Scary Stories For Dark Dreams - Volume 05 | ATRD Podcast
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This happened when I, male, was a kid, back around 2004. My friends and I loved to be outside and explore places that we've never been. We played in the trees behind my friend's house, climbing them and making a makeshift hammock in them. We loved to find new places to explore, and had been itching to go through this old house that had been abandoned and empty for as long as I could remember.

I never saw anyone on the property, or anything about it change, other than the grass and weeds growing taller and taller. Then, my sweet parents, unbeknownst to them, got me a birthday gift that would push us to explore that house. I'd been wanting walkie-talkies for quite some time.

I loved the idea of being able to go anywhere in the park, the woods, and even between rooms, and being able to talk to my friends. I had some cheap ones that didn't work very long, or from very far apart, so I wanted to get a better pair, and my parents followed through. I told my friend Troy and he came over one day so we could try out my new walkies.

We were walking all over my yard and in the house, trying to see how far they would reach, and to our surprise, they still came out clear and crisp with him standing at the tip of the front yard and me standing at the edge of the backyard. This seemed like quite the distance for us, enough for us to do a lot of things, so he instantly brought up the idea of exploring that house.

The house was a lot closer to Troy's place, so we planned it all out, and I was given permission to stay at Troy's for the weekend. After I was dropped off, we went up to his room to gather a small backpack of stuff that we might need. It wasn't much, and probably wasn't even anything that you would actually take while exploring, but hey, we were still kids.

We hopped on our bikes, I was allowed to ride his older brothers, and we made our way to the house, telling his mom that we were going to a nearby park. Once we arrived, we ditched our bikes in the tall grass, hoping that they were hidden enough so that no one would see us. We walked up to the house, both of us nervous, and tried the door. I don't know why we were surprised when it was locked.

After trying a few times, we decided to try and look for any windows that we could access, and maybe climb through instead. There were a few of them that we could reach, but they also seemed to be locked, or seized, again, leaving us at a dead end. Now, even though we were kids and we were willing to trespass, I suppose, in order to explore this place...

The thought of breaking in did not even cross our mind. We were pretty disappointed, and since our curiosity and exploration wasn't fulfilled, we thought we could at least try the backyard and see what we could find. The backyard was actually pretty well hidden by the dilapidated privacy fence, so we were surprised by what we saw. We broke off a plank that was already rotting and falling apart and crawled through.

The yard was filled with different decorations, like gnomes and lights. There was a garden lined by red bricks and small fencing with those tomato stands in them. There was a small table with a dried up and cracked coffee mug resting on it, and two chairs tucked under the table. Then the part that got our attention the most was a small cracked stone path that led straight back through the yard to another gate.

When we opened the gate, it appeared to just lead to trees. It was so dense that we couldn't really see through them. This immediately set our eyes aglow, ready to explore. We could see the trees from the front, but it didn't seem like anything we would have expected. We immediately pulled out the walkies, tested them, and agreed to head in opposite directions to explore.

We probably walked 20-25 feet apart as we talked to each other through the walkies. We weren't really seeing anything of interest, other than some cool looking trees, so we were just talking to each other, cracking jokes, and saying curse words, because we thought it was cool. But then we started getting some interference on the walkies.

At first, it just sounded like singing, so I assumed we were picking up a radio station or something. After confirming with Troy that he could hear it too, I told him that we should go back to the gate. Once back, we could tweak with them to see if we could clear it up and listen to it better. We were still just expecting it to be a radio station, but we were hopeful that it may have been something more entertaining. As I was walking back, I was already eager to listen.

So I started flipping through the channels and listening, and sure enough, I found one that was clearer but still had a bit of static. However, it was not a radio station, and it clearly did not sound like a phone call either. What we did hear made our blood run cold. It sounded like a woman, or maybe a young girl crying. Crying may be an understatement. She was sobbing.

You could hear the hiccups and gasps of air between each cry. We both looked at each other, probably trying to read the other's expression, and carried on listening like surely this was just a prank. Maybe someone saw us or was playing with another radio or walkie and just wanted to scare us. But we couldn't stop listening. I wish we would have. The woman sobbing would then break in between and start talking.

Again, the static was there, so it was hard to make out everything, but we both agreed on parts of what we heard. "'I'm gonna die. I'm gonna die. I don't wanna die. Please, God help me.'" Those words pierced through the airwaves accompanied by heart-wrenching sobs. It was as if someone's very soul was crying out for us to help, drowning in anguish and fear. Troy and I exchanged terrified looks, and we knew that we needed to tell somebody."

We ran back through the yard to the front and jumped on our bikes, trying to head back as fast as we could go. We kept the walkies on, hoping to still hear the woman, but it sadly faded away completely when we returned back to his house. The thought of us being in trouble because we lied didn't even cross our mind. The cries and the pleas from the woman were far too important for us. We ran inside, and I let Troy do the talking.

His mom looked confused at first, so we had to slow down and explain it all to her a second time. She seemed pretty disappointed in us for lying and got pretty stuck on that. She told us that we needed to stay home and not leave the yard. We then tried begging her to go with us and explained what we heard again, but she didn't seem to believe us. She said something pretty similar to what we originally assumed.

that someone was probably messing with us, and probably were inside that old creepy house. Bottom line, she refused to consider the idea that it was real and dismissed us. We went to his room and tried everything we could to get the signal back, but it was long gone. We tried playing games, watching TV, but the mood had been pretty well spoiled by our earlier experience. I couldn't help but feel this sense of guilt,

knowing that we were helpless and there was nothing that we could do about it. Even when I went home, I told my parents about it, and they didn't seem convinced either. They too were disappointed that we went to the house, but while my mom did look a little curious and maybe even concerned, my dad said that what we heard wouldn't have been possible, and explained how we choose to hear things within the static. I felt frustrated and helpless."

Over time, I would slowly make peace with this incident, but it was never fully gone from my memory. Some things would happen that would bring it back to the foreground. When I heard about a missing person, I thought about her. The older I got, the more I wanted answers, and I began scouring the internet and news for any information that could explain the eerie incident. I tried looking into radio interference and how it worked,

and I even looked for anything about people that may have gone missing in my area around that time, or even people found but nothing matched up. I found nothing conclusive, and no trace of an explanation. It was as if the incident had vanished into thin air, leaving me with nothing but lingering questions and a deep sense of unease. To this day, the memory of that spine-chilling encounter remains etched in my mind.

The sobbing on the airwaves, the helplessness in those words, I can still hear them echoing in the depths of my consciousness, and all I can do is hope and pray that my parents were right. Have you ever experienced something so unnerving and inexplicably bizarre that it makes you question yourself and everything around you? That's a dramatic way of telling you about what happened to me on the night that this event happened.

The whole thing really gives me the creeps just thinking about it, and rewriting it out makes me feel a bit ill, but I think it's a story that's honestly worth telling. Some people may hear my story and think, "Oh, that's not that bad, nothing really happened to you." Which, sure, it could have been worse, but in my opinion it's those possibilities and unanswered bits that make this whole thing so much creepier than it needed to be.

I work the late shift. Not the overnight shift, just the late shift, which means I get home at a super awkward time. Because of this, I need to find or make time to do things for me. Things that I enjoy, or to keep me happy and healthy. One thing that I love doing is going for long walks. And, thankfully, since I get home when everyone else is in bed, I get to enjoy the cool summer nights all to myself.

I've found that the empty roads at midnight really make for a nice backdrop for those walks that you need to... take to clear your mind. And as such, I've made them part of my daily ritual. The stillness of the town really adds some contrast to the overall heat of the day. Walking at night can be a pain in the winter, but in the summers? It's heavenly. On one particular night, about halfway into my usual route...

I noticed that there was a familiar glow of headlights hitting me from behind, and brightening up everything to my left. Initially, I didn't really mind it. It happens as cars pass, and while it's not terribly common on my walks, it's not unheard of. However, where normally the car would pass me within a few seconds of illuminating my path, I noticed that whatever car was behind me was not passing.

I kept walking, just staring at my shadow being cast onto the road from the lights, until it had been probably a couple of minutes, which made me start to feel a bit uneasy and confused. I started thinking about it and figured that it was possible that the car had pulled over, or maybe it was an officer that was tailing me to ask me if I was okay. Again, it was midnight, and I was a fairly small woman walking on the side of the road.

I decided to go ahead and turn around to see who it was. When I did, I think it made the situation that much worse. It wasn't a cop or a car on the side of the road. It was an ice cream truck, moving at a pace that was uncannily slow for a vehicle just driving on the road. At this point, I was more or less certain that whoever was driving this thing was following me. Not just driving on the slow or going at a leisurely pace,

They were driving slow with intent. The whole vibe of the situation was enough to set off a flurry of alarm bells in my head. Why the hell would an ice cream truck be out at midnight? And why was it following me like this? My sense of unease skyrocketed when, after a few more steps of me walking backwards and just staring at the truck, they abruptly shut off the headlights and turned on the music. The street was completely dark at this point.

save the overhead streetlights that were randomly placed. But I could still see the truck and the bright colors of the cloud and ice cream cones painted on it. Enough was enough. My instincts were screaming at me to get away from this situation. I paused for a second, pulled out my cell phone from my pocket, and started walking back the way I came. I started recording the truck and yelling, ''Why are you following me? Who the hell are you?''

trying to just be loud and obnoxious. Either this person was going to jump out and grab me, or they were going to drive off when they realized they were being recorded. I made it very clear that I was recording and trying to get a shot of the driver. I started screaming about having 911 on the line, and that I was filming him for the police.

As soon as I said this, the truck's engine suddenly revved up and it sped off, screeching its tires right in front of me and leaving me in the distance. At no point during him driving off did he turn the headlights back on either, which, again, cemented that this was an odd occurrence. After he was out of sight, I was left just standing there with my heart racing, and a mix of relief and fear coursing through my veins.

I know that my response to this person was not one that others would ever recommend, but I really didn't know what else to do. If I ran, and they were going to grab me, they would have just sped up and chased me. It was the middle of the night, so going to any of the nearby houses wasn't really a solution. In the end, I decided to be big and loud, like I was dealing with a bear, and it worked.

Looking back, though, I cannot shake off those unsettling questions. Why were they tailing me? What were the driver's intentions, and how much danger was I actually in? The logical part of me struggles to find a rational explanation, but I guess it's easy to speculate, if nothing else. I still enjoy my late-night walks, but I've taken a different approach to my safety, and

And let's just say that I can defend myself if it ever were to come to it. I never advocate violence, but I do advocate for being able to keep yourself safe. If nothing else, this event has left me with a bit of a heightened sense of vigilance. Always be aware of your surroundings, and never let your guard down. Even when something is seemingly routine,

Because you never know when that routine will be broken by something unexpected. Before I start telling the story about my ex, I want to add a bit of content warning here at the beginning. Some of the things that my ex did were absolutely disgusting. Vile is a better word. And she was an absolute psycho that had zero regards for anything other than what she wanted.

Something that I honestly did not see at the beginning, but became quite obvious after we broke up. The content warning is for the fact that, during all this, one of the disgusting things that she did involved hurting an innocent animal. I know that a lot of people are sensitive to hearing about hurting animals, so I ask that you include this in the story if you narrate it.

so that people can choose whether or not they listen to this story specifically. That out of the way, let's get to the context and then the whole thing that happened. About five years ago, I ended the relationship that I had with a girl that I thought I was going to spend my whole life with, Tracy. When I met Tracy, she had convinced me that she was a beautiful soul, that she was a kind-hearted, loving, altruistic person,

and I instantly fell in love with her. We got together, and we spent a solid two and a half years together. It was a pretty major rollercoaster, a lot of ups and downs, and after one particularly nasty argument, I basically told Tracy that I could not do it anymore. I ended up telling her that I couldn't deal with what our relationship was becoming.

and I told her that we needed to take some time apart and just think on things for a while. She was, of course, begging me not to do it, but I told her that I had made up my mind. It was a messy breakup, full of anger and a lot of hurt feelings, but I was certain that it was for the best. We'd been broken up for about three months by the time this story takes place.

and I thought that things were finally starting to take a turn. I was starting to really move on. She'd stopped texting me. We'd pretty much just stopped talking altogether, and it seemed like that chapter of our lives was over. I wasn't ready to date anyone new, but I was enjoying the time to myself, just hanging out with friends, working a lot, and being myself. Tracy, on the other hand, was apparently not there yet."

One night, I was jolted awake by what I thought was the sound of a door opening in my apartment. I jumped up, but as I slowly hit the point of actually being conscious, I wasn't sure if I'd actually heard the door, or if it was just a sound that played in my dream and I was freaking out over nothing. I turned and sat on the edge of my bed, just listening to see if I could hear any indication of there being someone in my apartment.

But after a couple of moments, I was pretty certain that I was freaking out over nothing. I decided to go ahead and get up and go to the restroom since I was already awake. I opened my door, and as soon as I got to the hallway, I smelled something that was, to put it bluntly, sickening. As in literally sickening. It was a smell that made my stomach turn and I felt like I was going to puke.

It clicked after I pulled my shirt up to cover my mouth what it was that I was smelling. It was decay, like there was something dead in my apartment. My mind thought that maybe it was a mouse or something, but when I turned on my hallway light, I looked over into my living room and realized just how wrong I was. There, sitting on my chair, was the carcass of a dead rabbit.

I won't get into the details, but it was disgusting. The rabbit was definitely dead, and it was definitely placed there by someone intentionally. I recoiled the second that I saw it, nearly tripping over my own feet. I ran to the front door and threw it open, hoping to see the person that had done this still in the hallway, though I knew that they would be gone. This obviously freaked me out pretty bad.

Someone had been in my apartment. They had placed a dead animal in my chair, and they were able to do this all while I was asleep in my bed. I immediately called the police, and when the officer got there, I struggled to explain to the officer exactly what had happened. I told them that I heard the click, that I'd come out and turned on the light and saw the rabbit, and that there was nobody in the hall when I checked.

They were pretty clearly baffled. They asked me if I had any enemies, and I told them no. They took the information, took the evidence, and told me that they would do their best to figure it out. Now, at the time, none of it clicked. A dead rabbit had zero connection to Tracy for me. I just didn't put the pieces together. That is, until about noon the next day.

I was at work, and I got a text message from an unknown number that said, I hope you liked your gift. Sincerely, Your Bunny. This is where it all clicked for me. One of the pet names that Tracy always tried to push me to call her was Bunny. I hated it. She told me that her dad used to call her his little bunny when she was a child, which, sure, that's cute, but...

