we're seeing" straight to "I wish we would have never seen this." Whatever this thing was, it was definitely ape-like in structure, but its face looked way too human. If you've ever seen a shaved ape, they do have faces similar to humans, but they're discernible. This thing was not.

It had a human's face. It was structured like a person. There was nothing there that resembled an animal at all. The mouth was flattened down more like a person's. The nose protruded at an angle like a human's, and the eyes were inset like a human's. We watched this thing eat the hedge apple, and then slowly creep up the tree and climb out of sight. After that, I told Jordan that I wanted to go home, and he agreed.

Something about seeing this... thing? It triggered some kind of deeply inset fear that neither of us had ever experienced up to that point. It was like our brains knew that this thing was not natural at all, and it wanted us to block it out and never think about it again. We actually took a few weeks off from going into the woods, mostly because we didn't want to run into this thing again,

We did eventually get the courage to go back, but we never saw it again. I have no idea what the hell it was, but it was definitely not your standard animal from around my part of the world, and the fact that it switched on some kind of primal fear, it was just terrifying. I'm actually glad that we never saw it again.

And I'm glad I was able to get this out because, thinking about this creature, it sends shivers down my spine, and it almost makes me feel that same level of terror even this many years down the road. My trick-or-treating days are long over. I don't have any kids in the family who are still into it, and none of my friends have children who participate in it either. Sad, but that's how it is.

So, I make up for it by dressing up for Halloween and giving the neighborhood kids something to look forward to. It isn't uncommon for me to get 10 and sometimes 20 groups of kids, so I make sure that I'm well supplied. I am an introvert and I don't really talk to people, except on Halloween. It's how I was able to meet and befriend some of my neighbors over the years.

I had just closed the door and heard a horde of costumed kids run off to the next house. I was about to sit down when I heard another knock. It was dark, but it certainly wasn't late. I groaned, getting up, and opened the door to see a woman with a stereotypical Karen getup. I couldn't tell if she was in a costume or if that's how she actually looked. She looked me up and down with the rudest look on her face.

I was dressed up as a cheesy vampire that year. Can I help you? I asked her, and she gave me a smug smirk and then asked if I had given her child any mini bags of treats. It was possible. I asked what her child was dressed up as and if there were any problems. She told me that her child had a nut allergy and that my bag had caused him to get sick. Now, I try to be accommodating,

I have separate mini bags with no nuts, vegan stuff, etc. to try to cater to everyone. Whenever the kids get their treat bags, I ask them if they have anything that I need to know, or diets to keep in mind. A lot of the local kids already know this. She looked like I had asked her an offensive question. I told her that a lot of trick-or-treaters came to my door and that I would offer alternatives. It was the child's or parent's job to tell me which ones they wanted.

She said there had to be a reason why I was so happy to have kids over. I couldn't believe this. I told her to go ahead and just leave my property and not return. She started having an adult tantrum and left. I never saw her walking with any child. That woman even had the audacity to kick over one of my pumpkins on her way out. I was pretty upset about it. I didn't want to spoil it for the rest of the kids though and just kept doing my things.

One of my neighbors came over with one of her older kids, and we had a bit of gossip. I asked her if she knew her, and apparently the woman had taken a photo of my house and posted it to the community Facebook, telling people that I was trying to poison people's kids. I don't use Facebook anymore. She told me not to worry and that there were a lot of comments defending me. I couldn't believe it.

She told me that she'd come over to check on me after the school run to see how I was doing. I couldn't believe that this lady was so angry about this. I still don't know who her kid was. Nothing else happened with her until the next year's Halloween rolled around. I didn't want to let one person spoil things, so I got everything ready. Some of the moms mentioned it when they came around and assured me that they didn't believe it.

Come to find out, this crazy Karen lady was still posting about it on Facebook, and trying to spread awareness about me apparently poisoning children. I don't understand why she developed this vendetta against me. One of the comments I saw was interesting. Apparently none of her children had any allergies to anything. Some of the family and friends were commenting on the post, and even asked why the kids had been left out unsupervised.

I didn't even recognize her kids as people who had come to my door. So, I guess that she just made it all up and decided to attack me? A friend told me that this was well beyond drama, and that I needed to consider taking her to court if it continued. I actually notified her, and she backed off. And apparently that was the end of it. Halloween trick-or-treating kept going as planned. I often wondered about it, though.

