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Hey, welcome back to Scary Stories in Rain. This is episode 200, which is crazy. I really feel like I just started this podcast yesterday. Your support means so much and I really hope that you enjoy this extra long episode. And just as a reminder before we begin, there's only about two weeks left for my Nintendo Switch 2 giveaway. I'm looking at it as I say these words right now and I'm going to be sending it soon to one of my lucky subscribers. By the way, if I haven't already mentioned, it's the Mario Kart Bundle version. So if that sounds cool to you, if you want to be automatically entered to win, you can join my podcast. You can subscribe right now for just $2.99 a month. You'll be automatically entered to win the Nintendo Switch 2 bundle and you'll get rid of all of the ads on all of my episodes for good. So if you like this podcast for sleeping or just trying to relax, just $2.99 a month. With all that said, thank you so much for being here and I really hope you enjoy Brooklyn Farthing was born on August 26, 1994. She grew up in the small town of Berea, Kentucky with her mother, Shelby Walker, her stepfather, Randall Walker, and her two sisters, Tasha and Paige. When she was much younger, Brooklyn had been a Girl Scout and was a loyal and enthusiastic member of the organization for the majority of her life. She received a great deal of praise during her time in the Girl Scouts. She volunteered to make care kits for those affected by Hurricane Katrina, visited the elderly, and spent a lot of her time helping out her fellow Girl Scouts whenever they found things tough. Brooklyn then blossomed into a spirited and lively teenager with a boundless love of the natural world and especially for anything four legged and furry. She also had an aptitude for athletics and was described as a tell it like it is straight talking kind of girl, which didn't always prove popular with her peers. Brooklyn also had a huge passion for baking and would spend a lot of her nights baking chocolate chip brownies for the whole family. She was a very family and community oriented person and unlike a lot of girls her age, she actually seemed to enjoy spending time around her mom and dad, two loving parents who thought it was their duty to help pay for their girls driving lessons and eventual tests. On June 21, 2013, Brooklyn and Paige took their driving tests. While Brooklyn passed with flying colors, Paige failed spectacularly, something that became a bit of a running joke on among the Walker Farthing family for the remainder of the day that night, the family attended their grandfather's 70th birthday party, as he had been gravely ill in the months preceding his birthday and had only just made something of a miraculous recovery. The occasion was important to everyone in attendance, and a great deal of enthusiasm was shown by all. Just weeks ago, they thought the man wouldn't see his next brother birthday, but now here he was, celebrating as heartily as everyone else. After what was undoubtedly a rather subdued and emotional birthday party, Brooklyn and Page attended another party on Redlick Road along with their cousin. This was a considerably wilder affair given it was attended by teens in their age group and there was rumors of there being a stash of booze at the party. According to Paige, her sister knew the majority of those in attendance and was extremely excited to get to a much livelier party after hanging out with her grandparents. After drinking and dancing for a few hours, Paige and the cousin decided to leave sometime between the hours of 7pm and 8pm But Brooklyn, who had pre packed her overnight bag, made plans to stay with a friend who was also at the party so they could sleep off their hangovers from the judgmental gaze of Brooklyn's parents. Yet it came time to leave. Brooklyn was disappointed to hear that instead of sticking to their plan of a sleepover, her friend had her heart set on spending the night at her boyfriend's house. Naturally, this made Brooklyn rather angry, and an intense argument unfolded as a result of this impromptu change of plans. Other partygoers who witnessed the disagreement claimed that Brooklyn was so annoyed that she ditched the party altogether. She had to catch a ride with two men she had never met before that night. The identities of those men are currently being withheld pending results of a police investigation. But what we do know for certain is that when questioned by police, one of the men said that they drove Brooklyn down to Floyd Branch Road, apparently to look at some horses. After that, the man giving the account was dropped back off at his house and didn't see either Brooklyn or his friend again. This other guy took Brooklyn home with him to a house located in the 100 block of Dillon Court, just off U.S. highway 421. As the house was actually in foreclosure at the time, there would have been no running water or electricity. At around 4am on June 22, Brooklyn called her sister Paige and asked if their cousin could come pick her up from the address at Dillon Court. But their cousin had been drinking heavily and was in no fit state to be driving. So Paige had to pass on the bad news that her sister didn't have a ride home that night, which obviously put Brooklyn in a very awkward situation. She could either call her mom, waking her up and making her drive all the way out to Dillon Court and possibly having her discover that she had been drinking, or she could contact her ex boyfriend and get a ride home from him instead. Obviously to Brooklyn, the first option was completely unthinkable. But her ex was working that night and it would be a couple of hours before he could drive out to pick her up. But it seemed Brooklyn was so terrified of being caught drunk that she chose to simply wait it out in a dark, foreclosed home shacked up with a total stranger. By the time Brooklyn's ex finished his shift and he was able to get back to his phone, he found he had received several messages from her. He opened up the text thread to see that her longer, more drawn out texts had cut down to just a few words. Time after time, her messages said things like, can you hurry? Please hurry up and I'm scared. But on the drive over to Dylan's court, Brooklyn's extremely worried exploit boyfriend received yet another message that simply read, never mind, I'm okay. Going to a party in Rock Castle County. Her ex tried to call multiple times, but she wasn't answering her phone. He then sent her a text asking who she was with, but Brooklyn didn't reply. In fact, she would never reply to anyone's text or calls ever again. Later that day, on June 22, Brooklyn had made plans to attend a car show in Somerset, Kentucky, with a few of her friends. But she never showed up and wasn't replying to texts or calls. It wasn't like Brooklyn to miss a car show. So naturally, her friends were deeply concerned and instead called Paige in the hopes that she would know where her sister was. But Paige had no idea that Brooklyn hadn't made it home that night. And when she learned the news, she began to panic. After calling to tell their mom that Brooklyn might be missing, Paige began to frantically call around her friends, trying to learn the names of the two guys who gave Brooklyn a ride. Luckily, she got a hold of one of their numbers and managed to actually speak to the guy whose foreclosed house she had gone back to after looking at horses. He was open about the facts that he had been at the party that night, and he even admitted to giving Brooklyn a ride back to his place. But after that, his story began to get a little weird. He said he had left her alone in a house with no running water or electricity because she had felt uncomfortable Sleeping with him, apparently having only recently broken up with her ex. The guy said he had respected her decision, but instead of giving her a ride home or at least calling her a taxi, he chose to leave his own home to give her space. He said the last he had seen of her, she was sitting on his front porch smoking a cigarette and talking about a party she had heard about in Rock Castle County. Paige was immediately skeptical and planned on giving the man's name and number to the cops should she have to contact them. But just minutes after she hung up the phone, the the man called back to tell her that he was scared. He was scared because, according to him, when he had gotten back to his house after giving Brooklyn some space, he found his front porch was ablaze. He called the fire department, who promptly drove over to put the fire out. But when he got inside to survey the damage, he found that all of Brooklyn's belongings had been left behind, but that she was nowhere to be found. Paige and Brooklyn's mom rushed to file a police report, and once it had officially been 24 hours since she was last seen, was formally declared missing, the police drove over to the address at Dillon Court to retrieve the items she had left behind. There, they quickly noted that the only things missing from the collection were Paige's cell phone and the clothing she had been wearing. Their next move was to check her cell phone records, finding that in the 24 hours she had been missing, she had been called more than 100 times by a plethora of different numbers, a measure of just how worried people were about her. And they were right to be worried. According to a statement by the local fire department, the porch fire they attended to at around 7am on the 22nd was extremely suspicious and appeared to be a work of arson as opposed to a lit cigarette. On the Sunday after Brooklyn's disappearance, Kentucky State Police began conducting interviews. The owner of the foreclosed house where Brooklyn was last seen was obviously amongst those first questioned, but nothing about that meeting has been publicly released. In the early days of the investigation, police requested that property owners in Estell, Rock, Castle, Jackson and Madison counties checked their land for any signs of the missing girl. They were told to pay close attention to freshly turned earth and unusual smells, ditch lines and remote areas, which proves to be a disturbing insight into the minds of police who almost certainly believe she was already dead. Law enforcement officials and volunteers alike searched more than six 16,000 acres of land spread out over three Kentucky counties for three weeks. Large scale searches were conducted in the Red Lick area and Nearby Owsley Fork lake by police with sniffer dogs who were aided military cadets and volunteers on horseback. A team of highly trained police divers were also called in to help search a few large bodies of water, but still nothing was found. A month into the investigation, a fundraiser was held by Brooklyn's family to help fund a cash reward for whoever could help find their daughter. On top of that, a local body shop began selling five dollar car deals, with all proceeds going to the reward fund. But still, there was no luck finding her. So in July of 2013, as painful as it was to make the decision, the county sheriff declared that all foot searches for Brooklyn were to be called off. And although they wouldn't come out and say it, the police had all but given up on finding her, dead or alive. The