Scary Stories For A Rainy Night - Ep. 296 - Holiday Trick

Summary

Podcast Summary: Scary Stories and Rain — Ep. 296: Holiday Trick

Host: Being Scared
Release Date: November 29, 2025
Main Theme:
This episode, “Holiday Trick,” immerses listeners in a series of chilling true stories—each narrated calmly over the soothing backdrop of rain. The episode is tailored to those seeking unsettling yet reflective tales, perfect for rainy nights and sleepless hours. This installment focuses on eerie experiences during holidays or seasonal breaks, weaving together the mundane and the supernatural.

---

Key Stories & Discussions

1. The Pumpkin Knife (India, Durga Puja Festival)

Timestamps: [02:38] – [09:55]

• Setting: West Bengal, India, during the autumn Durga Puja festival—a time of family gatherings and late-night celebrations.
• Main Plot: After a family outing to view festival pandals at midnight, a narrator and their family spot a suspicious elderly man in an elaborate sherwani, walking around their secure apartment complex carrying what appeared to be a “pumpkin knife.”
• Suspenseful Turn: The next day, they learn a neighbor was murdered—killed with the same type of knife the man was carrying. The case is quickly closed by authorities.
• Reflection: The family debates whether to contact the police, grappling with guilt and ‘what if’ scenarios.

Notable Quote:
“Should I be concerned that this man has a pumpkin knife in the dead of night?” — Narrator [04:18]

Memorable Moment:
The horror dawns as the family connects the man’s presence and the weapon to the neighbor’s murder, leading to a haunting question:
“What if it had been us?” [09:26]

---

2. The Women in Pigtails (Hotboxing Gone Wrong)

Timestamps: [09:55] – [13:48]

• Setting: Rural USA, pandemic era. A group of high school friends smoke in a car near midnight to break the monotony of lockdown.
• Main Plot: Driving through empty roads while listening to creepy music, they spot a well-dressed woman and a second shadowy man approaching their car at a desolate intersection. The woman runs toward them, screaming for help, but something instinctively feels off.
• Escape: The narrator urges the driver to speed away, and they narrowly avoid the encounter, left shaken and theorizing about the strangers’ intentions.
• Reflection: Even under the influence, the group's “fight or flight” instincts override, leaving them with lingering fear and morbid curiosity.

Notable Quote:
“It would be terrifying if we found a humanoid like a Wendigo or something right now.” — Narrator [11:24]
“There’s a woman coming. Turn the car now.” — Narrator [12:20]

---

3. Dark Road Fatigue (Stranger Danger on a Backroad)

Timestamps: [15:14] – [20:51]

• Setting: Remote country road, late night. A young man pulls over to nap after visiting a friend, feeling dangerously tired.
• Main Plot: As he dozes in his locked car, other vehicles begin circling. A figure approaches and tries every door before knocking repeatedly on the window.
• Tense Moment: The narrator feigns sleep, paralyzed with fear, as the figure tries to gain entry and then sits in their car, shining headlights at him before leaving.
• Outcome: Deeply rattled, he flees and never returns, warning:
  “If you’re tired and you need to drive somewhere, just don’t. At all costs, just don’t.” [20:44]

---

4. The Haunted House at the End of the Dirt Road

Timestamps: [20:51] – [29:16]

• Setting: North Carolina countryside, narrator and cousin sneak out to a local “haunted house.”
• Main Plot: Exploring a decrepit, cursed house supposedly plagued by the spirit of a woman practicing black magic, the kids experience unexplained screams, dangerous structural collapse, and a direct encounter with a terrifying female apparition.
• Supernatural Encounter: The narrator is briefly trapped, witnesses a “silhouette of a woman crouched in the corner, staring at me beyond terror,” and escapes only after an intense struggle.
• Aftermath: Both suffer real physical injuries. The narrator is haunted by recurring nightmares of the spirit.

