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Hey, welcome to Scary Stories and Rain. Before we begin, be sure to check out my brand new podcast, Scary Stories and Fire. If you would prefer the same great stories but with a super relaxing campfire background, the link is in the description. Also, if you haven't yet, I highly recommend you subscribe to this podcast. If you enjoy listening to Relax or Fall Asleep hundreds of hours of stories and rain for $2.99 a month that will get you access to all episodes with zero ads. Consider subscribing and I hope you enjoy this episode. I'm looking for my perfect pair of Abercrombie denim. There's nothing better than the perfect jean and going out top combo or an outfit that perfectly matches your plans. Abercrombie's relaxed Jean goes with every occasion, date nights or going out with friends. Right now, get 25% off almost everything at Abercrombie to plan your Valentine's outfit Offer Valid in stores and online January 23, 2025 to January 28, 2025 in the US and Canada. 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So go ahead, try HelloFresh. It's homemade made easy. Learn more@hellofresh.com I had just turned 21 and frequented the bars regularly. In hindsight, I probably spent too much time drinking with my friends. I didn't have a car or a cell phone and I lived on the outskirts of town. It was a 45 minute walk downtown. The town I live in is generally a very safe place. It is a wealthy, well to do community, so walking home alone at night after drinking was Nothing that bothered me other than the actual walking. It was a Tuesday night and that meant pints were cheap, so I wouldn't say I was completely wasted, but I certainly was more than tipsy. Instead of walking home along the sidewalk where I feared I'd be picked up by the police for being drunk in public, I decided to take the bike path that ran along the train tracks. This meant the walk would take longer, but much safer and less likely I would run into any sort of trouble. The bike path was not very lit and knowing what I know now, I should have been a lot more nervous about walking alone in the complete darkness at 2 in the morning. Like I said, I had just turned 21 and was certainly an arrogant young male who was thinking about women and not minding my surroundings. I had taken this path many nights and coming across anybody else was rare. If I did perchance come across somebody this late at night, most of the time it was just another drunk college student who had the same thoughts as me. Either that or they were homeless, but if so, I would say they were all homeless. So this night as I'm walking, I noticed further down the path was somebody walking towards me. He wore a large hiking backpack and had his hoodie pulled over his head. It was so dark I couldn't see their face. I could really only just barely make out their outline. This person's gait unquestionably revealed him to be a male who I figured was probably just a transient. It was odd to see somebody walking towards downtown at 2 in the morning. When I got really close to him and we were about to cross paths, this person just stopped dead in his tracks and I could tell he was staring at me because his head just followed me as I walked by. It creeped me out a bit and I certainly felt that it was a bit odd. As I continued to walk, shrugging at the situation, I just didn't feel right. Something in my gut made me feel wrong. I stopped and turned around to see this person still staring at me. What? I asked him as I stopped walking and remained to stare back at him. That's when he hissed at me like a snake. A long vicious sounding hiss that made the hair on the back of my neck stand up. I had hoped that he was just being weird or perhaps was on something. I nervously laughed a bit and said okay and continued to walk on. I made it a few more steps and turned to look back. He somehow managed to get closer to me without making a sound. He stood completely still. I figured perhaps I was just Drunk and imagining things. I turned back around and walked. Taking a few more steps, I turned around once more. Now I knew he was closer. I couldn't believe that I couldn't hear him approaching behind me. What unsettled me even more was how every time I turned around, he would manage to stop and stand completely still. Uh, are you following me buddy? Once again he let out this creepy hiss, just staring at me. Now I was freaked out and had this strange sensation that I was some sort of prey. Hey, screw you man. I now yelled. In hindsight this was a bad idea, but because I already felt like I was some sort of target and the last thing I should have been wanting to do is provoke this sick twisted guy, I started backing away. At this point, not taking my eyes off of him. He just stood there, hissing. The hisses were getting longer, louder and more malintention was apparent in them. As he started to hiss louder and louder, he began to engage in some sort of pursuit. At first they were basic steps, but the further I backed away, the more he sped up, taking bigger steps towards me. I said screw this to myself, I'm getting out of here. I noped it out of there and began into a full fledged run. He started running after me. I could hear his heavy boots gaining on me, hissing like a cat, growling like a dog. I feel his spit hitting me in the back of my neck. Get away from me you sick bastard. I might have peed myself. I was so scared. All I could think to do was run as fast as I could to get inside of my house as quickly as possible. I have always been a very fast runner, but this guy was much taller than me and his legs were really long, so he was