investigation and media coverage of the event shifted dramatically when a number of scandals began to severely hamper the efforts to find Brooklyn. A local woman named Amanda Griffey openly admitted to scandal, scamming those who wished to donate money to the search. When a number of concerned neighbors were going door to door seeking contributions, Amanda joined them. But all the money she received was funneled into her own private bank account. Amanda only stole a measly $40, but to the local community, it might as well have been a million. Their outrage knew no bounds, and Amanda was shunned by all that knew her after she was arrested for theft of identity of another and theft by deception. But shockingly, it was not the only case of someone exploiting Brooklyn's disappearance. Another person, this one aptly named Randy Gross, was also arrested for scamming coworkers out of money, telling them that he was collecting for the find Brooklyn fund, yet simply padding out his own account. Brooklyn's parents tried to court the media's good graces again, throwing a benefit at the Madison county fairgrounds, which featured a car show in honor of Brooklyn's passion for them, a silent auction and live music. But the scandal had soured the public's affection for the couple's cause, and never again could they get the kind of national attention they needed to make any real progress. Then, In April of 2015, a man scouring the Kentucky backwoods for mushrooms discovered a set of skeletal remains. The police braced themselves for a DNA sample to come back which confirmed that it was Brooklyn. But it was not her, and her family was filled with hope again that she might just turn up alive. The Virginia commonwealth attorney's office have confirmed their continued interest in the case and are in constant contact with investigators. They claim that a Dedicated team have followed countless tips and examined the case file for things that might have been missing or overlooked during the initial investigation. And they say that all tips continue to be followed up on. But despite their best efforts, the case of Brooklyn's disappearance remains open and active. Perhaps the most terrifying thing is that police seem to believe that someone in the local community has information as to what happens to Brooklyn. But whoever made her vanish might actually still be living among them. But even with a $14,000 reward being offered for information leading to her return or the capture and conviction of those responsible for her disappearance, police are still no closer to getting any definitive answers. No answers, but plenty of theories, most of which revolve around the idea that Brooklyn was kidnapped sometime after 4am she was not depressed and, according to her family, had no reason to run away or walk out on her life. In their eyes, the only reason she could now be missing is if someone had taken her. Police have talked publicly of their deep suspicion that the final test sent to her ex, the one that mentioned the party in Rock Castle county, was faked and sent by someone else. And that since her belongings were left at the Dillon Courthouse, it must have been the place she was taken from. But whether or not the homeowner has anything to do with it is an entirely different question. He did indeed leave Brooklyn alone in the dark in a home with no power or water. But does that mean he called someone in to kidnap her in an effort to detach himself from the crime? Or did a gang of seven savage predators get lucky enough to barge their way into a house with no burglar alarms, with a lone intoxicated female trying to sleep in an upstairs bedroom? Only the full result of the police investigation will be able to tell us that in the years following Brooklyn's disappearance from the Kentucky house party, Tasha feels that she needs to be a voice for her sister, and as such, has taken part in numerous interviews regarding her disappearance. She has taken numerous steps to keep her sister's name in the public eye in the hopes that someone will see the coverage and come forward with information. Currently, her case is classified as endangered missing, and she has yet to be declared legally dead. But it is only a matter of time before the clocks run out, and we have to assume the worst. That through malice or misfortune, Brooklyn Farthing went to a house party one evening and never came home. Back when I was in my early 20s, I met a girl who set my entire world on fire. She was smart, beautiful, and had a passion for art. We're going to burn together, she would say. Not in the literal sense, of course. It's just that the romance we got swept up in was, without a doubt the most intense thing I have ever been involved with in my entire life. It was like a wildfire just burning out of control. Nothing had topped it before, and nothing has topped it since. But let's just say that neither of us was in a particularly good place in our lives. And as passionate as the relationship was, it wasn't exactly healthy. For the most part, she was very, very possessive. And I am not going to lie, I thought that was kind of hot at first. But that got really old really fast. And her behavior started to cause arguments between us. She would explode at the mention of any other girl I once mentioned, something to do with my sister, and she immediately interrupted to accuse me of being unfaithful. Even after I explained that the girl I was talking about was my sister, she stayed mad. It just defied all logic. But I was in love, so I stayed with her. So we're together for 17 and a half months, and that time included some of the best and worst moments of my life so far. But in the end, the bad started to outweigh the good. And faced with another Valentine's Day with her, I decided I couldn't do it anymore. I made the decision to break up with her. And as you might imagine, she did not take it very well at all. At first, she was in complete denial, saying there was nothing wrong with our relationship and she had no idea why I was breaking up with her. Then she got angry. Like, really angry. Started throwing around accusations and threats, none of which I thought she was capable of acting on. Then came the tears and the final acceptance. By far the hardest part for me, she was crazy. But I didn't think she was a bad person. And it sucked to have to hurt her like that. She insisted on staying in touch, maybe staying friends or something, but I had to go. No contact. It was the only way that we would really get over each other. I felt like a monster, but I did it anyway. About a month goes by, and I'm sitting in my apartment alone on Valentine's Day. I'm sort of over this girl, but I'm also sort of not. And with it being Valentine's Day, I'm thinking about her a whole lot. So when my phone buzzes and I see it's a text from her, I'm, like, rushing to see what it says. I had deleted her number, but you know when you always just remember the last four Digits of someone's number. Yeah, that. So all this message says is we were supposed to burn together. And that just kinda broke my heart right there. I thought about calling her, maybe try and patch things up. And in retrospect, maybe that's exactly what I should have done. But in the moment, I just tried to stay strong and stick to the no contact rule. I tried to take my mind off stuff, stayed away from all the romantic movies and Valentine's episodes that the TV networks were trying to force down my throat. But still, I just couldn't shake the lonely feeling I had. So later that night, I'm kinda drunk, just sitting on the couch, when my phone buzzes again. I just know it's her. Like I knew it in my gut, and surprise, surprise, it was. I debated just quickly clearing the notification and then ignoring the message, but my curiosity got the better of me and I found myself reading it. I knew the first line said we were supposed to burn together again from the notification, but only when I opened up the whole thread did I see that underneath the first part it said, but now you're going to burn alone again. Hit me right in the feels. It was clingy, I know, but at the same time, you can't even deny how poetic that is. Poetry, that's all. I thought it was just that old metaphor we used to share, but I didn't think she would take it as far as she did. I didn't think she meant literally burn, because sometime after I'm on my couch and I start to smell smoke, I go through the stages of like, thinking I've drunkenly forgot that I'm cooking, then thinking the neighbors are burning food on accident, then thinking someone is making a campfire outside or something. Just pure denial, really not wanting to believe that the apartment building was actually on fire. Then the fire alarm starts going off. I rush downstairs in no shoes or socks, just a pair of shorts and a tiny shirt, and run out the back of the building to the fire assembly point. And on the way, I see smoke billowing out from under the door of the apartment below me. Minutes later, a fire truck is parked up outside the apartment building, spraying water into the apartment below mine, which had been absolutely scorched. It was one of the most surreal experiences of my life. These firefighters are asking me if I'm okay, if I need one of those foil blankets. It was February and it was freezing outside, and all that could come out of my mouth is like, I know who did this. One of them tells me to get in touch with the police if the cause of the fire was criminal. So I did. Because like I said, I had a really good idea of who set that fire in the first place. Like I wasn't quite sure how she had done it, but having my ex girlfriend text me, you're going to burn alone. And then all of a sudden there's a house fire. That was no coincidence to me. No coincidence at all. Over the next couple of weeks, I had to go and stay in my mom's place while some renovation work was undertaken at my smoke damaged apartment. But I did get in touch with the police who thanked me for the tip and said they would get back in touch if the cause of the fire was found to be arson. Only it wasn't. They called a little while later to say that a fire department investigator had determined that some faulty wiring was to blame for the blaze. And so they wouldn't need any testimony from me. I brought up the text messages my ex had sent me. How her words seemed to precede the fire in a way that was just too apt to be coincidence. But again, they insisted that no arson was to blame. I even called her and texted her saying I knew what she had done and that she wouldn't get away with it. But as you can imagine, she played dumb, like, I don't know what you're talking about. You shouldn't be contacting me. It's something that messes with me to this day and there are so many unanswered questions that frankly, I am not sure I want to know the answers to. I just know that one moment she's texting me, telling me I'm going to burn, and the next my apartment building is on fire. I am not saying my ex broke into the apartment downstairs and did something to the wiring, but it's even crazier of me to suggest that she willed something like that to happen. Or like engineered it or something. I know how paranoid that sounds, so I tend not to put that theory out much. But it had such a profound effect