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This happened to me a couple of months ago now, but when it first happened, given how crazy it was, it took me a few weeks to collect myself enough to tell this story. It's relevant for me to tell you up front that I'm a military veteran and I have PTSD and anxiety as well as a pretty bad case of depression that I'm currently in my third year of. I have read that CBT Cognitive Behavioral Therapy can massively improve PTSD symptoms and in turn help to reduce anxiety. So I have been trying various techniques at home. The problem there is my wife and I live in a small two bedroom ground floor flat with an upstairs neighbor with absolutely no concept of other people. A jock douchebag type who's a personal trainer, but he trains at home too cause gains. You know the kind of guy whose only two topics of conversation are protein powder and steamed rice. I'm sure you can imagine the type of with that being a constant issue, meditation and quiet mindfulness are just not possible with the constant noise. My solution to this was to do my normal routine during the day, but take advantage of my insomnia later on. At around 23:00 o'clock I would put on my coat and my shoes and as we live near the beach I figured I could walk to the beach. Now that there's pretty much no people around, walk on the sand and be mindful to the sounds of the ocean. Sounds nice, doesn't was the first two times. But you know what they say, the third time's the Charm. The walk to the beach from my home isn't that far, maybe a little over half a mile. But once I got there, I would walk to the very end of the beach until you reached the cliffs where there is a World War II artillery gun turret which was another half mile ish. Sometimes I would walk the path up the cliff to the gun and stare out into the blackness of the midnight ocean, which was only broken by the occasional flash of light from the lighthouse. I would sit and listen to the waves crashing against the cliffs. Sometimes I would close my eyes and just concentrate on nothing but that sound. I felt safe there, knowing I was alone, just me and the ocean. Usually before I turn tail and head home, I would walk down to a small row of benches. They are all marked with plaques in remembrance of someone who also came and enjoyed the view, although I imagine they came during the day. The benches are close to an old pub that was shut down years ago and I had heard the place used to get used as a dogging site or a brothel or something back in the day. So when I saw vehicle headlights coming towards the pub, I figured it was some young lads trying to catch potential doggers at it. I sat on the bench and waited for the car to pass me, but as it rounded a bend in the road further up, I was momentarily lit up by the headlights. The headlights of the vehicle went off immediately and the car went off road and out of sight for a moment. At this point I was fully alert and a bit cautious, so I dropped to one knee and ducked behind the bench I had been sitting on. The vehicle drove past me. It was only maybe 40ft from me and as the lighthouse illuminated the vehicle, I could now see it was an old beat up Land Rover kind of vehicle with crappy camo paint on the wings. At that moment, someone popped out of the top of the vehicle with a scoped rifle and a big torch. In that instant in my head I was back in Iraq and my senses felt razor sharp. I dropped onto my belt buckle and crawled into a patch of long grass adjacent to the benches. Then I got in position where I could see them but they couldn't see me. The guy with the rifle shone his torch at the exact bench I had been sitting on. Then the others searching for me. He started looking all around him through the scope, looking for where I might have gone. My heart was pounding so hard I felt as if I could hear it. I held my sleeve over my mouth to muffle the sound of my breathing, but more importantly to try and hide the condensation of my breath. The vehicle started to move to get a better view of the benches, so I started slowly crawling towards the main road as not only is there a row of houses, but an old stone bus stop I could take hard cover in if they saw me and opened fire. After about five minutes of hiding in the long grass, it started to rain and they were still clearly looking for me, but were now about 150ft away. The guy with the rifle was scanning around with his eye down the scope, so I waited until he was looking away for me to seize my moment and and run for cover. I pushed my hands hard into the wet dirt to launch myself onto my feet. Then I sprinted towards the bus stop while throwing some zigs and zags in there just in case they had seen me. Luckily they hadn't and I was now far enough away that I could take out my phone and call the police. They were there with a riot van and a squad car in about 10 minutes and as I was talking to the officers in the van, they. They spotted the gunner's vehicle and took off after them. The officers in the squad car stayed behind to talk to me. The rain was coming down in sheets by now. They asked me if I was absolutely sure it was a rifle and I told them Yes. I was 100%, no doubt in my mind at all. The officers both looked at each other and then one of them asked, and what exactly is your experience with firearms? I told them I was ex army and have seen my fair share of all kinds of firearms. They then asked me what I was doing there after midnight, which is a pretty fair question, to be honest. I explained that quite ironically, I was taking a mindfulness walk to ease my PTSD symptoms. They were satisfied with that explanation, if not somewhat amused, and told me that the armed response unit was en route. I asked if they needed me to stay behind and make a statement, but the officers told me not to bother waiting around because they most likely wouldn't need to take a statement beyond the call I made. And also it was pissing down with rain, so I should get