really cutting down the distance between him and me. I managed to keep a good five feet between us though, checking back behind me as I saw his arms reaching out in an attempt to grab me. I finally made it out of the bike path and onto the crossing sidewalk of the street that was lit up by the street lamps and a few passing cars. I was so relieved to finally make it back to civilization. There was a gas station over by my house and I thought I would run to the safety of it inside, only to see that the lights had been shut off and the doors were closed. Crap. I had to make it to my house. As I got closer to my house, I could see my roommate's lights were on through the window. Chris. I shouted. Chris, open the door. Open the door. I'm impressed. I yelled loud enough that he actually heard me I saw the front door of my house open up and my roommate standing at the doorway looking confused. I ran up the steps and almost jumped inside my house slamming the door shut behind me. Dude, what are you running from? He asked. You didn't see that guy chasing me? No. I ran to the window and looked outside side he was gone. I have no idea what happened to him, but that guy, he scared the crap out of me. One night it had been getting late and I had just got in from spending time with some friends. I was getting pretty hungry so I decided to make an order for pizza delivery. I was home by myself and my two dogs. After about 45 minutes, I heard the doorbell ring. We didn't have a normal doorbell. It was a doorbell camera. Normally I wouldn't check the camera to see who it was if I was expecting someone. As I walked to the front door, I hesitated and something told me to check the camera. Although I was worrying that I was taking too long, I pulled up my app and checked to see who it was. The pizza guy was there as expected and our gate behind him was open since you had to go through a gate to get to the front door. I could also see what looked like his car parked on the street through the open gate. I almost opened the door when I noticed an older woman walking walk up the driveway. I stopped and watched her on my phone. She just walked up the driveway through the open gate, passed the pizza delivery guy and stood in front of my door. Closer to the part that opened up. I realized she was waiting for me to open the door to get my pizza. Although she didn't seem to have any weapons, this instantly freaked me out. I felt almost scared for the pizza guy because he couldn't have been older than maybe 19 or 20. But I was not going to open the door. I enabled the talk feature on the doorbell and I asked who she was. I did this so she would know that I was watching and so that the pizza guy would know that she is not supposed to be there. After hearing me speak through the doorbell, she looked at it and immediately turned her body around so her back was to the camera. She also backed up closer to it so I couldn't see much more than her back. I told her that she needed to leave and that I did not know her. At first she didn't leave, but after more aggressively demanding she gets off my property or I'm calling the cops, she started to walk back down the driveway. I told the pizza guy to leave the food on the ground because he needed to get out of there. He dropped it, said he was worried she might steal his car, and jogged down to his car and drove away. I didn't see the woman, so I opened up my door and I quickly closed the gate, got my food and locked myself back in the house. I still had my app open with a live view of the front and I saw her walk up the driveway again and open the gate. I felt a little stupid for going out after I saw she never really left. She seemed to have been looking to the right where our garage was, almost as if she was looking at someone I couldn't see. I went and grabbed the butcher knife from the kitchen. She started banging on the security screen door. I opened up the door so that the only thing that separated us was the security screen and I yelled at her, telling her to leave me alone with some other expletives, hoping that this would make me seem like I am not worth the trouble. I slammed the door in her face. She said some things that I couldn't make out, but almost like she was talking to herself. She started walking through the gates and then about halfway down the driveway and back up again like she was pacing. She was looking to the right like there was something or someone off camera that I couldn't see. Closing the app at this point was the last thing I wanted to do because. Because I had to see what she or they were doing. But I knew I had to call the police. I called 911 and tried looking through the peephole in the door, but I couldn't see very well. I explained that a woman tried to enter my house with the pizza delivery guy. The dispatcher said that some officers would be there soon, asked me questions to get more details, and told me to hide in a room in the house in case she or they broke in. The whole time I was worrying that if she went around the back, she would have seen the sliding glass door, which would have been an easy way in. I was hiding in my bedroom with my two dogs and my knife when the dispatcher said the officers were there. I heard a loud knock on the front door. Shortly after, the police found the woman and had her in handcuffs. They asked me some more questions about what happened and then they left. I didn't hear anything back from them, but I did post it in my city's Facebook group chat about what happened along with the video from my doorbell camera. Some people commented and I found out some more information about what happened to her. The officers