on my mind that I still moved apartments not long after just to be safe. Because to me, there's still something very frightening about that time in my life. Something I can't quite explain. And now when I remember that old thing, she said we're going to burn together. It doesn't set me alight anymore. It makes my blood run cold. I used to work the night shift at UPS as a security guard. The security shed was at the entrance of the gate to make sure no one could get into the facility. The job wasn't hard. I was mostly checking seals on semi trucks coming in, and when the shifts changed, I'd check in and out the package handlers working inside the facility. Package handlers would have to walk through a metal detector and scan their ID cards in order to enter. Their ID would make a green light go off when they scanned in, and we would let them pass. If they didn't have their ID that day, they had to wait with me and my coworkers while one of us contacted a supervisor or HR to let them in. One night, my coworker and I just finished up checking in and out a shift change. I was about to do one of our hourly parking lot checks when I saw someone approaching the shed. I yelled out, late today? He responded, yep, and I walked back in to help my coworker check him in. I don't know why I walked back in. My coworker could have easily checked in one late person by himself, but maybe because I yelled out to him, I felt obligated to finish our conversation. When the late guy walked in, I noticed that I have never seen him before, but new people come in all the time, so it wasn't a big shock. As he scanned his id, I noticed for the first time ever that the green light showed up red, followed by a loud buzz. Shocked because I have never seen an ID fail. Then, as he passed through the metal detector, it went off near his hip. He showed us his belt buckle and said, must be this protocol when the metal detector goes off is the person removes what is setting it off and tries again. And if it is a belt buckle, they need to empty all their pockets against protocol. My coworker lets him in after he removes only his front pockets. But since his ID failed, we couldn't let him in anyways. So my coworker lets him sit down in the shed with us while I call a supervisor. None of the supervisors answered their phones, probably because a shift had just started and they were just busy organizing workers. A few futile calls later, the late guy said, hey, I'm gonna be super late. Can I just go in? I said that he couldn't because I could get fired. He responded, no one is gonna know. But then I pointed up to a camera in the corner of the shed looking at us, his face almost jolted to look at it. I told him that I would try hr. The night shift HR was a pretty cool guy that would chill with us on our breaks. He told us that a night shift HR worker is pretty much just a human complaint box. People Just go to him to complain about other people. When he answered his phone, I asked him if he could come out and check the late guy in. He said he was talking to someone and if I could just tell me his name and ID number. I gave him the name and number on the late guy's card. HR told me he'd get back to me. While we waited, the late guy asked us if we had ever seen something crazy while working. I told him no, but my coworker told him a story about a guy with a hatchet in the parking lot. I got a call from HR and when I heard what he had to say, I almost froze. HR told me that the late guy was actually an ex employee. Employee. He was fired because he was involved in a violent altercation with a supervisor. HR told me to ask him to leave and to call the cops if he didn't. I didn't know what to say, so I made up a lie that there was only a new supervisor working tonight and no one could verify if he worked here. He then said, well, let me go get some co workers that I know so you can tell that I work here. I again pointed to the camera and said, if it's not a supervisor, I would get in trouble. He then responded back, how will I get paid? At this point, I knew we didn't work here anymore. So I told him that I would inform them that he showed up to work and that they will pay him for a full day without him even having to work. Clearly frustrated and out of excuses, he got up and left. As he left, I noticed something in his back pocket. Something that looks like the shape of a small knife. Definitely not a phone or a wallet. The rest of the night was normal. The next day I came to work. My supervisor was there to greet me. He shook me and my coworker's hand and said, good job. He informed us that the guy from last night came back in the morning and crashed his car through the gate. I guess he was on something. So when he crashed, he went unconscious for a while until the cops showed up. They searched his vehicle and found weapons and duct tape and a shovel. Pretty much a murder kit. He was arrested and I never heard anything from it since I quit a few weeks later. I still can't believe I sat in a room with a would be murderer for over 20 minutes. And I wonder what would have happened if I had just let my coworker check the late guy in by himself. You say you'll never join the Navy, that you never track storms brewing in the Atlantic and skydiving could never be part of your community. You you'd never climb Mount Fuji on a port visit or fly so fast you break the sound barrier. Joining the Navy sounds crazy, saying never actually is. Start your journey@navy.com, america's Navy forged by the sea. You say you'll never join the Navy, never climb Mount Fuji on a port visit, or break this down barrier. Joining the Navy sounds crazy, saying never actually is. Learn why@navy.com America's Navy forged by the Sea Support for this podcast and the following message comes from America's Navy the Navy offers new graduates, hands on training and experience in careers like computer science, aviation and medicine, plus education and sign on bonuses. Parents help your grads start their career today@navy.com a couple of years ago, me and my girlfriend, now wife, were selling some of our old stuff after moving into another apartment and one of these items happened to be our big old tv. We put one ad up on ebay and another on that Facebook Marketplace thing since it was kind of new at the time, and just decided to kind of wait and see what kind of offers we got. My wife was pretty sure she had found a decent enough buyer who'd come pick the TV up from our flat and save us a job, but I had gotten a message from someone who, although they couldn't quite afford our asking price, made us an offer we couldn't refuse. It was from an older guy who seemed to be living on his own with his dog, whose TV had recently broken and he couldn't afford a new one. He said he could pay about 70% of our asking price and would make the rest up to us in plumbing services should we ever need it. I ended up getting into a long, touching discussion with the guy. He kind of reminded me of an old uncle of mine and I just instantly liked him. He had fallen on hard times and through no fault of his own. If anyone deserved a little kindness, it was him. After a brief discussion with my wife, we decided we would just go drop it off at his house for free. However, we also knew there's no way this guy would accept our charity right off the bat, or at least very little chance of that happening anyway. So when he politely asked us to wait three weeks to drop it off at his house since it would take him a little time to get the cash together, we were only too happy to oblige him. But still, we make a note of his address and whatnot, then tell him we'll call in a few Weeks. A few weeks goes by, and we decide we'll drive the TV over to the guy on a Saturday morning. Before we leave, we give the guy a call to tell him that we're on our way, but there's no answer. We try once or twice more, but still the guy isn't answering his phone. Now, this might sound kind of selfish, but the TV was all boxed up and just taking up space in our hallway. So even though the guy wasn't picking up his phone, we decided to drive over anyway and possibly leave the TV with a neighbor of his. I mean, that method seemed kind of preferable to us too. If we left it with a neighbor, we wouldn't have to go through all the potential awkwardness or refusing to take the guy's money. Anyway, so we drive over to the guy's address, keeping the TV in the car while we ensure that there's definitely no one home. I get out of the car, walk up this guy's driveway, and knock on the door, which gets no answer. Right then is when I lean back and look into the guy's front room, you know, to check if there are any lights on or anything. Who knows? The guy might have been a little deaf and just couldn't hear his phone or the door. But as I'm looking through his front windows, I see all these little black spots all over the blinds and on the window sill. I'm like, what are those? Thinking they might have been bits of dirt or something. Then one of the little dirt pieces just straight up moves in that lightning quick stop start way that insects do. And that's when it hits me. I am looking at about 50 house flies, big ones that are grouped together on his window. It's weird how we can see one housefly on a window pane or a window ledge and be like, oh, that's a fly. But when we see so many in one place, it's like our brains just don't quite compute what our eyes are seeing. That kind of brittle sense of perception that humans have never fails to creep me out. Like most people listening to this, I instantly knew what was wrong. And this horrific sense of dread came over me. I think I might have involuntarily let out a oh, no. When the penny dropped. You only ever get a concentration of flies like that when there's either a massive buildup of garbage or there's a dead body. And in that case, someone had died. And horrifically, it was the older guy we had grown so attached to throughout the saga of getting rid of our old tv. The whole thing was just horrible, horrifying. From having to call the cops, to the fire department showing up with them, having to bash the guy's door down. When they did, the smell started to drift out into the street and it was just about the most stomach churning thing I have ever experienced. I know the guy wasn't exactly my best friend, but I feel like even though we only swapped a few texts and calls with the guy, we got to know him pretty well. He was good natured, independent. I'm pretty sure he was a veteran too. The whole thing really shook me up. Those flies, man, those fat carry on flies that were so big and engorged that I barely even recognized them for what they were. They had been breeding and feeding in the rotting flesh of the same guy I had been having heart to hearts with just weeks before. Before. It's just scary to me how death is sometimes like, yeah, the prospect of what happens to us when we die is daunting enough, but it's how sudden and seemingly random death can be with all its grim little details. Like, I couldn't shake the image of those flies on the window, like they were his ghost or something. Maybe we do leave a little something of ourselves behind when we die, but that thing happens to be so very ugly. This episode is brought to you by JCPenney. Yes, JCPenney. And if you've