Asking your boyfriend to carry on calling you the same nickname your now-deceased dad called you as a young girl? Yeah, that's creepy as hell. I obviously reported this to the police as well, but the number was an anonymous online number, and she denied the whole thing. So, obviously nothing happened with that, as they couldn't do anything without evidence. For the next few days, I found myself living in constant paranoia.

Every time I would hear a creaking floorboard, I would jump, thinking that she was somehow breaking into my apartment again. I was triple-checking the doors and windows, watching out the blinds to see if she showed up, thinking she was going to do something else. It may sound dumb. She'd only done the one thing, but it was more about the fact that she'd somehow violated the safety of my home, and I didn't know how.

Then, that paranoia actually paid off. I was lying in bed watching the ceiling fan spin when I heard what I thought was the sound of my door clicking shut. It was one in the morning. I lived alone. There was no reason for anybody to be coming into my apartment unless it was Tracy doing something else. I slowly got up, crept to my bedroom door, and looked into the dimly lit hallway.

Sure enough, there was somebody in my apartment, and I could tell pretty quickly that it was Tracy. They had long hair, the same figure as she did, and they were the same height. I'm gonna be honest, I don't remember all of what happened beyond me running out of my room and taking her to the ground, and then grabbing my phone to call 911. The entire time she was screaming that I was trying to kill her,

and probably to get the 911 operator to think that I was the problem in this situation. I kept her on the ground until the cops showed up, and I told them that I couldn't get up because I was holding her down, and I was actually thankful that it was the same officer as the previous time. He entered the apartment with his weapon drawn, and she started screaming that I had broken into the apartment, that this was her place, and that I was trying to assault and kill her.

That did not work in her favor, because this officer knew me from only a couple of weeks back. He then took over the situation. All the while, she was screaming that he was arresting the wrong person, that she was the victim here. After a lot of screaming and her getting shoved into the back of the cop car, the situation thankfully died down.

The whole time she was being apprehended, she was going off non-stop telling them that I was a murderer, that I had a criminal record, which, what? And then she started threatening them, saying that she would be out in no time, and that she would find them. It was just absolutely insane. She then said that the day that she was out, she was going to come back and finish the job.

And based on what she had in her bag, she absolutely had a job that she was planning. In the scuffle, I didn't even notice that she had a backpack on her. But when the officers started going through it, I started feeling even worse about the whole thing. The main thing that I think was problematic was the huge chef's knife that she had wrapped up in the bag, along with some bleach and a few other things. So, yeah. Yeah.

That's the story of my crazy ex, Tracy. The ex that left a dead animal in my apartment, as a threat, I guess, and then came back to seemingly kill me. She went away for a long time. I don't remember the exact number, but it was definitely a life-changing sentence. I ended up moving out of the state, and I'll be honest, it was mostly because I don't want her to find me.

I'm still paranoid about my doors and window locks, and I now live in a third-story apartment, so I know that the only way in is the front door, a door that I keep locked, deadbolted, and locked with the wall chain at all times. It was the summer of 2006. I could never forget it. I was nine years old, and my family and I were heading to the community pool.

It was my dad, my mom, and my two older siblings. The pool was always a conflicting time for me. I loved the water, and I loved the water slide, and I even enjoyed swimming. However, I was not good at swimming, and in fact, I had a slight fear of the water, or of drowning.

It was so hard to want to run and jump right into the pool, but as soon as it got higher than my knees, I slowed down and stiffened up. I could usually loosen up after being in the water for a period of time, but it was still frustrating for me at my age. I wanted to be able to jump off the diving board and swim laps with my friends, but I just wasn't there yet. But I did do my best to push through it and have a good time. This time was no different.

I wanted to have fun with my siblings, and in fact, one of my friends even showed up. I don't know if that was planned or not, but it was a great surprise. We met in the water, and thankfully he knew my issues so he didn't push me, and we slowly made our way deeper into the water. When we got into the deeper end, we stayed close to the side so that I could hold onto it, and we just talked and messed around.

We talked about what we were looking forward to the following school year, made fun of people that we didn't like and bet who could hold their breath longer. I was actually having a great time until one specific person started jumping off the diving board. The diving area was in the same pool, but it had a very steep drop because of how deep it went. It was also sectioned off so you couldn't go over there just to casually swim.

We were pretty close to the diving side with my friends back to it and me facing it. This guy was constantly jumping in and was obviously trying to do it for attention. I say that it was obvious because he kept yelling as he jumped in, and the lifeguards would yell at him to stop. We would turn and give dirty looks because the water would end up hitting us more than a normal person jumping in, and he was just flat out being obnoxious.

However, us looking back seemed to be exactly what fed him as he would make faces at us, say stuff in passing, and really just do childish things for a teenager like him to be doing. I suggested to my friend that we should just move somewhere else, but he was now adamant on staying. He didn't want to be bullied out of the spot that we had been at, so I stayed with him. I wish I would have pushed him harder to move.

Every few hours, the lifeguard calls for a break in the pool, and when this happens, the lifeguards switch their posts, and only adults or those 18 plus and infants are allowed to swim. So when they all blew their whistles, we knew that we had to get out. Instead of having to walk all the way back to the shallow side and wait for the people in front of us, we thought it would be smart to go under the barrier into the diving side and use the ladder that was right next to us.

I may have had a slight phobia of the water, but the laziness of young kids supersedes fear, I guess. We went under the floating barrier, and I waited behind my friend as he went up the ladder, and the next thing I heard was someone shouting. As I looked up to see who it was, I then started hearing the lifeguard's whistle blowing and him pointing.

I followed their hand to where they were pointing, and all I saw was the same diving jerk running towards the pool and jumping in. I don't know what happened, but I assumed the guy's jump wasn't as calculated because his jump didn't go far. Time slowed to a crawl as this guy crashed into the water, landing directly on me. I flinched, and before I could do anything else, I was under the water, holding my breath.

I didn't really like to go under the water like this, so I started to panic as I noticed everything sound muffled. I was too afraid to open my eyes underwater, so I was flailing and holding my arms out, hoping that someone would pull me out. As I did this, I felt something soft near me and grabbed onto it, hoping that whatever it was would help me. Instead, I was shoved by it in my side, causing me to forcefully exhale.

Needing to catch my breath, I then inhaled, but I wasn't at the surface yet. I felt the burning in my throat and tried coughing, but it wasn't working. I continued to wave my arms the best that I could, but my efforts felt fruitless, as my little body felt heavier and heavier. At that point, it didn't even feel like my own body, until I was too tired to fight it, and that was the last thing I remembered.

I don't know how long it lasted, but the next thing I remembered was someone whispering in my ear to wake up. It reminded me of when my mom would whisper in my ear in the morning to get me out of bed. I felt relaxed, and like I weighed nothing. And then it all came rushing back to me. I felt the cold hard concrete on my back and could hear my dad's worried voice yelling at me. Then I felt the burning in my throat and nostrils forcing me to cough.

That's when I opened my eyes and saw my dad hovering over me. I can't really explain it now, but I just started crying, and my dad hugged me tightly. They later explained that a lifeguard had jumped in and pulled me out, but I was already unconscious by then. They had to do CPR, and I coughed up a lot of water.

The lifeguard saw the diving man do this, and they yelled at him to kick him out, but then noticed that I hadn't come back up yet, so they went in to rescue me. Not only did that guy jump on me, purposely or not, but he was also the only one that could have shoved me away when I was struggling. He shoved me underwater and refused to help me. I don't know what his intentions were, but I tried to tell myself that it was nothing more than just wanting to splash us.

I want to believe that he wasn't actively trying to hurt me or drown me, but at that moment, it was definitely hard to convince me. To this day, I cannot bear to immerse myself in water that rises above my waist. The memory of that day's swimming is burned into the deepest recesses of my mind, and I kind of resent him for that. I was only slightly nervous about it, but with time, I got past it.

Now, I cannot shake it. Especially being an adult now, I cannot bear the thought of another lifeguard having to rescue me, as a full adult, even though I know they are trained to do that sort of thing. All I know is I hope that that moment scared some sense into that guy, and that he never did it to another person again.

I've worked in the accounting department for a small or, I guess, medium-sized organization for about five and a half years now. It's been a pretty decent job, in that I have spent a lot of time learning the job, and have definitely put a ton of hours into climbing the corporate ladder and getting into my current position, though not without its issues and quirks.

The office that I work at, however, actually has a pretty dark history. Back in 1929, during the big stock market crash, the building was actually occupied by a financial firm that lost a ton of money and value. And the possibly true but totally dramatic legend of the building is that the president of said company actually took his life.

Supposedly, he went to the roof of the building and jumped. Obviously none of this can be verified, but I personally believe it. Because something creepy is definitely going on here. That's actually where the weird stuff starts. I work on the sixth floor, which is the top occupied floor of the building. There is a seventh floor, but it's basically used for the servers and storage more than anything.

That said, the seventh floor is also where said president's office was when he worked here. There's an old and honestly kind of rickety elevator that we use to get from floor to floor, and the elevator will seemingly randomly go up to the seventh floor. Almost no one ever has to go up to the seventh floor, so when I have to use the elevator and it indicates that it's coming down from up there, I always get a bit of a chill.

There was actually one point where I was in the elevator going to the sixth floor, and as I was standing there waiting, I watched the light for the seventh floor light up, as if it had been pressed. Thankfully, it stopped at my floor first, so I got off immediately and just moved on. It happens enough that we've all thought that it was maybe a glitch in the elevator or something,

But we had some techs come out and look at it, and they've all stated that the elevator is in perfect working order. They've replaced parts to try to get it to stop, but no matter what we do, the seventh floor button will randomly get pressed. So, we just assume that it's something we don't understand, and we've accepted it. One night, I was working late due to it being the end of the month, and I was working late because I was working late.

and I had a lot of reports that I needed to finish before the end of the week. I was the only one left on the floor, which isn't terribly uncommon. I was sitting at my desk when I heard a loud thud coming from the direction of the elevator. I walked over to the elevator door, and it was open, as if someone had just gotten off on the floor that I was on. I peeked inside, and there was no one on it. Of course.

I kind of looked around to see if I could find anyone that may have been there late, maybe a janitor, but there was nobody. On my way back to my desk, I glanced over at the printer area and I noticed that there was a pack of printer paper that had been knocked over onto the ground, which I'm assuming was the thud that I heard. I went over and collected all the pages and put it back on the table by the printer, and then I went back to my desk.

No more than ten minutes later, I heard that same thud sound. It made me jump and look around again, but it clicked pretty quickly that it was just the paper stack. I got up and walked over toward the printer area to confirm what it was, and as I approached, I watched the elevator doors close on an empty elevator, and saw that the arrows were pointing up.

which, again, told me that it was going to the seventh floor. Then, I saw the paper stack, and sure enough, it was knocked over again. I went over and picked it back up, but this time, I put the paper in the cabinet and relocked it just in case. Thankfully, that was the last event that evening, but not the last thing to happen. Some nights, when I would be working late, I would hear footsteps throughout the floor,

footsteps that were definitely not from anyone that was there. I wasn't alone every night, and my coworkers would agree that they heard the footsteps. But the steps were always heavy and loud. Everyone on my team is a woman, and none of us have very heavy steps, so there was no way that these steps were coming from any of us.

We would randomly hear voices calling out, usually saying, Hey, or Excuse me, but again. It was a rather masculine voice, and there were no men on the floor at the time. We would just ignore the voice, or sometimes would say, Hello, back to it, and that would be that. Now, all of this was creepy, and is a pretty good indicator that this place is likely haunted by someone,

But there was one last thing that happened that I wanted to mention, because it was the height of absolute paranormal terror for me. There was one day where my team was having a bit of a celebration in the sixth floor break room for the CFO's birthday. There was something that we needed to get from up on the seventh floor, from the storage section of the floor, and myself and my direct manager said that we would go up and get it.

When we got up there, and we went to get whatever it was that we needed to get, we both paused and listened. This floor is normally pretty silent, minus the small server farm in the back corner, but while we were up there, it was not silent. We were standing there and listening to what we could easily identify as a man sobbing.

We looked at each other and thought about whether or not we should look and see if anyone was up there, and we kind of just looked around the storage room for a moment, around the area where it was coming from, and we didn't see anything. As we got to the back, though, we definitely heard the sobbing get louder, and I think we were both kind of freaking out about it. We just grabbed whatever we needed and headed back down.

My manager mentioned it to the CFO, and she laughed about it, saying that we weren't the first people to mention that they'd heard crying upstairs. She then mentioned that she firmly believes it's the spirit of that company's president, and that because of his actions, he's forever stuck in this building and cannot move on. I will say that I wasn't expected to hear the CFO start talking about paranormal stuff or the building being haunted, but...

It was nice to know that we at least weren't crazy. I try not to work late much anymore, mostly because I don't like dealing with the creepiness, but my coworkers have mentioned that they've experienced similar things, so at least I know that it hasn't stopped. I hope that someday his spirit does find peace, but based on what she said, I think that it's pretty likely that he'll forever be stuck there.

So, this story is from a chapter in my life that I honestly kind of wish I could erase, but since I can't, why not share it with the world? This was back in a quieter period of my life, where I was still kind of finding myself, but I was starting to put the pieces together. I had a pretty decent job, I'd finished my degree, I was making a decent amount of money, and all was well.

At this point, I was even in a relationship with a young woman that we're going to call Rachel. Now, to set the record straight, she and I were not in a serious life-consuming kind of relationship. It was casual, comfortable, and enjoyable, but completely casual.

We'd been together for about three months, and we were exclusive with each other, but we'd both agreed that there was likely nothing in the future for us. We had different plans, specifically when it came to kids and our careers, and we were just enjoying the time together until something inevitably split us up. Basically, good while it lasted, but not irreplaceable.

And, of course, that something that split us up would come from my side of things. One day, my boss called me into his office. I honestly thought I was about to get fired, but it was actually the exact opposite. He offered me a huge promotion and asked me to oversee the team at our newest office. The only thing was, this office was in Salt Lake City, which is a bit far from my home in Virginia.

He basically told me that this was a once-in-a-lifetime job offer, and that this was a massive career move, and that I should seriously consider it. And, if I took it, I would be living in SLC in about 60 days. When I told Rachel, we both talked about it and understood what this meant for us. It was agreed that I would take the job and that we would go ahead and just end our relationship then and there.