home and get dry. It was over, but I still felt super wired and my heart was still thumping hard in my chest. I started the walk home and when I was about halfway there, a police helicopter buzzed overhead and settled over the area where I'd been sitting on the benches with the searchlight going. It was right then it hit me like a shotgun to the chest. That happened. That was real and it was here. What the hell? My head started swimming. My heart was pounding twice as hard now and my legs felt like jelly and my lungs felt felt glitchy. I couldn't breathe properly. I dropped to my knees, crying in the street in the pouring rain, the only light coming from a nearby street lamp with a flickering bulb. I was gasping for breath, thoughts flashing in my head, thinking that if I had stayed still, if I hadn't hunched behind the bench, if I had done any number of things differently, or hadn't, then I could have gurgled my last breath alone in the dark in the cold wet dirt, and my wife would be none the wiser. Till the following day. I have no idea if they were even there for me. And if they were, how could they know I would be there? I had been twice before. I suppose it's not like there's animals to hunt there beyond foxes. But why hunt foxes from a vehicle with a rifle and a torch at midnight anyway? I am not ashamed to say that that experience terrified me. I guess my army training helped me stay alert to stay hidden. But I don't really know. I don't go walking at night anymore and I have the occasional nightmare about the whole thing. So this happened my senior year of college over a year ago. I lived in a college neighborhood surrounded by other kids that went to my school. With the exception of a family or two, we knew our neighbors well and everyone was fairly civil with one another. We did keep in mind, though, that this was a college area and some sketchy things could happen. I think it was May when the first break in happened. I woke up one morning to some texts in my group message telling me that my next door neighbor's house had been broken into, that they had multiple things stolen, a backpack with a laptop and textbooks inside, a gaming console, etc. They had notified the police and they were on the case. This obviously set my roommates and I into a little bit of a panic because we were a house of four girls and none of us being wildly brave by any means, we decided the best we could do was make sure our door was locked at all times whether we were home or not. So that's what we did. Flash forward to a couple of days later. My roommate Maggie and I were the only two home out of the four who lived in our house. We stayed up late watching movies as we always did, and then I headed off to my room to go to bed while Maggie stayed on the couch. We were, I'm not pleased to admit, the worst at turning off the lights and saving electricity. So this Night, the light in the kitchen, living room, and hallway were all on. I slept soundly through the night and woke up as the sun shone through the cracks in my blinds. The next morning, as usual after I woke up, I spent about 10 minutes in my bed on my phone before getting up to use the bathroom. On my way back into my bedroom, I noticed that my blinds were tapping slightly against my window frame, suggesting that there was a breeze. My fan was off and my window was closed, so there should be no movement, right? Well, right if my window had been closed. When I drew open my blinds, I was absolutely horrified to see that my bedroom window had been completely open all night, or at least since I had gone to sleep. I knew that my window was shut when I went to sleep the night before. And there is something wildly unsettling about the fact that my bed is also pushed up on the wall right against my window. So perfectly, in fact, that I used to sit in my window on my bed with my feet completely able to touch the grass below. That's how low this window is, and that's how close my bed is now. At this point, I was frantic. I ran out into the living room to see if Maggie was okay and if she had noticed anything or heard anything throughout the night. She wasn't home, and I assumed she had gone to class. I texted her immediately, explaining what had happened and asking all of my questions. She responded lightning fast. She had woken up this morning in the living room, and when she walked into her bedroom to get ready for class, her window was open. Her desk, which sits right in front of her window, was pushed away from the wall. And her closet doors, which were always open because they jutted right up against the carpet so they were very hard to open and close, were completely closed. She said it looked exactly as though someone pushed her desk away from the window to give themselves more room to enter. Quietly, in an absolute frenzy, I texted my other roommates who hadn't been home, and my group message alerting them of what had happened. I crawled the house, looking to see if any of my things were missing. And when my roommates came home later that day, they did the same. Nothing had been stolen, not even my laptop or my phone, which were both charging on my bed right in front of the window. Not even Maggie's apple watch that was sitting on her desk in front of her window. We did call the police and they came to file a report, but they never followed up with us about it. I asked if they could dust my window for prints, as there had to have been handprints because the only way to open my window from the outside is to press your palms directly on the glass and push upward with significant force. But they never followed through with doing that either. I am not sure really what to think of this as maybe it was a planned break in, but they didn't think I would be asleep in their point of entry. But they entered, we think, through another window nonetheless. So why didn't they take anything? And how did the sounds not wake us up? I was directly next to my window, so they would have had to