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Hey, welcome to Scary Stories and Rain. Before we begin, I just want to remind you to follow this podcast. It really helps me out a lot and it'll ensure that you never miss an episode. And if you would like to take things a step further, you can subscribe for just $2.99 a month. As a subscriber, you'll enjoy every episode completely ad free. Plus you'll automatically be entered to win every giveaway that I do each month. Right now there's a PlayStation 5 up for grabs which will be given away in mid October. Subscribers also get access to the ultimate episodes. These are extra long. I'm talking six, eight to 12 hours uninterrupted stories with relaxing rainfall designed for falling asleep, staying asleep all night long, relaxing or just enjoying hours of long form entertainment. And last thing before we begin, I just want to say thank you so much for being here and I really hope you enjoy this episode this is a true story that happened in 2014. I am a female junior high school teacher in a province in the Philippines. The school where I teach is one of the first private schools in that province to install CCTVs in all classrooms for the safety of students, teachers and all staff. Three months previously, I had what I can only assume is a paranormal experience while teaching in one of the third floor classrooms, but when I checked the CCTV footage in the admin office, the feed for my classroom malfunctioned. The security officer back then found it really strange too, because every single feed in the building was working properly except for the room where I was at and at the exact period where this strange occurrence happened. Long story short, I saw and interacted with a student who turned out not to be there on that day and I didn't even have CCTV footage to prove it. Ever since then I was on the lookout for more strange encounters in the classrooms. Remember, this school was in a province and the people who were born and raised there have a lot of stories to tell of unexplainable circumstances that can only be described as paranormal. But the months passed without incident and I started to forget what happened until one day I was in my 10th grade class at this time in room 405. The second quarterly exams were just finished last week and I wanted to spend this period showing my students their progress, one so that I can congratulate and give credits to students who did well and two so that I can talk to students who are falling behind. I have their grades in an Excel file on my laptop, but grades are private documents, so I arranged my Excel sheet, zoomed it in and froze some of the cells so that only one student's grades will be shown at a time. I then placed my laptop on the high table situated at the front and right side of the classroom, my laptop facing me of course, away from the students eyes. I then asked my students to form a line in front of me so that I can show them their grades one by one. The rest of the students can just chill or review for their next class while waiting for their turn. And so it started. After the first student is done, I tell the next student in line to wait for a few seconds while I adjust the excel sheet, my hand raised in the air and a stop gesture gesture. This is to avoid students seeing the grades of those before them. Then when the Excel file is ready, I tell them to approach. Remember I made it so that only one grade is visible at a time. Some students were pumping their fists in the air or high fiving me or hugging each other when they see how well they did. Others were sighing sadly, asking me for ways to make up for it, or laughing at how bad they did. Each interaction with a student lasted for about five seconds to a minute, some students taking longer if they needed assurance that they can do better next time. I was dreading showing one of my students her grade. Let's call her Anna. Admittedly she was the noisiest girl in class, but in the first quarter she was one of my brightest students. For the second quarter she lost interest in the subject, oftentimes chatting with her seatmate, turning in assignments late and performing poorly. Overall, her grade for this quarter went down by three points and I was preparing myself mentally to comfort her. When it was her turn, she was coming up next in line, right behind her friend who we will call Jane. Please remember that in the line Jane was standing before Anna. This will be important later. After I showed Jane her grade, I took a deep breath and faced Anna. I motioned for her to come forward. She was silent, expressionless. She looked at the screen for a few seconds, then turned away and went back to her seat without saying anything. I was confused because Anna was not the silent type. I shrugged it off and just went on showing my students their grades one by one. A little bit further down the line I can hear some students chatting and laughing away. And as the line inched forward I noticed that these happy, loud students included Anna. She was next in line again. I was quite relieved to see that she was in a better mood, but I was confused why she was in line again. I asked her you wanted to see your grades again? Anna said. Huh? Again. I haven't seen my grades yet. Once again, I shrugged it off and showed her her grade. This time she reacted. She gasped, covered her mouth and whined, aww. My grades went down. What am I going to do? In that funny drama queen way that we are all so familiar with. Her friends laughed and teased her good naturedly and they went on their way. At that moment, I had a strange feeling. Who was the first Anna who checked her grade? Was she telling the truth when she told me she had been in line only once? When that period ended, I could not wait to check the CCTV footage. I wanted real, tangible proof that Anna was in that line Twice. Immediately after class, I marched down to the admin office and asked if I could see the CCTV footage of room 405. I will try to explain what I saw in the best way I can. In the monitor where I can see the footage for room 405, I could see myself standing in the upper right hand corner with that line of students. Starting from that point to the lower right hand corner. It was grainy, but I could clearly see myself clicking on my laptop, gesturing for the next students in line to wait, then telling them to come closer. So on and so forth. I could even see the facial expressions on my face and my students. Now, before I tell you what I saw next, I would just like to ask you to think back to when you last lined up in a queue. There's this automatic response in everyone that if the person ahead of you moves forward, you move forward as well. And that the distance between each person in line is somewhat equal. You just don't leave an empty space in front of you when you're in line. Back to