Notable Quote:
“She was so close I could smell the death on her.” — Narrator [28:21]

---

5. The Electrocuted Pool Man

Timestamps: [29:17] – [34:02]

• Setting: Suburban vacation home pools, hot summer day.
• Main Plot: While relaxing after lunch, a pool worker is electrocuted due to faulty wiring in a new underwater light. Paralyzed and sinking, he musters enough strength to yell “Don’t. I’m being electrocuted” to prevent others from jumping in and suffering the same fate.
• Resolution: When his feet touch the pool bottom, he grounds out the current and narrowly survives, underscoring the unpredictable dangers in everyday environments.
• Reflection: The narrator is left shaken by how quickly a peaceful moment can turn deadly.

---

6. Jamaican Resort Visitor

Timestamps: [34:03] – [44:19]

• Setting: Old Jamaican resort during a wedding trip; the narrator stays alone in a room with mysterious quirks.
• Main Plot: The narrator experiences unsettling knocks at the door, strange, rhythm-less phone calls to the room’s bathroom phone, and recurring issues with keycards.
• Heightened Uncanniness: The narrator is convinced someone or something is haunting the room, especially after knocks seem to emanate from inside the suite.
• Creepiest Moment: A maintenance worker, half-jokingly, says:
  “This is an old resort. Some strange things happen here sometimes.” [44:05]

---

Notable Quotes & Moments

• “The most spine chilling part was what we learned the next day…the woman … was murdered in her bed, and the door lock was burnt to ashes.” — Indian Festival Story [07:52]
• “I started to freak out and told my buddy Jordan, there’s a woman coming. Turn the car now.” — Hotboxing Story [12:20]
• “If you’re tired and you need to drive somewhere, just don’t. At all costs, just don’t.” — Dark Road Story [20:44]
• “She was so close I could smell the death on her.” — Haunted House Story [28:21]
• “Don’t. I’m being electrocuted.” — Pool Story [33:05]
• “This is an old resort. Some strange things happen here sometimes.” — Hotel Maintenance Worker [44:05]

---

Flow and Atmosphere

• Tone: Calm narration with an undercurrent of tension, punctuated with personal reflection and unease.
• Rain Ambience: The gentle rain throughout heightens the intimacy and eeriness, creating a cocooned late-night storytelling feel.
• Story Structure: Each account is long-form, detailed, and immersive, allowing listeners to live through the tension and aftermath with the storytellers.

---

Conclusion

This episode artfully illustrates how ordinary holidays and mundane moments can quickly lurch into horror, whether through criminal acts, supernatural forces, or near-fatal accidents. In true Scary Stories and Rain style, these unsettling true accounts are not only about fear but about survival, lingering memories, and the unresolved questions that haunt us after the storm.

Transcript

[A]

Hey, this is Dane and this is Scary Stories in Rain. Please join my family and follow this podcast on Spotify or Apple. And if you want the ultimate experience, you can get rid of all of the ads and be entered to win all of my giveaways every month by subscribing for just 299amonth. All of the ads gone, every single giveaway automatically entered. And starting now, today, every Sunday, I'm going to release the ultimate episode. Six to 12 hours long, ultimate Scary Stories for a Rainy night. Subscriber exclusive. And as a reminder, we are now four months away from my first movie release in theaters. Gale Yellow Brick Road. A dark and terrifying reimagining of the wizard of Oz. If you want to check out the first trailer, click the link in the description to this episode. And if you're not following my other two podcasts, please go check them out. Scary Stories and Fire and Scary Stories After Dark. The links are in the description. Thank you so much for being here and I really hope you enjoy this episode. Hi, I'm here to pick up my son, Milo. There's no Milo here. Who picked up my son from school?

[B]

Streaming only on Peacock.

[A]

I'm going to need the name of everyone that could have a connection. You don't understand. It was just the five of us. So this was all planned. What are you going to do? I will do whatever it takes to get my son back. I honestly didn't see this coming. These nice people killing each other.

[C]

All her fault.

[A]

A new series.

[B]

Streaming now only on Peacock.

[A]

This is a real good story about Bronx and his dad, Ryan. Real United Airlines customers. We were returning home and one of the flight attendants asked Bronx if he wanted to see the flight deck and meet Kath and Andrew. I got to sit in the driver's seat. I grew up in an aviation family, and seeing Bronx kind of reminded me of myself when I was that age. That's Andrew, a real United pilot. These small interactions can shape a kid's future. It felt like I was the captain. Allowing my son to see the flight deck will stick with us forever. That's how good leads the way.