completely jump over my body to enter my room. So I don't think they did enter from there at least, which is a little relieving. Maybe they didn't enter at all because the lights were all on and they realized people were home. But our cars were in the driveway and it did seem as though they entered because Maggie's closet doors were shut. This was super bizarre to me. I am just relieved that I have since moved out of that house. I am pretty annoyed that the police didn't take it very seriously, but at least I'm also a little relieved that the people who broke in and I never had to meet let's call her Sam. All throughout high school and even for a bit afterwards, we were best friends. Even though we were best friends, I felt like I didn't really know her, if that makes sense. We were pretty wild teenagers. Drinking, smoking, hanging out with older guys, etc. Sam always dated super sketchy guys. When we were 16, Sam started dating a 27 year old named John. Disgusting. I know I had my fair share of dating guys way too old for me as well though, so I didn't see anything wrong with it. Also, predators have a special way of making you feel like there's nothing wrong with what they are doing. I have my fair share of trauma due to older men from that time in my life, but that's a story for another time. She didn't have a car at the time, so she would regularly ask me to drop her off at this place to hang out and cover for her if her mom contacted me because this relationship was obviously hidden from her mom. Being an idiot teenager, I was like, yeah, sure, whatever. She's my homegirl and I know she would do the same for me. Plus I had met John several times before and he seemed decent enough at the time. Please keep in mind that I was also a teenager at the time and obviously I realized that he's a predator now. He would give us alcohol and stuff and Would invite us over to party with his equally disgusting friends. Their quote unquote relationship seemed fine at first, but it turned toxic within a few months. He would constantly demand to track her phone location and control what she wore. He also cheated on her multiple times, but she always stayed. During the time this happened, I stopped driving her to see him. One time she called me begging me to drive her to see him. I said no. She went on to explain that he was drunk and if I wouldn't, then he would pick her up and if they got in a crash due to drunk driving, it would be my fault. So I drove her to his house. I was furious with John at this point for hurting my best friend and had a rebellious teenage attitude. So as soon as I walked into his house to drop Sam off, I started screaming at him for being a manipulative piece of crap. His response and the dark, twisted yet emotionless look in his eyes still gives me chills to this day. I could break your neck so easily. Thankfully, I was standing right by the front door, so I ran to my car and immediately sped off. The next couple of years are kind of fuzzy, but basically they were constantly breaking up and getting back together. Sam dated a string of other guys but would always cheat on them with John. When we were 18, this is when things started getting progressively weirder and I started to distance myself from Sam because of it. Long story short, Sam had a new boyfriend who she seemed crazy about and I was so relieved because she finally seemed over John. Then she heard through the grapevine that John got engaged and she became irate. We were hanging out when she heard the news and she was like, I just have to go home and process this. So she immediately left and I was like, whatever, I'll give her her space. She calls me a few hours later and was talking super fast and laughing a lot. I asked her, are you good? And she responded, yeah, I just broke into John's apartment and smashed all of this stuff. I know that I have this new guy I'm dating, but I have been hooking up with John. Still don't hate me and I'm sorry I didn't tell you, but anyway, I feel so great. I broke his TV and cut up all his sheets. Too bad John and his fiance weren't home. I had never seen her act like this before and was so alarmed. What would she have done if they were home? The break in was never reported to the police. Police because she told John it was her and if he went to the police, John's fiance Likely would have found out that he was cheating on her with Sam. Now, at this point, a smart person would completely cut her off, but I didn't. I stopped hanging out with her as much, and we naturally grew a bit distant because I had moved across the country for college, but we would text and FaceTime every couple of weeks. So at this point you're probably thinking, okay, so what about the murder? Hang tight, we're almost there. In 2018, John's fiance was found dead. The police immediately ruled it as a suicide because a note and the gun was found in her hand. But all of her friends and family insisted that she would never do that. I know this because I had a few mutual friends with this feeling fiance, and it was understandably all that anyone could talk about. She was known to everyone as being extremely positive and cheerful. They pressured the cops to investigate more, and lo and behold, one year later, John was found guilty of murdering her. He's currently in prison and it chills me to the bone knowing that I was in his house on multiple occasions and used to freak frequently hang out with him. So now moving on to why I think my friend may have had something to do with it. Last year, she was visiting my city and asked to meet up for dinner. I was like, sure, why not? We're gonna be in public and I do miss her and it would be nice to catch up. While we were at dinner, she had her phone on the table and I saw a call from the name Jail ringing into her phone. She quickly excused herself to take the call and was gone for a couple minutes. When she got back, I was like, what the hell? She explained that she visits John in prison regularly and