let the woman go for some reason and shortly after she tried the same thing at my neighbor's house across the street. They heard me yelling at the woman and also my front door slamming earlier, so they had already been somewhat aware of what was going on. Unsuccessful in her attempt there, she went to a house a couple streets down and broke in and was armed with a knife. Although there were not many details, the people living there seemed to have been more prepared than me since they handled the situation and the police arrested her again and took her to a mental hospital. I didn't hear any word of whether anyone else was involved, but that experience was definitely something I will not forget. Thankfully, I have moved to another city since and I now have security screens on all of my doors. My dad works in B2B marketing. He came by my school for career day and said he was a big roas man. Then he told everyone how much he loved calculating his return on ad spend. My friends still laugh at me to this day. Not everyone gets B2B, but with LinkedIn you'll be able to reach people who do. Get a $100 credit on your next ad campaign. Go to LinkedIn.com results to claim your credit. That's LinkedIn.com results. Terms and conditions apply. LinkedIn the place to be to be bored with your boring cardio Stop pedaling that snooze cycle to Nowheresville and try some cardio that's actually fun. Supernatural Fitness Available on Meta Quest Isn't that right Jane Fonda? Cardio will never be boring again. Sweat to the beat of thousands of chart topping songs inside stunning virtual landscapes. Bet your stationary bike can't do that. Visit getsupernatural.com and join the next fitness revolution. Supernatural VR Fitness only on Meta Quest rated T4 team there are a lot of stories I could tell about the house I grew up in. I was eight when we moved into the house in Lawrenceville, Georgia and I lived there for about five years in between 2003 and 2008. It sounds very clear cliche to say that there was something off about the house, but there was. I didn't have anything to compare it to at the time really. I had an overactive imagination and practically watched whatever horror movie I could find. So it was easy for me to say that it was all in my head back then. But looking back, I have never lived somewhere that could consistently raise the hair on the back of my neck like certain rooms in that house did. I used to leap across the doorway to the bathroom because I was afraid there would be someone in there when I walked by I would always close the door to my sister's room at the end of the hall because even after she moved out, it somehow still never felt empty. And no one went in the basement alone, which is where the first unexplained thing happened in this house. About two months after we moved in, our parents were at work on a summer day and it was just me and my sister. I'm playing original Sly Cooper on PS2 in my room when my sister barges in with our dog, grabs my baseball bat, and swiftly states we need to get out of the house. With a look in her eyes that made clear this wasn't a joke. Our neighbors down the road was an old church friend and used to be a cop in New York, and we were told to go there if anything ever happened. My sister and I marched over to their house and she told them that there was someone in our house, but as we got further from the house, I think there was a level of uncertainty that built inside her as to what just happened. Our ex cop neighbor probably felt that uncertainty and thought he better check the house himself instead of calling the police outright. He found nothing. When he came back to ask her what had happened, this was her story. She noticed our small dog, Max was standing at the top of the basement stairs, barking into the darkness with his tail between his legs. She then followed him to the bottom of the steps to see what he was barking at, as this seemed unusual for him. He was then peering around the wall at the bottom of the steps towards the storage room, whimpering. She picked him up and peered around the wall to see what had him stirred. And to this day, she still maintains the same story of a man standing in the dark corner a few feet in front of her. With a grin, he put a finger to his lips and whispers, this perhaps is one of the most interesting things to ever happen to me. In my 36 years in this realm, I have perhaps encountered a Sasquatch or a Freaky Bear, or perhaps had an experience with extraterrestrials. And I've definitely met some very strange, creepy people in Northern California. This experience, however, is just an experience. I have no idea how to explain, nor do I know what to think, nor do I ever want to think about it ever, ever again. However, I feel as if I have to get this one off my chest because it is weird and oftentimes I have very strange dreams that are involved around it and it makes me believe, subconsciously, I suppose, that I have never dealt with a possible trauma from what had happened. I was born and raised in New Mexico and ended up moving to California with my father throughout the rest of my life with the exception of some stints here and there due to jobs and whatnot. Normally I avoid New Mexico like the plague. It is a haunted, godforsaken world, rattlesnake infested hellhole. My mother and my sister however, just refused to leave the desolate wasteland and so oftentimes I have to go down there and visit, especially when my mother got cancer. She's fine now though. She had a tumor on her parathyroid and it was removed thankfully, so the backstory is over. Onward with the actuality of what had happened. I was driving my piece