What would have happened if I didn't really know anyone in the community? And I ended up being shunned because of that crazy lady. Anyway, that's my story. Trick-or-treating is still fun, and that's my one event that kind of hurt it for me. I'm not really sure if a Karen story is considered scary, though, but I hope you enjoyed it. This happened back whenever I was seven years old.

and at the time it was the creepiest thing that I had ever experienced. I admit that it was kind of a nothing really happened event, and of course I didn't have much experience being seven years old, and the scarier things have happened further into my life, but this was seriously terrifying at the time. It was Halloween, which is obvious by the fact that we were trick-or-treating at the time. We had a local park that was owned by a church,

and they liked to do this big Halloween event that was kind of like a trunk-or-treat thing, but it was almost like a little Halloween carnival. My dad agreed to take myself and my little sister, and I was over the moon. I was a little girl that loved everything spooky, and I was finally going to what I thought was going to be the pinnacle of all the Halloween events, even though it was watered down and hosted by a church. I was obviously amped,

and I thought it was going to be an amazing evening. My dad was busy keeping an eye on my little sister, so at one point I had kind of wandered off to check out this haunted maze that they'd set up. I thought that I was old enough to handle it. I yelled to my dad that I was going to go to the maze, and ignored him when he told me to wait for him and Lacey, my sister, who was three at the time. I was so engrossed that I didn't think anything of it.

and just assumed that he was right behind me. I entered into the maze and made quick work of it. It was creepy, but it was super quick to get through. I pop out the other side, and I'm amped because they gave me this caramel apple as a prize for getting through. I immediately unwrapped it and bit into it, and then looked around for my dad and sister, only to not see either of them.

The crowd looked a bit thinner than I remembered, but neither of them were there. I walked around the side of the maze and out to the front, the main area of the festival, thinking that they would be there waiting, but still did not see them. I was just kind of standing there like a lost puppy, looking around, thinking, where did they go?

After a few moments, I walked over towards the entrance, thinking that if they were looking for me, they would have me come to the front, right? They would go somewhere that I could be seen and was a common checkpoint. After a few moments of standing at the front, I saw this person wearing a mask standing off to the side, just kind of staring at me. He was wearing one of those exaggerated old person face masks,

The kind that are really wrinkly and flabby. At first, I just saw him standing there and didn't think anything of it. Just a person standing off to the side in a creepy mask at a Halloween carnival. After about two or three minutes, I noticed that he hadn't turned away from me or walked anywhere else. And I was hitting a point of getting a bit worried by it. Because, again, it was creepy. I knew that something was off at that point.

My heart was starting to speed up, and I could feel myself starting to cry. Right about then, is when this creepy man in the mask started to walk toward me, and I choked as I just thought, "This guy is going to kill me." Again, I was like seven, so that was just the random idea implanted in my little brain by the horror movies I'd seen. I just stood there watching this creepy person walking toward me.

And as he did, I watched as he reached his hand into his pocket and pulled out what looked like a dog leash or a leather rope of some sort. I was starting to shake as he slowly crept toward me with this rope in his hand. Thankfully, at the point where he hit the midway point between us, my dad walked up to me and asked where I'd been. I looked up at him with teary eyes and I couldn't speak. I just burst into tears at that point.

He picked me up and told me that it would be okay, but that I needed to stay by him for the rest of the night so that he didn't lose me again. I remember looking back to see if I could find the creepy man, but he was gone. What wasn't gone, though, was his mask. It was on the ground, as if he had taken it off and tossed it before walking away. I have literally no idea what his intentions were.

The rope or leash or whatever it was, was enough to scare the hell out of seven year old me. But the fact that he left the mask tells me, at least now, that he didn't want me to be able to point him out to my dad. I absolutely assumed that this man had ill intent, but thankfully my dad showed up just in time. Like I mentioned, I know that this was kind of a nothing really happened story, but it was still terrifying to me at the time.

I saw a few people on here talking about bad experiences they had as kids during Halloween, and it brought back a pretty terrible memory that I'd pushed to the back of my mind. This happened when I was around 11 years old. Like any kid, I was excited for Halloween. I don't know about other places, but my school let you come in the day of Halloween in full costume.

and then at the end of the day, the final class was changed out for a mini-trunk-or-treat style event for us. After school, we'd go home and hang out until it was around 7 or 8pm, and then head out for trick-or-treating. I remember being especially excited this year, because my mom finally managed to find a Harry Potter costume that wasn't used or old, and it also came with the Quidditch brooms.

I was also very obsessed with Harry Potter, so this was a huge thing for me at the time. We set out on the first round of houses, that being our neighbors, and since we all knew each other and hung out with the other families quite a lot, we always got first come, first serve, and they gave us the good stuff. Full-sized candy bars, Reese's, Hershey's, Snickers, it was a kid's dream.