they talk on the phone every day. I asked why he was found guilty of murder. Why would you want anything to do with him? And she looked me dead in the eyes with a look of pure evil and malice and responded. I'm the only one who knows what actually happened. Nobody else knows the truth. I quickly changed the subject and finished my dinner really quickly and made an excuse to leave. I was terrified at this point and had no idea what she was capable of. I hightailed it back to my apartment and blocked her on everything. I haven't spoken to her since. I know this isn't solid proof that she was involved, but her past behavior, the break in, coupled with that chilling comment and the fact that she regularly visited a convicted murderer in prison leads me to believe she had something to do with it. At the very least, she knows much more than she's Admitting so some background context. This was back in the 90s when our only option was a landline phone and dial up Internet. I was around 8 or 9 years old when my mom started leaving me at home with my oldest brother while she went to work. My brother was much older, around 17 at the time. Like most teenage boys, his favorite thing to do was sleep really late during the day and stay up all night playing video games. PlayStation 1 to be exact. I remember being bored playing with my toys in the living room of my house with the blinds wide open to let some light in and save on electricity. I would sit there for hours and play. When mom was gone, she always told us to answer the phone when it rang in case she was calling to check on us and make sure we were okay. I remember one day specifically I answered the phone and just heard loud breathing on the other end. I kept saying hello but no one would reply so eventually I would hang up. This went on daily for about two months and it was always in the morning time when my brother was asleep. Being a naive eight or nine year old girl, I didn't really think anything of it and eventually the calls stopped. A few months go by and I am sitting on my living room floor again when the phone rings. I hear the same breathing again and say hello, who is this? To my surprise a man replies and says hello kitten, do you remember me? I remember being surprised that he called me kitten but replying that he had the wrong number. This is where it gets creepy. He then replies no kitten, I have the right number. You're wearing a kitty shirt right now. I remember looking down and immediately panicking and hanging up the phone when I see the tabby kitten on my shirt. The phone then rings again and I refuse to answer it. I run to wake up my brother and he sleepily follows me to the living room. The phone rings again and he answers it but no one is there. He then unplugs the phone and tells me that it is just my imagination and to leave him alone so he can sleep. Being scared, I decided to close the windows and sit on the couch until my mom got home that afternoon. That night I told my mom what happened, but my brother told her I was making it up and that he didn't see or hear anything. I think my mom believed me but she just told me to hang up the phone if it wasn't her and to never open the door for a stranger. I agreed and told her I wouldn't. That next day my mom was off work and she took me to the store with her. We were walking around when I noticed a man in a long trench coat. I thought the coat was weird but didn't really think anything else of it. We then ran into one of my mom's friends who has a daughter my age. My mom and her friend were chatting away and my friend and I were standing a few feet from them messing with some birthday cards. We went around to the other side of the cards to look out of sight of our moms. Suddenly the man with the trench coat is right next to us looking at the cards too. He then picks up a card and turns to me and my friend and says hello. Being polite, we respond hello. He then starts picking up cards saying he is getting his daughter something and asks what we like. My friend points to a random card and he smiles and says it's nice. He then picks up another card and shows it to us. The card has kittens all over it and he looks directly at me and says I'm sure you like kittens, don't you? I didn't really know how to respond and remember feeling extremely nervous. He smiled when he saw me getting nervous and says kittens and Barbies. This kicked my fight or flight into action at the young age of 8 or 9. I nervously laughed and said that we had to go back to our moms now. The man then reaches out and grabs my arm. My friend takes off running around the corner to get my mom. The man tries to pull me to the front of the store but I kick him as hard as I can and go flying out of his grip. He then gets up and runs out the door. About the time that my mom makes it over to me, the police are called and a report is filed. To my knowledge they never found the man, but my mom was extremely paranoid after hearing the link between the phone calls and the incident and she found a new house in the city right across from us not even a month later. Thankfully, that was the last time I heard from him. To first start off, I live in a little city in SoCal with my roommate who happens to be my cousin. During this pandemic. However, I have been staying with my parents who live in a very small town in Norcal. Because of my time in SoCal, I really do not like staying in Norcal and I would rather live back in my apartment. The reason why I haven't done that is because my parents think I might get lonely since everything is closed down and my roommate is not there as he is also with his parents. However, since I had to go back for a specific reason. My parents wanted me to take their dog Mocha so it wouldn't feel as lonely still staying there. I loved her so I didn't mind one bit. Mocha is a small pomchi dog that loves to play around me and is usually by my side for most of the time. She also loves to go on runs with me, so I occasionally do