of crap Honda down the highway when it just ran out of gas. I found that odd because when I had started the car and initially I still had a quarter of a tank, but such is I guess it just sort of sputtered out in the middle of the highway around the end of the road of the reservation. I knew that there was a gas station about a mile away once I managed to get out onto the highway. So I took my empty gas canister out of my trunk and walked out in the heat. I had a backpack of Gatorades and water bottles to avoid heat stroke. I was aware I could lose quite a bit of electrolytes very quickly on the road. I walked down. It was very complicated to call my sister Kelly to let her know where I was and what the situation was because there just did not seem to be signal anywhere. I walked and I walked, sticking my thumb out to no avail for there were no reservation police or other passerby trucks. It seemed as if I was all alone out in the brightness heated sunshiny day out in the middle of freaking nowhere New Mexico. As I walked and I walked, I saw a dead hummingbird on the ground. I found that very sad at first. Yet as I walked further and further I found it odd that there was even a hummingbird there in the first place. They are not typically seen in the area from where I come from. They are not non existent, but they're just super duper rare to see. There's not a bunch of what I would consider to be the sort of nectar they seek nor pollen from flowers of which they desire. Further along I continued down the open road with the sun beating down upon me. Soon after that I saw another dead hummingbird. Now I thought, this is getting weird. Weirder and weirder perhaps. I suppose deep down I sort of subconsciously preferred to consider it just a coincidence. It Was only after a few hundred yards more that I saw another one. And then shortly after another one and another, and then another, and then more, and then even more. It came to a point where there were more constant dead hummingbirds started to trail away from the side of the road and then make a trail off, away and into the berm. This may have been a bad idea on my part, Art, but my weakness has always been that my curiosity is preferred to get the better of me, which is what killed the cat. So I followed the trail of dead hummingbirds. It was almost like a Hansel and Gretel breadcrumb trail. It seemed as if it was some sort of methodically laid out plan of follow the dead hummingbirds if you dare. It went on and on until I had passed past the berm and completely away from the road. And now in the arroyo and deep down amidst the few sparse trees to and fro. And that was where I found it. It was. It was something I'm not sure I could ever describe. It was just like this. This strange pile of dead hummingbirds, like. Like it was freaking huge. Maybe about two feet from the ground. A huge, massive, disturbing pile of them. I sort of stood there rather perplexed, and I scanned all around the place to see if there was more of an indication as to what transpired. Yet there was nada, Nothing. Zilch. It seemed as if there was just an inexplicable pile of dead hummingbirds out in the middle of the desert. It looked like a holocaust of them. That's when the real weirdness happened. There was this very strange, shaky, quivering sort of hum that was more than just audible. No, this was also physical. I cannot say that the ground was shaking. I would rather say it sounds seemed as if my head did. I began to feel a bit nauseous. And the first thing I thought to myself was get up on out of here like a coward. I did. I ran and I ran. And the worst decision I didn't even realize that I had made is I just started running randomly without any adherence from where I originally came from. Basically I was just running in a direction without any regard. It took me a solid 30 to 45 minutes running throughout the arroyo to find the road again. Some native was driving down the road when I stumbled out from the side of the road. And he picked me up and gave me a ride to the casino that had a gas station. And when I filled up, he offered to give me a ride back to my car. He could tell that I was shaken up and I could sort of sense he didn't want to broach the subject, but sort of felt as if he should. So he asked me if all was alright. I didn't want to go into it much, but I sort of explained a few of the details, but only a few for fear of sounding like an absolute whack job after what I had told him. His silence is what unnerved me the most. He either thought I was nuts or he straight up did not want to talk about it. Eventually that hum, he said, yeah, it makes me sick too. I filled up my tank, I went to work, I apologized for being late and I explained what had happened. Nobody at my job site wanted to speak a bit. Fast forward about a week and a half or so, perhaps two. My sister woke me up asking if I could sweep the front walkway because she was too grossed out. I did not know what to infer, but I love my little sister and I would do anything she asked. I suppose I wish she had told me it was just ridden with dead lizards just laying on their backs, the bluish gross veins exposed upon their bellies, ants upon ants, just completely devouring them. It was at best disturbing. So I got the push broom and I pushed them off the walkway. And that's when the hum began again and I just sort of fell to my knees and could not stop feeling nauseous and began vomiting a bit. My sister and I have always kept this from my ma because I didn't know how she would react. I do not know what happens out there in that strange part of New Mexico, but I will say this. If you ever stumble