There was some regret, a bit of crying, but at the same time we knew that this was for the best. We gradually stopped talking to each other over the next month, and while it was sad, it wasn't really devastating to either of us. Fast forward to around day 45 of 60, and things took a bit of an unexpected turn at work.

My manager informed me that there was a bit of an administrative issue, and my new position in Salt Lake City would be delayed a bit more. There was no specific timeline, just that I would have to wait longer, and they 100% promised that I still had the position. I was okay with it. It gave me a bit more time to prep for the move.

They were offering to compensate me for the extra rent that I was paying, having to go month to month with my leasing company, and honestly it made me feel way more relaxed about everything. Then, the day finally arrived. The day that I was supposed to leave for Utah. I was home, sorting through my stuff and boxing up a few things, not hurrying in any definition of the word, when I get a phone call.

Much to my surprise, it was a phone call from Rachel. I kind of smirked, thinking that she was calling to wish me happy travels or something like that, which was super sweet of her. But then I answered, and, well, it wasn't that. She started the call off with a frantic, "'Hey, Jackson?' Her voice had a tone of, I guess, worry or concern, like she was a bit scared or nervous."

I said hello and asked how she was doing, and she cut me off with, "Hey, I'm at SLC International. I need you to come and get me." My mind took a moment to register what she had just said. I asked her why she was in Salt Lake City. She responded with, "I decided that I'm moving in with you. I brought all my stuff and my cat. I need you to come get me ASAP. Now remember,

I hadn't spoken to Rachel in a few weeks by this point. She had no idea about the delay, or that I was still sitting pretty in my little apartment in Virginia. I broke the news to her, telling her that I wasn't in Utah, that I was still at my apartment, because my work had delayed the move. I expected her to be upset or whatever, but she responded in a way that I never would have expected.

She lost it, screaming at me over the phone, accusing me of lying, of deceiving her, and blaming me for her being stranded in an unknown city. She was hysterical, crying one minute, yelling so loud that the phone clipped out the next. I tried to calm her down, telling her that I was sorry, and asking why she didn't call me before she packed up and flew out,

And she responded by screaming, "It was supposed to be a surprise!" Which, yeah, I was surprised. But who packs up and flies to a city halfway across the country with plans to move in with someone without even telling them? After a bit more yelling and sobbing, she slowed down on her emotional rollercoaster and the call went silent.

She cleared her throat, and when she spoke again, her voice was chillingly calm. She simply said, ''The minute you land at this airport, I'm going to kill you,'' and hung up. I just sat there on my bed with my eyes wide and thinking, ''Wow, that was not the Rachel that I knew.'' I tried to call her back to see if we could figure something out, but she'd either turned off her phone or blocked my number. She didn't call me back.

She never texted me back. I even tried calling her mom to see if she knew what was going on, and she had no idea where Rachel was, or that she had even flown to Utah. A few more months went by, and in a bit of a twist, my work decided to not move me out to Utah. My boss here in Virginia was actually chosen to lead the team out there, and I was given his position here locally.

So I ended up never having to actually move at all. Since that day, I have not heard from Rachel. At all. I haven't seen her here in town, I haven't gotten a text or call from her, and her Facebook has not been updated. I literally have no idea what happened to her. I sometimes do wonder about it, how she managed in a city that she'd never been to, and I hope that she's doing okay.

but it was such a bizarre event that I can't help but feel a bit freaked out. Sure, I do feel a bit guilty because it all could have been avoided had I told her about the delay, but I didn't see a point, since I was still going to be moving out there at the time. It was just going to be a bit later. Plus, she could have called me and told me that she wanted to make the relationship serious."

because I probably would have gone with it. Though, now that I've written all this out and kind of thought about how she was acting, maybe it's best things ended up the way that they did. My husband and I took a weekend trip to this little water resort several years ago. This place was fantastic. The hotel looked luxurious, but I promise you, it did not cost a fortune.

They had a huge indoor and outdoor pool, water slides, a lazy river, and even a water park style place. There were a lot more kids in the water park, but it was still fun to watch. They also had some kind of retro theater that played old movies, and an arcade. There was definitely plenty there for everyone, and we had a marvelous time. Well, for the most part.

On our second day there, we decided to go swimming in their larger outdoor pool. It was restricted to adults as it went pretty deep and also had a diving site. We were just waiting in the pool, talking and enjoying each other's company while the sun beamed down on us. Little did I know that beneath the shimmering surface, something was ready to shatter our tranquil day at the pool. As we floated along, I thought I felt something brush my leg.

Assuming I was just feeling the water, or maybe I hit a spot that was cooler and it threw me off, I ignored it. But when it happened again, I teased my husband Ed about touching me in the water. His face told me pretty quickly that he didn't do anything. The thing is though, we were in a pool, and I could look down and see the water, and there was nothing near me. But Ed is actually pretty bad at lying.

Especially when he's trying to play around and prank me, so I believed him. Being a little weirded out, I suggested that we moved a little further into the water. Everything went back to normal after we moved, but only for about another ten minutes or so. Again, I felt something, but this time it felt like something touched or grabbed my ankle. I could feel the pressure around my ankle, like someone had a hold of it.

which caused me to kick my foot as forcefully as I could. I told Ed what I had just felt, and we were both staring intently into the water. As expected, there was absolutely nothing around. I was about to suggest that we just get out for a bit, maybe check my leg and make sure nothing was wrong with it, but before I could finish speaking, the feeling came back tenfold. I felt something around my ankle that forcefully pulled me straight down.

It literally pulled me under the water. I came back up, but it wasn't for long. I looked at my husband, terrified, and soon I was pulled right back under. I opened my eyes in the chlorinated water, but even through the blurriness, I could only see one set of legs near me, which were Ed's. There's no way that he could have done that. When I came up the second time, I didn't hesitate. I wrapped my arms around Ed and told him to get me the hell out of there.

We went to the side of the pool and I gripped on to the side as I slowly swam to the shallow end when I felt the tug one more time. This time it wasn't as hard as my head didn't go under but it was still just as terrifying. It caused me to scream and my breathing was clearly faster than normal. By the time we got to the steps, I rushed out of the water spinning around looking at my surroundings and back into the water.

There was nothing around the spot where we were. I just stood there, shivering from fear and trying to grasp what the hell just happened to me. Ed looked just as confused and worried. We found a table to sit at nearby, and after calming down some more, I explained to my husband what I had just experienced. He said that it even looked like something out of a movie. I went straight underwater, and it was so quick that it made no sense.

We could not come up with any reason for this to happen, and after that whole show, I was not in the mood to swim again, so we just went back to our room for the night. The next day, we didn't want to spoil our trip, so we did go back to the pools, but this time, we just did the lazy river. I was sitting in a tube so my feet were not in the water, and thankfully nothing happened. However, I did get this weird feeling about halfway through the river.

I got the sense that I was being watched, and like whoever was watching me was not happy. Like I could feel the anger surrounding me. It was almost unbearable. I just took deep breaths and closed my eyes, trying to enjoy the remainder of the ride until we got to the end. By the time we got off, everything was back to normal again. I explained to Ed what happened, and we just avoided the water for the rest of our stay.

I didn't need to have something drowning me or people looking at me like I was crazy. To this day, I still have no idea what that was. The resort that we stayed at was practically new. It had only been open a few years prior to our visit, and it was a brand new building. My first thought was that it could be haunted, but how could that be possible? Ed and I swear to this day that we saw nothing in the water near us when I was being pulled under...

and the feeling on the river made no sense. At least, neither of us saw someone angrily staring at me, but I sure as hell felt it. If anyone has any ideas, I'm open to hear them, but until then, I think that I'm just going to avoid visiting that place again. Back in the early 2000s, my family and I went on a camping trip to a popular lake.

The drive was about four hours, which wasn't terrible, but there were three of us kids, me being the oldest at 15, my younger brother 10, and my sister 6, and of course both my mom and my dad. Upon arrival, we set up our tents, which consisted of a large family-style tent and a much smaller one.

My parents and younger siblings shared the larger one, and they let me have one to myself. Sometimes my little sister would want to sleep in the tent with me, and that was okay. She was a pretty hard sleeper. Once the tents were put up, I was free to do whatever I really wanted as long as we stayed close. My siblings stayed near the tents, playing with their toys in the nearby gravel and sand.

I don't know why I remembered this place so well, but I knew how to get to the beach and I wanted to walk there to swim. I was given permission, so I grabbed a towel and headed towards the water. I sat on the beach for a while, just taking in the warm sun until I finally wanted to jump into the water. There were already several people there, so I wasn't alone, but I was thankfully left alone.

I did notice a younger boy that looked close to my age that was swimming, wearing goggles and seemingly diving into the water. I remember watching for a while because I didn't bring goggles, or even think to do so, but I thought it would be cool to use them and look at the bottom of the lake. I guess I was staring a bit too much because he noticed and smiled at me. A bit embarrassed, I smiled back and then turned away to make myself look preoccupied.

as much as you can standing in a bed of water. The rest of that evening went without incident. I washed off in the nearby showers, and then headed back to my family where they were preparing dinner. The trip went about the same while we were there. We ate together, played some games together, maybe even fished, and then I would head to the beach to swim with the rest of my family following shortly behind.

It wasn't unusual, but I did see that same boy just about every time we went swimming. He would either already be there, or he would end up showing up shortly after I did. I didn't mind it though, as I did think he was cute and he was paying me attention, so what was the harm? Eventually he did approach me and handed me a rock that had a cool impression on it, saying that he thought I would like it.

Then we started talking about all what he'd seen down there, and he let me use the goggles. It was actually pretty fun, and I told myself to get goggles the next time we either went into town or next time we planned to come out here. I looked forward to going swimming, anticipating that he would be there, so I made an effort to look my best. As much as I could.

We were there for four days, three nights, and on the third day, he said that they were going to be leaving the next morning, so that would be the last time he would get to go swimming. I made a comment about how we should do one last dive together to see what we find, and he suggested that we swim further out, towards the safety barrier that was out there. I agreed, thinking it was something different as I rarely went out that far. There was really no reason to.

I guess I just never needed or wanted to, but there we went, racing how fast we could swim to it. After we arrived, I think I dived once, and then he took the goggles back and motioned for me to come closer, like he was going to whisper something to me. It seemed silly at the time because there wasn't anyone close enough to hear us, but I obliged. He then suggested that we make out.

I'd gone through several crushes, but I had never dated anyone at this point, so this took me completely by surprise. I could feel my face getting hot, and I really didn't know what to say. I stammered and was finally able to speak, offering to give him our phone number. We just had a landline at the time. He laughed and accepted the number, but then again pushed his first intentions, while putting his hand on my side.

I pushed it off of me and told him that I didn't even know him, and at that point was starting to feel uncomfortable and like my time was spoiled. I told him I had to go and started swimming back. He made a remark at me, but I didn't even look back and continued my way out of the water, feeling like I needed a shower more than usual, so I went to the stalls to do so. The bathrooms and showers for men and women are completely separated buildings.

with the women's being closer to the front of the beach. Walking in, you see the sinks and bathroom stalls, and in the back there are four showers. I usually put my clothes and towel on the bench right outside of the stall because I hated putting on wet clothes, which meant that I undressed outside of the stall. I got in, used the cheap soap dispenser they provided, and lathered up. As I showered, I started getting this uneasy feeling that would just not go away.

My nerves were already on edge, so I stopped to look around. I even opened the stall door, peeking out into the room, seeing if someone was around. It was empty. I went back to my shower, dismissing it as paranoia stemming from the odd encounter with the boy. But as I continued, so did the feeling. It was like someone was watching me.

Not being able to overcome this feeling, I quickly turned off the water and flung open the door. As I looked around again, I saw a dark shadow towards the entrance, like someone was just standing at it, just about to enter or maybe they were leaving. I was suspicious at this point because I never heard a toilet flush or another shower turn on. I turned to get dressed so that I could just get out of there when my heart plummeted to the floor.

My clothes were gone. My towel was on the floor like it was dropped in a rush, but that was it. I looked under the bench and in all the stalls, but they were gone. This confirmed my suspicion, and confirmed that it wasn't just a shadow, that there was someone in there with me. I wrapped my towel around me, and I looked out the door to see if I saw anyone around.

anyone carrying my clothes, but there were just a few people that were already at the beach when I left. Except for one. I didn't see that boy anywhere. I knew it had to be him. And if it was him, what are the chances I felt like I was being watched because I was? The showers were just like the toilet stalls, so there were breaks in the wall where anyone could have easily been looking.

I also then recall the remark he made as I was leaving. He said something along the lines of, "'Fine, go take your shower then.' I wasn't even out of the water yet, so why would he assume that's where I was going? I felt violated and scared, not knowing what to do. He took everything. My clothes and my bathing suit were just gone. I paced for a while in there trying to figure out what I was going to do."

I could wait until someone else came in and told them, or I could make a run for it. The walk wasn't that far, but still way further than my 15-year-old self was willing to go in just a towel. So, I waited. I knew my parents would either show up eventually to swim, or because they were worried that I hadn't returned yet. But I also hoped that someone would come in sooner and I could tell them to get my parents. Thankfully, that's what happened.

Two older ladies came in and right before they got into the showers, I asked them for help. I told them that someone took my clothes and they looked appalled. One lady gave me her cover-up dress which was obviously too big but not at all see-through, thankfully, and they walked with me back to my family. It became a fiasco when I got back. I had to embarrassingly explain why I didn't have my clothes and even though I had no proof,

I wasn't going to hold back the fact that I had an idea of who could have done it. My dad's face instantly became red. After I got dressed and gave the lady's dress back, my dad wanted to drive around looking for this kid. We went to the beach and to different campgrounds, but we never saw him. I never saw him interacting with anyone at the beach, so I couldn't even identify his family or anyone that he'd come with. We went back to our camp without any luck.

I could tell that my dad was still furious, and even though I knew he wasn't mad at me, I still felt bad. I felt like I ruined our trip. We went home the next day as normal, but my mom slept in the tent with me just to be safe. We never saw that kid again, nor did I get my clothes, and I still get this creepy, gross feeling that he's out there somewhere, still holding on to them.

I've worked construction for about a decade now. In the local towns around me, there are buildings that need regular restoration, and the company that I work for is often called out to work on these jobs. You need to be careful with some of these older places because they tend to have a lot of asbestos in them, and it needs specialized care and disposal.

The company also does work on abandoned hospitals, factories, and other larger places. It is pretty eerie, and I'm not a believer in ghosts or anything, but maybe you can tell me what this could have been. This was at a job in an abandoned hospital that was being converted to what? I can't remember. I was by myself, my workmate had left to get some paint, and I had my airpods in.