been there recently, you know it's the place to go for jaw dropping looks at brag worthy prices. They've got something special for every style and budget. Not to mention rewards and deals that make finding those hidden gems even sweeter. If you already shop JCPenney, you're already in on the secret. But if not, it's time to ask. Wait, am I sleeping on JCPenney? Shop JCPenney.com, yes JCPenney. Okay. Back in 2016, the Xbox One S came out, which was basically just an Xbox that was 4k capable. Now this isn't to be confused with the Xbox series X and S that just came out last year. This is a couple of years ago when that Facebook marketplace had just started. I picked up one of the newer editions of the console, so I was looking to get rid of my outdated one. Facebook Marketplace seemed like the easiest place to do that since I didn't have an ebay account at the time. So yeah, long story short, that's how I opened myself up to one of the creepiest experiences of my life. So I post an ad for my vanilla Xbox One set, a reasonable enough price for it at $100, then just sit back and wait for the inquiries to come in. As you can imagine, the Internet didn't fail to bring out all the anonymously abusive weirdos who told me $30 would be a much more reasonable price and could I drop the console off at their house, which in one specific case happens to be in the next date over. Basically no one made any serious inquiries which figured it was a four year old console. At that point I was going to be pretty lucky if I could manage to sell it. Which is why when I got a message from a kid's mom saying their kid was really sick and could I perhaps work in a discount for them, I just thought sure, why not? The first message from the kid's mom was really long and was basically this big sob story about how their 10 year old had this rare disease and they only had a slim chance of surviving. I forget the name of the disease, but I copy pasted the word into Google and it was actually a legit disease with some pretty grim sounding symptoms too. I probably shouldn't have called it all a sob story, but that's exactly what I thought it was at first. But when I messaged back and forth with the lady, then I realized how something that was a throwaway thing for me might actually make her entire family's life so much happier. I went from weirdly indifferent to being seriously invested in this kid having a Christmas he would never forget. So after a couple of days of talking back and forth with this lady, I decided, screw it, I'm just gonna give it to her for free. I didn't really need the money, and besides, I could just sit pretty on all the good karma I had earned. It's kind of embarrassing to admit how far down the rabbit hole I was with the whole thing. Like, I even went out and bought some bubble wrap and some upmarket cardboard packaging designed for shipping electricals. I wanted to be that kid's Santa that year. It's crazy to admit, but my charitable little scheme really did have me feeling good about myself. Which I suppose is why when it started to unravel, I just didn't want to believe it. When the time came for me to get this lady's mailing address, there were a couple of inconsistencies that grabbed my attention, but that still didn't raise my suspicions straight away. For example, at first she gave me one address, then she gave me another. When I asked her to confirm. I did actually confront her on it, but she said she was living in an Apartment complex where people would steal packages. Obviously, neither of us wanted to risk the Xbox being stolen, so she would give me an address for a friend of hers who could safely deliver it to them. Totally believable excuse, right? She was a single mom living in a rough neighborhood, and I was lending her a helping hand. Or maybe I should have seen the red flags right there, but was just feeling way too saintly and smug to do so. The thing that tripped me up was the lady had mentioned her kid started some kind of medical treatment for their illness. She mentioned a particular date that it was starting, and that turned out to be the very same day I was to post the package. So I have the console all boxed up, along with the controllers, the wiring, and a few games that would be suitable for a kid their age. I figure it must have been a stressful time for her. Seeing her kid getting poked and prodded by all the kinds of medical professionals was probably weighing on her mind. And I thought mailing the consul on that particular day might really cheer her up. I tried to keep the whole thing a surprise, but I have never been very good at keeping my mouth shut. And what can I say? I wanted to bask in the glory of my own generosity a little. So I send the single mom a Facebook message that says, hey, posting the package today. Just want to make sure I have the right address. She then replies with, omg, you've just absolutely made my day. You're such a sweetheart. Cue some blushing from myself, and I reply, no problem. Hope it makes it over to you okay. Then she replies, the timing is amazing because Franklin starts his therapy next month. Next month. I go back through the conversation to find the message where she said it was on the 25th of the month, that same day that we were texting. Obviously, I'm pretty confused by this, and I still don't have any major suspicions, so I'm like, oh, I thought he was starting his therapy today. She explains, no, it's next month. Almost like she never told me the 25th at all. Only when I confront her about it, she says, oh, yeah, we had to move some dates around. My bad for not telling you, but my spider senses are actually tingling at that point, so I decide to ask her if there's anything she's not telling me. She obviously replies with no, but I decide it would be better to just talk to her on the phone, so I insist on calling. She answers her phone so I know she's a real person. And she sounded kind of busy and impatient, so I figured I had just gotten her at a bad time. Everything would have gone off without a hitch if she hadn't made one fatal mistake. Right as I am about to hang up after apologizing for taking up her time, she says freddy will be so happy with the Xbox. Freddy. She had been calling her kid Franklin for a week now, and suddenly it was Freddy. It's not even like she could blame Autocorrect. It was a phone call. I called back and just straight up called her bluff. I didn't know it 100% at the time, but I sure acted like I did. I told her that I knew she was scared scamming me, and that I would be reporting her to the police. There was some mild resistance at first, a few weak denials here and there, but I could hear the thin veil of wholesomeness beginning to slip with every accusation. And eventually she snapped. And when she did, it was so vicious that it actually shut me up for a minute. It was a complete Jekyll and Hyde transformation from this sweet single mom character she had obviously just invented to the soulless fraud she really was, even though I had just figured her out. She called me a gullible moron for believing her in the first place, called me sad and pathetic and a bleeding heart for wanting to just give away my stuff to a kid that probably wasn't going to live to enjoy it. In this savage tirade, she told me people like me would always be worthless and pathetic, dumb saps that were nothing but marks. I just tried to keep calm and told her I would be reporting her to Facebook, along with sending a screenshot of her profile and display pictures to the police, all before circulating her profile around some of the more populated Facebook groups I was a member of to warn them of potential scams. But of course, it wasn't a real profile. Of course she had like 20 more. At least that's what she said. But my profile was real. Everything I had told her about myself was true. This psycho knew what I looked like, she knew where I lived, she knew all sorts of things about me, and I knew absolutely nothing about her other than she was willing to stoop lower than low to get things that she wanted. And on top of that, she wasn't above making some hideously graphic threats of violence against me and my family. And stupidly enough, this was back when I had my sister and my cousins listed in my profile as my immediate family. That is what got to me the most. That I had been dumb enough to serve up some pretty intimate family connections on a silver platter. The scammer told me I was trapped, truly stupid if I thought the cops would be able to do anything about her and on the off chance that she did hear from the police, she would send her boyfriend after my family. Now, I don't know how genuine a threat that was, but just the fact that she had access to their profiles made me feel anxious and guilty. If they ended up getting hurt because of something I did or didn't do, I don't think I would have been able to live with myself. Obviously, the whole thing ended when I blocked her and got in touch with my cousins and sister, telling them to make their profiles private. I was honest with them, told them how I had fallen victim to a scammer and I was worried that their personal information might be compromised. After all, this scammer had just assumed someone else's identity in terms of their profile pictures, possibly even their name too. And the idea of them using any of our pictures to set up a new scam profile made my skin crawl. That whole thing was by far the worst experience I have ever had online. And not only am I really really careful now when it comes to interacting with Internet strangers, but I seriously advise that you all be as Just over a year ago in October 2019 some real scary stuff went down and I thought I was gonna lose my life. I live with my mom in California just outside of Sacramento and I love her so much because she really works hard to take care of me. I am much better now, but a year ago I really wasn't doing so well and I was dependent on an oxygen mask for my breathing. It wasn't like a face mask or anything, it was pretty discreet. I wore what's called a nasal cannula, which is like the little clear plastic tube that runs up your nose. It was quite uncomfortable at first, but you get used to it after a while. So I had spent most of my time hooked up by PPAP machine and it was super important that it stayed strong, switched on at all times or I might suffocate. But if it ever did switch off or break for any reason, I could just switch over to my battery powered oxygen tank and voila. Tragic death avoided. The system was flawlessly safe, or so I was led to believe. Because what that system doesn't take into account is that all of a sudden PG and E might decide it's going to switch the power off to my house. I wake up in the middle of the night feeling like I am about to have a full on anxiety attack and it only takes me a second before I realize that I can't breathe. I brought a hand to my face and felt that my nasal canula was still in my nostrils. But when I rolled over in bed, I saw my PVAP machine was dark. Now, under any other circumstances, I could just unplug from the machine, walk into the spare bedroom and plug into the battery powered oxygen tank. But since I was so tired and whatever had happened to cut the power had happened when I was asleep, I had lost valuable