take her on jogs. On a Wednesday night, I decided to go running with her. Whenever I go on any run, I go at night because that's the time I am most interested, energetic and all the times I went running at night I never had any type of encounters or occurrences. I put Mocha on a leash and off we went. About 20 minutes into our run, I was running through this creek where there was a park next to it and a bunch of trees surrounding it. Houses on the other side. The trail was pretty narrow and the street lamps were pretty dim but still bright enough to see up ahead as I'm running with music playing, my leash was tugged by Mocha. This usually happens when she wants to go to the bathroom, so I stopped to let her do her thing. But when I turned around, she was in her alert stance looking straight behind where we had run. I just assumed that she had heard a squirrel or any small animal as she usually does this when she sees one. I was tugging her leash telling her let's go, go. There's nothing there. She didn't oblige at first, she just kept looking behind us. It took me about four or five tugs before she finally came to me. I resumed playing my music and we both went off running. I was almost out of the creek and I would then meet a narrow sidewalk that was straight ahead. The trail only had to take a short turn. Probably a minute or two later. Mocha tugged the leash again and went on her alert stance behind us. She did an aggressive bark and started growling. I stopped and was looking all around behind us. I was kind of freaking out because the trail had a couple turns and curves. This means that something was most likely following us. My first guess was a lost dog, which was unsettling because Mocha is tiny. If it was a big dog, it can easily overpower her. As I was looking around the dim area for a split second, I saw a black humanoid figure about 15 yards away from me, right behind a bush next to a tree. I immediately turned my eyes in the opposite direction and pretended that I did not see him, but boy was my heart pounding. I didn't see any figures or his Face. I just saw the outline of his upper body. I didn't have any weapons on me as self defense. If this guy is following me, my best solution is to run off without him trying to catch me. I tried to act cool and told Mocha, let's go. The trail was going to end. I just had to make a turn and it would be a straight sidewalk. That was about 300, 400 yards. There are fences on both sides of the sidewalk, so the only solution was to keep running forward. I jogged to the right as I turned the corner and made sure I was out of view from the person. I went on a full on sprint as quietly as I could. The sidewalk was ahead of me so I made sure to just keep running. I kept looking behind me to see if I was really being followed. And about 70 yards away I saw a person come into view from the turn and when they saw that I was running, they started sprinting towards me. I started running as fast as I could. I have never sprinted so fast ever in my life. Looking back, I am amazed at how fast I was running. Truly, Mocha was keeping up with me somehow. I look over my shoulder and see that the guy is still running behind me. He had a dark hoodie on, dark sweatpants, and appeared to be about 6ft tall. He was still in about the same distance that I had noticed him in earlier, which means that he ran pretty fast as well. The sidewalk was going to end in about 100 yards and it would lead to a neighborhood. I thought maybe I can lose him there. I was slowly getting out of breath. My adrenaline was beginning to die down. I kept sprinting hoping I wouldn't get tired too quickly. 100 yards. I finally made it to the neighborhood out of breath. This neighborhood was pretty broad, so if I were to keep running, the person would have spotted me right away. And at the pace he was running, it didn't seem like a good idea. My best solution was to hide. I went straight to a random house and jumped over their fence into their backyard. I basically threw Mocha over and then myself. We were both panting, but I tried to keep quiet as I heard footsteps coming by. The guy had finished the trail and was now in the neighborhood. He stopped running and I heard him panting. I was hearing him mutter as he was out of breath. He kept saying what the hell. I was holding Mocha, petting her so she wouldn't bark or growl. About five minutes later, I heard footsteps walking away and then slowly faded into nothingness. I waited about 10 minutes in complete silence to be sure he wasn't close by. And then I peeked my head around the fence and I was alone. I got Mocha and went the opposite direction from where I heard the guy go. Even though I was tired, I tried to jog just so I could get home sooner. I I kept looking around me. I was very paranoid that the guy would be there somewhere. I made it back home with no problem and I have to thank Mocha for pretty much telling me that someone was behind us, following us, stalking us. I don't know how long he was following us or what he was planning on doing. I just hope he didn't get a clear glimpse of my face and I really hope I never come across him again I mentioned in one of my other stories that I have been digging through my memory to share some weird or crazy things that have happened. I recently remembered this situation through a Facebook memories post that I had shared because this was about five years ago. Not as creepy as my other encounter and this guy made me very uncomfortable but I didn't feel like he was gonna murder me any second like the redhead guy. But this was still very weird. I mentioned several times that I live above a funeral home. My apartment has its own private back staircase going outside and when you walk out there is a wall on both sides and a few stairs. The parking lot is a huge circle. Basically you come in the entrance and it is a huge parking lot behind and then there is an exit side that you have to leave out of. It's very well lit and