I was listening to music and just focused on my job. I was cutting some wood for the beams when I saw something run past me. I called out to my workmate to stop being a dickhead and to get back to work. He didn't say anything and I didn't see him. I kept cutting for a while. It was cold at the time. Freezing cold. Keep in mind that I live in Australia and the temperatures can get extremely warm during the summer.

I then saw the shadow of a child, and I called out to the kid that it wasn't safe for them to be in here. I checked some of the rooms nearby, and there were no kids, and no signs of my lazy workmate. I went out to tell my supervisor what happened, and he told me that my workmate was on break. Yeah, typical. I then told him about the kid running around, and he went to talk to the lady who owned the place.

She was one of those crazy spiritual types who saw ghosts and shadows everywhere. She smiled at me and told me that it was the spirit of a lost girl, and said that she must have liked me. If I wasn't working at that time, I would have told her what I thought then and there. I went back to my job and figured they must have just been taking the piss. My workmate still wasn't back yet.

I didn't have my airpods in at this point when I heard what sounded like a whisper and I have to admit that I jumped. What people don't realize is with older buildings is that they tend to have issues with the pipes or with the windows not being sealed properly. I couldn't explain the sharp drop in temperature though. I was measuring how long the pieces of timbers needed to be when I could have sworn that I saw the figure of a small girl out of the corner of my eye.

When I looked directly at her, she disappeared. I still wouldn't say that I believed that she was there or that she was real. I just heard the story about her and you could say that I guess I was spooked by it. I could hear my workmate coming back in. I called out to him and we spoke before getting back to work. It was, what, five to ten minutes before I heard him let out a high-pitched scream. I walked out of the room that I was working in to see what was going on.

He was pale as a sheet, and I've never seen anyone look so scared in my life. He told me that he saw a little girl just standing there. Now, I'm not the most trusting fellow. I asked him if he'd heard about the story from the lady who owned the place, and he told me that he hasn't spoken to her and hasn't met her yet. I asked him if he talked to our supervisor, and he said, yeah, but only to tell him that he was back.

He hadn't heard about the apparent ghost of the little girl. I looked at his face for any sign of a laugh or that he was messing with me, but I didn't see any. And I could read this kid like a book. I asked him what he thought of the place, and, well, the kid is as dumb as a bag of bricks, so... He said that he thought the place was creepy and haunted. I wondered about myself. I just told him to get back to work and to stop messing around.

After that, I kept pausing, thinking that I could see the little girl out of the corner of my eye as I worked. I think that she whispered something to me, and I kept pretending that I didn't hear her. I could have sworn that I was hearing some giggling, too. Maybe I've just spent too much time in these old places. But what do you think it was? Can anyone help me with this? I still don't personally believe in ghosts or anything."

And I wanted to add, Raven, you have the best narrations. Especially your Aussie stories. Those were amazing. So, I wanted to share something that happened to me back in 2019 that I personally cannot explain. Something that left me nothing shy of shook and uncomfortable in my own home.

It was in the middle of summer, and I was living alone in my second floor apartment that was located in a sleepy suburb. It was the kind of suburb that has a lot of kids that are always outside playing in the daytime, but around 8, it goes completely silent. I've never had any issues with any of my neighbors. My upstairs neighbor is a friendly older lady, and the ones next door are a couple with some really young kids.

They can all make their noise, but it's never really been disruptive or a problem for me at all. On some nights, when I had trouble sleeping, which would happen a lot, I would often step out onto my patio and just sit in my outdoor lounge chair and watch the stars. I would sit there and close the screen door but keep the glass door open and just chill in the darkness, watching the night sky as it slowly drifts past. Poetic, right?

On one of those nights, it was around midnight, I was sitting out and just doing what I did, when I started hearing what sounded like music. I sat up and just kind of glanced around, trying to see if I could figure out where it was coming from, because it was way too late for someone to be listening to music in the building. As I focused a bit on the music, I realized that it was old-timey music.

Like something from a 1940s vinyl record. It was a bit staticky and crackly, but it sounded like a jazzy tune with some piano interlaced into the rhythm. Intrigued, I decided to try and find the source. I walked back into my apartment and then opened up my front door to see if I could hear the music and where it was coming from. But when I walked out into the main hall, the music seemed to be quieter.

I walked down the hall towards my neighbor's place and then up the stairs, but the music was completely gone. I went back, but when I got back into my living room, the music was still gone. So, I figured it wasn't anything important and just moved on from there. Then, a couple days later, I had another late night on the patio, and as I was sitting there, I heard the music start up again.

I checked my watch, and once again it was exactly midnight. I paused and listened, and sure enough, it was the same type of music. The distinct sound of music playing from a vinyl record, complete with crackling, popping, a slight bit of distortion but nearly clear as day. It was a different tune, but still jazzy with an eccentric piano sound in the background.

I took it a bit slower as I entered my apartment to see if I could hear the direction it was coming from, and it seemed to be coming from the back end of my apartment, not near the front, which meant that it would have had to have either been my neighbor upstairs or the one directly downstairs. The next day I went up and asked the older lady above me if it was her, not in a way that was upset or anything, just like,

"Hey, have you by chance been listening to music at midnight randomly over the past week?" She kind of chuckled and told me that she's usually in bed and asleep by 9:30. So it wasn't her. She mentioned that it was really odd that I was hearing the music, because she wasn't hearing anything or waking up to it. I agreed, but thanked her for her time and then went downstairs to ask the other neighbors. Of course, it wasn't them either.

I wouldn't have expected a couple with two really young kids like that to be listening to a vinyl in the middle of the night. They also both mentioned that they hadn't heard any music, and he apparently worked in his office late into the night, so he would have heard it. So asking the neighbors if they had heard it was a complete bust, and I was no closer to figuring it out.

Over the next couple of nights, I had purposely spent every evening out on the patio to see if I could figure it out, but the music wouldn't seem to play. Then, about a week after that, I was actually lying in bed and I woke up to the music. I immediately jumped up and listened, and was genuinely surprised when I realized the music was much louder than it had been out on the patio. I started listening harder and, sure enough,

The music was coming from the direction of my hallway, and when I stepped out of my bedroom, I was certain that the music was coming directly from the spare room across the hall. Two things about this room. One, it's been unoccupied since my roommate moved out a year ago, and two, I've treated the room as a giant walk-in closet, so the only things in there are a lamp and some clothing racks.

I know for a fact that there were no electronics in that room. No radios, no speakers, and certainly no record players. I pressed my ear up to the door, and I was 100% certain that whatever was playing that music was inside this room, just on the other side of the door. I was a bit hesitant as I was freaking out, but I grabbed the handle and I threw the door open, and... nothing.

As soon as I opened the door, there was nothing special on the other side. Nothing playing music, and nothing unexpected. The music stopped as soon as I opened the door. Like, dead stopped. Almost as if it had never existed. The only thing of note for me when I opened that door was that the room was very cold. Like, way colder than the rest of my apartment. I immediately shut the door.

and decided that I was just going to go back to bed and ignore it if it happened again. Shockingly, it hasn't. Like, at all. This was almost four years ago at this point, and I haven't heard the music at all since that night. I checked the room during the day, and I confirmed that there was nothing capable of playing music in that room, so I have no clue where it was coming from. I know some people may say that it was just coming through the walls, like I initially thought, but...

I honestly do not believe that it was any of my neighbors, as none of them heard it, nor admitted to it. And then there's the fact that it just stopped like it did when I opened the door. As mentioned, I have no way explaining what this was, where the music was coming from, or what it meant, but I'm pretty thankful that it hasn't happened again since.

Every job out there has its challenges and its difficulties, but for some reason, part of me thought that the late shift at a local gas station in the small town that I live in wouldn't be that crazy. The job itself is fine. It's a fairly simple job that has me constantly restocking shelves until about 10, when I have to break down the store and clean everything.

We certainly had some interesting people enter the store, people I didn't know even lived in my small town, but there was one incident that happened after a long shift that actually terrified me more than any of those. It was a pretty typical night. My shift ended at 1 in the morning and I had spent the last few hours cleaning up the day's messes and getting everything in order for the overnight and early morning shift.

I was tired, but I needed to still make the walk home, so I put in my earphones and started down the same road that I always walked to get back. The night was pretty much silent, nothing going on, as is the normal for one in the morning. I'd walked this same path hundreds of times, and I've never had any issues, so I will admit that I let my guard down, because it's not a terribly long walk.

And like I said, there's usually no one out that late at night. I was about halfway home when I saw what looked like a beam of light click on ahead of me and shine in my direction. No big deal, really. Just someone else out going for a walk, I assumed. I kept walking the way I was going, which was towards the light. But then I heard what sounded like someone yelling through the podcast I was listening to.

I paused it, and I pulled my earphones out to be absolutely sure I was hearing someone yelling, and not just thinking I was hearing it. Sure enough, I was. The guy that was holding the flashlight was yelling something like, ''Hey, are you even listening to me?'' I apologized and mentioned that I had my earphones in, and then asked, ''Do you need something?'' He then said, ''Yeah, I want you to come here.''

Obviously, that wasn't something I was planning on doing. I responded by asking him what it was that he needed from me, and he started on a tirade. He started screaming about how I needed to come there right now, and that I needed to help him because it was my job. I kindly responded with, "'I'm sorry, I think you have me mistaken for someone else. I'm trying to walk home.' Then came the profanities and names."

This guy started calling me every inappropriate and unsavory title that he had ever heard, yelling about how I was required to help him if he asked, and that everything was my fault. I started to back up a bit when I saw that the light was getting closer, but how much danger I was in didn't really click until he got under one of the streetlights. I originally thought that this was just some random person, and he thought that I was someone else.

but when I saw him under the light, I was certain that this guy was not all there. This man had been chewed up and spit out by life. His clothes were torn up, his hair was horribly messy, he was limping and stomping on the concrete with bare feet, and his face was sunken in and bright red.

The thing about him that really caught my attention, though, was the broken glass bottle that he was gripping in the hand that wasn't holding the flashlight. I nearly froze in fear as this guy was walking towards me, but it quickly occurred to me that if I just stood there, this guy was going to use that bottle. I spun on my heels and took off back towards the gas station at a full sprint.

I could hear him continuing to shout threats at me, and just screaming seemingly random things that made no sense. I turned to look back once, and he was still coming towards me, but he wasn't running. He hadn't picked up the pace at all, so thankfully I had put some distance between us. Out of breath and still shaking, I made it back to the gas station.

My coworker was surprised to see me, but I mentioned what happened, and he told me that I should call someone to come get me, and just stay there in case the guy showed up at the station. I agreed, and I ended up spending way too much money on an Uber. As they pulled up, and I climbed into the back seat, I actually saw the guy. He was standing on the corner of the street just huddled there, and rocking back and forth.

It was pretty clear that this guy was not okay, and clearly he needed help, but why did he lash out at me? Was it just a random act of aggression? I'm guessing that I was probably just the unlucky soul that happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time, and he decided that I needed to be the target of his anger. I did make it home alright. No other issues, obviously.

I mentioned it to my manager the next day, just in case the guy did come into the store and decide to be a problem there. I also changed up my route to get home at night, heading up a block or two north and then heading west. It added a few extra minutes, but it's been pretty calm. I haven't seen him again, and I hope that he got help, but honestly there was nothing that I could do for him.

And I'm obviously thankful that he didn't decide to run after me, and that nothing more happened during this encounter. I have a short but pretty terrifying event that happened to me about four years ago. I had just moved into my new apartment, and it wasn't in the greatest part of town. It wasn't like it was riddled with crime and scary to be in. It was just an area that was a bit lower income, really.

The best way to describe it is somewhere in between pretty decent and a tad sketchy, if that literally makes any sense. I will mention that I am not white, and while I don't like to play the race card for anything, I'm pretty certain that this had something to do with the situation that played out. Like I said, I had just moved into a new apartment, and it was actually my second night living there.

I was watching TV and I had this idea that I should go buy some ice cream to celebrate moving in. You have to treat yourself every once in a while, right? Just celebrate those little milestones and everything. It was a brisk night walk to the store, quiet and peaceful. Little did I know that the trip back was going to be the complete opposite of the walk there. I walked back on the same path that I took to get to the store.

except this time I was carrying a bag with a tub of rocky road. A bit into the walk, I noticed a group of three guys standing up ahead. At first, I thought they were just some guys out enjoying the evening like I was, until they turned toward me and started walking. I tried to avoid being paranoid, thinking it was just good timing, and that they were just randomly heading in my direction.

It became pretty quickly apparent that they weren't just heading in my direction, they had intentions. They very quickly stopped me and had me backed up against a wall. Initially, I thought this was a mugging. I told them that I didn't want any trouble, and I put my hands up, basically saying, ''Take what you want to take. I won't fight back.''

Mostly because it was three guys, at least one of them with a gun, and me armed with nothing but a container of rocky road ice cream. I assumed that they would take my wallet, probably my cell phone, and maybe even my ice cream, and that they would just run off and that would be that. But, of course, it was actually much worse than that. The leader, I'm assuming, or at least the guy with the gun, barked at me to drop the bag. I did.

He then told me to get down on my knees, and I did what he asked. He told the other two guys to pat me down, which was weird, but I wasn't going to question the guy that literally had my life in his hands. They patted me down, and one of them said that I was clear, whatever that meant. But then it got even weirder. One of the other two grabbed my hands and pulled them behind my back and then cuffed me.

My mind immediately went to, are these some kind of rogue police officers? I actually summoned the courage to ask them why I was being arrested, and the leader just told me to shut up. No more than a couple of seconds later, the area was lit with flashing red and blues, as a car pulled up to the scene. The car parked, and I heard a stern voice shout, ''What the hell is going on here?''

The guys responded in a manner that was far from scared or concerned. The one just saying something along the lines of, "'Don't worry, Sheriff. We got him taken care of.'" Apparently this was the wrong thing to say to the sheriff as he lost it. He told all three of them to get on the ground and immediately called in for backup. The three guys started yelling at the sheriff about how they were helping and how I was one of them.

Again, whoever them was, and saying that they were helping him. The sheriff told them they were a bunch of idiots, and yelled that the one guy needed to drop his weapon and they all needed to get on the ground right then. The whole time I'm just sitting there on the ground, hands behind my back thinking, I really chose a bad night to get ice cream.