across tiny dead animals, like a pile of them just out in the middle of the desert, just leave it be. And if you hear the humor, never ever return. In high school I worked as a junior electrician at a large theme park. There were maybe eight or 10 senior electricians above me. We we fixed and maintained the electrical components of the roller coasters and other rides. One particular senior electrician, Frank, was my boss and my job was to assist him in whatever he was doing. I started off following him around, handing him tools as needed. Then I gradually learned the ropes. He would send me across the park on my own to fix whichever ride happened to have an issue. I worked at this park for three summers, so I got to know Frank pretty well. He was in his early 50s, rather slim and had a thin, neatly trimmed mustache. He was also as straight laced as they come, super religious, wouldn't even work on Sundays. Also vehemently against drugs and alcohol Anyway, one day, the third summer I worked there, I showed up to the park as usual to start my shift. I reported to the electrician station where Frank was already busy doing paperwork. He said hello and then instructed me to take my toolbox across the park to the kiddie station where a certain ride needed fixing. I gathered my stuff and had just started to leave when Frank called my name. I turned around to, thinking he had forgotten to tell me a detail about the ride or something like that. He looked me dead in the eyes and I was immediately taken aback by his expression. It was blank and emotionless, nothing like his normal demeanor. Something was off. Yeah, Frank, I answered. What he said next is permanently etched in my memory because of the sheer bizarreness of it. While maintaining eye contact with this same dull, emotionless expression. He spoke very clearly in a monotone voice quite different from his normal speech. The Space Indians are coming, he said. I stared at him for a few seconds, puzzled and unsure how to respond. He kept looking at me for a moment, then seemed to snap out of it, turning around and going back to his paperwork. What's that? I asked, pretending I had misheard him. Frank ignored the question, telling me without turning around now in his normal voice, to hurry up and get the kiddie ride fixed. I obeyed, but kept thinking about the weirdness of the incident for the rest of the day. I had no idea who or what these Space Indians were, and the look in Frank's eyes when he said it was deeply unsettling. Eventually, I forgot about the incident, and the next few weeks of work were uneventful. Then one day near the end of summer, it all came rushing back. I arrived at the park one morning in late August and Frank was standing in the parking lot alone between the rows of vehicles, looking up at the sky. The fact that he was standing there immediately caught my attention as I climbed out of my car because he had gotten to the electrician's station before me every morning for all three summers that I had worked there. He was extremely punctual. Now suddenly he's standing there, late for work, staring at the sky. I walked up to him and said something casual, probably Morning Frank or something like that. He slowly shifted his gaze from the sky and looked me dead in the eye. My head started spinning as I realized he was staring at me with the same blank expression he had weeks earlier when he said the weird thing about Space Indians. We looked at each other for a few seconds, then he spoke in that same monotone voice as before, very different from his normal speech. He said The Space Indians are here now. It's too bad. Then he suddenly turned on his heels and walked away. Walked right out of the parking lot. I asked where he was going going, but he didn't respond. He turned out of the parking lot onto a small side street and disappeared. I never saw or heard from him again. A week later I was assigned to work with a new senior electrician. I asked him what happened to Frank, but he acted like he didn't know who I meant. I even asked the main boss of the hiring department. He told me no one by Frank's name had ever worked there. I am baffled by the whole thing to this day. This experience happened to my wife. She doesn't know I'm telling this, so please don't tell her. I just think and hope that someone out there had a similar experience. It's too uncanny for just my wife to see. Please message me wherever you find this. Comments DMs I don't care. She needs help soon. Being a fan of the paranormals since I was basically just out of diapers, I live for the scary, strange and dark. I'll put this here right now. Though I do not believe in anything paranormal, I have never seen anything or heard anything that I could not explain. I love the feeling of being scared and the talent of writers and filmmakers for making scary things come to life. That being said, when I met my future wife almost 20 years ago, she told me this experience she had that still sticks with her and over the next two decades she has never changed the story when it has come up. I met my beautiful wife at an engagement party. I honestly don't even remember who it was for because I've lost touch and I'm pretty sure they are not together anymore. I do know that I was brought by a friend of a friend and my future wife was a friend of the bride to be. I had been eyeing her all night, striking in her green dress, totally complimenting her auburn hair and hazel eyes with a side of envy. She made her way to the bar and I finally worked the nerve up to talk to her. That's all I wanted. Just to talk, get in. Even if it didn't lead to anything. I just had to be around her for the