open but when we are on the stairs we can't see anyone coming from either side. So my point is that when I'm sitting on my back stairs smoking I can only see in front of me and not to the sides until someone comes around a corner. So one night during the summer I was outside for a while having a few smokes and just browsing my phone, kind of lost in my own world. It's like 9pm at least. All of a sudden this guy came around the corner and scared the life out of me because of the way I can't see anything. I have had several people startle me because I didn't hear them coming. But it's unusual for someone to pop up this late at night, especially where I am sitting you can't see me so I don't even know if he knew I was sitting outside. This guy was a totally normal looking middle aged guy, probably 50s or so, clean cut, dressed nicely but he was very antsy so he started to tell me this story it's been several years, so I'll try to retell it the best I remember the whole time he has his hands in his pockets and he is just exuding this nervous energy. He tells me that his car broke down right on the main road in front of my house. But a little farther down there are two side streets running down each side of my house. He points down the street to the left. I live right down this street, but my car broke down and I have a tow guy waiting for me, but he won't take my car until I pay him and I have no money. I know you probably don't believe me, but if you give me some money, I can go home and get it from my wife and I. I'll repay you right away. You can even walk down with me. He was talking fast too. I was extremely nervous because I was alone downstairs, but I didn't feel as threatened as my more recent encounter. But I did know he was totally full of crap. I told him, I'm really sorry, but I don't have any cash and I can't help you. And he continued to beg, but I had to keep telling him, I really don't have have any money to give you. I was standing at this point kinda ready to go inside just in case, but then my husband came out to have a smoke. As soon as my husband walked out, the guy looked even more nervous. And my husband said, hey buddy, what's going on? Obviously he thought it was weird that some strange guy was talking to me out there in the dark. And I'm super non confrontational, so I have a really hard time telling people off. But once my husband was outside, he says to me, it's okay, I'll just wait for the toe guy to come and walks away. Um, you literally just told me that you had to pay the guy waiting. Which? One, they don't require payments until they drop you off, I believe. And two, the story changed pretty fast. So we eventually went inside and I decided to look out the front windows of my dad's office where I can see down farther on each side of the main street in the direction he had walked. There was no sign of any broken down car or tow truck or anything in any line of my sight, which is pretty far. Also, if you lived right down the street, then why wouldn't you just walk home and get the money yourself? The whole story was total bullcrap, which I knew. But what scared me was his intentions. This is what bothered me most. Most likely he was looking for drug money. It was a really elaborate story for that, but maybe he thought it would work. How did he know to come talk to me? Like I said, you cannot see me from anywhere when I'm on my stairs. He wasn't just cutting through my parking lot and saw me, he came right up to me like he was targeting me. I hope it was just drag drug related, but I don't know why he would want me to go with him to get the supposed money instead of just going. The way he acted when my husband came out really freaked me out. It's like his whole plan had been foiled. Whatever that plan was, that's what bothered me the most. Thankfully I never saw this guy again, but I did mention it to my dad and he called one of his local PD friends to come to a quick drive through occasionally just to check out the area at night. This made me feel a little better. I don't know if he was just a desperate junkie with a really poor thought out story or if he had worse intentions. It all started about a month ago as I was sitting out on my front porch having a cigarette. A random man pops up from around my bushes and walks right up to me. He's pretty, tan, slim but fit, build to him, probably about 5 7, walks up and casually asks hey, I couldn't bother you for one of those, right? It was random at the time but I didn't mind. I pulled another smoke out, handed it to him and offered my lighter if he needed it. No, don't worry Sarge, I don't need it. As soon as he said that, he turned around, placed the cigarette into the branches on the bush and walked across the street to the house that faces us. I sat there quietly as he did all of this. Why would he ask me for a smoke then put it in my bush and walk away? Weird. But I don't live in the best area so I took the smoke and went back inside. Little did I know that wasn't going to be the last time he does something strange. Two weeks pass without any problems. My sister brings my niece and nephew over for my mother and I to watch them. One Friday afternoon we got them to settle down to a movie. When my dogs dart towards the door, their hair standing up on the backs of their necks. But they weren't barking. I shooed them away from the front door so since they are known for getting excited about anything they hear out front, no sooner did I turn my back to the door, two knocks thumped on the front door behind me. I slowly open the door and see the cigarette guy standing on my porch, a wide grin plastered across his face. I open the screen door and step out in front of him. Now let me clarify. I'm a giant. I'm 6 foot 5, 300 pounds and have some martial arts background behind me. But when I stood there in front of him, my fight or flight response went haywire. I felt the blood rush out of my head and hands and into my feet, which is something I rarely felt