When the other officers arrived, they swiftly handled the faux cops while the sheriff uncuffed me and asked if I was alright. I told him that I had no idea what was going on, and he confessed that he was just as baffled as I was. He told me the obvious and mentioned that those guys were not cops, and he was clearly just as confused about their endgame as I was. He offered to take me back to my apartment, and when we got there, he took my statement."

He promised me that he would see to it that those guys would face the consequences of their actions, and then followed that up by suggesting, with genuine concern, that it may be safer for me to avoid late-night strolls in the area. With the guys' comments of me being one of them, and the way he said that, it told me all I needed to know. I told him that I understood. He offered me his business card, and then told me to call him if I ever had any trouble.

I was shaken, of course, but at least I knew that someone out there was looking out for me in this crazy part of town. Looking back, that night could have gone much worse. If the sheriff hadn't pulled up right when he had, I can only imagine what those guys were going to do or what their next step was. I was completely defenseless, and honestly, if that guy had wanted me dead...

I think that I would have been dead. Thankfully that didn't happen, and I'm grateful that the timing was on my side. While I have had to deal with people like them a few times since that night, it's never been anything that terrifying or life-threatening. I still live in the same apartment, and thankfully most of my neighbors are friendly. I will say that this lovely welcoming party did go away for some pretty serious crimes.

And of course the guy with the gun was a felon, so you shouldn't have had the weapon in the first place. Also, when I go to the store now, I drive. No more late night walks to get my rocky road. This happened to me back when I was a little 7 year old boy. My family and extended family were also close to one another. I remember always having people over at our place. We had parties for every holiday and every birthday.

Grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins, a lot of cousins. So the 4th of July was no different for us. We were going to be hosting the cookout and celebration. I was the second youngest of six kids. We were a big family alone. I remember going grocery shopping with my mom, and I helped pick out some of the snack foods and desserts. My mom made the best cupcake arrangements.

She was a baker/caterer, so she always went all out on the desserts. We picked out some ingredients to make what my mom called "surprise cupcakes." She would make them as normal, but the center would be filled with different things, such as frosting, sprinkles, or candy. Since it was the holiday of fireworks, I wanted to try pop rocks. So when we got back home, I was excited to not only make them, but eat them too.

However, my mom told me that I wasn't allowed to have one until after I ate actual food. I was a kid with a sweet tooth, and she knew that I would go a little crazy over them and probably make myself sick. But that didn't mean that I understood her reasoning at the time either. So, as people started showing up, everyone was talking, snacking, and having a good time. My dad was the cliche dad.

with a giant grill making everything you could imagine on it: steaks, hamburgers, hot dogs, kebabs, beans, you name it. My parents were both pretty cheesy and cliche, but they were all so wonderful. I only hope my kids nowadays think the same of me and their mom. Anyways, I helped my dad where I could, which is typically flipping things as he held me.

But I more so wanted to monitor when it would be done so that I could eat and have a cupcake. When it was finally done, I made a plate and ate it a little faster than I should have. Once we were done, I was finally granted permission to those beautiful strawberry lemonade pop rock cupcakes. They were just as fantastic as you could imagine. I don't know how my mom did what she did, but I was a lucky kid.

After enjoying my first one, I asked for another one and my mom told me to wait for a bit. I was kind of disappointed, but I obliged and busied myself doing something else. I played with my cousins for a while, and then we started lighting off some fireworks. After what I thought was a substantial amount of time, I asked for another cupcake, but my mom was busy talking and sorting things out, so she told me to wait.

After a short pout, my mom walked back outside with the others, and I realized I was alone in the house with the cupcakes. I took the opportunity to sneak one, and would eat it in my playhouse in the backyard. The party was taking place in the front yard, and I had a clear path to my house. Confident that I could get away with it too. It went just as planned, and the little cake was just as good as the first one.

but this successful plan just made me want to press my luck. So, yes, I went back for a third one. I brought it out back and started eating it when I heard someone in the house. Fearing they may notice the missing dessert, or me, I tried to eat it faster when I started coughing really hard. I had swallowed part of it wrong or something, making me choke on it.

The last thing I remember was feeling very scared, but also very tired, until I closed my eyes. Shortly after, I woke up, and I was lying in my bed. I remember looking around my room and stretching, until I remembered our cookout and party, so I sat back up, ready to go back out there with everyone else. That wasn't until I noticed a young woman standing and looking out my window. Being a little kid, I just said,

"Who are you?" The lady looked over at me smiling and said that she was Becky. She then started asking about the different items in my room, and about me. She pointed to one of my shark stuffed animals and asked me what kind it was. She would ask me what my favorite one was, and complimented me on being able to name the different ones. As we talked more, she would then stop and smile at me and say things about how smart and handsome I was,

and how much I looked just like my dad. It definitely made my little self feel pretty good, and I tried to offer different toys to her as a gift. She again smiled at me but declined. Then she told me that I should go back to the party because they would miss me. I thought it was a silly thing to say and just mentioned something about how I was right here in my bedroom.

She again smiled, and said that it was very important that I listen to my mother and get back to her quickly. So, being that she was an adult, I figured it was probably wise to listen to her, but before I went, I told her to join us, and of course, talked about the cupcakes. She kept on smiling, but then she also looked kind of sad.

She said that she might look for one later, but again pushed me to go quickly. So, I shrugged it off, not really knowing what was going on. Then, I looked at my door, and I could hear my mom screaming my name, which startled me. And, as if I had been dreaming, I woke up with my mom over me screaming my name and crying.

Seeing my mom like that scared me and made me cry, but I noticed how I couldn't catch my breath. After a brief coughing fit, I calmed down and realized that I was sitting against my playhouse with several people around me. My mom made sure that I was alright and then picked me up and brought me inside.

I got a stern talking to by both of my parents, because they figured out that I had taken the cupcake and they explained why it was so important. They found me unconscious and choking. Apparently whoever had walked into the kitchen could hear my coughing, and they knew it was a kid and how it sounded pretty bad, so they went and looked around for the kid. That's when they noticed me in the playhouse, but I'd already collapsed on the ground.

My face had a hue of blue and purple, according to them. Obviously, they cleared my airway and I came too. Turning out fine, but it was definitely a terrifying moment for them. It was scary for me too, though. Seeing how scared my mom looked, I made sure to listen to my parents for the rest of the night, but I was also too afraid to leave my mom's side. So, that was pretty scary alone.

especially now as an adult knowing that I could have died, but the part my family and I still don't understand was the lady in my room. Later that night, I remembered her and asked my mom about her. She had just started naming off people at the party, but I recognized them all. I told her how I had never seen this woman before. She looked confused, but she took me to my room and said that there was no one in there.

I explained how she was at my window, how she liked my shark, and how she even said I was handsome like my dad. My mom looked puzzled until I explained that all this happened right before I heard her screaming at me and woke up in my playhouse. Then her face looked more shocked than anything. As a kid, I could tell something was wrong with her, but I didn't know what. She just told me at that time that it may have been a dream when I was actually out in the playhouse.

and I just left it at that, thinking it was just a crazy and real feeling dream. The next day, while I was having breakfast with my family, we were talking about the night prior and everything that had occurred, when my mom again brought up the cupcake situation, scolding me again, but in a more light-hearted way. My dad was aware of the situation too, and he joked about it. This caused me to bring up the dream that I had,

My parents were both open-minded, I suppose, so my mom immediately said, "Oh, yeah, tell your dad about this dream that you had." So, I explained it to him. The whole time he had his normal interested look, as I told him, until I got to the part about the lady saying that I looked like my dad. It was clear that this had piqued his interest, so he asked me to describe the woman.

However, as I did, he mentioned that he didn't recognize the woman. So, again, we all said that it was just a kind of weird dream and left it at that. Now that I'm older, my parents and I have talked about it on several occasions trying to figure out who this mystery lady was. They, of course, would have more ideas than I would.

The closest we've gotten was possibly my dad's great-aunt, as the home we were in was once hers that he inherited down the family. The only thing was that the woman I saw was very young, and no one could find photos of her as a young adult, so we've always just referred to her as my guardian angel for possibly having saved me that night and telling me to go back to my mother. And since then, I've never forgotten about her.

So, I know that my story is going to sound horribly cliche, but it did actually happen to me, and it's something that honestly scared me nearly to death. It's easy to look at a story and say, "You should have done this or that," but to end up in the situation is a totally different story. At the time, I panicked, and I took the easiest way that I could to get out of the situation.

And if I were in this situation again today, I think I would probably still do the same thing as my potential stupid actions are most likely what saved my hide. This happened about five years ago, when I was living in the heart of the city, in an apartment that was only a few blocks from my office. I'm a night owl, always have been.

There's something about being out in the world when it's completely still and silent that has always appealed to me. It was during one of these late nights, around two in the morning to be exact, that I was walking home from my office. It had been a particularly stressful day at work. I mean, obviously. I was leaving at two, and I was looking forward to the cool night air to calm my nerves and to help me center myself a little bit.

I took my usual route down the familiar sidewalk that was illuminated by the dim streetlights, past all the closed shops with their metal shutters down and locked, towards the local park that was always deserted this time of night. I will say that there is this strange and eerie peace that emanates from the deserted cityscape at night that I've just kind of always felt comforting. That is, until that night.

As I was walking, I heard what sounded like soft rustling coming from behind me. I didn't pay it much attention, assuming it was just a newspaper getting blown around in the winds, or maybe a stray cat doing stray cat things. As I continued walking, I noticed that it wasn't fading away. It was persistent, and it seemed like it was following me. I slowly pulled my pepper spray off my clip that was attached to my purse and turned to see if there was someone there.

And, sure enough, there was. About 30-ish feet behind me was a man in a hooded sweatshirt and gym shorts, walking at around the same pace that I was. His hood wasn't up, but he was doing everything he could to make it look like he was not looking at me, looking down at the ground, turning slightly to the side. Now, I don't like to think the worst about anyone that I see, especially when I first see them.

But the way he reacted to me turning around was not normal, and it put me on edge. I figured the best thing to do was to keep walking and to pay attention to how far he was from me the whole time. I didn't have that far to go to get to my apartment building, thankfully, and after a couple more moments of upping my pace a bit and putting a little extra distance between us, I came up to an alleyway that had the side entrance of my apartment building.

At that point, I was faced with two options. Make a run down the side alley and make it into the side door quickly, or take the chance and walk all the way around the building to the front to get into the front door. I decided that the side entrance being quicker and a straight shot was my best bet. As I approached the alley, I quickly turned and did a slight jog towards the door. When I turned back to see if he was following me down the alley...

I was surprised to see that he was still just standing there and staring at me at the entrance. At this point, it was more than clear that he was definitely following me, and that he intended to make me the victim of whatever it was that he was plotting. I kept walking towards the door of my building, my keycard in one hand and the pepper spray in the other, intending to get into the building quickly. When I approached the door, I heard a sound that sent me into overdrive.

the sound of feet rapidly smacking onto the concrete. This guy was now running at me in a full sprint. I nearly fumbled everything as I beeped in with the keycard, stepped in and slammed the door shut behind me. Thankfully it was a good door, and thankfully it locked immediately when it shut after being beeped in, because as soon as I got to the other side of the door, the man was right there, his face pressed against the glass and staring at me.

This guy really just stood there with his face literally pressed against the glass door, laughing and smiling at me. I turned back and ran up the stairs, taking them two at a time, until I got to my floor and my apartment. I actually called the police and reported the incident, but since he hadn't attempted to break in, there wasn't really anything they could do.

The next day, I contacted the leasing office and they pulled the camera footage so that we could at least get a picture of the guy, so that we could hang it up and warn the tenants about him. Which we did. One of my neighbors mentioned that they had seen the guy standing outside the building a few weeks prior, and that he had asked them for change. When they said no, he got mad and started yelling that whatever he ended up doing was going to be their fault. So, that was nice to know.

Unfortunately, I've never really been able to forget that night. The fear that I felt as I turned to see him sprinting at me… I no longer walked from the office to my apartment, and actually moved to a different location a few months later for… unrelated reasons. The whole thing was a chilling reminder of how a simple stroll from one place to another can quickly turn into a nightmare. That night, the city that I loved definitely showed me a darker side.

One that I hope to never encounter again. Hey Raven, you're an amazing channel and you do such a great job. Keep it up. Anyways, I live in the city and I don't want to give my exact location. It's a pretty prominent city in the US, but it's expensive to live here now. But city life is the best.

I can't ever imagine living in the country or in the suburbs somewhere else. I live, work, and I guess you could say that I play out here too. The area in the city that I'm in is pretty well known for having an active nightlife, and it isn't uncommon to see other people out at all hours of the night or early morning. You could say that I'm a fitness nut, so I go out to a local park for a jog nearly every single morning.

I love getting out there for exercise. You know that stereotype that things only really happen at night? Well, I didn't think that things would happen around 8 to 9 AM. There were people around walking their dogs or going to work or school. Despite things happening in other parts of the city, it's kind of unthinkable for where I live. Anyway, there was supposedly a group of men that was following women who were out alone all hours of the night.

But I've never been the type of person to let someone force me out of something I enjoy. I decided to go for walks late at night with a friend, or a couple of friends at a time. I organized with them at a local corner store. Perfect. I headed off and waited. It isn't uncommon for my one friend to be late, but I'd been waiting till around 11pm for close to 30 minutes. I tried calling and texting her to make sure she was okay, but she didn't answer.

On the fifth try, she told me she was okay, but that she didn't feel like going out with me. I was mad at her, and I kind of told her off for it. I didn't want it to ruin my evening. I came out with a purpose, and I was going to stick to the plan. The park is fairly well lit, and pretty safe. I could see some other people walking around at the time, so I wasn't really worried. I set off down the long path, listening to some music and just enjoying the cool air.

I pondered starting a permanent habit of going out at this time by myself. I kept going. I was sweaty, and gradually the people started to become fewer and fewer. As I was walking, I heard what sounded like a scream, even though I was listening to my music. I stopped, took my earbuds out, and listened for any more sounds. I was right under a light and tried to look to see if I could see anyone nearby, and then I heard the distinct sound of a baby crying.

and I waited to see if the baby would quiet down. But why would a baby be out at this time at night? Did something happen to the mother? I was too scared to call out. I slowly walked toward the sound, and the baby's cries got louder and louder. I saw a baby carrier, the kind that you place in a car near a blanket, and close to some trees. It looked really damn sus. I froze.

I wasn't sure of whether I should check the baby or call the police first. If the baby died or something before I went over to look, I would have never have forgiven myself. I jogged over, and I didn't see anyone, so I pulled the car seat back. It was covered in a blanket, and I pulled it away. There was a doll in the car seat with a small speaker taped around its neck. I let out a scream and backed away, nearly falling over in the process.