They only did it for the kids that they knew, and my mom told me it was because there was a chance other families started earlier, and we might miss out on some good candy later on, so they wanted to make sure we had something good by the end of the night. After we finished with the neighbor's houses, we stretched around the block and hit all of the neighboring streets. We landed on the final street for the night at about 10:00 PM. I had to get a second bag just to fit the rest of the candy.

Being an only child had its benefits. When we hit the final street, we noticed that all the lights in the houses were out, except for one. It was late, so it wasn't unusual for other families to get tired of the Halloween festivities and bow out later in the night, shutting all the lights off so no one else would show up. Most of the houses would put out the rest of the candy in a bowl or a chair so the kids could at least get something.

We cleared out the bowls, and we hit the final house, the only one with the lights on. This one didn't just have lights. It had decorations blasting out of every side of the house. Giant blow-up ghosts and skeletons, orange and purple string lights, even a giant jack skeleton on the roof towering over the rest of the property.

My mom at this point was tired of getting out of the car, so she said that since it was the last house, and it was the most exciting to look at, that I could just go myself. We lived in a pretty pristine neighborhood, so neither of us were worried about something happening. I excitedly got out of the car and trotted through the glowing path to the front door. I wish I could describe how it felt.

There was Halloween music blasting through speakers somewhere on the property, and the decorations enveloped you when you were dead center. It was a dream to a Halloween-obsessive kid such as myself. I reached the door and pushed the doorbell that looked like a severed eyeball. It rung throughout the house and made weird bell chimes akin to that of a dinner bell.

After a few moments, the door swung open and a very tall, lanky man in a Jack Skellington costume greeted me with a freakishly toothy smile. "'Hello there, little one, and happy Halloween,' the man said. I smiled. I couldn't help myself. It was all so theatrical and unreal."

I frowned. I replied,

"Oh, come on, it's Halloween! I have more candy in here than you have ever seen!" I looked back at my mom's car and she was staring at the road. I could see her nodding off already. "Alright, maybe just a peek I guess," I said. "Excellence! Come get your treats!" As soon as I entered the house, the door slammed behind me, and the man picked me up and ran upstairs with me over his shoulder.

I instinctively screamed for help, the man covering my mouth just after I got the first few pleas out. The man then tossed me on the floor and closed the door, locking it behind him. I pounded on the door, begging and screaming to be let out. That's when I heard a loud commotion coming from somewhere in the house. Then a loud crash rang through the house, and then the tumbling, bumps, and sounds of fighting and thrashing.

"'Sam? Sam, where are you?' I heard my mom call out. "'Mom, I'm upstairs. Help me, please!' I screamed and pounded on the locked door. I heard loud footsteps coming up the stairs, followed by the doorknob jiggling. "'Honey, you have to unlock the door!' My mom yelled out. "'I can't. It's locked from the other side. Honey, I'm going to need you to back up really far from the door, okay?' I got up and backed up from the door."

Suddenly, loud footsteps pounded through the hallway on the other side, and something crashed into the door, sending it flying. "'Oh, sweetie, are you hurt?' "'Oh my god, baby!' my mom cried as she picked me up and squeezed me. She carried me downstairs. The man was pinned on the ground by one of our neighbors, who happened to see the man lure me into the house just moments before as he was coming up to send his kids to the door.'

The guy was arrested, and the news stated that he was some kind of known sex offender or threat to the local neighborhoods. I'm so very thankful for my mom, and that my neighbor happened to be there at the right time. I have no idea what would have happened if he hadn't shown up. So, I want to start this story out by saying that I'm a fairly serious person.

I never wanted to be a stiff, but as I've gotten into my late 20s, now early 30s, I kind of shifted into this very serious person that was always busy with work and career ambitions. My friend, Sarah, on the other hand, has always been a very whimsical person that does everything based on how she feels in that moment, and she doesn't like to be tied down.

You know that one meme with the two girls, where one's wearing all black with black hair, and the other one's wearing tie-dyed clothes and has rainbow hair? Yeah, that's us. There's one thing that we have always agreed and have loved together, though, and that's spooky month. We both have this strange love for October, the hallowed season, and all things scary.

There's just something about the change in seasons where the air gets crisp and starts to sting a bit that can pull me out of my serious demeanor and bring Sarah a bit closer to my state of thinking. But Sarah is still the let's do this crazy thing right here right now kind of person, and she's my best friend. So I'm more than willing to let her convince me to do something stupid, especially when she comes to me super excited about it.

It was obviously her idea to investigate something that she'd heard about from her brother. On the outskirts of our town, there was, apparently, an old abandoned farm that had an old barn that was still standing. There was, as there always is, rumors about this farm. This one was actually pretty messed up, and true.