time to make the transition. So picture this. I feel like I am about to pass out. I can't see a thing because it's pitch black and I have to make it all the way across the hall and into the spare room when I feel like I can't make it three steps in front of me. It was the most scared I have ever been in my life. I had a matter of seconds to get to the battery tank. I am making all these wheezing sounds and I can just feel myself getting weaker and weaker as I made it out of my bedroom and took my first steps into the hallway. I only make it a few paces before I just feel my knees buckling underneath me. I try to crawl, but I can't. And that's about all I remember until the next thing I know I am sucking air through the canula like a crazy person, coughing and sputtering with my mom's voice in my ear. I must have made a whole bunch of noise on the way out of my bedroom. And thankfully too, because it woke my mom up. She must have found me lying there, figured out what the deal was, then just dragged me far enough toward the spare bedroom that she could plug in my oxygen tube. I just remember lying there taking these huge deep breaths until I felt sort of okay again. But that only lasted a moment or two until the memory of that fear came rushing back to me and I just burst into tears. We had to drive to the hospital to get me looked over by a doctor. Doctor, you can get some nasty health complications if you're deprived of oxygen like that. And it's not just the obvious stuff either. Like, it can cause blood clots in your arteries from the strain and those can be fatal. But yeah, I was checked over and although I was pretty shaken up, I was otherwise okay. But then the whole thing comes out about the blackouts and that caused a lot of controversy. For those that don't know, here in California, it was discovered that some equipment owned by a bunch of electrical companies was causing forest fires. There was this huge fire where almost a hundred people died and the fire department found it was started by a power line that had fallen over. Then companies that catch a ton of crap from federal government and as a result they basically made the decision to just cut power off to a bunch of people's homes during wildfire season. And unfortunately for us, our home was one of them. We got off lucky though. Like one guy actually died because he was on home life support or something. The power went off and boom. Massive organ failure. The power cuts affected other stuff too too like nebulizers, dialysis machines, refrigerators that kept insulin fresh. Power companies said that they had been warning people for months about it and that they should make preparations. But I don't remember hearing anything about it. But yeah, scariest moment of my life right there. Straight up thought I was going to die. But like so many times before in my life, my mom was there to stop me from slipping away. For 22 years, I have made myself believe this disturbing series of events did not happen to me. I have successfully convinced myself that this was all imagined. Our minds and souls have an amazing ability to protect us from psychological damage. Then I spoke with a friend that I haven't seen in a long time. The same friend I allegedly experienced this event with. He confirmed the whole thing. I'll do my best to accurately present the entire story as raw as it happened. And apparently it did happen. This story revolves around a Ouija board. I hate to even type or say those words. I will not and have not touched one since 1997. As previously stated, that was 22 years ago, making me 13 at the time. An age where I believe most of us start to branch out in curiosities. It's no longer just having sleepovers with friends, playing various video game consoles, or getting into high school sports. Girls were starting to become appealing in my time. Professional wrestling was starting to really take off. A group of my friends were diving into horror movies and scary stories. This is something that always appealed to me. Ever since reading scary stories to tell in the dark, I was hooked. This series of books came out when I was around eight years old. They sold them at our schoolastic book fair. Looking back, these stories and illustrations were way too intense for 8 year olds, in my opinion. But I sure did enjoy them. We like being scared. We like to feel something more than the everyday mundane drudge of life. My friend Philly and I enjoyed getting together and watching horror movies and telling urban legends. We started doing this almost weekly, especially during the summer when school was out of course this was pre Internet era, so all we had media wise was actually renting a movie or physically going to the theater. And since most horror movies were R rated, we couldn't see them. I'm sure to most millennials or post millennials this sounds like a nightmare. Scarier than any real life story. Because we got tired of renting the same movies over and over, we often focused on urban legends, what we call creepypastas today. We might find some books at the library that had them or we just made our own up at this time we wanted to feel some actual terror. I wish we would have just stuck with our stupid scary stories. I bet every group of friends had one of those parts. Parker Brothers made board games stashed somewhere. The infamous Ouija board. This toy is simple. They even used to advertise it a board with the Alphabet numbers. Yes, no and goodbye. I suppose this was inevitable. Every kid has to learn for themselves that these are not be played with literally and metaphorically. Growing up in a God fearing family, I knew this felt wrong. I felt this board wasn't right. I also could see through the marketing strategy that Parker Brothers were selling these specifically to children. Like all board games, but this was different. They wanted kids to play this only, not adults. You played Monopoly and Chutes and Ladders with your parents, you sure didn't play the Ouija with them. I felt this was wrong, but I also didn't know anything. I was 13. My current 35 year old self has a hard time understanding what happened and why. I dove into this knowing the outcome would not be ideal. I found it, my buddy Filly said, under my sister's bed. This was the start of a series of events that would haunt me for quite a while. It of course was the board. We made sure no one was home when we pulled it out. There was an air of mischief around this thing. Certainly we couldn't deal with his sister finding us in her room and definitely not his mom finding out what we were up to. The board was glossy and new. It looked like we were possibly the first to use it. The device that two or more people used to glide over the board revealing the answers to your questions was almost ivory. I wanted to research what this was called, but I don't even want to start down the rabbit hole online. If you've noticed, I don't even want to call it by its name, simply referring to it as the board. I'll call the gliding thing the Oracle. For this story, we had two sessions with the board. The first was incident Free. We asked a few silly questions. What our future held, if we would get married and have kids. Stuff like that. Even though I had never played this before, I still knew not to ask questions like what was the name of the person that we were talking to? Maybe we had gotten that from the hours of watching scary movies. The second session was when things got weird. Philly and I were going back and forth with the board asking some simple questions about our future lives. I remember asking where I would live as an adult and the board said Seattle. I lived 2,000 miles away from Seattle at the time. But this is where I felt the aura of the board shifted. It felt like a thunderstorm was brewing. One where the sky turned red. The oracle we used to piece out our answers to our dumb questions had moved slowly before. Now it was jerking, almost moving off the board to the next letter. I can tell you this about this game. It is real. And neither one of us were moving the Oracle. My hands weren't even on it at some points. But back to the Seattle question. I was and still am a huge baseball fan. I have rooted unfortunately for the Detroit Tigers for my entire life. The Mid to late 90s was the explosion explosion of Ken Griffey Jr. To major league Baseball. I loved watching him play. I got his jerseys for a couple Christmases and birthdays. I'm sure most know that Griffey played for the Seattle Mariners. I loved how that nautical s looked on that teal uniform. I started researching the city of Seattle and thought how cool it would be to live there. Do you know where this is going? This board was not plastic and glue to me anymore. There was something controlling it, something powerful and dark that knew I had this particular city on my mind at this time. I didn't let on to my buddy what I was feeling. He didn't seem to let on that he was afraid either. So we kept on. The next segment of questions is a blur to me. All I remember is the Oracle going mostly to know when we asked a question, even if it wasn't a yes or no answer that was required. Then I asked the last question that I would ever ask the Ouija. Don't get your hopes up. It was nothing profound or deep at all. This is what I asked. Would the Detroit Tigers ever win another World Series? The oracle moved so fast to goodbye. I thought a tiny trail of fire would be on the board. I'll never forget looking at Philly and seeing what I'm sure was the exact same bulging eyes, mouth open expression that I had on my face. We knew that one of the rules of this game was when the board said goodbye you put it away immediately. I think we even read that on the instructions. We threw the board into its box, hustled to his sister's room as fast as two Hostess Cupcake and Mountain Dew filled teenagers could. Philly chucked the board under her bed like nothing happened. After a few breathless moments we finally started to let out time. Tiny little laughs lighting up into belly laughs as we hit the floor rolling. We were laughing out the nervousness. Also kind of feeling dumb at how scared we got. After the madness finally started dying down. We moved on like nothing happened. I should have stated right from the start that it was late at night when we started playing. I would say it was about midnight. As cliche as that is. When the board said goodbye to us it couldn't have been more than 1am in the morning. Philly lived in the country. Across the street was a cemetery. I know now I'm really hitting cliche territory but I swear it's true there weren't many houses around. If you wanted to walk to your next door neighbor you better plan for a good 20 minute hike. Finally all mania was shed and tired from playing video games. We decided to step outside. We looked at the graveyard noting how calm the night was. Philly had a large section of his yard covered with rose bushes. They were pretty wild and were not kept up. Needless to say nothing would be able to get into those bushes and not get completely diced. We heard rustling again. The night was calm and I don't remember any wind at all. At first we could just hear the bushes then movement. To this day I do not know and don't care to know what it was. It could have been a