before. He sat there smiling, doing nothing else. I ask him if I can help him. He reaches into his pockets and pulls out a pack of cash Camels and opens them towards me. There's three cigarettes poking out. Hey Sarge, you want a cig? Why does he keep calling me Sarge? I tell him I'm good and I have my own smokes and it looks like he's almost out anyways. His smile vanishes instantly. His eyes seemed to completely glaze over. I won out. It caught me by surprise. Everything. I want out. Tango out. He starts rocking back and forth repeating I want out and Tango out. I can't begin to tell you the thoughts that were going through my head at this point. I'm speechless. Hey Sarge, can you get me out of everything? The military, the FBI, make it all go away. Please sir. At that moment I remember that my mother, niece and nephew are right on the other side of the door. And this guy seems like he's about to lose it. Without a second thought, I place my hand on his shoulder. This stopped him from rocking. I ask him if everything is okay. He stares back at me for a while before another smile breaks over his face. Hey, yeah, yeah. He turns his attention towards my front window. The blinds are shut, but he is focused heavily on them as I noticed this and was about to say something. Gotta get back to field. Tango out. He pulled away and sprinted his way across the street to the house. I stood there dumbfounded. I couldn't believe what just happened in those short couple minutes. I hop inside and lock the door. My mother is staring at me, confused. So I tell her about everything that just happened. The weird thing is we know the woman who lives across the street. She lives alone. Where did this guy come from? My mother and I decided to call him Tango out after that incident. Here's the part that really sent me over the edge with this guy. We got ahold of the woman across the street and got some information about him. He's the son of her friend. They haven't been able to find a place to live. He's apparently an extreme paranoid schizophrenic. He has never been in the military nor the FBI. His mother has no idea how his mental state deteriorated to such a severe degree. She assured us that he's harmless and that he's only a danger to himself. Well, last week my mother and her boyfriend decided to go hang out with some family. So I was home alone with my two dogs. I don't usually watch Netflix, but I heard Invader Syn had a new movie. So I sat on the living room sofa and was there for about an hour and a half. The entire time I was walking watching, which was about 11:30pm to 12:45am I kept seeing something outside my front window out of the corner of my eye. My dogs made no movement and it was quite windy so I brushed it off as moving trees or something. I finished the movie and flipped the TV off. I stand to stretch and once again I catch something out of the corner of my eye. This time though, my dogs went straight to the door and stood at alert. I was about to go out for a smoke anyway, so I make my way to the window to show my dogs that my mom and dad weren't home yet. That's when I saw him standing on my porch staring at my front door. Once again my fight or flight response exploded way more than the first time. I snuck my way to the front door and quietly turned the deadbolt and handle locks. I didn't want him to hear me. I can see out of my blinds, but only a little bit. He's still standing there, not moving an inch, wearing a white tank top and probably his boxers. I was dead focused on him. I was trying to figure out if I was going to have to confront this man. He has never been mean or angry towards us. I have no bad things to say about him since I understand he's not all there, but this was too bizarre. He had to have been standing there the entire time I was watching that movie. Maybe even longer. I walk to my room and place a couple shells next to my shotgun just in case. I call my mother's phone as I stare back out to see what he's doing, but he's not there. I scan over the yard but I don't see him anywhere. When she answers, I tell her what Tango out is doing and she hands the phone to her boyfriend. He makes sure that I have my gun ready in case he tries to go hostile. They'll be home in half an hour. I said. That's okay and I hang up the phone I press 911 on my ringer to be ready at a moment's notice. And that's when I look back out the peak spot of my window and he's standing there staring at me. I doubt he was able to actually see me, but it made me jump back and duck below the window. I scramble to grab my phone that fell when I jumped. That's when two little knocks happen on the front door. I freeze entirely. Two more little knocks follow. I separate my blinds just enough for me to see his face. He has a simple, calm expression on his face, but I can see tears pouring down his face with swollen eyes. I was just about to hit dial to 911 when from around the corner, two officer units with flashing lights pulled up in front of my house. I'm still shocked. Someone must have seen him and called the cops before I did. I see Tango out, turn around and stare at the lights. Then he casually walked over to them. I opened my blinds to see two officers grab him and immediately start to search and question him. After a moment, making sure the cops had him under control, I came out and stood on my patio and stared at them. I lit a cigarette since my nerves were all over the place and waited for one of the cops to walk over and talk to me. They have had to wrangle him up for multiple places around the neighborhood and have even had him break into people's garages and sleep there for the night just to be discovered the next morning. They ask if I'm okay. I say yes. They make a couple comments about how he was about to break into the lair of a giant. They ask if I want to press charges, but I say no since I know he's a paranoid schizophrenic and he's not able to control himself all the time. They took him back across the street