the CCTV footage. A few minutes later, at the bottom of the screen, I could see Jane falling in line talking to some people in front of her. I waited with bated breath to see Anna in the footage. As the line inched forward, Jane did too. Any moment now, I expect to see Anna at the bottom of the screen. But Anna was not there. The line inched forward again. Jane stepped forward. Still no Anna. I can clearly see another student step behind Jane, but for some reason she stayed about three to four feet behind Jane. You know, a space large enough to fit another person in the line. But there was no one in that empty space. As the line continues to move forward, I notice that the people behind Jane maintained their distance. That empty space behind her remained constant. This seemed really weird to me because the people behind Jane are looking forward talking to Jane and that she sometimes looks back to them, talking, laughing, but never occupying that space. This is really weird because you just don't leave an empty space in front of you when you're in a line, right? Finally, it's Jane's turn to approach me in that upper right corner. In the footage, the space behind her still remained empty. When Jane left, I saw myself look at my laptop with the light from the monitor shining on my face. And then I saw myself in the video completely freeze up. None of the students behind Jane were approaching me. They can clearly see me. That was apparent in the footage. They were still moving. Everything was still moving except for me. In the video, I asked the security officer to zoom in on my face. Me in the video was completely still. I was not even blinking. I don't think I was even breathing. After 10 seconds, me and the video started moving again. And that's when the next student in line finally occupied that empty space. The officer and I looked at each other, weirded out. What happened there? Did you have a stroke or something? He jokingly asked. Then seeing my expression, asked me, what's wrong? So he paused the video and listened as I told him what happened earlier. After listening to my story, he said, nothing left to do but check if the second Anna was real. I nodded and so we continued watching the footage. I kept my eyes focused on the bottom right. I asked the officer to forward the footage a bit until I could see Anna at the bottom of the line. This time I could clearly see Anna chatting with her friends in line, being her usual self. When she finally reached me at the top, I can see our interaction the way I remembered it earlier. Me smiling, her covering her mouth, her friends laughing at her. Exactly as I remembered it. I asked the officer to stop the video and thanked him for his time. The officer gave me a kind of look and told me to take it easy. My mind was racing. Did I really see Anna twice in the classroom? Did I just hallucinate the first Anna that approached me? It's possible. Maybe. I'm pretty sure there's a scientific or neurological explanation for stuff like that. But I have never experienced that before. I mean, if I randomly freeze during the day, surely my students and my co teachers will have noticed it by now. I was ready to accept that the first Anna, the silent Anna, the expressionless Anna, was my imagination. But then, if there really was no one in line after Jane, why didn't the student after her approach me after I was done talking to Jane? It's apparent in the footage that they can see me. For the 10 seconds that I was not moving, the students next in line could see me. If I did really freeze up, surely one of the students will approach, if not to see her grade, then to ask me if I was okay. And also, why was there an empty space behind Jane, an empty space that the students behind her never stepped into? Could they have possibly seen someone in the line behind Jane? Could they perhaps, like me, saw this silent girl approach me? A silent girl who looked just like Anna but was not Anna? This is a story I don't usually tell because I am not sure if I was overreacting, but it's something that still haunts me to this day. This took place during my freshman year at university a few years ago. It was around 5am on the day I was supposed to leave to go back home for summer break. I am a huge procrastinator, so I had been up all night packing up my dorm room and doing a ton of laundry. Before I get into what happened, I think it's important to mention that my Dorm building was 17 floors high and I was on the 15th floor. Each floor had its own little laundry room. The laundry room on our floor was all the way across the building from me because my room was at the very end of the hall in an entire different wing. Since my dorm was at the end of the hall, my room was directly across the exit door leading to the staircase. While I was packing that night into the early morning, I kept hearing the door to the staircase occasionally opening and shutting a few times every hour. It wasn't exactly weird enough for me to be concerned about since the RAs did their rounds every hour or so and it was policy for them to use the staircase to patrol every floor. However, it was weird enough for me to notice the amount of times the door kept opening and closing as that was uncommon and usually the RAs stopped their rounds around 2am but I just brushed it off and figured they were doing extra rounds because it was move out day. Sometime between 4:30 and 5:00am I was standing in my room about to put on a shirt to go switch around my laundry. As I was pulling the shirt over my head, my door opened and a man stepped in. He was dressed in all black with a hood over his head and made it difficult to see his face. From what I could tell he looked like a student. He was young, maybe early twenties or so, and filled my door frame at about six feet tall. I stood in fear and confusion without a shirt on and stared at this man with my mouth wide open in shock. We just stared at each other, not saying a word for what felt like forever but was probably only a minute or so still in perspective. It was too long. He had the most blank and lifeless expression I had ever seen. I had no idea who this man was. I was already so tired and stressed from packing I barely remember finally muttering the words what the heck. The man quietly mumbled sorry, backed out of the room and slowly shut my door. I stood there in shock for a few seconds before quickly putting on my shirt and grabbing a small pocket knife I had in my desk car drawer. I hurried and locked my door. Before I could even take a breath, my thoughts began racing. Who was that guy? Why did he just walk into my room? Why didn't he seem surprised or shocked that he just walked into a stranger's room? My brain forced rational thought and I came to the conclusion that he must have accidentally came into my room and meant to go into my suitemate's room who