[B]

Shopping is hard, right? But I found a better way. Stitch Fix online Personal styling makes it easy. I just give my stylist my size, style and budget preferences. I order boxes when I want and how I want. No subscription required. And he sends just for me, pieces plus outfit recommendations and styling tips. I keep what works and send back the rest. It's so easy. Make style easy. Get started [e-mail] Spotify that's stitchfix.com Spotify.

[A]

I would like to start off by saying I don't know what I have gone through. I still question myself what I have been through that night. Until this day my mind is still hazy and has a lot of unanswered questions, but I guess I will never figure that out, will I? I live in India for more specifics, I live in West Bengal. I'm not going to share in which part of West Bengal I live because I don't want people hunting stuff down. This case was not very newsworthy anyway. None except the neighbors of the apartment complex know about this. In West Bengal, the coming of autumn is marked by a festival called Durga pua. There are 10 days where we celebrate the coming of autumn and it's the season where we worship the mother of all the idols in the Hindu religion Durga, more famously in India known as Ma Durga. I remember me and my family being super excited and we were to celebrate these 10 days with no studying, just enjoying ourselves thoroughly since it's the only time in a year where we can relax on the seventh day of Durga Pua. My mother wasn't really satisfied with the enjoyment we had in our complex, so I proposed that we could go outside and watch the other pandals, which are clothed temples with bamboos made for the idol to be placed there for 10 days. We set out at 12 o' clock midnight. This was the time when people came out to see the pandals since they could get really crowded with people in the evening, plus we didn't want to miss our complex functions. We set out in our car and went to different places enjoying stuff. It was around 2 in the morning when we entered through the gate of our apartment. I would like to avoid the confusion that no such security guard remained under every tower after midnight. All of them are out of order except for three guards who would be sitting out dozing off, not doing their job at the main entrance of the gate. We did have really good security, but after midnight everything just gets loose. We entered the main gate to be shooed off by two guards sleepily. Suddenly, out of the corner of my eye I see a man, an elderly man who was kind of scrawny. I had a bad hunch on seeing him because his attire was something that would catch the eye of anybody. He wore a golden sherwani with white pants, but he had a cotton gamcha or a very thin piece of bright red cloth with patterns which would be used by a lot of people in India to dry themselves off after a shower. He was wearing glasses and had a long white beard which made him look even more suspicious. He was walking by the entrance of our car and I noticed that he had his hands behind his back. I could also see that he was carrying something which was shining under the lamp post. That he was walking through this sent shivers down my spine as I told my mom jokingly, Should I be concerned that this man has a pumpkin knife in the dead of night, since the knife I thought he had behind his back was a pumpkin knife used specifically in vegetable shops. My mom paled all of a sudden at the thought while my dad started laughing. My mom shushed him down and asked where I had seen the man. My dad parked the car in our parking lot. As we got out of the car and I saw the man again walking freely inside the complex through the roads which connected each apartment. Our apartment complex is huge and we had certain roads which could lead to one tower or another. My mom caught sight of the man and started walking boldly behind him. We hid behind another car to run back to our apartment. Once the coast was clear, my mother suddenly backed off track and walked to our apartment. She met us at the ground floor of the apartment and she confirmed my suspicions. She didn't want to call the police because she thought this might go two ways and that we could be wrong. He might also just be a laborer in the near construction site and he was just there looking at stuff. I had a bad feeling in my stomach, but since there was no security, we couldn't really convey our worries to anybody. While we were in the elevator to reach our floor, my mom told me that the man stood in the intersection on the road. After a few meters in the road, you come to the intersection. If you go left, there is the back gate where there are no security guards and that gate is closed after 10pm if you go right, there would be more roads which would lead you to more towers. The man stood there at the intersection not knowing what to do and my mom told us to hurry before he could look back. The most spine