moment. Thankfully she dismissed my diarrhea of the mouth when I tried to just say hello. The rest is kind of history, as they say. But during that first conversation, when I finally felt comfortable and knew she was kind of into me too, I asked one of my standard questions to anyone I just met. What's the scariest thing you've ever seen in your life? It's an open question and could be taken a few Scary as in near death experience? Scary as in seeing someone get hit by a speeding vehicle, or scary as in seeing something unexplainable. I've already explained that I'm into freaky, spooky stuff. I'll take any answer, but I always hope for the scary option. I've seen two witches in my mirror as a child and they still follow me. She spoke this to me with the seriousness of Daniel Day freaking Lewis carrying out a pivotal scene. Most people I ask this question of try to negate their scary experience, but not her. She was almost ready to tell someone about this. I was enamored just watching her talk. Her beauty and grace washed over me like a warm August night. But when the details of her story started to pierce through my schoolboy like crush, I started to sober up. She told me that when she turned about 13 she started to get into Wiccan stuff. That movie the Craft had just came out. Man, if you weren't around, you don't get how much that influenced the female community. She and her friends read the Wiccan stuff, made recipes and spells, and watched the Craft continuously. One night going to bed, she sees something in the corner of her mirror. She has one of those large wardrobes handed down from a great grandmother. A mirror sat on top of maybe six drawers, three on either side. The right corner starts to glow ever so lightly. It's gray just enough to notice if you were looking right at it. I shiver as I think of a 13 year old Billy. That's what everyone called her. Her real name is Margaret. Still don't know the story. Staring at her mirror watching these two specters come to life in front of her eyes. As I've said, I don't subscribe to the actual thought of paranormal experiences. Faces. But hers stuck with me. Not because we are married now. I had no idea we would be at the time. She described the faces in such detail, such horrifying detail. And I watched her face as she did. It changed into pure horror. So many years later the horror has subsided, but whenever it comes up, she still has that hint of terror. To this day. Years later and married for almost 12 years, she has never changed the story of what she saw. What puts this over the edge for me is that for a brief time when we were just engaged, her father let us live in his home. The same home where she grew up. In the same home, she saw the witches as she called them them. The home that still contained that mirror dresser. I won't admit I have seen or felt anything like she did, but I do look into that mirror and I do not like the feeling that I get. Not every town is lucky enough to have a placid bay just beyond its downtown strip. Most aren't fortunate enough to have residents that all know one another who move with unity to run the town like it's a fifth grade baseball game that keeps parents up until 11pm the dream of a happier life rings through every church bell and backyard radio in this little town, though a town where the bright green grass is cut in organized lines and the little shops along the beach all have sand gathered on their doormats. The cascading spray of the sea constantly glides across everything it can reach, covering the town of dreams in a salty fog, leaving only faded footprints and ripple marks behind. I was told that any moment of that town could be captured in a photograph and put on a billboard for the world to see how happy life was there. And nothing captures that better than the footprints that are left on the beach every morning. A father and a daughter, knowing that they will be able to race the sunrise to the water if they leave early enough, rush to the docks as they always do. There isn't even breakfast in their stomachs, but they are too full of excitement to eat anymore anyways, and so they start their journey. After a brief sprint down the wide residential street and along the sturdy wooden dock beyond it, the daughter finally wins her race against the light. As it cracks its glowing light through the rolling waves, the father and daughter walk, their closely aligned footprints telling the world about their love. The bigger shoes take the side closest to the waters as always, and the footprints of his little girl take more than one detour in a useless attempt to pursue some distraction. Those footprints are their story, and they tell it every day. One day, though, their story changed. It was one of the few days that I didn't work the graveyard shift at the fire station the night before, a rare moment where I let the sun win its race against me. Those two adventurous souls didn't let that happen, though, and they went out as they always did on a windy morning. But just after they departed from the dock and made their first imprints on the sand, the footprints veered off and walked into the ocean without a single break in the pattern. It was an act as confident as the crashing of the waves, one with no fear or even any knowledge of another way of existing. And after those waves receded, only One set of footprints returned the father. The man who saw two stars ahead of him when he lost that race to the beach had thrown his daughter to the sea like she was a backpack that was hurting his shoulders. It was almost like the waves had been writhing that day in a hopeful attempt to give her back. But not