street to his mother. My parents came back shortly after that and the night kind of ended there. I woke up the next day to find multiple cans of food spread all over my front yard. Maybe it was Tango Out's way of saying sorry. I rounded them up and placed them on her property and went to work. Since then we haven't had an issue with Tango Out. I see him once in a while while walking down the street. I guess the cops are going to help his mother get them into suitable living and him into a hospital for the help he needs. But he hasn't come back onto our property since that night. I'm still a little nervous going out for a smoke though. Tango out. I can't imagine what's going on in your mind. Whatever is haunting your thoughts and dreams, I hope one day you can overcome them and live happily. Tangawaout and his mother were finally able to get into assisted living. Thanks to the help of the neighborhood and the local law enforcement, he is finally getting the help that he deserves. So a few years ago I lived in one of the most beautiful yet crime ridden cities in America. At this time I lived upstairs in a building with four apartments. The building layout is relevant so I'll explain it. It's a square building with two apartments upstairs and two downstairs. In the front of the house were three doors. Two led to the downstairs apartments and the middle door opened to a stairway. At the top of the stairway was a landing where my and my neighbor's door was located. We upstairs tenants rarely used the front door unless to get the mail because our parking was in the alley behind the house and we had our own individual entrances there. I should also note the door at the bottom of the front stairs was always locked even though we also had solid front doors that led directly into our apartments. If you didn't know the building, you might assume the middle door led straight into an apartment and not a staircase. Anyway, so this all happened when I was about 24 and living on my own with my two large but super friendly pit bulls. The other three apartments were all occupied with people who went to the nearby art college. This happened the first week of school break, so everyone had just gone home to visit their family and whatnot. It was about 2am and I had just gotten into bed when my dogs started getting antsy and running from my bedroom to the front door. I wasn't expecting company so I decided to look out my peephole. No one was there and the motion sensor light that goes off when someone gets to the top of the stairs hadn't come on. I calmed my dogs though they wouldn't take their attention off the door and went back to bed. A minute later my dogs were up and whining at the door again. What the hell. I'm so tired and I want to sleep. I decide to investigate, thinking maybe a mouse or a rat had somehow gotten into the front hallway and the dogs can smell it or something. So I unlock and open my front door at the bottom of the stairs and making his way up towards me was a police officer with his head down and trying to silently creep up the stairs through the crack in my door. I yell what the hell is going on? Why are you in my building? Meanwhile, my Dogs start barking behind me, probably because they could tell how nervous and startled I was. He stops creeping and looks up the stairs toward me. I am not sure if he could see me because my lights were off and the motion light hadn't come on yet. This guy looks so startled and so surprised, like a kid caught red handed stealing a cookie from the cookie jar. It takes him a few seconds to answer me and he says something along the lines of I I noticed I backyard fire at this address that was creating too much smoke. So I say there's no one having a bonfire here and if there was, why did you decide to come into my house instead of ringing my doorbell? I am pissed and scared. Do you see any smoke around my house? Why didn't you just drive down the alley behind the house to check the backyard? By the time I finished the questions, he had backed down the few steps he had made it up and was shutting the door while saying s sorry. S sorry. His behavior was so weird and not at all like the pompous, confident way most police officers in my area behave when they think they get to flex their badge. I wait a minute by my door to make sure he's not coming back in and grab the dogs and take them to lock the bottom door and then make sure my apartment door is thoroughly deadbolted, chained and the knob is locked. I went to my back patio and looked down onto where we have a fire pit, tiki torches, a grill, etc. And none of them have been used for weeks. Not only that, but there was no smoke anywhere. None of the people on my block that night had any kind of grill started or backyard fires. There wasn't even the smell of smoke, let alone smoke thick enough to warrant the cops coming by. I have no clue what that quote unquote cop was talking about. Unfortunately, it was too dark to see what he really looked like aside from tomorrow, tall and white or get a badge number and by the time I finished inspecting my backyard for smoke and went to see if I could get the license plate off of his cruiser, he was gone. The next day I checked to see if the lock on my front door was broken. There were scratches all over the lock as if someone had been picking at was a fairly new lock, so the scratches had to have been recent. I called the local precinct and asked if they had a call about my address. They confirmed what I thought. They didn't send anyone out here last night. I ended up asking them to send someone out to take a report. None of the officers who showed up matched what little I saw of the guy from the night before. Of course no prints were found and nothing ever came of it Till this day. I am terrified to call the police to my house in case he shows back up. I shudder to think what the guy's real motivations were and what would have happened if I didn't have my wonderful dogs there to protect me.