small animal but I highly doubt it. We knew something wasn't right and bolted for his house. Even writing this I can feel an eerie presence. We both knew this was related to the board. Filly suggested we make it a night and try to get some sleep. I wish that was the end of this story. A few short hours later we were woken up to a series of faint knocking noises. I could not determine what they were coming from but it sounded like it was some somewhere outside his house. We both cautiously got up and moved to the kitchen where his front door was and saw something that made my heart drop into my stomach. A man, slight build, wearing all denim was standing right outside the door. The man also had creepy looking horn rimmed glasses on. Outdated even for the late 90s. Philly had a Porch in the front that was raised about five steps from the ground. And the man was on the ground. So when we saw him, we were actually looking slightly down at him, seeing him from the top of his head down. It is an image that is burned into my mind. He didn't move. He just stood there. We once again fled to his room and shut the door. We didn't call the police or his mom. We just sat in his room, not sure what to do. After a few moments, we stupidly decided to see if he was still there. He was gone. I successfully convinced myself that there was no man on the side of the house. I just couldn't handle what was happening. On this night. Philly did the same. Finally, day broke and we dismissed the disturbing events of the previous night. I don't even think we discussed what happened. About a week later, I got a call from Philly. He said he had a dream that we were playing the board and a hand came out and attempted to pull his head down. He awoke sweating and in a small amount of pain from where the force had grabbed him. I hated to say that I had a similar dream right there. We decided to meet up and do something about this board. My mom dropped me off at his house a few days later to sleep over for the night. When I arrived, I could not find him in his house. This was before cell phones, so I did not have the option to simply call him and see where he was. I checked out back where his garage was. There stood Philly with the board, sitting atop a pile of kindling in a burning barrel. His mischievous grin told me what his plan was. We lit that sucker on fire. Nothing happened. Now I was really freaking out. We have all heard the stories of people attempting to burn a Ouija with no success. Philly wasn't phased, though. We pulled out a jerry can full of gasoline and doused it. The board lit up and quickly evaporated into nothing. It was over. As far as I can remember, nothing happened after that. We didn't speak of anything we experienced that night. Over the years, I chalked it all up to an overactive teenage imagination. I may have told a handful of people over the years, mainly just to tell a scary story. I know I've said this a few times, but I have completely treated this like it never happened. This, to me, was all imagined. We did play the game, but the rustling bush, the man, none of that happened. Over the years, I moved quite a distance away from Philly. We kept in touch a few times a year, even making the almost 1000 mile drive to see him about 10 years ago. Fast forward 10 more years and I decided to make the trip one last time to see my hometown and get together with Philly. He invited some people from the area and struck up a massive bonfire. In between bites of pizza and swigs of beer, I recounted the story of that night. I told him how I imagined the aftermath of our decision to use that board. I know you're gonna think this is crazy, but I thought there was a man standing outside your house that night, I said. Filly looked at me as stone cold as he could and said, yeah, I remember that. My blood never went colder. My friend confirmed exactly what happened that night. It was like we were both there again 22 years ago. I repressed that Ouija board so hard I made myself believe it never happened. The Ouija is nothing to be played with. I haven't touched or looked at one in over two decades. How a piece of cardboard can summon some kind of evil from another realm is beyond me. I just know you don't want to open it back in 2007 when I was 19, I moved to a coastal town in Oregon from Texas. My mom was moving with my younger brother for a job and didn't want to be alone in a new state, so I had decided to move with her. I had moved around a lot by that point in my life already and I never liked staying in one place for too long. I worked as a pharmacy technician at the time. I switched my license over to Oregon, got a job and rented a studio apartment that was located in the basement of a very large house my landlady had inherited from her parents. She rented out the rooms in the house to Borders. To get to the apartment you would enter the property from a side gate and follow a walkway down this little slope and around to the back of the house. When you walked through the door you would end up in the small kitchen that had a window over the sink overlooking the backyard that was enclosed by an 8 foot tall privacy fence. And that's where I was when the strange things began. About a month after I had moved in. I was washing up at the sink in front of the window after making something to eat one night at around 11pm when my cell phone rang. Noticing it was an unknown caller, I dried my hands off and answered the phone. I said hello, and on the other end of the line was an odd garbled voice making incomprehensible noises. It almost sounded like someone trying to speak underwater, but also slightly robotic sounding, thinking Maybe it was a bad connection. I said hello again. This time the weird garbled voice said something I could make out very clearly. We can see you in the window. Terrified, I hung up the phone, made sure my doors were locked, turned off all the lights, and closed the curtain in the window over the sink, the only window in the basement studio. Then I called my older brother in Texas. We always were and still are, extremely close and I told him what happened. After a bit we decided it was probably some prank caller that got lucky in guessing that I had just been visible in a window. I mean, not very original, right? There hadn't been any sign that someone was in the backyard. There was an extremely high privacy fence, so it was unlikely they had saw me over it. And this was a brand new Oregon number that I had hardly given out to anyone. I felt a bit better after that, but still still didn't sleep very well that night. In the weeks after that call I settled in more and was feeling more comfortable in my new surroundings. I got closer to some co workers at my new job at a local pharmacy and made some casual friends. I hadn't gotten any more calls in that time and didn't feel as alone in the town anymore, especially with one of my new friends I met at work living just three streets away. But my feeling of comfort in settling in wouldn't last very long. The unknown caller called again and again. It got to the point of where it happened on a near nightly basis. Most of the time it was that same garbled underwater voice, just babbling nonsense. But sometimes it would things I could make out though almost equally incomprehensible. You think you are better than us because we do drugs. Set it on fire. We are your masters. I was creeped out but still kept telling myself I was the victim of a random dialer that got their jollies off saying weird stuff to 19 year old girls. So I carried on with my life. This had gone on for a couple of months when one night I had gone across the street from my apartment in front of an old abandoned church to call my brother in Texas to shoot the breeze. It was late, about 2am and sound carried up into the house above my apartment. I would frequently have bouts of insomnia and my brother was usually up so I would often sit on the steps of the church and smoke when I made late night phone calls to not disturb anyone in the house. I had been talking to my brother for about 20 minutes when another call beeped in. I checked and it was an unknown number. So I told my brother to hang on and I answered. It was the distorted voice again telling me they are watching me in front of the church and ask who are you talking to? Panicked, I looked all around me. I couldn't see anything. I switched back to my brother and told him what was happening. As I ran towards my apartment, I got inside and locked the door. I stayed on the line with my brother while I searched my apartment, making sure I was alone. I thought about calling the police and my brother thought I should too. But what could they do? I talked myself into it just being some weird game someone was playing on me and that I had nothing to worry about. A few weeks went by without any calls and after a bit I was sure they had gotten bored with the whole thing. I had been more cautious after the last call, but as time went on without any more calls, I began to feel more confident that it really all was just some harmless, albeit cruel joke someone was playing on me. So one night, pretty late, I decided to walk a few blocks up the hill from my house to a 24 hour store to buy some snacks. On my way back from the store I started to feel the late hour and I stopped and sat on a bench near the library to take a bit of a rest and sip on one of the drinks I had just bought. Behind me was a street that ran along the side of the library and my friend's street was just off of it, directly behind the bench. Within moments a big man appeared. He was in his late 30s or early 40s, wearing heavy work boots, jeans and a thick Carhartt work jacket and a black ball cap. He sat next to me on the bench, a bit too close for comfort. I was nervous because it was the extremely early hours of the morning. Someone else just happening to innocently be there didn't seem all that likely to me at the time. Though I was young, I didn't really know what to do. I was there too, wasn't I? And I wasn't up to anything. I wasn't sure if my discomfort was really all that valid. I didn't want to seem rude because in my mind, in all likelihood he wasn't a dangerous person. So I sat there until he said hi. I said hi back and scooted away from him as inconspicuously as I could. We sat in silence for a moment and feeling like I could and should leave without it being too weird or rude. I was about to get up when he said, would you like to be my friend? He had a light accent I couldn't really place nonplussed. I said excuse me, and he said we could be friends, we could go in the bushes and he gestured towards this trail that ran behind the library that leads to a park on the other side of the building. It was enclosed on both sides by bushes that ran the whole length. At this point I was getting really nervous and was trying to decide if I should just run for it and which direction I should go. My friend's street ran behind me, but his house was at the very end of the street and it was all uphill. I have never been very athletic so I couldn't decide if that was easier or my apartment, which was downhill. I could go faster, but I didn't want him to know where I lived if he followed me. What he said next made me realize it was a pointless concern. He already