even the power of the deep could return a resident that was sent there too soon. As I sit on a bench overlooking the docks below, I bring a steaming cup of coffee up to my dry mouth, desperately craving the energy to fully open my eyes. The warmth of the mug in my hands forces that dreadful wind away. This town has never had so many windy mornings this consistently, and the wind has never been so loud. It drowns out my desire to do anything but look out at the beach, the footprint print covered beach and the man walking across it. My body freezes solid as I pour all of my strength into tracking the figure with my eyes. He's blacker than the moon kissed sand of the beach, and the murky moonlight offers nearly no help in making out anything more than a tall and shadowy outline. There's something incomplete about it, as if I'll be able to see right through it if I decide to walk closer to it. His walk seems unfinished too. It's slower than it should be, and his feet trudge beneath him as if the sand he steps on is as wet as the ocean floor. He looks like the subject of an old and faded photograph, one crushed under the weight of an entire shelf of albums and papers. I start to feel that same crushing force he seems to feel as I continue to stare at him. The entire weight of the world seems to want to fall onto my shoulders until I fall through the stone terrace that's holding me up. But it's not the world bearing down on me, it's my own body shutting down. Drowsiness almost overtakes me and I climb. I clumsily splash my last sips of hot coffee all over my face to keep myself from falling. But it doesn't work. In that moment of pain and alertness and fear, I finally feel the figure's attention land on me, and seconds later I feel the cold stone catch my fall. One month later it took a while for me to visit the beach again. Town lit up with a series of reports of missing children almost two per week. Nothing is ever supposed to happen in this town. After one death pushed its way in. Moore found the fracture in our sense of safety and immediately rushed in. Everybody thought it was somehow all connected, connected, but nothing ever actually proved that until one of the bodies washed back up on the beach, the only thing that could have done that was a storm or an unheard of wonder of nature. And we don't get storms around here. I'm glad I was sitting at the beach that day. Work took up most of the last few weeks and pure dread kept me from using my little free time to take the walk to my usual morning spot. As I finally walk up in this still moment, the first thing I notice is the breeze. It's nothing like the howling wind that still rages through my memory. Finding new confidence, I finish the walk and end up all the way on the beach proper. There I notice the footprints, or I suppose I should say footprint. The sand is only covered by a single line of marks, as if only one shoe had been planted in the sand by a person who was hopping along the beach earlier in the morning. But people who hop don't drag their feet. And there's something about these footprints that don't sit well with me. They leave torturous, drawn out marks in the disturbed sand and they shift and shake with the unsteadiness of a dust storm. I follow the prince with my eyes right up to the figure standing only a few dozen yards away from me. What faces me is half of the shape of a man and the other half dissolving into a mist of sand and floating gently into the ocean. The solid half, the part of him that isn't standing over moving water looks coarse and damaged by time. He is standing more still than any human ever could, stiller than the pictures of this very beach that I have hanging in my house. I know right away what I'm staring at. There is only one man that I've ever seen make his mark on this beach at this early hour. The man that took his daughter there to find happiness. The same man that took his daughter there to meet her final moments. We never truly know what other people hide from the world, afraid that the parts of themselves that they find in dreams will make themselves real. We sleep at dead of night to keep that sinister spirit at bay, giving it only the briefest glimpses of a fabricated life that is freed from any morality. Nothing is more terrifying than that version of ourselves, the one that exists only to disagree with the world. Inside of that father was a darker half, a second piece of his being that was forced to become part of the earth as his better half searched for his daughter in the sea. Now that is the only part of him that is left to make footprints in the sand that has so relentlessly taken him. I watch as he walks his path, the pure evil making its way along the beach as his older, kinder soul fades away from that horrible frame, desperate to escape to a place where his daughter can finally rest. As if he knows I am making the horrific realization of what I'm looking at. The dark figure turns to face me, his thin frame twisting and warping like a broken branch caught in a hurricane. He then begins to take those dreadful steps towards me. With every footprint he leaves, another maddening thought crashes its way into my mind. I think about the sensation, sensation of my fear doubling down on me. I think about the plight of this man's poor daughter. I think about all the people that never had any idea that the mourning man in front of me had kept this true monster hidden from the entire world without a single trace to be seen. I think about the heart sinking feeling of powerlessness that I imagine the daughter felt in the moment she felt herself submit it to her horrible father. Drowsiness invades