lived next door to me. I told myself it was probably her boyfriend and maybe he was drunk and went to the wrong door or something, but he didn't seem drunk. In fact, he didn't seem to have any emotion at all. I felt much better after coming to this conclusion, but I was still reluctant to go out and get my laundry. After a few minutes of hyping myself up and telling myself that it was just an accident, I finally went to get my laundry, making sure the coast was clear first and making sure to lock my door behind me just in case. I switched the clothes and dragged my laundry basket quickly down the hall and back to my room. As I stood in front of my door to unlock it, I glanced up and all of the hairs on the back of my neck stood up. I looked up and saw my huge name tag that my RA placed on my door at the beginning of the year, I realized he could not have possibly mistaken my room for someone else's as my name was written in big black letters on my door. I rushed into my room and locked the door behind me as more questions began to fill my head. I was still really freaked out about what had happened and it replayed in my head over and over again. Time had passed and it was around 6am at this point. I could still hear the staircase door being opened and closed closed periodically, but thought nothing of it at the time. I continued to pack my clothes while being overly aware of my surroundings, which probably made the next part of this even more horrifying for me. It's like that feeling when you're waiting for something really scary to happen or you're trying to scare yourself and you have this huge pit in your stomach and you're constantly on edge, but nothing happens. Except something did happen. My doorknob began to violently turn. It was constant and forceful, like somebody knew they wanted to get in here even though the door was locked. I grabbed my knife and stood in the middle of my room facing the door, telling myself that I might actually have to stab this guy. After about an entire minute of him trying to open my door, he left. I knew something was definitely wrong. Now I was completely and utterly freaked out. If I had any thought left that this man had accidentally came to the wrong room, it was definitely no more. He could not have possibly came to the wrong room twice, especially when my door was labeled with my name and I had no idea who he was. I picked up my phone and called my mom who was five hours away and frantically explained what had happened and she told me to keep my door locked and that if he came back again I should call the police. We hung up the phone and I tried my hardest to stay focused on finishing up my room. Around 6:30 there was frantic knocking at my door. I was horrified and just wished whatever this was would stop. I looked through the peephole, saw a girl who lived across from me at my door. I opened it and she was hysterical. She was crying and asking me for help. I asked her what was wrong and what she told me left me speechless. She said that she woke up to a man standing in her room. She explained that she was sleeping and a little tipsy when she woke up from drinking the previous night and had woken up suddenly to the feeling of being walking. When she realized there was someone standing by her bed, she screamed and he ran out of the room. That's when she got dressed and came to my door. She had no idea how long he had been there for. I told her we needed to call the campus police and reassured her she would not get in trouble for being intoxicated. I called the police for her and we waited together for them to come. When they arrived about 1010 minutes later, the officer questioned us about what had happened and I explained the incident that went down only an hour earlier. While I was explaining what the man looked like, my suite mate stepped out of her room and said, are you talking about a man coming into your room? I told her yes and asked if she had heard anything. My suite mate told us about an hour ago she woke up next To a man standing next to her bed just watching her. After about 30 seconds of him standing there, he spoke. What he said to her will continue to haunt me for the rest of my life. He looked at her blank and dead eyed and said, that's what you get for sleeping with your door unlocked. And walked out of her room like it was nothing. This happened right after he initially came into my room. I don't think the police ever figured out who it was since I never heard back from them. But there are still questions that rack my brain. Who was that guy? Was he one just walking in and out of their staircase for hours, doing this on multiple floors? What was he doing at 5 in the morning? How did he get into the dorm in the first place? And the one question that still gives me goosebumps. What would have happened if I didn't lock the door the first time and he actually got into my room the second time he came back. When I was around 12 years old, I had a pretty creepy experience in my house. To give some backstory, I'm the youngest of three with two sisters. The way my house was laid out is my mom and dad's room was on the one side of the house and me and my sister's rooms were on the other side with the living room in the middle. Now my oldest sister is actually my stepsister. Even though I have never thought of her like that, she has always been a true sister to me. During this time she was going through a lot. She struggles with bipolar disorder and had spent many nights getting into screaming matches with her boyfriends at ungodly hours of the morning. These arguments would almost always end in some sort of violent situation. I remember one specific instance very clearly where my sister was so furious at her boyfriend for watching something I'll leave to your imagination on his phone right in front of her, she started to beat and scratch his face with a high heel shoe. Anyway, one night something was weird. No guest was in the house and I knew this when falling asleep. Yet when I heard the screams at 2 in the morning, I was still unaffected. I imagined that one of my sister's boyfriends had snuck in through the window to see her and they were now erupting into another fight. But I was wrong. I heard my parents run into my sister's room bursting through the door. They were silent for a few seconds. As my sister continued to scream and scream, I started to realize this was not like the other times. This wasn't an argument with a high school boy. These were wails of True terror. After what seemed like forever but was really like 15 seconds, my parents started yelling. What? What? Why are you screaming? All I could hear while sitting in my bed was my sister responding. Right there, right there. How can you not see? How can you ask me that? This went on for a while and my sister was taken out of her room by my parents and she stayed in the