knew where I lived. I missed you. I haven't seen you since the church. This is the guy that had been calling me. As quickly as the realization came to me, I sprung up. Dropping my shopping bag, I turned and ran towards my friend's street as fast as I could in flip flops with the guy right behind me. Even with the blood pumping in my ears brought on by my flight and pure terror, I could hear him chasing after me, his heavy work boots hitting the ground. It didn't take long before I felt him try to grab me in the chase, though it ended up being more like a shove right on my left shoulder and suddenly my feet were tangled up in my face flimsy flip flops and I was falling forward into the road. I let out an involuntary blood curdling scream which seemed to have scared him because the next thing I know I hear his boots running back down the hill and off down the main street. I got up as quickly as I could and ran full force to my friend's house and pounded on his door. I could tell he was startled. It was the middle of the night. I was out of breath, shaking and crying and later I would notice bloody. I had hit my forehead on the cement when I fell and it was badly cut. My joggers were ripped, my knees were skinned and bloody. I was so worked up I couldn't get a word out to explain to him why I had shown up on his doorstep at that hour and in the state that I was in. He called the police and after calming down enough I told them and my friend what had happened, the phone calls, everything. They drove around to see if they could find the man that fit my description. They never did and nothing ever came from it. I moved out of my apartment in the following days and stayed with my mom until I eventually moved out of the state a few weeks later. I just couldn't handle being anywhere near where all this happened. I don't think I could have ever felt safe there again. To this day, I have no idea who that man was, let alone how he got my new phone number that I had hardly given out to anyone once. Suspicion I always had was that maybe he knew someone I worked with. Our phone numbers were listed on a paper and tacked to the bulletin board in the office. When this theory came to me, I realized the unknown caller always said we. Was it him and one of the other people I worked with? Is that why he said we when he called me? At one point I even suspected the friend I had ran to that night of being in on it. Was it just a coincidence that the man approached me so close to his house? I was a mess afterward and had all kinds of suspicions. Either way, I didn't see the man in town again before I left and I never received another call from him. Juvederm Day is coming on August 20th for one day only. Buy one $75 gift card and get one free. Juvederm Day gift cards can be used on any product in the Juvederm collection of fillers. Don't miss out on this once a year chance to save Join Ally now while supplies last Skin beef by Juvederm is excluded from this promotion. Terms and conditions apply. Last year my family and I were driving back from my grandparents house over seven hours away. It had been a long trip as traffic had been bad and we had to make frequent stops for food and let our family dog out to go to the bathroom. Finally we were on the freeway closest to my house and the trip was almost over. My mom, brother and I were also relieved to almost be home. My dad had been on a business trip and unable to join us which sucked but ultimately left a little more leg room in the packed car. Everything was smooth sailing with my brother and I in la la land, watching YouTube or playing games and keeping my mom awake. Suddenly the cars in front of us began to slow down and come to a stop. We naturally followed suit, slowing down and keeping an eye out for what traffic or accident was up ahead. We saw some cars begin to swerve and drive away down another lane. Fast. Odd we thought, but nothing to be worried about. That's when I realized of the two lanes on our side of the road, only the one Closest to the median was stopped. We weren't sure exactly what happened, so we stayed in the stopped lane. That's when my mom suddenly locked all the doors to the car. I looked at her, confused and wondering what she saw. My brother in the backseat had begun looking around, confused and worried. I realized my mom must have seen something further up the road than I could see. I asked what was going on, but my mom didn't need to answer. The car in front began to try to pull away, but wasn't able to. That's when I saw him. A random man in the middle of the freeway, banging and trying to open people's doors to their cars. My eyes were fixated on the man and my heart began to race. My mom began to make the move to get out of there, but it was too late. The man ran from the car in front of us to my mom's door. He looked scruffy and disheveled. He began slamming on my mom's window, begging for us to let him in. My mom began yelling at the man to go away through the closed windows as she tried to pull away. My brother and I were frozen in fear, unaware what this man wanted to do to us. My mom managed to pull away a few feet before. The man then jumped onto the hood of our car and began slamming his feet fists into the windshield. My mom screamed and I just sat there, horrified. I had never felt this type of fear before. We all like to think that when fight or flight kicks in that we'll be the hero. But I sat there helpless as this man threatened my family. The man demanded incoherently that we drive with him on our hood. My mom then saw multiple cop cars pull up behind us with two officers running up to apprehend the man. He jumped from our hood and hopped the 5 foot median. We saw the police draw their weapons and subdue him on the other side of the median as my mom slammed on the gas and sped away. We were in shock and I couldn't believe what had just happened. I listened to being Scared, Let's Read and other true scary stories and never thought I would be face to face with a situation straight from a nightmare. It was only several miles later that my mom felt safe enough to pull off to the side of the road and called my dad and then the police to report what happened. The officers were incredibly kind and told us that the man was in police custody and asked if we were okay. My dad, however, was panicked. Everything he loved was in that car, he told us, and he was so glad that we were safe. That's when we realized had this man had a weapon, he most likely would have tried to use it. I began to tear up, realizing that we may have narrowly escaped a crazed man with our lives. My mom got a call the next day from the officer that had ran up from behind us and stopped the man. We were so incredibly grateful. My respect for law enforcement has always been strong and without them, I don't know what we would have done or if I would be here to tell this story. Thanks for listening. And of course our dog was fine sleeping peacefully the entire time. Just to preface, my memory is a little hazy whether it be from time or from what happened and for my privacy, let's say My name is Max. I grew up in a medium sized city in Wisconsin. This story takes place during elementary school. I think it was the third grade. The day started off like any other. I was going through classes, taking notes and participating every now and again. It was a few hours into the school day when I raised my hand to ask if I may use the restroom. The teacher gave me the go ahead and told me not to take too long. I exited the class and started walking to the boys room, specifically the one closer to a set of doors leading to the playground. I knew not many kids use that one unless it's recess, so it should be clear at the moment. I was pretty shy when it came to going to the bathroom with other people in with me. I usually would end up holding it in and just waiting for everyone else to clear out. Luckily I picked a good time. The bathroom was empty and so were the stalls. So I went ahead and went about my business. Just as I finish up, I hear the door open. What great timing. I thought to myself. So I clean up, flush, and make my way to the sink to wash up. But I turned to look and see whom had come into the bathroom. I was immediately confused. There was a boy too old to be a kid, but not old enough to be a teacher. So I shyly said hello to the tall young man. I can't remember his face well, but I do remember he had dirty blond hair and blue clouded eyes. He was also really thin but muscular and he looked like an older teenager. The stranger simply said, heya kid, how's it going? In a chipper tone of voice to which I said good, I'm just about done if you need to go. He shook his head no and looked me up and down. I didn't really pay it any mind and started to get paper towels to dry My hands. All of a sudden he asked me, hey, do you like wrestling? Which really puzzled me. What a weird topic and why now? I don't even know you. Those were the first thoughts that came to mind. Not really, but I haven't seen much was the only answer I could come up with. He followed up by saying, oh, okay, cool, cool. Well, hey, I love wrestling. Seeing those guys on stage, it's so awesome. Oh, hey, can I show you this cool new move that I saw them use last night? I started getting pretty anxious and sweaty. I didn't really want to stay in the bathroom for him to show me his moves, so I told him I would have to pass and that I didn't want to be late for class. To which he said, oh, don't worry, it won't be long. Here, let me show you. He started walking up to me and it was only then that I realized just how much taller he was. My heart started going a mile a minute and the next thing I knew, he put his hands around my throat. He started smiling this giant ear to ear grin. His breath smelled like cigarettes. I tapped his arm and asked for him to please let me go. With desperation in my voice. He just smiled bigger and began to chuckle to himself as he began lifting me up against the wall, pinning me to it with one hand, still holding me by the throat with the other. I felt my throat tighten and my windpipe close off. My eyes began to water. I was using my hands to cling to his arm, desperately trying to break free as I struggled. And then, like a jolt of lightning, the idea came to me. With all my strength and might, I kicked him as hard as I could right in the balls. I felt his grip loosen for just a second and then tighten with two times more force. It didn't work. He laughed and said, good effort. This time sounding a lot meaner. I started getting cold as my sight began to blur and my consciousness was slipping. I blacked out. The world and noise flow faded away. And after that I woke up on the bathroom floor. He was gone. So I got up a bit shaky, still trying to figure out where he was, and I left the boy's room and slowly walked down the hall back to class, peering over my shoulder to check if he was behind me. I got to my class and stood in the frame of my classroom door, looking down at my shoes and the white tile, only to hear my teacher. Max, didn't I tell you to hurry? It's been 30 minutes. What were you doing in there? I was stunned. I was Alone in that bathroom, knocked out with a stranger for 30 minutes. I yelled back at my teacher in a raspy, harsh