Apparently in the 60s, the patriarch of the house came home one day, and something made him snap. He murdered his whole family, and then himself. She mentioned this, and the only thing I could think of was "Holy Amityville Horror". I was a bit apprehensive at first, but she convinced me that we wouldn't be going into the house where the crimes happened, we would just do a quick walk through the barn to see what was there.

So, armed with a flashlight and a sense of daring, we set out one Friday night to explore the barn, and perhaps get a bit of a scare in preparation for the rest of the spooky month. We got to the location, she parked off to the side of the road in a spot that was completely unnoticeable by anyone driving by, and we started walking onto the property. The barn was actually a pretty massive structure, much larger than I anticipated.

And, as we entered, Sarah had this brilliant idea. She pulled her phone out and placed it on a ledge, and told me she was going to record to see if she could get any ghostly sounds. We continued on into the large wooden relic. The building was weathered for sure. Windows were boarded up. The paint was peeling away as if the walls were growing fingers and trying to reach into the darkness.

We walked through the main, I guess, hall? I'm not really sure what to call the area where the stalls are for the various animals, and I will say that I was feeling very uncomfortable within a few moments. It was unusually freezing in that building. The air was stale, and everything was layered in dust, which I knew was going to kill my allergies. Then, Sarah stopped in the middle of the floor,

and put her hand back to stop me, and said, ''Kay, did you see that?'' I looked around. I hadn't seen anything, and I told her as such. She then pointed her flashlight up towards where the loft in the back was, saying that she thought she saw something moving up there. I figured she was just trying to creep me out a bit, and it was absolutely working. She glanced over at me and asked if I wanted to go up there to check it out.

I was very hesitant. I started to tell her that I didn't want to, but as soon as I opened my mouth, I heard what sounded like someone talking. Not like a person that was nearby, but like something whispering something in the distance. Based on how pale Sarah got, I could tell that she heard it too, but she went a different route with her fear and started to chuckle uncontrollably.

She jumped up excitedly and said that we needed to get up there ASAP to see what creepiness there was. She ran over to the ladder and started climbing it, leaving me with zero chance to tell her that I did not want to go up there. So, I followed her. Up in that loft was... well, it was genuinely unsettling. There were toys, a lot of them.

All of them older and dirty, like they'd been there for decades. Probably because they had. As she swept the area with the flashlight, she pointed it towards what looked like a small bundle of blankets in the corner, and in the blankets was a doll. But not like a normal doll. This thing was clearly handmade. Poorly sewn together, the smile on its face almost felt malicious.

It was sewn on at a weird angle. The button eyes were partially broken, and the clothing on the doll was stained with god knows what. Sarah reached over and picked the doll up to look a bit closer at it. This is where things went from creepy to, well, creepier. I turned to look around the room a bit more, looking at the other toys, the various bits of clothing that were stacked in the corner,

After a few seconds, Sarah let out a chilled scream and I turned just in time to watch her throw the doll down and immediately dash down the loft's ladder. I followed her down to the main level and she took off out of the barn. Thankfully, I remembered her phone and grabbed it before we left, only to see her continuing her jog out to the car.

When we got to the car, I could see that she was breathing heavily and her eyes were watering. This was a stark contrast to the excitement she'd shown going up into the loft. I asked her what was wrong and what had happened as I handed her her phone, and she just shook her head and said, ''We can talk about it when we get home.'' I didn't push it. She was clearly in a bad way, so I just put the car in reverse and took the roads back home.

When we got back to my place, she finally settled down and told me what had happened. When she picked up the doll, she started to feel nauseous, like she was going to get sick. She said that I had turned away and she saw me looking over at the other things, and when she turned to look back at the doll, she saw a little girl's face just behind the doll in her hands.

She told me that the face was grotesque, that she wasn't just a pretty little girl. She looked like she'd been severely beaten and injured, and the look that she gave Sarah was one of rage, like she was mad that Sarah was holding the doll. That's when she let out the yelp, tossed the doll, and ran away.

That in and of itself was creepy, sure, but as we talked through it, Sarah recalled the audio recording on her phone. She grabbed her phone and we listened to see if it caught anything, and there were two instances that sent chills up my spine. The first was not too long after we got to the barn, and she set up the phone. There was what clearly sounded like a little girl's voice saying, ''She's pretty. I hope she'll play with me.''