I didn't see anyone hiding or anything. I didn't wait to find out if there was anyone there. I turned and ran as fast as I could out of the park and into a well-lit area. I could hear some people running behind me, and I could have sworn that I heard someone tell me to wait or stop. There was no way in hell that I was going to be stopping for anybody. It was only when I was at a nearby restaurant that I slowed down, and I told them what happened to me in the park.

I don't know if this was a human trafficker or just people who wanted to rob me. Either way, someone who does something like this does not have good intentions. I should have called the police instead. I called the police afterwards, and I did report it. These sort of crimes happened in the rougher areas of town rather than where I lived. They were mainly robberies. I only go jogging with people now or during daylight to prevent these things from happening.

The sad thing is, people stopped walking through the park as much, including me. It's sad that the actions of a few can impact so many people. And what's worse, I used to feel so safe here. From the ages of 17 to 24, I was a lifeguard at a local community pool, and it was still one of my favorite jobs. I started it as just a way to make easy money,

I just sat on a chair, yelled out at people doing things they shouldn't be doing, and got to swim for free. We rarely had a situation of actually needing to save someone, but when we did, I'd be lying if I said it didn't feel good. The adrenaline of being the person to jump in and help someone in need wasn't a psychotic or narcissistic thing either. I just realized that I truly loved helping people.

That's what made me keep the job for so long, and was also what pushed me to become an EMT. But the story was before my days as an EMT. This happened when I was a lifeguard at the age of 19. I wasn't sure what I wanted to major in yet, but I knew I wanted to do something in the medical field, so after I graduated high school, I started taking my core classes at a local college until I figured it out.

My parents were always supportive and let me stay at home until I got my own place. I just chipped in where I could to help with groceries or anything else. So, when I wasn't in class, I was working. I even covered other people's shifts at times. The day of this event was no different. I came in around 10 that day, put on my sunscreen, grabbed my sunglasses, and found myself sitting on one of the tall guard chairs.

As I scanned the area to make notes of the different people I was seeing, I saw two new people enter. It appeared to be a father and his young daughter. I could see the entrance from where I was, so I saw him scan a card. They walked in and then went off to the side a bit. He knelt down to be at eye level with the girl, and he put one hand on her shoulder and used the other hand to wave it over to the pool, pointing to a specific part.

I obviously couldn't hear them, but if I had to guess, it looked as if he was telling her where she was allowed to go in the pool. We had the main pool, a small kiddie pool, two water slides, and also a small hot tub, typically used for therapy purposes. I assumed he was just directing her where to stay. Afterwards, he hugged her and then she walked over to the shallow end.

The dad, however, walked over to the diving boards and jumped in. I watched him jump in and then swam to the other side of the pool, seemingly just waiting there. I thought it was a little odd that it was just the two of them and he wasn't going to keep an eye on her, but assumed that maybe she was just a very responsible kid and let it go. But then the weird feelings began.

The dad looked up at me, nodding and smiling, and instantly this feeling washed over me, telling me to keep an eye on him. I watched over him as he seemed to peep a watch from the corner of the pool. Since he wasn't going anywhere, I looked over at the girl that he came in with. She was sitting at the entrance of the pool, playing with one of those little water footballs. I noticed that she would look over at one of the nearby kids playing, almost craving their attention.

You could tell by the look on her face that she wanted to play with her, but maybe she was just painfully shy, causing her not to be able to initiate a conversation. Other than being alone, she didn't seem suspicious in the slightest, so I focused my attention back on the dad. That's when I noticed that he seemed to be focusing his attention on two other young girls. I would say the girls were probably around 12 to 14 years old.

They reminded me of my younger sister. They were sitting on the edge of the pool and just talking when another lifeguard told them that they couldn't do that, so they got in the pool. Unfortunately, I saw him approach the girls, smiling and greeting them. The girls reciprocated, but I still wanted to keep an eye on him. I would do my normal scan of the pool and surrounding area, but then soon after, my eyes would make their way to that guy again.

I noticed the girls now had a different look on their faces. It was more so a look of boredom, like when someone is telling you something you obviously have no interest in, or maybe just don't understand. Either way, they didn't look like they cared to be talked to by him, or to be in that situation. So I did the best that I could, and when one of my coworkers walked by, I told him about the guy.

He actually agreed with me, saying that he noticed him staring too. He said that he was going to go tell the manager on duty so we could force a clear out of the pool, or maybe even do an adult swim, so that we could get him away from the girls and ask them what was going on. If anyone was being inappropriate or not following the rules, they were told to leave.

There was also a three-strikes system, and if you were kicked out three times, you were banned, and never allowed back to the pool. There are, however, some situations, of course, that could get you banned before the three strikes. So, while I waited for my coworker to come back with good news, I continued to watch them. The girl's body language was telling me that they were not comfortable with what was happening.

I didn't know what he was doing or saying to them, nor did I know what he might try, but I did know that I needed to do something. So I blew my whistle, which made the other guards look over. I yelled at them, saying they needed to move as they were too close to the diving part, and the girls immediately walked towards the shallow water. The dad stayed where he was and just had an annoyed look on his face, and then he flipped the bird at me.

I shrugged and watched as he walked past the girls and then over to his daughter. He again knelt and was talking to her when he pointed at the same girl that she'd been eyeing to and then stood up and disappeared in the restroom. Shortly after, my coworker approached me and said the manager was working on it but was also relieving me so that I could go to break. I jumped down from the chair and knew immediately what I needed to do.

I wanted to see if that girl would talk to me, so I could find out what exactly was happening. I walked around and got in the pool entrance, greeting the young girl. She said hi back, but she still seemed a bit standoffish. I tried to make simple and friendly talk, but I also didn't know how long I had until he came back. So, I tried to make a comment about her dad, when she quickly cut me off and said, ''He's not my dad.''

I asked her who he was, and she quietly said, ''I don't know. He just brought me here.'' My stomach dropped, and this without a doubt confirmed that something was wrong here. I think that she knew too and was probably terrified, leading her to tell me, hoping to get help. For her age, she seemed like a very smart girl. I suggested that she come with me so that we could call her parents.''

She looked at me for a few moments and realized that I, too, could have been scary or suspicious. I told her that I could go get a girl if that would make her feel better, and she told me it was okay because you're a lifeguard and you save people's lives. That is what I lived for right there. She took my hand and we quickly walked to the post up front.

"'The door is one of those breakaway doors, "'where you can have the bottom half closed and the top half open. "'The bottom was closed when we approached, "'but I quickly closed both when we walked in "'as I didn't want the fake dad to see her. "'My manager was already back there, "'and I quietly explained to her what happened, "'so as to not alarm the girl. "'We got her a snack, and she seemed content "'sitting on the chair in the back, "'watching everyone else walk around.'

We even asked her if she knew her phone number, and she could remember part of it, and she could tell us her parents' names. Unfortunately, she had never been to this pool before, so my idea of looking for her parents in the membership log was shot down. However, we at least knew that we would have this guy's information, so my manager started checking the logs to see who all scanned their passes, while another coworker called the cops.

While all this was occurring around me, another coworker approached me and said that the guy was looking around frantically at the pool, most likely trying to find the young girl now under our protection. I was worried that he might bail, thinking that we were onto him, and I wanted so badly for someone to distract him. My manager, however, found his information and told us not to engage in case he tried anything, so we obliged.

I went back out to my post as normal, and I watched as this guy paced a bit. He watched the kids going down the slide, and he scanned the whole area, obviously trying to find someone. But shortly after this, I saw him head towards the exit, and then he was gone. He beat the police, but he didn't get far.

With the information we were able to give the police, they knew exactly who this girl was, and her parents showed up shortly after the cops did. The girl had actually been reported missing a few hours earlier, as she was at a summer program, and that guy showed up to pick her up. The girl apparently went with him anyways, after he told her that her mom was hurt, and he was going to take her to see her.

The guy had been stalking her mom, and thought that he could use her as a leverage to get the mom to come see him. The problem with this plan, though, was that there was no plan after getting the girl. So, he thought he would just take her to the pool that he'd paid for and signed up for with his own name. They were able to track the guy down, and he was arrested that night. I know this because they came back to confirm that they had the same guy that was at the pool.

A lot of this was information that I heard that night and on the news. We actually had a local news crew show up filming and asking us tons of questions, so of course I tuned in. That was an entirely different save that I never expected to have, but it's still something that stays in my memory. Nevertheless, there are still things that have gone unanswered.

I had asked the other girls that he was talking to what he'd said to them, and he had complimented them on their bodies and asked if they wanted to go back to his place to "party." He then proceeded to brag about his massive house and his accomplishments. They became uncomfortable because, of course, a grown man was asking these preteens to come party with him. They had walked to the pool, so they stayed close by until a parent picked them up that night too.

If his whole intention was to get to the girl's mom, why would he do that with the other girls? And why did he choose the pool? Not that it makes it better, but I hope that part is true and that he had no other sinister plans with the daughter. Or the other girls, but it's kind of hard to believe that. Either way, the guy was locked up and everyone went home safe, but I'm sure still fairly traumatized.

And that day was a stark reminder to myself to question even the smallest things that seemed off. I have a bit of a scary story that happened to me when I was a restaurant manager. It was about three years ago, and I was managing a bustling little family-owned Italian restaurant in a small town on the outskirts of Boston.

It was a really nice restaurant that I had worked at for about two years before being promoted up to a manager, which was a promotion that I didn't expect, but that I very much appreciated. For the most part, I loved my job. The owner was a friendly and generous guy, and we had a lot of regulars that fawned over the owner's lasagna. I know that that sounds kind of silly, but it was true.

We would sell out of the lasagna every day, and we had some really passionate customers. Obviously, with every job, there are ups and downs. One of the biggest downs with this job was when I had to do any sort of reprimanding to my subordinates. I absolutely adored my staff, but there were times where I had to put my foot down and be a bit of an a-hole.

We had one server, Jessica, that was awesome when she was hired, but as the time went on, I noticed that she started slacking really hard. At first it was just her coming in a few minutes late or messing up some orders, and I can understand that serving isn't the easiest job.

and we all make mistakes, so I would make comments to her about correcting some of her actions, and she would agree that she made a mistake and would say that she would fix the issues. As a manager, this was enough for me to let the issue go. I believe that when a person acknowledges their problems and say that they will fix them, you should take them at their word. Unfortunately, my trust in Jessica was misplaced."

On the particular evening where things went south, she showed up 40 minutes late, and worse yet, she was reeking of booze. Her eyes were glassy, and her movements were sluggish. As soon as I got a whiff of her, my heart sank, and I asked her to come with me to my tiny manager's office. I sat her down, and I asked her what was going on.

and she told me that she was sorry that she was late, and that her roommate, the person who brought her to work every day, had been running late and she couldn't help it. I then asked her if she'd been drinking, and she immediately tried to deny it. I then mentioned that she reeked of alcohol, and that it was physically obvious that she was inebriated. When I said this, she started to tear up,

and said that she was just so stressed out and nervous about the job, and that she may have had a drink or two to try to loosen up. Unfortunately, with that, I really didn't have a choice. I couldn't have her on the floor smelling like alcohol, and she would be a liability in the back being tipsy. On top of that, this wasn't her first reprimand, so I really had no choice in the matter.

I told her to go ahead and call her roommate to come pick her up, and said that she could come back on Friday to get her last check and to talk to the owner. I didn't want to ruin her career prospects, so I mentioned that when she came up on Friday, we could discuss how this would look on paper, and we would give her a chance to resign instead of being fired. Her response was silence.

She just stared at the desk with a blank stare until she stood up, and walked out of the office, and then out the back door. I returned to the floor, taking on the tables that Jessica was supposed to be assigned, hoping to salvage the rush and make the most of the night. I also had to do the managerial duties, so it was a stressful night, but all the work did a pretty good job at keeping my mind off of the whole ordeal.

About two hours had passed, and the front door swung open like it was shoved hard, and when I turned to greet this slightly aggressive customer, I was shocked to see Jessica just standing there. She looked like a mess. Her mascara was running, her eyes were dark, and I could see that she was in a rage. She headed straight toward me, ignoring everyone else that was pretty clearly staring at her at this point.

Before I could react, she was already upon me, and attacking me. She had knocked me to the floor and was pummeling me repeatedly. By the time I was able to register that I needed to fight back, I tried to shove her off of me, but by the time I was able to reach my arm up to push her, I felt this excruciating pain in my leg that threw me back down.

The whole time, Jessica was screaming that I was going to die, that she was going to end my life. I tried to fend her off, but the pain in my leg was so bad that I could barely focus. Thankfully, a couple of patrons, two burly men, that were there pretty much every week, rushed forward and grabbed Jessica off of me. They held her down while the hostess frantically called 911.

and I just remember the whole restaurant being in chaos before I started to feel lightheaded and eventually passed out. When I finally came to, I was in an ambulance and the paramedics were tending to my leg, where Jessica had jammed a metal fork, which explained the pain. They said that it hadn't hit any major arteries, but that it was a very deep wound and that I had lost a lot of blood.

From what I was told, the police arrived and they took control of the situation, putting Jessica under arrest and the whole time she was fighting them and everyone else in a violent fit. I later found out that Jessica had a history of alcoholism and violent behavior, and that she was trying to get clean but had apparently been relapsing pretty hard until that day that she showed up to work drunk.

This incident haunts me to this day, as I've seen what alcohol abuse can do to someone so young, and the violence that it can instigate. I felt awful that she ended up getting charged because I wanted the best for her, but her decisions completely removed any power that I had over the situation. I was forced to make a hard decision as a manager, one that I did not take lightly, but was necessary for everybody in the restaurant.

and she obviously took that very personally. My leg healed, mostly, but the scar on my leg is a reminder of the harder parts of having to manage people. So, to all you managers out there, stay safe, and cherish your good employees. And to Jessica, wherever you are, please, let's never meet again. A friend of mine and I decided to have a girl's day out,

Life was just starting to go back to normal, or so I thought, after all the COVID shutdowns. I noticed my friend was acting a little different towards me. Not in a bad way, but different nonetheless. We stop at a store, and a man walks up behind me. He insisted on paying for my purchase, which was only two small items. I thanked him, but declined the offer.