my mind as if I can't even stay lucid long enough to come to terms with a world that allows such evil to overcome all those things that are good and pure. It isn't a world I want to exist in that father shouldn't be able to outlive his daughter. And I don't want to watch watch him leave those lonely footprints in the sand every morning. The manifesto of his deceptions. I let the soft feeling of dread wash over me. And it doesn't take long for the waves to wash over me too. To my brother, I'm sure I'm just another victim of his fading soul. For about five years I worked corporate security for one of the richest families in Detroit, Michigan. The Ilitch family has cemented themselves into the zeitgeist of American history. Mike and Marion Ilitch founded Little Caesar's People Pizza, a small one store pizza shop led to a billion dollar company. It includes owning two major sport franchises, several entertainment venues and multiple food distributing companies. I was based in their headquarters inside of the Fox Theater located in downtown Detroit. The legendary Fox Theater franchise used to have dozens of locations locations around the country. Now there's three left I think. One here in Detroit, one in St. Louis, Missouri and I don't know the last one without looking it up. One of my major duties was checking the Fox office building and theater after hours to make sure everything was secure. During the day it ran as normal. At night. Well, if you could imagine walking through an almost 70 year old theater at night, you can see how Freaky. It could be. We had several shows per day, especially during the summer. Even during the off season, we had a lot of kids shows like Thomas the Train, Sesame street and various Christmas like shows. One seemingly normal night, I made my rounds. I tried to make my way through the theater as quickly as I could. The lights were all off. I worked an 11pm to 7am shift. The city was usually dead at that time. When going into the backstage area during the first run of a Sesame street show for the first time, I saw something that would eventually lead me to finding a new job. A show like Sesame Sesame street that runs for almost three weeks brings a lot of logistical issues. There are so many costumes, so many actors. They have to keep the costumes clean and ready for the next show. They usually do two or three shows per day, sometimes even four or five on the weekends. My first time going through the bowels of the Fox theater after a Sesame street show, I naively made my way to the middle staging area. This is where the last looks would take place with artists and actors going on stage. I didn't know that they hung the mascot costumes up in this area for a show like this. As I entered the staging area, I saw an interesting sight. The heads of Count Dracula, Fozzie and the old old grumpy men sat on a shelf staring at me. Tubes ran in and out of all of them. It stopped me in my tracks. But then I quickly realized what it was and wasn't so shocked. They clean the costumes and have air going into them. But then I saw something move to my right. Frozen. A Freddy Fazbear type character standing on two feet. Feet slowly turns to face me. My stupid head can't make sense of what I'm seeing. I only describe it as the main character from Five Nights at Freddy's. Because I couldn't think of what this character was. I didn't recognize it as a Sesame street character. A decade later and the Five Nights franchise blew up like a California wildfire. How was it possible I saw the Freddy Kong costume before that game was even an inkling in our world? He slowly made eye contact with me. As silly as that seems, I only thought one thing. Run. I exited that Hellscape staging area as fast as I could. I hit the first set of stairs I could and went down for whatever reason. Now I was in the sub basement, a place for crew and actors to make an easy fast path to one side of the stage to the other. I took a breath outside of one of the bathrooms for the crew and staff. What did I just see? Was that the wind? Did I really just see a bear like humanoid animatronic turn to face me? There is no way I am trying to make sense of this. I am a rational person. I don't believe in sentient Sesame street characters. It's just a show. Satisfied that I suffered from an overactive imagination, I laughed off my embarrassment and continued my theater check. What an idiot for running from a costume. I need to make sure all the bathrooms are locked as part of my regular nightly duties, so I continued with the one that I'm standing right outside of. Now that I actually look at it, the door is about 2 inches open. This shouldn't be possible. The door is heavy. Everything in this theater is old and made from strong materials from decades ago. No plastic, no composite. The doors should be closed. Closed. I squinted my eyes and took one cautious step toward the door. With a deep breath and a shaky hand, I reached out to push the door open, make sure no one was inside. As my fingertips were less than a centimeter away from the door, it slammed shut in my face with an unnatural force. I could feel the reverb and the wind go through me as if a small nuclear bomb went off. I didn't stay to investigate. I turned tail and found my way to the exit as soon as I could. Before I knew it, I was finally outside. The world around me finally started again. Street lights turned red and green. Cars and trucks whirled by. The smells of the sewer entered my nostrils. I never thought I would be so happy to smell the crap smells of the city. Better than seeing a sentient bear and whatever slammed that bathroom door in my face. Sa it it.