It was whispery and quiet, but that's what I swear I heard. Then, the second bit was a bit later, and it was actually right before Sarah gave her yelp. You could hear us talking in a hushed tone, and then there's a really static-y sound, like the wind was blowing over the phone, and I swear there is an angered and slightly demonic sounding voice saying, ''That's mine.''

and then you hear Sarah let out her scream and run out of the barn. This would have aligned right with when she said she saw the girl's face, and I'm guessing that was the girl staking her claim on the doll, even from beyond the grave. The whole event was more than enough for me. I was properly terrified. We never went back to the barn, and we decided to not really talk much about the whole event beyond that night."

Thankfully, nothing attached itself to us, or followed us out of that barn, but I would be lying if I said I didn't think that was what was going to happen. It was a terrifying experience, one that even now, a couple of years later, I can remember with vivid detail. I can recall the cold feeling, the overall unsettling aura that was about the place, and that look on Sarah's face after she threw that doll.

Thankfully, she hasn't had the idea to go into any more abandoned buildings, but October is only a couple of weeks away, so I'll let you know if that changes this year. I have a short, but honestly terrifying story that happened to me about 15 years ago on Halloween night. For some background, I live in a fairly decent little town outside of a major city.

It's more of a growing suburb than anything, and it's mostly pretty quiet. At the time of this story, I was 28, and my son was just turning 8, so he was at that age where he still needed my help with a lot of things, but he was wanting to be more independent, so I was doing my best not to smother him. I was still doing what I could to make sure he was doing things right, and didn't need my help.

"'I'd raised him myself, without his father, so it was tough, but it's part of being a parent. "'On this particular Halloween, he wanted to go trick-or-treating, and I of course was going to go with him. "'But he also didn't want me hovering over him. "'He was, in his words, big enough to go to the door alone and knock.'

It was also rather cold and wet that year, so he and I made a compromise. I would drive the car to each road and direct him which houses to go to, and would watch him from the car, and he would get to do it all himself unless he physically needed help. I would drive him to each street, and we would do this until he got tired or it got too late. For most of the night, things went smoothly.

He was pretty happy to be walking between the houses on his own. I was happy that I was able to watch him and not upset him. He would go to the houses, say trick or treat, and if they would ask where his parents were, he would tell them that his mom was watching him from the car because he didn't need help.

Most of the older people would laugh at his comments. Some of the younger ones, I think, had an issue with it, but we were both happy, so whatever. Every time he would get in the car, he would show me his bag and what they had given him, and would tell me that he was having a lot of fun. So, it was a great night. However, on one street, things went from really fun to actually quite terrifying.

We'd pulled up on the street, and everything looked normal. A few of the houses were dark, and there weren't many trick-or-treaters, but I figured that that was more because of the time than anything. It was getting late. There were a few houses with their lights on, so I told him to go to the three houses, and to come back to the car, and then we would make a game plan from there. He said okay, hopped out of the car, and started to go to the first house.

As soon as I watched him go to the first house and then make his way to the second, I felt something cold hit the side of my head. I started to look over toward whatever it was, but it clicked pretty fast. There was a guy dressed in all black, holding a gun to the side of my head, and he very quickly told me to get out of the car and not make a scene.

I was obviously panicking. My son was at one of the houses and he was going to come back to the car soon, so I wasn't going to do anything to make this guy want to pull the trigger. I told him okay and that I would do whatever he was asking, and I opened the door and stepped out. As soon as my feet hit the pavement, he shoved me off to the side and jumped into the car, and then took off down the road going way too fast.

Thankfully, there weren't many people on this road at the time because, with how fast he was going, he would not have been able to stop if a child had walked out into the street. I stood up, still freaking out, and I immediately ran over to the house that my son was at. He was still getting candy from them when I walked up, and the old man at the door looked up and smiled, asking if I was his mother.

I said that I was, and I think that he realized something was wrong right away based on my tone. I started to tell him what had just happened, and as soon as I said it, I pretty much started bawling. He told me to come inside, so the two of us stepped in, and he said that he would call the police. His wife came over and asked what had happened, and he told her and...

Honestly, the whole thing was such a terrifying and embarrassing mess. Here I was, with my eight-year-old son, in some random old couple's house, crying my eyes out because some rando had just carjacked me. Of course, my brain was sifting through those anxious thoughts about how it would have gone if my son was in the car at the time, how it would have traumatized him, all that.

They called the cops, and the old lady got some water for myself and my son, and we sat there while we held a pretty nice conversation with them. She actually gave him the rest of the candy, and they shut off their light, and then she showed him how to crochet or knit, I don't really remember. He was entertained, and thankfully didn't really understand the whole situation beyond something bad had happened.