kitchen drinking tea for the rest of the night. My parents and sister didn't tell me anything that had happened since. In comparison to the drama that has happened in our household previously, this was a pretty peaceful night. Now it was the next. Day, day and time for bed again. I was having a little trouble falling asleep because I was still thinking about what my sister was screaming about. Was she seeing things? Sleep paralysis? Was she on something? Was there a ghost in the house? The hallways then proceeded to carry my sister's screams throughout the house again. This time several hours earlier. Earlier than last night and even louder. My sister screamed like I have never heard any scream before. The words she said mixed with the tone of her voice gives me ice cold skin penetrating chills. Just as I tell this story, my sister was screaming the words, just kill me fast. Don't hurt me, just kill me fast. Then this time my whole family, myself included, ran into her room. This sounded serious. She was screaming in terror and pointing into the corner of her room. But again, there was nothing there. She claimed that a large dark figure with a purple robe and red eyes was standing in the corner of her room watching her with a sinister presence. I began to get frustrated with my sister. I thought she was doing this for some kind of twisted desire for attention. In a lot of ways that's what I felt a lot of her dramatic situations were, but on the third night I would come to believe her. On the third night we put one of our dogs in my sister's room to keep her company. She was a small papy poo, which is a ridiculous name for a mix of Papillon and Poodle. Her name was Twilight. She was a good dog and always very perceptive. Twilight was always the first to know when someone was approaching our house or even just walking past it. That night I didn't even bother sleeping as I knew there was going to be screams to startle me awake anyway. I was just staying up playing Saints Row 3 until I passed out from exhaustion or something. I hadn't been sleeping for the past two days nights and was a train wreck at school, but at this point I didn't really care. And then right on cue at around one in the morning, the screams. I was mad that my sister was carrying on with this act, keeping me and my whole family awake. I was the only one who decided to stay awake in my house and my sister's room is right next to mine. So I got up, walked in there fast, getting ready to give my sister a piece of my mind on her attention seeking behavior. But then I heard Twilight not just barking but howling. Like a desperate urgent howling. I had never heard it before from her and would never hear it again as long as Twilight lived. I was taken aback by that, but I barged in the room anyway. And there was my sister screaming in terror while staring eyes wide open into the corner of the room. And there was Twilight looking at the exact, and I mean exact same place my sister was looking. Twilight had her head up looking at the corner of the room, howling. It was such an uncanny image. Two beings reacting in terror and distress at something I could not see. Now I am not a religious person. I was raised to believe that angels and demons exist, but I have no real belief in any kind of spiritual warfare anymore. Then I believe in the qanon theories of Hollywood celebrities sacrificing babies to the devil or whatever. But I do believe in my own two eyes. And I still can't explain what they saw after all this. My sister was brought into therapy after taking my dad's advice and my mom had the room blessed by the priest from our church. It never happened again. When I was about 10 or 11, I shared a room with my two older sisters. Now we would stay up late at night talking, sometimes getting us into trouble. But this one particular night we had our window open ajar and the blinds open, meaning anyone on the outside could see in because we also had a lamp in our bedroom. As we were laying in bed talking, there was a knock on the window. None of us could move or speak. We didn't know what to do so we ignored it. Five minutes went by and nothing else happened. So we continued our conversation when knock knock knock. This time we all ran out of our bedroom and went straight to our parents room where we told them what was going on. First we woke up our mom because she's a light sleeper anyway. Then she woke up our dad. My dad, being the brave guy he is, went outside with a bat while my mom went into our room with us. When my dad came back inside, he told us there was no one out there reassuring us it's okay to go back to sleep. We did 10 minutes go by when another knock Woke us all up, including our mom. She jumped out of bed, went into her room, woke up our dad, and I remember I heard her say, call the police. As the police arrived, they looked around the house and found nothing. Now, I thought that was the end of it, but as I got older, I asked my mom about it. That's when I learned something very disturbing. The police found footprints underneath our window in the garden. Also, they found a chair from our porch below our window. Meaning whoever was out there that night must have been watching us for who knows how long. All. All I have to say is close your blinds at night and always close your window. You never know who may be watching. This happened to me when I was around the age of 6. I was watching late night cartoons on the TV as I did every night before bed and my parents were having company over as this was very common for them. Around this time. I don't remember falling asleep, but I remember waking up in my room and the TV was off and the only light coming into my room was from the moonlight peering through my window. My room is almost completely black. I couldn't move at all and I felt like I couldn't breathe. Not a feeling of something on my chest, but rather my throat. Throat was closed up so tight I could barely get a breath of air. I knew something was wrong, so I tried to call out to my parents, but I was unable to speak. I sat there for probably five minutes, scared out of my mind. I heard my parents conversing loudly with their friends in the other room and I thought to myself that they'll never hear me. I stared at my door open, hoping my parents would come in and save me from whatever was happening. After about 10 minutes, my door cracked open a little bit and slowly crept open a few inches. There was a tall figure staring at me through the crack of my door. I couldn't make out anything other than they were really tall and had a blank stare in their eyes. The figure in the doorway backed away and after another few minutes of trying to cry for help, my mom came in and turned the lights on. I still couldn't move or talk. My mom grabbed my dad, told him there's something wrong with me and I need to go to the hospital. They