He appeared visibly upset, and then asked if he could at least carry it to the car for me. Again, I declined. We later stop at a very busy restaurant. My friend tells me that people are staring at me like crazy. I then begin to notice that she was right. As we were leaving the restaurant, a man approaches me and asks if I dined there often. I told him that I stop in every chance that I get. He then says that he looked forward to seeing me again.

I walk to the register and tell the cashiers that the man was so nice. They were both looking very confused. They told my friend and I that that man was actually the owner, and they had never seen him do that in all the years that they had worked for him. My friend and I got in the car to leave, and she said that something creepy was going on. I kind of chuckled, but she had a serious look on her face that I didn't understand.

At the time, at least. We then stop at a Walmart, and men start following me around. Two of them almost got into a fight over who would get some chips off the shelf that I had reached for. I walk over to my friend who of course witnessed that scene, and we laughed it off. I tell her that it would be nice if one of the men would have been a Lenny Kravitz lookalike.

Then, I swear to you, we round the aisle, and there stands a man who looks identical to Lenny, with the exception of being a little bit taller. My friend then says that that was insane, and I had to agree. I was looking through the sail rack when an elderly lady approached me. She was just absolutely darling, and she had the sweetest smile.

The lady looked to me in her late 80s, and she told me that she had been hoping to see me again before she was gone from this world. She said that she'd been waiting since she was a child. Of course, that wouldn't have been possible if she was much older than I was. A much younger lady who was accompanying her tells me that the lady is her grandmother, and that she kept talking about hoping to see me again. Okay, so at that point, my friend and I are ready to get out of there."

As we're on our way home, my friend suddenly asks me if I remember a classmate of ours passing away about 10 years ago. I tell her of course I do. Not only was he a friend, but he was also living with my sister's best friend when he passed. My friend had the spookiest look on her face, and then tells me that our classmate is now still alive, and apparently, according to his Facebook,

had never been with my sister's boyfriend. She pulls over to the side of the road and shows me his Facebook. I went into complete shock. My friend then looks at me and asks, What are you? This all happened about two years ago, and it still gives me anxiety to this day when it's mentioned. For about four years, I worked for a buffet-style diner that was open until around 10 p.m.,

But closing at 10 meant that we usually left at around 11:30 or later. The job was not glamorous. I was a back-end worker, so I mostly just did the dishes and some of the prep work, which at a buffet is an absolutely ludicrous amount of work. Being that I did a lot of the back-end cleaning, I was also assigned trash.

Meaning that I had to pull all the bags of trash from the front and back, and then take them to the dumpster out back. Again, not glamorous. Nothing that I would consider an entertaining job, but it was a job that paid okay, so I did it to the best of my ability. One night, around 11pm, I was doing my standard routine.

I bundled up all the trash bags, got all the bins emptied, and headed out the back door of the restaurant to take the first load of bags to the dumpster. As I was heading back in to grab the second load of bags, I noticed that a pickup truck was pulling into the lot slowly. I didn't pay it much mind, mostly because I was busy and really didn't care. I went back in and grabbed more bags, went outside and tossed them into the dumpster.

When I turned back to head back in and get the rest of the trash, I heard a voice shout out, "Hey!" I paused, thinking that there was no way they were possibly talking to me. But then they shouted, "Hey, you, come here!" As I turned and looked over at the truck, the guy opened the door and stepped out, just kind of standing there waving me over. Again, I just stood there and stared at this guy.

He looked like a linebacker. He was covered in tattoos with what looked like a gnarly scar on his face. I would say that if I had seen this guy in a movie, he would be playing that part of Mafia Enforcer, if that makes sense. The guy again motioned for me to come over to him, which removed any doubt about whether he was talking to me or not. I cautiously approached him, maintaining a bit of a distance.

He then asked me, "'Hey, are you Frank?' His voice was cold, and it honestly sent chills down my spine. "'But I am not Frank. Far from it. My name is David. "'And for the first time in my life, I was glad that my name was David. "'I shook my head and told that guy that I wasn't Frank. "'And for some reason I even said, "'Oh, no, sorry. My name is David.'

as if me and this threatening man were going to become close friends. Without missing a beat, he cut me off and said, "'Well, if you don't want to end up skinned and dumped in the river, I highly recommend you go back inside, and, uh, don't come back outside for a while.' His tone was flat, matter-of-fact, and like he was simply explaining something to me. I stood there for a second and kind of stared at him."

I'd heard what he said, but it took me several seconds for the words to actually register. I mean, who says something like that? Of course, the look in his eyes was dead serious, which kind of set me into motion. In a bit of a daze, I nodded and said, Right, yeah, okay.

The whole way back into the restaurant, I expected to feel this guy grab me or a knife to get stabbed in my back or something, but it didn't happen. I went back inside, and I decided that my last load of trash could wait for a little while. After I got back inside and did my dishes and finished up my other duties, I started thinking about things and realized that I didn't work with anyone named Frank.

There was no one in the building named Frank. So, who was that guy looking for? I even asked my shift lead if anyone worked there named Frank, and she told me that there were no employees with that name. I told her that I was approached by someone out back that was looking for a Frank, leaving out the threatening to be skinned part, and she told me that it was probably just a drug deal, and to forget that it happened. Which, thanks, that helped quite a bit.

Anyways, I never saw that guy again, and thankfully I don't work that job anymore. The fact that I did work there for four years is crazy, and I do have some other stories that I may send your way at some point, but for now, I think this is the best one to put out there. I hope that the mystery man was able to find Frank, or, I guess, depending on his motives, that he didn't find Frank?

Either way, thanks to him for scaring the hell out of me that night. So, this one may be a little out there, but I feel like there was definitely something supernatural happening to me. Or, at least, that's the only explanation that I can think of. This started many years ago, so I apologize if I trail off, but I want to make sure that I include everything that I can remember.

When I was around 11, I was in a horrible accident. I was riding my bike around my neighborhood, literally in that square block, like I always had. My mom told me to be home by a certain time for dinner, and I had on my watch to keep track of the time. At one point, I was rounding the corner. I looked both ways and crossed the street.

The intersection I was at was on a hill, so I didn't see the car that came flying over said hill. The last thing I remember was hearing tires squealing and me telling myself that I was going to die. Then, I woke up in the hospital hooked to machines, but was quickly calmed down when I saw my mom. She explained to me a bit more as to what happened, and then broke the news to me. The way the car had hit me, and my bike...

pretty much crushed my left leg, mangling it. So, I lost it. I have a prosthetic now and I get along just fine, so please don't feel sorry for me. You may not even notice if you were around me. Anyways, I found myself to be incredibly lucky and even thankful to whomever was looking out for me that day. Losing my leg will always be worth it to me so that I was allowed to keep my life.

But from that day on, I started getting these weird feelings or sensations that would make me feel like something was about to happen, and I would avoid it. It may still play out, but it was like I was able to avoid any mishaps involving myself. Here's an example: One of the earliest ones I can remember, or at least remember tracking, was being outside after playing.

It was hot, and I was thirsty, but I didn't want to go all the way in the house and come back outside. Instead, I made my way over to the water hose attached to the side of the house. Right before I bent down to grab it, I got this weird tingling feeling in my left thigh. I remember immediately reaching for my thigh, instead thinking that the feeling was weird.

I was still a kid, and was worried that maybe something was wrong with it, or my prosthetic. So I instead went inside and told my mom. After looking it over, everything seemed to be fine, and the feeling was even gone, so we just chalked it up to maybe being a phantom pain, or maybe I was just standing funny. I got my water while I was inside, and then went back out to play.

A little later that evening, my dad went over to grab the hose as he was going to water mom's garden for her. I was in my bedroom that faced the wall that the hose was on, and the next thing I know, I hear my dad shouting expletives. It made me jump up and run out to see what had happened, and I saw my dad gripping his hand with the other, turning red in the face. Apparently, there was a scorpion that had made her home in the center of the hose.

The crawlspace was next to the spout, and there was some loose dirt around it, so when my dad grabbed the hose, he unsettled the dirt trying to pull it out, and disrupted her. My mom rushed him to the hospital while a neighbor stayed over to watch me and my younger siblings. I remember talking to my parents about it when they got back, because I was going to use the hose too. My dad said that he was glad it was him and not me, even though I still felt bad.

It was just luck, and I decided not to mess with it, I guess. Another time, I had been in my room doing whatever I was doing, when I started to feel a bit hungry, so I went to get a snack. As I made my way to the kitchen, I took my normal path, skipped the last step down, grabbed the door frame, and kind of swung my way into the kitchen. However, I got that weird tingle in my thigh again.

causing me to bring my leg further in than i usually do once i was in there my mom came up behind me and shouted to watch my step because she had just broken a glass and went to grab a broom to clean it up she thought that she had picked up all the big pieces but there was one that happened to land right by the entrance and approximately where i would have stepped with my right foot

If I did, I could have stepped on it, sliced my foot open or something. Again, we just called it a close call. I continued to have occurrences like this, and for whatever reason, it would all start with that weird pain feeling in my thigh. And some of the things were minuscule, like the glass, but then there were also bigger, more serious things that occurred,

Like when I stayed at my friend's house one night when I was about 14. She had a bunk bed that she shared with her sister, but when she moved to her own room, she just kept it. She slept on the top bunk, and I slept on the bottom. Out of nowhere, I woke up in the middle of the night fully awake, and I had no idea why. I sat up and started getting that feeling again, so I got off the bed and walked over to the door.

By this time, I was starting to get used to that feeling and practically prepared myself for the inevitable. I stood there wondering if I should wake my friend up when I heard a single pop and the top of the bunk bed fell, crushing the mattress below. I stood there fully awake, stunned while my friend just screamed my name jumping off the bed.

I turned on the light, showing her that I was okay, but I think it assured her as well as confused her at the same time. Shortly after, her parents came in asking if we were alright and saw the bed. I didn't want to be weird, so I told them that I had just gotten up to use the restroom when I heard the sound. They believed me. It's not like it would have been possible for me to bend and crush the metal bars like they were...

But it was also very strange that it happened at all. As I got older, and became an adult, these things continued to happen. But I actually started telling people about them. My parents and a few of my friends were convinced that I had some kind of supernatural power going on that protected me from danger. But there was still no explanation for it.

I had one when I was around 23, that was by far one of the biggest memories that is forever etched in my mind. I like to walk, a lot. I guess after losing my leg, it made me appreciate the little things like that. I thought that I would take a walk to a local cafe, hang out and enjoy my coffee, and then head back to start my day. On my way home, I pressed the button to cross the street, and waited."

When the signal changed to walk, I started getting that feeling again, causing me to grab my thigh and hold off on walking. As you might have guessed it, a car came barreling through that intersection, honking their horn as they approached. Now, granted, I could hear a horn in the distance, but if you asked me if the car with the horn would be going through that very intersection that I was at, not stopping, I would have told you no.

I figured they were just honking at another car or something in the road. Needless to say, that one left me a bit shaken. Unlike my bike accident, I would not have survived that if I was hit. I went home and took some time to calm down. These incidents continued to unfold, and I was always left without words. Everyone around me joked about me being able to see the future, whether big or small, and

I found myself one step ahead of Calamity. Like the universe itself bestowed this power to me as a repayment for taking my leg, I guess? However, as mysterious and welcoming the ability was, it also did come to an end. After the birth of my child, these, I guess, glimpses of the future gradually faded. But that didn't mean it was entirely gone.

As she got older, I noticed that she would do things without any real reason. Like, she would stray from her normal ritual, only for something to have happened that would have harmed her otherwise. She's 13 now, and she still seems to do it. And one thing about her, she was born with a hearing disorder, so she uses hearing aids.

She's brought it up to me that she would get these weird pains in her ear, and I would assume that it was just her hearing aids. But she says that it happens when she doesn't have them in. She also explained how it happens before these events, causing her to divert from her normal path. We've talked about this before. As in my daughter and I, I tell her that she's special.

My husband is even aware of all this, and thankfully he's open-minded, but I don't think he quite understands the connection the two of us have. To this day, I still have no explanation as to why I was given this ability, and I want to believe that it was just good luck or something, but I feel like it has to be more than that, especially since it now affects my daughter. I may never find the answers, but one thing is for certain-

I was touched by something extraordinary, something that defied the boundaries of comprehension. This happened about four years back, in the early summer of 2019. My wife and I had just purchased our first home, a quaint little two-bedroom home in the older part of town. It wasn't too fancy, but we were proud of it and we had made a ton of plans on what we were going to do with it.

both inside and out. The street that we lived on was lined with maple trees, and it was honestly beautiful. It was aptly named, too. We lived on Maple Street. Most of the neighbors were kind enough, mostly just older folks that kept to themselves. But there was one house on the block that was a bit different, the one across the street and slightly to the left, which in this case was 405 Maple Street.

Something about the house always seemed to emit this creepy vibe. It was a weather-beaten, old structure with paint peeling off like aged skin. The window stared blankly, like the house had eyes and was just staring off into the ether. The house was actually empty, or was supposed to be. The old man that had lived there had passed away a few years ago, and no one seemed willing to move into the house.

As an aside, there was a for sale sign when we moved into the house, but after a year or two, they removed it, and the house is just sad empty. Anyway, about a month into living in our new home, I started to notice some oddities about that house. Firstly, it was empty, and sometimes when I would look outside, I would see the lights turn on or off.

Of course, this could just be squatters, but in our town that didn't make a whole lot of sense. So, I assumed more likely that it was just some rowdy kids or something like that. The strange thing about it was that there were no curtains. So, when the lights were on, you would think you would see an intruder, but there wasn't anyone there. It would just be a light turning on in an empty room. Then, when I would be walking my dog, Mac...

I would notice shadows around the house. I know that sounds a bit vague, but it's the best way to explain it. I would see shadows standing outside, like person-shaped shadows just standing in the yard out of the corner of my eyes, and when I would look directly at them, they would vanish. I would see them standing inside the house, just inside the window,

Mac hated walking by that house, probably for the same reason. Every time I would see them, it would send that freaky chill down my spine and make me just want to run. But I just shook it off as a trick of the light or me being tired. And no, I didn't even try to logically explain why Mac hated the place. Then, one night, it took a pretty sharp turn for the creepier.

It was around 2 in the morning. I was working on something at my desk, and Mac came into my office whining, which meant that he wanted to go outside. With this house, at that time, our backyard was not fenced in, so we couldn't just let him go out back to do what he needed. We had to take him out.

I figured that it was late enough that I could go ahead and shut off my computer, go for a quick walk with him, and then head to bed anyways. So, I grabbed his leash and we stepped outside for a quick walk. The street was completely silent, and there weren't many streetlights, so it was pretty dark outside. We walked down the street, and when we went to pass 405, Mac slowed down and started to growl.