When the cops got there, I gave them all the information that I had on the guy, but I didn't really see his face. I did see the logo on his jacket, and I gave them all the information on my car, of course. After they left, the old man said that he would take the two of us home. Thankfully, I had a spare key hidden in the front yard, so we could at least get into the house. The whole time, I was apologizing to the man for the inconvenience,

and he just told me that he was happy to help, and was sorry that the whole thing had happened. After we got home, my son wanted to stay up and watch some scary movies, and as much as I wanted to tell him no because it was late, I just said screw it and let him enjoy the night. I ended up falling asleep on the couch while he was watching some creepy movie, and the next morning when I woke up, he was passed out on the floor with candy wrappers everywhere.

I ended up calling him out of school that next day, and I called out of work so that we could just hang out together at the house, since I knew he wasn't going to be up to going to school, and I wasn't really in the right mindset to go to work. To wrap this up, they did find my car after a few days, but they never found the guy. The car was abandoned on the side of the highway after he had blown a tire, and one of the wheels was pretty messed up.

But, thankfully, somehow, there wasn't any damage that couldn't be repaired. It was expensive, sure, but thankfully my parents were able to help me. I can't imagine how stressful it would have been if they couldn't have. When he got a bit older, I did finally explain to him what actually happened, mostly because I've always tried to be open with him.

He didn't really remember that night, so at least I know that he wasn't traumatized by the whole thing. For me, however, that was the most terrifying Halloween I had ever had, and it's probably the scariest thing to happen to me personally. We did go trick-or-treating for a couple of years after that, but we stuck to our block. So, to everyone out there...

Stay diligent, and make sure that you don't let anyone sneak up on you like I did. Halloween is supposed to be a fun night, so make sure that you're staying safe out there, so that everyone can enjoy the holidays festivities. Growing up in the 90s, trick-or-treating was a sacred ritual for us kids in our small suburban town.

We didn't have urban legends about ghosts, goblins, or monsters. We were the type that would listen to the whispers about which houses in the area were giving out king-sized candy bars. There was one house at the end of the street that Tommy claimed was haunted by demons, a claim that he made without evidence or even reason. Not really relevant, but it does tell you the kind of kids that we were. Back in '97 was the year that this happened.

and this was a Halloween that was more than terrifying for me and my group of friends. That year was a cold year for trick-or-treating. It was a chilly evening with a slight mist that was threatening our night with rain, and the wind was starting to act like we were going to get storms. We were quickly marching house to house with our pillowcases. They were starting to get kind of heavy.

Our pack was four kids: Tommy, as I mentioned, Lily and her younger brother, Jordan, and myself. The three of us were twelve, and Jordan was nine years old. And with how small our town was, we were pretty much told to just walk the few neighborhoods, and get the candy and get back to the house. We were not supervised. None of the kids in town really were.

We'd been through most of the normal route and decided that we were going to head toward a neighborhood that was a bit out of the way. A neighborhood that we normally didn't go through and weren't supposed to go through. This was a bit of a different area of our small town. The houses were a bit further apart, and there were a lot more trees that lined the properties. In my mind, that meant that they were likely to give away more candy,

Because there were fewer people, right? It made sense at the time, to me at least. We went to a couple of the first few houses and had decent halls. Nothing crazy, but we were not willing to give up. We kept on down the road, until we got to a house that caused us to hesitate. This house was something else entirely. Old, slightly falling apart...

and the entire yard was littered with animal statues. When I say it was littered, I mean there were no more than two or three feet of the yard that did not have a statue in it. Owls, cats, dogs, lions, birds, gnomes, just a bunch of random and slightly creepy statues in all directions, all turned to face the walkway from the street to the door.

We all just stood there looking at the house, waiting for anyone to go up to the house. Basically, no one in our group moved until someone else was going to move. Suddenly, Tommy said something stupid like, I think that it's a witch that lives there. I immediately scoffed when he said that. Like, full on, pfft.

I told him that that was dumb, because there was no such thing as witches, and that it was probably just some old lady that liked animals a lot. I rolled my eyes and decided that I would be the one to go knock on the door and get the candy, and that my lame friends could stay behind. I stepped down the walkway toward the door, and I will mention that, as I was walking toward the door, it felt a bit oppressive. I felt the eyes of all those statues on me,

It felt like they were all staring at me with malicious intent, and were going to jump at literally any moment. Of course, none of them did, but it was the feeling that seemed to overwhelm me. I got to the door and I knocked, since it didn't look like there was a doorbell. I really didn't even know if anyone was going to answer, but after about two minutes, there was a loud creaking sound that started in front of me.