loaded me up in the backseat of the family van and drove off frantically. The only thing I remember about being taken to the hospital is seeing the street lights coming in and out of the window as we drove down the street. Then I lost consciousness. When I woke up, I was in a hospital bed surrounded by Nurses. I had an oxygen mask on my face and I was hooked up to the iv. I could almost talk again and I tried to say the words, what's happening to me? But before I could say anything, the nurse said, don't worry, you're going to be fine. And I fell back asleep. I woke up again seeing my parents happy standing next to the bed, and the nurses were saying that I would be ready to leave shortly. Then the nurse took off my mask and gave me this peach juice that I'll always remember. My dad carried me on his back and put me back into the van and we went home. I woke up in bed the next day and felt really weird, but was relieved everything was okay. I didn't talk to my parents about it too much because every time I tried to bring it up, they wouldn't talk about it and they would just change the subject. I kind of forgot about it for a long time, but would still think about it when people would ask me, what's the scariest thing that's ever happened to you? Years later, when I was in my teens, I brought it up laughing, saying, remember the time you've been. Guys had to take me to the hospital. They just stared at me with a confused look on their faces. So I described the whole event in detail and they looked at me like I was on something and said that I must have dreamt it. So I gave up trying to get them to remember and went back to my bedroom confused. I wholeheartedly believe that this was not a dream. It was so vivid and real and I remember almost, almost everything about it. The man in the doorway, the oxygen masks, the juice the nurse gave me, and the absolute helplessness of not being able to move or speak. The weirdest thing is I was never taken to the hospital before and had never seen someone hooked up to an IV before. So how could I have dreamt that? When I was 22, I moved into a rental home in Harvey's Lake, Pennsylvania. It was very small and somewhat run down. It reminded me of a cabin that you see on fishing trips. Honestly, I hated it, but could not afford anything better at the time. The basement was creepy, the bathroom ceiling sloped downwards so that the shower head was aimed at my chest and I could not stand to pee without my head touching the ceiling. The floor also sloped, but hey, it was cheap with all utilities provided. Shortly after I had moved in, I had a dream one night. I dreamt in the third person and at first I assumed that what I was seeing was from my point of view. It was like I was floating towards my front door in the middle of a full moon lit night. Once I got to the front door, a thin pale hand turned the knob and slowly opened. Wasn't my hand. So now I knew that I was seeing the vision of someone else. Slowly I started walking towards my bedroom which was the first first room on the right immediately after the small kitchen and I could see myself sleeping in my bed. My vision then slowly glided into my room and to the side of my bed by a window and I was looking down at myself sleeping on my stomach. After a second, the thin pale hand reached down to grab me. Seeing myself about to be attacked, I violently woke from the dream and lashed out towards where the figure was standing, knocking things off the nightstand next to me. But there was no one there. Although I told myself that it was just a dream, I thought it was incredibly weird that there was no difference in the amount of darkness in my room. It was apparently a full moon visible right outside my window and that made the room more blue, blue and brighter than usual. It was exactly the same as in my dream. Most nights it is very dark in my room. A week or so later, I had friends over. There was an old bar down the road that we could quickly walk to. So we got a little drunk and walked back to my place. We were watching a movie to pass the time so that my friends could sober up to drive home. But after a while they all decided to just stay over. As we were watching the end of a movie, my friend's girlfriend woke up looking alarmed like she was having a nightmare and was about to yell. We all looked at her and she looked relieved to be awake, but she kept saying to her boyfriend who was my best friend, come on, let's go. I want to go. I really don't want to be here. After a minute of him telling her that they could not drive, she calmed down and reluctantly agreed to stay. Nothing else happened and in the morning they all got up and drove home. She called me as soon as she got home to apologize. She was afraid that I got offended that she did not want to stay in my home and I just laughed and told her that it was fine, no big deal. She then proceeded to tell me why she wanted to leave so bad. She said she fell asleep and had a dream that some pale, evil looking lady who resembled a demonic witch dressed in black grabbed her in the apartment and was dragging her away across the floor. It was very violent apparently, but she woke up in the middle of the nightmare. She said it was the scariest thing she ever experienced. I thought she was joking with me until I realized that I told no one of my similar dream. I then told her about my dream and she freaked out and spent days doing research into the area and the home thinking that something bad must have happened there but found nothing. She never came over again after that, but it didn't matter. I was out of there within a few months and the house was torn down about 10 years later. This is not my story, but my dad's. He gave me permission to share it when my dad was around the age of 10, he had a somewhat creepy experience that to this day keeps him from leaving windows open in the night. His mother worked at a mental health facility and they actually lived just down the road from said facility. His mother was head cook in a large kitchen there. All the patients adored her as she had worked there a very long time. My dad and his younger brother shared a room together. They had two twin beds that sat on either side of a large window that was right smack dab between their beds. Things were different back then. It was perfectly safe to sleep with your windows wide open when it was hot outside. One hot summer late night my dad awoke to someone touching his face. When he realized that what he was feeling was an adult hand, he opened his eyes to a woman caressing his face while lightly singing. He leaped out of bed and stood there staring at her. She wore a white dress and she did nothing but stand right at their window with a smile on her face. Leaving his sleeping brother, my dad ran from the room to his parents bedroom to get help. All three of them rushed