chilling part was what we learned the next day, the eighth day of the festival, that one of the women in the tower had died. She was 40 years old and we swore we saw her on the fifth day of Puha holiday, greeting everybody. She was fine. She had no complications in her age. But then we found out that she was murdered in her bed and the door lock was burnt to ashes. We were told no more details until one of her sons confirmed our worst fears. The weapon used to kill her was a pumpkin knife. To this day, we kept quiet and the case had been closed two days after the murder. If we had had the chance, we could have told the police. The police are ignorant here and they won't listen to anybody anymore. That was one of the worst days of my life when I found out. This question still remains in my head though. What if it had been us? This took place around the fall of 2020, around late October. One night, three of my friends and I, Nate, Charlie and Jordan decided to meet up at a local park around midnight, just located within my friend Jordan's neighborhood to have one of our relentless hot boxing smoke sessions. Since this was our senior year of high school and with the pandemic and political animosity going on at the time, like many other kids, we were basically stuck at home for the most part, attending online classes and barely getting out of our houses since most public places were closed. Because of this, we all ended up smoking to kill time, so having these hotbox sessions wasn't anything new to us since we've been smoking since August of that same year. I recently stopped smoking altogether due to unrelated issues, but I digress. Back to the story. About an hour after our smoke session, the four of us reluctantly agreed to start driving out of the park and around town for a while, with my friend Jordan being the driver, Nate in the front passenger seat with Charlie and I in the back. 20 minutes into our drive, being the intoxicated idiots that we were having the windows cracked, we decided to put on dead space ambience music as we were making our way out of a residential area and onto a two main road that led out into the rural part of town. To give you an idea of the scenery, we were driving through one of those semi rural suburban neighborhoods you would find in the middle of nowhere. For those of you that live in the rural south or the Midwest, you know what I'm talking about. Since it was completely pitch black and we were practically in the middle of nowhere bumping creepy ambient music while approaching a dimly lit intersection, it began to give off an eerie, liminal vibe that was kind of fitting for the season. As we approached the intersection, my mind began to green out and race about the unknown beyond the darkness that enshrined our surroundings. It would be terrifying if we found a humanoid like a Wendigo or something right now. At that point we had reached the intersection and since I was looking to my left, I immediately noticed a figure emerging out of the pitch black. As the figure got under the street light, I realized that what I was looking at was a woman in pigtails dressed in a really classy clean outfit with a tan blouse and high heels. I instinctively sobered up and took this as a bad sign from all the stories I've heard and just knew something was wrong because who would be out here at 1am in a classy outfit in the middle of nowhere? In a matter of seconds my worst fear came to life as this woman began to approach the car and I really didn't want any of us taking any chances with this woman. I started to freak out and told my buddy Jordan, there's a woman coming. Turn the car now. Our friend Nate noticed a second figure dressed in all black slowly emerge from the rear end of the car just about 15ft away from our right side, slowly approaching. This only instilled more fear in all of us about the situation. Charlie instantly caught on and saw what we were seeing as this woman practically began running at us screaming please stop. Help me. Charlie then began aggressively slapping Jordan's shoulder in a panic, shouting, Jordan, turn the car now. Jordan, still zooted off the weed, was confused for a split second before he saw that this woman and the man in black were mere feet from the car. In a panic he yelled, oh my God. He peeled out to the right and in the opposite direction from where this woman and the man came running from. We all sobered up a bit, being so creeped out and confused as to what just happened, but we laughed it off because of how intoxicated we all still were. Needless to say, we still question why the woman was running at us screaming and what exactly the intentions were from both of them, especially the man dressed in all black behind the car. My morbid curiosity gets the better of me sometimes and I would like some theories as to what could have happened to all four of us during that night. Let me know in the comments below.