The door slowly opened in a manner that can only be described as unsettling. And, on the other side of the door was an older woman. I won't get insulting with my description, I will just say that she looked a bit... ghastly. She was very pale and had large eyes that seemed too big for her skull, and was dressed in an old nightgown. As soon as she saw me, she shifted to a large smile and looked excited.

"'Ah, a trick-or-treater! How delightful!' And she just sort of stood there for a moment as we stared each other awkwardly. I was a bit caught off guard by her sudden excitement, considering the eerie vibe of the house. I tried to maintain my composure and broke the silence by saying, "'Um, trick-or-treat?'

She smiled again and commented, "'You're the first person to come to the house tonight. I haven't had any other kids come up and get their treats.' I again just stood there like, "'Okay, that's cool. Can I get my candy, please?' Obviously, I didn't say that. I just grinned and nodded slightly in agreement. She looked over to my group of friends that were standing at the end of her walking path and then back to me and laughed."

"Huh, I see you're the brave one, huh?" I once again nodded and just said, "Yeah, I guess." Then, it got creepy. She stepped forward slightly and said, "Why don't you come inside? I have some special treats just in the kitchen." Despite my initial bravado about approaching the house, I was starting to regret my decision, and I felt a chill run down my spine.

Oh, no thank you, ma'am. I think I should get going. Sorry. But as I said that, her hand shot out and she gripped my wrist like a vice grip. No, no, no. It's cold out here. Come inside and warm up. I felt as she started to pull me towards the house with what almost felt like inhuman strength. I tried to pull my arm away from her and was screaming help.

I felt so small in that moment, lost in this creepy moment with this old woman trying to drag me into her house. At this point, Jordan, Lily's younger brother, became the brave one of the group. He started shouting, "Hey! Leave him alone!" followed by the sound of candy smacking into the side of the house and the porch. The distraction was enough for her to briefly loosen her grip, and I was able to pull away.

I turned and bolted, sprinting back towards my friends. As we took off down the road, we could hear this old woman laughing like a maniac and saying that she would find us. We didn't stop running for several blocks. Our breathing was ragged and we were all running on pure adrenaline. As soon as we stopped, Tommy looked at me with a pale face. "Dude, I was just joking about there being a witch living there."

I didn't think she'd actually try to drag you into the house. When he said this, we all kind of chuckled like, yeah, good call on that one, Tommy. Once we all caught our breaths, we decided to just head back home, that we'd gotten enough candy and that the excitement of the night was more than enough for the whole year. When we got back to Tommy's house, we sorted through our candy, did some trades before we all went our separate ways to get home.

We never told our parents, and I think that was because we knew that we would get in trouble for going that far from home, so we just kept it as a lesson amongst our group. That was the last year that we all went trick-or-treating, too. When we hit our teen years, it just didn't seem as interesting. Obviously, Jordan had a couple of years left before he was done, but he just went with his dad instead of going with Lily."

About a year or so later, that house was torn down, and all the statues disappeared. I would guess that the creepy old woman passed away at some point, or maybe she moved away. I used to live in a pretty small town with my grandparents around 2013. I had my little girl, Summer, at the time of this event. She had just turned 5.

I'd split up with my ex, so they agreed to let me move in with them while I finished my degree and found a better job. He wasn't too fond of being a father figure, and after finding out that he spent more time with his ex than looking for a job, I was pretty over it. I didn't want to be the one paying for everything as well as taking care of our kid while he got to spend my money.

The only downside was that, when I say it was a small town, I mean small. They have one grocery store, which is also their pharmacy, and the town clinic is across the street. They have two gas stations, but everyone agrees that one is better than the other, and the most exciting thing to happen there was that they got a pizza buffet that also delivered.

so if you needed to go anywhere, it would take a few hours to get into town, get your stuff, and get back. Needless to say, it was easy to get bored. Summer was pretty occupied though, as my grandma watched her during the day,

But I felt bad that I didn't often get to go out and do anything with her, so when I learned a nearby town was having a small Halloween festival, I knew that I wanted to take her there. It turned out to be like a cute little carnival. They had a few small rides, like the ones that went in a circle, a kiddie roller coaster type thing, and they even had games.

They had a hayride, a small spooky haunted house as they called it. It was the first one that she would be going to, so I was ready to do anything that she wanted. I will say that I definitely had that first kid syndrome, where I was very protective over everything and anything she did. I think we were both pretty clingy because of it.