into the room to find the woman attempting to crawl inside. His mom screamed a woman's name, shocking them all, then said, she is a patient from my work. She wasn't wearing a dress like my dad had initially thought. It was actually a hospital gown. The hospital was quickly called. Searchers had been looking for her for a short time already. She had gotten out somehow and had wandered down to their home since it was a short distance away. My dad is in his 60s now and he still checks the windows nightly to make sure they are shut and locked. One summer in the late 90s when I was about 11 or 12, my dad took my little brother and I on vacation to Northern California. We decided to spend a day at the Santa Cruz boardwalk. I sat alone on our blanket on the sand while my dad and brother played in the ocean not too far away. A man walking by himself on the beach crept up and squatted beside me so that he sat eye level with me. He was probably early to mid-20s, had black spiky hair and all black clothing. He held a lit cigarette in the hand closest to me and wore a mischievous smirk on his face. He smiled and quietly said, hi, I'm Shadow. What's your name? I replied, hi, Catherine. What a beautiful name. Do you know how pretty you are? I shook my head as he looked me up and down. Are you here all by yourself? No, I'm here with my dad and my brother. They're right there. I pointed. Oh well. Do you want to go for a walk? The way he over pronounced the K in walk gave me chills even though it was hot and sunny out. This is when a light bulb went off in my head. I should not be talking to this guy. I didn't know how to tell him to leave me alone and I was honestly kind of scared to be rude to him. Within a split second so many thoughts went racing through my head. Was he going to pick me up and carry me away? Would my dad turn around to check on me only to find an empty blanket and no trace of which direction I had gone? I was panicking internally and I just sat there paralyzed and silent. I looked towards the water to find my dad with his mouth agape and a look of horror on his face. Rage overtook him. He picked up my brother and stormed towards us. My brother now crying. My dad yelled at the man to get away from me as he violently ran closer to us. Thank goodness Shadow took him seriously. By the time my dad reached me, Shadow had already fled down the beach. After arriving home the following week, my dad was catching up on the previous week's newspapers. He made it a point to show me the article and I will never ever forget it. The article reported that the body of a young girl was found near the Santa Cruz boardwalk. Allegedly, she had been abducted, assaulted and murdered and left behind a dumpster. Fortunately, they caught the person that did it. Unfortunately, there was no picture or detailed description of the perp. They only described him as a local man in his 20s. I won't ever know for sure if it was Shadow that committed the horrendous crime against an innocent little girl. I can only be thankful that it wasn't me. This event takes place in Cedar Rapids, Iowa during the mid-1980s. What I can say about this is that it was the most frightening experience I have ever had and I am very thankful that I never found out what the true motives of these men were. I cannot definitively remember the exact year, but it was early summer of either 1986 or 1987. I was around 11 or 12 at the time and can still recall the fear of this incident quite vividly. I should first start by saying that growing up I was unusually strong and big for my age. Therefore my parents were never that worried about me being out on my own even at an age as young as 11 or 12. Since this particular story involves bicycles, I should start by saying that I started racing BMX when I was seven years old, as did my friend who was with me during this incident and continued up up until around the age that this story takes place. This fact is important because I believe those BMX skills are part of what enabled my friend and I to escape unharmed during the incident. When I look back on this incident I can remember myself feeling uneasy at the time and for no real reason. I can recall that it was a night in early summer. I get the feeling that it was very close to school and ending as this was one of the reasons my friend and I used to convince my mom that summer was pretty much beginning on that night. My best friend Luke and I were planning on riding our bikes to his grandparents house and spending the night. I should note that his grandparents house was a beautiful four story house that was a near mansion built on the edge of the downtown area. The interesting part is that by this time in the mid-191980s the house was in what was considered to be one of the worst areas of town. It sat all alone surrounded by medical offices at the very edge of both the downtown area and the beginning of what was considered the dangerous area of the city. Very sad how quickly neighborhoods can change for the worse. But this is vital to the story as it relates to the reason my mom was hesitant for us to ride our bikes down and through that neighborhood so close to nightfall. I think she was also concerned that our bikes may tempt someone to try and steal them. It's worth noting that I had a blue and white Club Fuji road bike and my friend had a sweet super sport Schwinn. I can't remember exactly how much they were valued at in 1986 or 87, but they were nice bikes and probably cost over $450 apiece at the time. Kind of spoiled now that I think about it, but we were middle class kids and did not understand how much that set our parents back at the time. It was starting to get late by the time we convinced my mom to let us head out. I remember thinking we didn't have much light left and even some of the street lights were threatening to turn on. I would estimate that it was around 7:30pm When Luke and I took off on our ride to his grandparents house which was where he was living at the time with his mom. We grew up across the street from each other and have known each other since we were two years old. We are like brothers. I should also say that the neighborhood where we grew up and the one we had to pass through to get to our destination was at the time considered part of the bad neighborhood in town. We felt perfectly fine going through it because it was our stomping ground and we knew everyone around there and the streets like the back of our hands. The ride should only take us about 20 minutes at a regular riding pace, but knowing how my friend liked to take detours and make stops to get pop or candy, I figured it would take us longer. Now at this point of our trip we are about 10 minutes in and having fun, just riding around, taking different streets and flying through our old neighborhoods. The only thing I can remember is that it was extremely