voice, well, it's not my fault some guy choked me. She gave me a mean but curious look and told me to go to my seat and sit down as if she didn't understand me. So I trudged back to my desk and sat. I never told my school what happened and I told my mom almost 10 years after. The guy never got punished. I don't even think anyone knew he did something. If you want a lesson from this school, bathrooms suck. Just for context, I am a 23 year old male who lives in the Midwest, surrounded by woods and open farmland and both stories I'm about to tell you are 100% true. I often have sleep paralysis and I don't have creepy or off putting experiences. Sometimes I will hear something or see something that I think could be just my brain still half asleep. Not too scary for anyone who hasn't had sleep paralysis before, it's mostly just being awake and not being able to move. And yes, that sounds scary, but to a person that it happens to almost on a weekly basis, you get kind of used to it. Most of the time I just realize I'm in that state of being awake and not being able to move. So I usually just casually try to move my leg and arm muscles to eventually wake up and reposition myself so I can try to go back to sleep. Usually changing positions helps There were two occasions that I would like to share that genuinely terrified me. The first incident was the very first time I had sleep paralysis. I was about 8 years old and I was living with my grandparents at the time in the middle of a 26 acre plot on the countryside. I had a television set that was from the 80s or 90s, basically one of those types of TVs that gave you that weird static feeling if you got too close. Anyway, I was sleeping one night and I heard the sound of metal scraping and I woke up. The TV had a white static that was illuminating my room. In the room there was a closet that had a broken sliding door that would only open with extreme force. Enough force that I as an 8 year old child couldn't even open. Well. The scraping metal sound was the door sliding open and I knew it was that sound because I had heard it all the time when my grandparents needed to get into that closet. When I realized what it was, I thought it was one of my grandparents though. I thought it was strange that they were trying to get into the closet since it was around 2 or 3am at the time and there isn't really anything they should need in there at that time of night. It was mostly just old clothes and random knickknacks they have collected. When I went to turn my head to see what it was, I couldn't move my head. So I tried to pull my blanket off my body to try and stand up and I couldn't. The only feeling I had was what I could best describe as that feeling when your arm or leg falls asleep and you get that pins and needles feeling. Yeah, that. But across my entire body. I was genuinely terrified of why I couldn't move and why I heard the closet opening. Eventually I turned my eyes enough to see out of my peripheral vision a figure standing halfway out of the closet, staring at me. Not moving, just standing, staring. It was watching me struggle to move and I couldn't do anything but star stare back. I will never forget the long gangly look of the figure. If I had to compare it to something I would say it reminds me of the rake. But obviously this was a time before Internet scary stories and creepypastas, so I didn't know what that was at the time. All I know is I was in a complete state of shock and horror and I tried to let out a scream to alert my grandparents but I couldn't even muster up a squeak. Eventually, with enough brute force and a will to live, I managed to regain all my senses and shot up out of my bed and ran to turn on the light. The figure was gone but the closet was still open. I remember running to my grandparents room and screaming that there was a man in my closet and my grandpa who was a hunter had many weapons in the house and grabbed one. He threatened anyone who was in the house that they better show themselves. No one was there. I told them about the closet but they just told me it must have been open already. I know it wasn't open because that closet already scared me and I made sure it was closed before I went to bed. I never slept in that room again. I had my brother switch me rooms. I made up an excuse that I didn't like the color of the room and he just went along with it. But I think he knew I was scared and he was older so he took the room just to be a good brother. I never told him of the experience I had with the figure because I didn't even know if it was real or not. The second experience was more recent and the only other time that I have had a truly terrifying experience with sleep paralysis. I am now married and I told my wife about my sleep paralysis, but I told her not to worry too much because I am more used to it happening and I usually just keep my eyes shut to avoid seeing anything creepy. And like I said before, it's easily manageable and I usually don't see anything anyway. I just want to be sure. Anyway, this experience happened a few days before writing this. It was during the middle of the day and I was taking a nap in my bed. Usually when I have sleep paralysis, I can get myself out of it within a few seconds and go back to bed like nothing really happens. Not this time. Time. This time I woke up and knew I was paralyzed. So I tried to move my arms and legs around to get my body awake, but for some reason I could not get myself out of it. Like I said, I keep my eyes closed to avoid seeing anything. But this time, after about two or three minutes of trying to wake myself up, I started to get frustrated. So I decided to open my eyes. To my left is a large window. I live in an apartment complex in the underground level, so the window leads straight to the ground at eye level. Well outside, in broad daylight, I saw what looked to be the same figure I saw as a child. I can't be too too sure though. All I know is that this thing was tall and black and it was walking toward my window. Outside the apartment complex is a line of trees about 40ft back and it was at the tree line. As it slowly got closer, I noticed some features on the figure. Its eyes were beet red and it was smiling wide. Its teeth were poking out of its mouth and they were razor sharp. I couldn't do anything but watch in terror as this tall, horrifying figure walked toward me. It put me in a state of fear and I honestly almost started to cry, thinking my life was about to end. Finally, after about 30 seconds of me staring at this figure getting closer to me, I finally managed to wake myself up. And just as soon as it appeared, it was gone. I will never forget the way it was staring at me menacingly, almost like it was enjoying watching me suffer. It was the summer of 2012 and a dry, hot California day. I was 12 years old and lived in the mountain areas of California with my parents. I didn't have a cell phone yet, so I spent most of my days outside playing in the dirt. This day in particular was the worst. My parents were in a toxic marriage with each other and spent most of their days fighting. This day, the fight was so Bad that my dad left and my mom went straight to sleep in an alcohol induced coma. I was old enough to understand not to get involved and just stay outside. So I did. I was playing in the backyard when I started to hear a woman's cry. At first I thought it might just be my mother waking up and getting upset again. Her bedroom window was always open and faced the backyard. So in my mind this felt completely logical. I went back to what I was doing and about two minutes later I heard the cry again and this time it had grown louder. I began to feel unsettled as I realized that the sound was coming from in front of me, not behind me. I peeked around the corner and looked down the street to be faced with a horrific image. There was a grown woman walking down the street. She was completely naked and covered in blood. She was crying with the most unsettling cry I had ever heard. I thought to myself, I need to get inside. But because I hesitated, it gave the woman time to notice me and she began speed walking up to my house. I was frozen with fear as this woman approached me. She was crying and breathing heavily. As she got closer, I realized the blood was actively pouring from her stomach. I ran up my stairs and started screaming for my mom. The woman shouted, wait, I don't want to hurt you. Please, I need help. Tears were welling up in my eyes and I was shaking from fear. I stopped in my tracks at the top of the stairs and said, okay, sit on the stairs and I'm gonna go get my mom. The woman responded, thank you so much. I have been attacked and he's still looking for me. Being a dumb 12 year old, this was somewhat comforting to me to know that she was a normal woman who had been hurt. But concerning that she may bring an attacker to my house, I went and woke up my mom who was angry at me for waking her up and telling a lie. She came outside with me anyways and I watched her face lose color and she realized there really was a bloody woman on the porch. My mom yelled at me to go grab the woman one of her old T shirts and to call 911. I brought my mom's T shirt and she helped the woman get dressed. I called 911 on the house telephone and frantically explained what had happened. The operator asked me, sweetheart, are you there alone? I responded, no, my mom is here with me. Sitting next to the woman, the 911 operator took a deep breath and said, this is what I need you to do. I need you to tell your mom, the ambulance is on the way. And then tell her to get inside and lock all of your doors until the police and paramedics arrive. I was confused and I once again explained to the operator that the woman was attacked and the attacker is out looking for her. The operator then said something that sent chills down my spine. Sweetheart, she is the attacker. She stabbed her neighbor 37 times. He called first and was picked up about 30 minutes ago. Police have been looking for this woman for months as this is not the first time she has attacked someone. It was at that moment that I looked outside side and noticed that the woman was holding a box cutter in her left hand. I screamed at my mom to get inside now. Which caused the woman to jump up and pull the box cutter towards my mom. My mother kicked her and ran inside. The woman banged and kicked at our door for the entire 15 minutes it took the police and ambulance to arrive. When they got there, she stopped and began to cry again. She attempted to tell the police that she had been attacked, but they obviously were not buying it. They put the woman in the ambulance and the police handcuffed her to the railing of her bed. The sheriff called later that night and explained that the woman's stab wound on her stomach was done by her to make it look like she had truly been attacked. He had also said that this man, the neighbor, was the third victim of hers in the past few months and that if we had waited any longer, we could have been next. I was given a stern talking to by the sheriff about how dangerous this could have gone and how I should never talk to strangers. It was hard to focus on him though, because all I could hear in my head was the 911 operator saying, Sweetheart, she is the attacker.