So I always had my eyes on her, and I didn't let her get too close to anyone that I didn't know. I brought the stroller, knowing she would probably get tired, and that way while we were walking, I could at least have her in my sights at all times. She did great for the most part too. There were a few times that she wanted to walk, but she knew that she had to stand next to me with her hand on the stroller.

basically like she was pushing it with me, which was fine. We toss her baby doll into the seat and she's set. So she got around to a few games and treats and had a few people approach me, mentioning how cute she was. We were getting towards the end because she was starting to get a little cranky. She didn't want to walk anymore, but she also didn't want to sit, thinking that she was going to miss out on something.

Before we left, we stopped at one of the restrooms in the food area where we had to leave the strollers and wagons outside because the entrance was too narrow. So, when we left the restroom, I grabbed the stroller and offered to put Summer in the seat so that we could leave. That way she wasn't walking through the parking lot. She didn't want to sit, so we agreed to push the stroller together.

While she was standing to my left, I bent down to put my purse back in the undercarriage, and when I stood back up, Summer was gone. I at first thought that maybe it was because she was getting tired and she moved to the seat anyways, but she wasn't in the seat, nor was she to my right. I did a quick 360 scanning the area close to me, and to my horror, I still didn't find her. That's when I started to panic.

I called for her, screaming her name, and I didn't get a response. A woman with her own kid was nearby and asked me what happened, and she tried to keep me calm and help look for her too. We checked in both restrooms, the area around it, and even all over the food area. I know that I was freaking out, and rightfully so. My kid just vanished within seconds, and no one claimed to have seen her.

I know she was a kid, but I also knew her, and I knew that she wouldn't just walk off around people that she didn't know, and she wouldn't willingly go with someone that she didn't recognize. I called the police, and someone at one of the food vendors alerted their security people too. I didn't want to go much further outside the area that I last saw her,

just in case she was still close so she could find me, but they suggested that I go to the front so I could speak to the police and take a report. Reluctantly, I agreed, and as I headed to the front, I saw two cops, and the ticket person at the entrance, and also Summer. I remember yelling her name and hearing her scream, Mommy, as she ran to me, which was one of the most gut-wrenching feelings ever.

I ran over to the cops with her in my arms, asking if they knew what happened. The ticket guy said that he saw a guy approaching the exit with her, and that she was crying and screaming and pushing him away. He was trying to do anything that he could to keep her quiet without looking suspicious, I guess, but the ticket guy said that it didn't seem right, and stopped to ask if everything was alright.

He tried to give some line about her being his kid or something to that effect, and Summer kept saying things like, "'No, stranger, I don't know him,' which alarmed this guy, and he then tried asking him for ID and threatened to call the cops. When he said that, the guy shoved Summer at him and took off. He didn't get to see what car, if any, he got into, as he didn't want to leave Summer alone."

I couldn't have been any more grateful that this kid went way above his job to stop this guy. Anyone could have just looked at it and thought it was a kid throwing a tantrum, but he actually paid attention, and he realized that that was not what was happening. I was also incredibly proud of Summer for screaming and fighting this man, and speaking up, too. I had taught her not to approach strangers, so she understood what that meant.

but it's just not something you think you would ever have to remember. They never found the guy that night, and I was never contacted about it, so I don't think they ever did, but my god, that was single-handedly the most terrifying day of my life, and I will never forget the fear that I felt.

I know Summer remembers it too, as she is still a happy and playful child, but she didn't really fight sitting in the stroller or holding my hand at all times again. Just hold your kids tight and be sure to teach them stranger danger. It can definitely save a life, or at least change it within seconds.

Hey there, friends. I hope that you enjoyed this collection of scary stories on this episode of the As The Raven Dreams podcast. If the platform you're on has the option to follow podcast and you enjoyed my work, please do consider doing so.

Also, leaving ratings and reviews are super important for the algorithm to support the growth of the podcast. I'm just one guy doing this. I don't have a team. It's literally just me doing everything. So any support like that is greatly appreciated. Never expected, though. So if you go above and beyond with that, I do appreciate it. Some platforms also allow you to leave comments, and if you feel inclined to do so, please do. I would appreciate that.

I do have a Patreon and a merch store that you can also check out if you want to support a little further. The Patreon side of things gets you early access to all of my content. It is formatted differently as it goes in line with what my YouTube channel is, but it is the same stories, just different collections. There is also a website, astheravendreams.com, where you can check out pretty much everything about me, my social media platforms, and fiction stories I've written if you want to read those.

as well as submitting your own stories, which there's a big button on the front page you click to do so. And those stories basically keep the podcast alive, to be honest with you. So, yeah. All that said, friends, I do hope that I see you again here very soon. Until then, remember that you are loved, that you are valid, that you are important. You're the best you that you can be. Don't forget it. And until next time, much love and sleep well.