deserted on the streets. No traffic, no people out and about, which is kind of odd for this area in the evening. There is really no explanation for this, but I can remember it fueled the strange feeling I had from the beginning of this ride. I told Luke we should probably start taking a more direct path to his grandparents house. Luke said he wanted to stop and get a Gatorade at the Jiffy Mart which is where we spent a lot of our time growing up getting our candy and pop fixes. He went inside the store to get us a couple of orange gatorades. I sat outside to watch our bikes and as I did I noticed this creepy looking van driving around the block. I didn't think much of it at first other than to think to myself how much it looked like a stereotypical kidnapper's van. After I saw it circle around three times I started feeling a bit nervous. But as I stated earlier, I was extremely strong and big for my age and my friend Luke was the most street smart kid I ever met. In fact, he recently spent five months at the the projects of Washington D.C. when his mom moved there with her piece of garbage boyfriend. They eventually moved back after the boyfriend showed his true colors and I couldn't have been more thrilled. He told me how tough it was in the projects. He's afraid of no one, nothing even to this day. Sorry I'm getting a bit off point but this is important as neither of us were concerned about being a victim Abducted in our minds. That happens to little kids. I guess we forgot that the famous Des Moines Register paperboy Johnny Gosch was 12 years old when he was abducted, roughly the same age as we were at this time. So Luke isn't worried at all and even seems to be getting a rush from it. I'm not feeling the same way and I can't shake the feeling that there's something different going on, something more sinister. We sit outside the Jiffy Mart drinking our Gatorade while keeping a lookout for the van. We don't see it come back around and decide to take off down the road and go past our childhood houses. Now, at this point we think that the van is gone and was possibly not even interested in us in any way. I felt slightly relieved as it was getting dark at the this time and I was ready to get to where we were going. Now I know this area better than anyone and have hiding spots in my memory from growing up here. So I was already preparing different escape routes for us that a vehicle would have trouble following. I think I was doing it to ease my mind because I was still pretty spooked and couldn't figure out exactly why I was as we got about halfway down the hilly road that leads away from from the Jiffy Mart, I saw the van on a side street out of the corner of my eye. Like you might imagine, the van must have seen us because I heard a screech of tires and the van came squealing around the corner in our direction. I yelled to Luke and he followed me as I already had a path in mind. Now the BMX racing comes into play. Both Luke and I are extremely fast on bike with excellent handling skills. Whoever was driving and navigating the van appeared to not be familiar with the area as we were able to lose them by taking routes that weren't obvious paths for vehicles. The topography of the area we were at in the beginning of the chase was on a hill and there were many alleyways that were somewhat hidden unless you knew exactly where to turn. I think this was the only reason we were able to put some distance between us and the van. The thing that really scared me was the sound of the van gunning the engine as it desperately searched for us. I remember thinking that the van's engine roared like a demon and I was having a hard time understanding why they would continue to pursue us with such unrelenting commitment. Luckily, Luke and I knew the area so well and had found our old hiding spot from when we were kids. It was in A wooded spot behind a garage that no one used but gave us cover and many escape routes. Luke and I had eluded the van for a moment, but we could still hear it in the distance, circling around and with the same demonic engine roar that made me cringe when it got close. Our plan was to hang out there for a bit until we felt it was safe. We were still quite far from his grandparents house and since it was the days before cell phones, we had no other option but to wait. Luke still wasn't as concerned as I was, even though I could tell he was a bit unnerved by the situation. We both couldn't understand why they would be so reckless in their driving just to scare us or take our bikes away. It felt like they were hunting us for something bigger. I don't know why I thought that, but I just got that feeling. So after about 20 minutes of waiting we decide that the van and its occupants must have gotten bored looking for us and we cautiously exit our hiding spot. We look around and see nothing, not even any neighbor activity. We head down the alley and make sure we check every route and headlights we see to make sure the van is nowhere in sight. I should describe the van in question before moving on. It was a rather beat up copper colored Ford or Chevy van, 1970s or 1980s. I think my fear at the time blocks the detail of it since the only time it got really close I was too busy making some crazy maneuver to get away from it. As we get to the street that our childhood homes are on, we decide to go down like we planned and we reminisce for a few minutes about past memories on this street. We then head around the corner of this street as we are planning on connecting with the road that will lead us straight to the parking lot that connects to his grandparents home. It's just a couple of blocks away when I think I see the van cross roughly four blocks down. Luke thinks I'm seeing things and I can't be certain but it seems likely. Knowing what was to come, we keep on riding down the road and I am feeling very uncomfortable, like I am being watched but there isn't anyone around. I still to this day can't believe how strangely absent people were that night. Although we did see some guys who possibly saved us. So we get to the street that will eventually take us to our destination. I'm still feeling anxious but slightly relieved because we are only six or seven minutes away. Just as I am thinking that I hear the sound of skidding tires. I look back to see the van backing up. After screeching to a stop, reversing and coming straight for us, Luke takes off and I follow as the van is gaining on us. We cut off through a narrow alley not meant for vehicles and the van follows our exact path which I was shocked at. I am in full panic mode and Luke is too, which made me even more frightened. We did everything we could to try to elude this van. We were very close to the busiest street in town so we pedaled over towards that way. As the van finally got out of the maze that we took it on. It was at this point