"'Mac was a super chill dog, so him growling was weird. "'I turned to look at where he was staring, "'and I could literally feel the hair on my arms start to stand on end. "'There, in the window of that house, was the clear silhouette of an old man. "'I could vaguely make out the details of his hair and face, "'but he seemed to be surrounded by those shadows "'that I would frequently see when walking by the house.'

He just stood there, watching us from the window and not moving. I felt a knot start to tighten in my stomach, and I just kind of stayed there watching this vague image of an old man stand there and watch me. After a few seconds, the lights that were on shut off, and I could see that there was nobody in the house. At that point, I was pretty well done with the whole thing. I grabbed Mac, and I rushed back to our home.

I tried telling my wife about the whole thing, but she was pretty well out of it already, and she laughed, saying that I was being silly. I don't think I slept that night. I kept looking out the window of the house to see if I would see it again, but I didn't. It was a bit silly, I guess, but the next day when I got the chance, I actually asked one of the neighbors about the old man that lived there.

and she told me that Harry, the man who had owned the house before passing away in 2018, was a bit of a grumpy and nosy old man. Apparently he was well known for always staring out his window with an aggressive scowl as people walked past his house, and he would do so with the curtains wide open to make sure that you knew he was watching you. She also mentioned that he had major issues with people walking their dogs past his house.

and he was known for being verbally aggressive towards them. With that, I assumed that the reason the shadows always seemed to show up when I was walking Mac past his house, and the reason I saw him that night, was because I had upset him. Even in death, Harry seemed like a bitter old man, and as much as that creeped me out, I really didn't want to deal with it again. After that night, we didn't walk past 405 at all.

If Mac and I went for a walk, we would get to his property line, cross the street, and walk past his house. I never walked with Mac directly in front of his house again. Interestingly enough, I never really dealt with anything paranormal again after that. At least, not involving Harry's old house. I still notice the lights on randomly, but I don't pay it too much mind. Because I don't think that has anything to do with me.

That's just Harry being an active spirit. Sadly enough, Harry's old house is actually still empty, and I don't know if it's even on the market anymore, but I kind of pity anyone that does end up moving in there, as they'll be moving in with a very angry old man as a roommate. Back in college, I used to date this girl named Jenna. Jenna was beautiful, captivating, and smart.

All the things that a naive young man like myself would fall for in a heartbeat. She was fun to spend time with, and she and I got along really well for the most part. The only part that became a bit of a problem between us was that Jenna was... a bit possessive. She had a bit of a possessive attitude when it came to me. She didn't like me spending time with my friends, and if there was another woman there, she would get really passively angry.

The only thing that made our relationship a little more complicated was that, at the time, I was 21, and Jenna was about to be 40. Yes, there was almost a 19-year difference between us, which may sound really strange to some people, but to me it didn't matter. There were people in my family that weren't fond of the idea, but I live for me, not for them, so I did what I wanted to do.

Unfortunately, that age gap also came with differences in how we wanted to live our lives. I wanted to socialize. I wanted to party. I wanted to go out and live life to the fullest. This was an issue with how possessive she was, obviously, and she had this mentality that living life was just spending time together alone. I have no issue with that.

and I was happy to just spend the night with her, but there were times where I wanted to go out and do other things, and she wouldn't want to. My point is that, no matter how much we cared about each other, we were definitely two different people who wanted different things, and it was a major rift between us.

After about nine or ten months of being together, we sat down and talked about things, and we both kind of agreed that while we cared about each other, it was for the best that we went our separate directions. It was a rather amicable breakup. She understood, I understood, and we agreed that we could still be friends and get together for non-dating dates, if that makes sense.

Because the breakup was mutual, I didn't really feel the need to sulk about it. Jenna was a great lady, and I enjoyed our time together, but if we both decided it was best to move on, then why should I get depressed about it being over? I thought that she felt the same way until about two weeks later, when I got a text message from her that said, "'Really missing you right now.'" It was a bit heartbreaking to get that text."

so I figured that I would call her and we could talk it through. When I did, I could tell that she had been crying, and I told her that I missed her too, that I'd been thinking about giving her a call anyways to see how she was doing. We just chatted about nothing in particular, which seemed to cheer her up, and as the conversation came to an end, she said something like, ''I'm sorry to have bothered you like that. I just missed you a lot.''

I made a comment like, "Well, I haven't gone anywhere. I'm always around if you need me." She turned that around on me and said, "If I needed you tomorrow night to get dinner, would you be around?" I chuckled and responded with, "Okay, anytime you need me that is not tomorrow night. I have class tomorrow." When I said this to her, her tone changed a bit.

She changed from this sweet voice to one that was a bit more aggressive. She asked me since when did I have class on Wednesday nights, and I told her that the quarter had changed. So my class schedule shifted literally the week prior. I could tell that she didn't believe me and that she was getting upset. I told her that I could get together on Thursday, and she just kind of brushed it off and said that she would see if she was available, and wrapped the call up.

I was a bit upset with how she'd reacted, but I figured that it was just the side effect of us breaking up. That next night, as I said, I had class. When it had let out, I was walking to my car, and to my surprise, Jenna was standing there leaning against my car. Unfortunately, at the time, I was walking with a few guys that I was friends with, and one of them was a bit of a jokey a-hole.

He made a comment that was very audible to both myself and Jenna, saying, "'Yo, man, your mom's hot!' Jenna stood up as we approached, and, much to my surprise, she pulled her arm back and slapped him across the face, saying, "'I'm not his mom, you little punk!' He just stood there staring at her, and then at me with his jaw hanging wide open."

After a few seconds of silence, the others just sort of awkwardly walked away from me without saying much else. I asked her what the hell that was, and she said something about how what he'd said was disrespectful to both of us, and that she didn't want me hanging around with him anymore. At this point, I kind of lost it. I asked her what she was doing on campus, and why she thought that she could control me like that.

She said that she was there to make sure that I was actually in class, and that she didn't want to control me, but that she didn't want me being influenced by people like that. I laughed at her, and then made a comment that she was acting like she was my mom, and that I didn't need her to raise or protect me, as my own parents did a good enough job for the first 18 years of my life.

I could see that she was fuming when I said this, but I just said "Good night, Jenna" and got in my car and drove off. I thought that I had made my point. I thought that she was going to leave me alone after that, and yes, what I said was rude, but her slapping my friend was way over the line. Jenna, on the other hand, did not take my disrespect lightly.

And this is where things went from an annoyance to something that I could have never expected. I was driving home, not even really thinking about the whole thing that happened with Jenna. Honestly, I was more focused on the project that I needed to do for class than anything. Unfortunately, that was enough of a distraction that I didn't even realize that Jenna was in her car, following right behind me.

I was about to pull into my apartment complex, and I just happened to glance up at my rearview mirror, only to see Jenna staring at me, with her hands gripping the steering wheel so tight that her knuckles were white. I kind of panicked a bit, thinking that this was not going to end well, and if I had known how unwell it was going to end, I would have driven to a police station or something, not home.

I parked my car and quickly got out, expecting to have an argument with this woman that I thought was a great person until recently. I grabbed my bag and just stood there on the sidewalk, watching as she backed into an empty spot in front of me. I raised my arms like, what do you want from me? Basically just feeling defeated at this point. After several moments of me just standing there in the glow of her headlights and her not getting out,

I waved her off in a dismissive way, kind of to say, well, then forget you, and I turned to walk into my apartment building. The second I turned to walk toward the building, I heard the sound of an engine revving up and tires screeching. At first I thought that she was just going to gun it out of the parking lot, but to my surprise, she wasn't turning. She was speeding up, and she was coming right for me.

Fortunately for me, the distance between myself and the spot where she was parked was enough for me to damn near literally throw myself out of the way and avoid getting run over. Unfortunately for her, I lived in the building by the pool, and where I was standing when she floored it was right in front of the cheap metal fence that surrounded said pool area.

I'm pretty sure the thought of hitting me with her car clouded her judgement to the point that she didn't have an exit strategy. Because when I jumped out of the way and she kept going, she smashed through the flimsy fence, and her car's front end went right into the pool. I immediately grabbed my phone and called 911, explaining what had just happened and saying that they needed to send someone right away.

I was even nice enough to mention that they should send a medic just in case, though I pretty quickly found out that Jenna wasn't hurt. I watched as she opened the door and climbed up out of the pool. She looked like she was seriously lost and confused. I then watched as she took off down the parking lot and started running down the sidewalk. Like I said, no exit strategy.

It didn't take long for the cops to show up, and it was pretty clear that what I said had happened was what happened. They caught her, and they got her in cuffs, and they may have even taken her in for a mental evaluation or something. I really don't remember. So, after all that, I really don't know what her plan was beyond just hitting me with her car.

If she would have hit me, she probably still would have gone through the fence and into the pool, which sort of leaves this massive piece of evidence pointing to who had committed the crime. I will say that explaining the whole thing to the rental company was a lot of fun, and thankfully they didn't try to take me to court for the damages or anything, since it really wasn't my fault that my ex went crazy and tried to murder me.

In spite of all this, in spite of all that happened, I really hope that Jenna got the help that she needed for whatever mental issues she very clearly had. I don't wish any ill will on her, I just hope that I never run into her ever again. This is the first time that I've ever sent a story in.

My life has been pretty boring in comparison to some other people's, so I hope that my story is something that you can use. My doctor told me that I needed to start exercising more because of my health. Where I live, it gets extremely hot during the day, even during winter, so working out at night time is just easier. I was still too embarrassed to go to the gym to exercise, and I didn't want to be judged.

I decided to go for walks at night time when it was cooler and that there would be fewer people out. Even then, there were still other people out and while it may have been safer, I still felt really self-conscious. On a whim, I decided to go for a walk at 1 in the morning, so technically I guess it was early morning. This was also quite a long time ago. I didn't have a cell phone with me that I could take.

I went for a walk and naturally there wasn't anyone around. Over time, I was getting used to and enjoying my night walks. My neighborhood is normally quiet and has a reputation for being one of the safer ones. I walked a good distance away from my house and only the occasional car drove by. Occasionally, I would get a honk of hello by one of my neighbors and I would wave back.

There were some parked cars along both sides of the street, but this was nothing abnormal nor did it draw my attention or cause me to be concerned. I continued on my way when I saw a car slowly driving behind me. The lights were on. I gave a wave thinking it was someone who knew me and perhaps they decided to play a prank on me. After a while though, I started getting a terrible feeling that they did not have good intentions towards me.

and I tried to stay in well-lit areas where I would be safe. I was about halfway home, and I wanted to get home as soon as possible, but I didn't want to lead whoever this was back to my house, just in case they decided to come back later on or whatever they were planning on doing. There was a local servo, or gas station, nearby that's open 24 hours, and I started to walk in the direction of it.

I knew there would be someone there, and I would be able to get some help. I kept checking behind me, and sure enough, the car kept following. I tried changing directions to see what the person would do. They changed lines and kept following me. I saw a glimpse of a man in the car, but I couldn't really distinguish any of his facial features. I was beginning to get incredibly scared now, but I kept a level head.

I walked to the servo, entered, and spoke to the man behind the counter. I told him that this car had been following me. We looked outside for the car, but it was gone. At first, I was relieved, but it was only when we looked around the corner that we again saw the car, waiting for me to come out. The lights were off this time, and he was clearly trying to hide. The man was so kind and called the police for me.

I waited, and actually bought some snacks. Counterproductive to my diet, but I needed the comfort because I was so nervous. I'm not sure how long it took for the police to come, but when they came, the other car drove away, and I didn't see them again. I still went on my regular walks, but I ended up going with a friend to keep me company, and for safety reasons.

I never leave without a mobile phone in case of an emergency now, and actually bought one as soon as this happened. There was an update on the car that followed me. It had actually been stolen. There were women who were walking who had gone missing in the neighboring towns who were grabbed when they were walking, either in the early morning or late at night."

There were rumors that it was some kind of serial killer or something, but since there were no bodies or anything, we couldn't really be sure if this was true. From what I heard about these women, they weren't the sort to just get up and leave their families behind. So, yeah, it probably isn't good. The OP actually emailed me after sending this story to me for an update.

Hey, sorry about the second email. I wanted to give you an update about my story, and I hadn't heard it on your channel yet. I did some extra digging and found out that one of those missing women who went out for a late night walk had actually been found deceased, and was likely the victim of a murder. The others who had gone missing hadn't been found yet. There isn't anything specific to say it was the same person, or if it was connected.

but it made me wonder what could have happened, so I guess going to that servo was a good idea. Anyways, stay safe out there. Okay, time for another story that is unrelated to my previous story. I was recounting an incident that happened to me over a decade ago to this same friend. I told him how when I was young, I would often have alien abduction dreams, and I would lay awake in bed with the feeling of a presence in the room.

This would happen on occasion as an adult as well. I'd be paralyzed by fear and be afraid to look at where I felt this presence was staring at me. Later, as an adult, I wake up and I find the most stereotypical gray alien standing at the edge of my bed and looking at me. I immediately jump up and punch it in the face. The punch never connects, and it disappears.

I figure, oh, I guess it was just a hypnopompic hallucination. I've never had such a large and detailed visual hypnopompic hallucination, but was familiar with the concept, and I don't have much reason to think it was anything else. A hypnopompic hallucination, for those that don't know, is a hallucination had when you're waking up, but not completely awake, and dream content can spill into your perception of reality.

Hypnagogic is basically the same thing except when falling asleep, for anyone interested in that little piece of trivia. So, my friend asks what I mean by stereotypical grey, and if I could be more specific or maybe find a picture. I think this will be easy. I've seen pictures of this particular type of grey exactly as I saw it all over the internet, and that's probably how the idea of this alien got into my mind.

However, I cannot find anything that looks quite like what I saw. I remember seeing this stereotypical alien being all over the net, but the closest images or drawings or whatever that I look up, at the closest, look two steps away from what I remember greys looking like. Like, they're all based on the greys that I remember, but trying to change things to be original.

I suppose since this one is just me, it can be easily written off as a memory issue, but I remember it so clearly, and seeing the depictions so often. Anyways, good news. Since I jumped up and punched that thing in the face, real or not, I've never felt the presence in the room again. I'm not scared of what might lurk in the dark,

If I wake up to an intruder or presence in my room, alien or otherwise, my fight or flight or freeze response is no longer freeze. The default is fight, and I feel much more at ease laying in bed in the dark because of this.