that I got a look at the occupants of the van and it didn't make me feel any better. There appeared to be at least three men in the van, all scruffy males. From the fleeting glance I got, for some reason I still get the feeling that they weren't interested in our bikes, especially since it seemed like they were trying to run us over. Once we got to the main busy road we again hid in the COVID of people walking around the city sidewalk. I felt safer by all the traffic lights and businesses, but 9:30pm downtown at this time wasn't particularly safe for kids either. There was still an adult theater right on the main road at this time in the 1980s, but at least the perverts running around this night weren't after us. We rode over and hung out by a McDonald's that was crowded and only saw the van briefly as it passed by and headed off into the night. We decided to leave when we saw the McDonald's crew shutting the place down. At this point we are only a few minutes away from Luke's grandparents house. Our plan was to ride as far as we can on the busy road until we have to turn left for the last leg of our journey. We are exhausted at this point and just want to get home. So we book it up the road and turn onto the street street that leads to his grandparents house. As we start riding down the road we see the van three blocks down and it spots us and floors it coming after us. Luke and I are forced to take left which takes us further away from his grandparents house. But we have no choice as the van is approaching us fast. We hop a curve and speed across a parking lot with no entrance on the side. We take thinking the van won't follow and we can lose it while it has to go around the block to find us. I hear the sliding door of the van open but we were way too fast for anyone on foot to catch. Us. So they appeared to abandon that tactic quickly. We got over to another street which at the time was considered the most dangerous street in our city as it had a notorious bar where fights happened on what seemed like a nightly basis. It was lucky for us that we saw a group of guys shooting craps outside the bar and we knew a couple of them because they were older brothers of our friends. Just as we started talking with them, the van creeped up on the street north of us. Upon seeing all of the guys out playing dice they slowly drove away. The guys playing dice asked what was up with the van. We told them it had been aggressively pursuing us for quite some time now. They said to take off and that it likely wouldn't be back now because of their presence. We agreed and they went back inside. We really did think that that would be the end of it as the guys we were talking to were very bad dudes with dubious reputations. They liked us because we grew up in the same neighborhoods and we went to school with their little brothers. Unfortunately our night wasn't quite over. We decided to avoid the road where we last saw the van to be on the safe side and took a street that wasn't so out in the open. Had we had taken the most straight line easy route we would have been easily spotted by anyone looking for us. So we cut across another street and ended up in a parking lot that was in the back of a pharmacy and medical supply store. As Luke and I are riding across the dark parking lot going towards the front of the pharmacy, we see the van creeping along the road. It's obviously still searching for us as it slows and stops as if they were looking all over for any sign of us. In kind of an unspoken moment Luke and I both know this isn't a normal situation. These guys have been following us for over two hours now and they haven't given up. We are now close enough to see his grandparents house sitting in the dark waiting for our moment to spring. Luke and I in our 12 year old minds both agree that we must split up. One of us will be bait and the other will get to his grandparents house and call the cops or come help whichever one of us. The van pursues. Shoes. Then the other. Just at that moment the van abruptly turns and starts coming up the one way street towards us. We wait for it to get close and then Luke cuts back through the parking lot and speeds out onto the street. The van swerves and goes after him. I speed as fast as I can down the street to his grandparents house as I see the van within 20ft of a frantically pedaling Luke. Luke. I get to his grandparents house in record time and I'm so worked up that I can barely speak. Once I calm down I tell Luke's grandma, grandpa and uncle what was happening. They knew that I wasn't joking around as my personality is very mild mannered and I was frantic. At that moment we all started heading out the back to the car to go look for Luke and just at that moment we see him flying towards us through the parking lot that connects to the property. I have never been so relieved in my life. I seriously thought he would be gone forever but he was able to get away. He said one of the guys in the van tried to tackle him but missed and the van got stuck at a light. The cops were called but I am not sure they took it too seriously as we never heard anything from them again. Luke and I couldn't sleep at all that night and told his mom and stepdad about it and they were concerned because they knew this wasn't like us to embellish anything. Luke and I eventually calmed down and we were falling asleep when I swore I heard that demonic van engine roar one last time. We were on the top floor in Luke's room that led out to a huge balcony overlooking the road. I saw the van drive slowly down the street and then turn off into the night. We never saw the van or the occupants again. I am not sure if they knew that's where we fled to or if they were still just driving around looking for us. Think about this though. We first spotted them at roughly 8pm they chased us until we finally were safe. Safe at Luke's place around 10:30. I saw that van for the last time at around 3am did they just want our bikes or were they just having fun scaring two kids out at night for years? I just assumed they wanted to steal our bikes because that happened constantly in our area during that time. But what kind of grown men and in a creepy van pursue two 12 year old boys for the better part of seven hours? A few months after our encounter two friends of ours, around the same age as we were had a very similar encounter while delivering newspapers in the early morning hours. Same van and occupants description, but in this situation two of the men were on opposite side sides of the block closing in on them while the van drove slowly around the area. That's not my story to tell, but I always wondered if it was the same group who chased after Luke and I. I still don't know exactly what was going on that night, but something tells me it wasn't good. And we were extremely lucky to get out of that situation unscathed.