[D]

The world moves fast your workday even faster. Pitching products, drafting reports, analyzing data Microsoft 365 Copilot is your AI assistant for work built into Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and other Microsoft 365 apps you use, helping you quickly write, analyze, create and summarize so you can cut through clutter and clear a path to your best work. Learn [e-mail] M365 copilot.

[E]

Kay Jeweler's black Friday sale is on. Now's the time to get up to 50% off Black Friday deals. With savings this big, you can get gifts for everyone on your list. Plus, if Black Friday lines aren't your thing. Skip em at Kay. You can buy online and pick up in store or get free shipping right to your home. This holiday season. Unwrap love and savings with kay. Exclusions apply ck.com exclusions for details a.

[C]

KFC Tale in the Pursuit of Flavor the holidays were tricky for the Colonel. He loved people, but he also loved peace and quiet. So he cooked up KFC's $4.99 chicken pot pie. Warm, flaky with savory sauce and vegetables. It's a tender, chicken filled excuse to get some time to yourself and step away from decking the halls. Whatever that means. The colonel lived so we could chicken KFC's chicken pot pie the best $4.99 you'll spend this season.

[A]

Prices and participation may vary while supplies last. Taxes, tips and fees extra. I am a 22 year old male who happened to end up at the wrong place at the wrong time. My best friend lived in a city close enough to where I live, so I used to visit her a lot during the week when I had time off work. This one evening I left her house quite late, so I was pretty tired when I set off. Probably shouldn't have set off driving in the first place with me being so fatigued. Nonetheless, I set off home. Majority of the journey is on the motorway, but about 10 minutes into the journey I could feel my eyes rolling into the back of my head. I needed to pull over. I came off the road at the next exit and tried to find somewhere to pull over to possibly have a nap or at least rest. I eventually came across a little side road along a country road. This road was plunged in darkness with wooded areas on either side with some places on either side of the road to pull up. There were some other cars parked here too, so I figured this would be a good place to stop and have a rest. So I did exactly that. I pulled my car to the side of this uneven road surface and came to a stop turning off my engine and made sure that my doors were locked. Not long after pulling up and reclining my seat, there were a few cars pulling up near me, stopping and then driving off again, only to return a few moments later. I am a car enthusiast so I know my cars even from just the shape of their headlights so I could tell it was the same cars arriving and leaving constantly. I was getting a bit of I was getting a bit on edge, but I was so tired I just tried to ignore it and closed my eyes. After about five minutes of me laying there in My car. I heard a car door open and then close. The obvious sound of someone getting out of their car. I opened my eyes and glanced up out of the windshield. But because there were no street lights on this side road, all I could see was silhouettes of the cars parked near me. It was silent. The sound of the car door was instantly jarring. However, after I heard the car door, nothing followed for a few moments. So again I closed my eyes and tried to continue my nap. But then I heard the unsettling sound of someone's footsteps on gravel. Like I said, this road was silent, so this was an undeniable sound. The footsteps seemed to be getting louder and closer. I once again opened my eyes to see the horrifying silhouette of someone slowly approaching my car to the driver's side. My heart instantly began racing. I wrapped my hand around my keys, which were still dangling in the ignition slot. But I was frozen. I did not have the ability to sit up, start my engine, and race away. This person got closer and closer to my car. So I did what I thought at the time was the best idea. I turned my head away from the window and pretended to be asleep. This person approached my car. I heard the footsteps get closer and then stop. Then, my worst fear in that situation. I heard them try my door handle a few times. Then they made their way slowly around the back of my car and tried opening the trunk, to no avail. They then continued to the passenger side, which was the side my head was facing. I was certain they could not see inside my car. But I still opened my eyes the slightest bit to see what was going on. All I could see was a man dressed in black with his hood up, one hand in his pocket, the other trying my passenger door. I laid completely still, my eyes half closed, trying to fathom what was going on. After a few more tries on my door handle, he did another walk around my car. I could see him walk past, brushing himself up against my door as he did. He then stopped for a second. I thought he was about to walk away when he instead began knocking on my window. He did this three times. My heart began racing even faster as I lay there pretending to be asleep and not hearing it. I was certain he was going to try and smash my window. But to my surprise, he just walked away and got back into his car. He turned his headlights on, and I realized it was one of the cars that was driving up and down the road earlier. He angled his headlights directly into my car and through my windshield. So I threw myself back down and pretended to be asleep once again. I heard his car set off and very slowly drive past mine, almost stopping when he got right next to me. This whole experience filled me with fear and adrenaline to the point of being wide awake. So as soon as I saw his car disappear, I started my ignition and got out of there. I drove straight home and had one of the most restless nights of sleep ever. I never drove down that road again, even during the day. If you're tired and you need to drive somewhere, just don't. At all costs, just don't. At least stop at a service station that is well lit and please lock your car doors. I don't even want to begin to imagine what would have happened to me if one of my doors was unlocked that night. Growing up, my cousin and I spent a lot of time together. We were the type that would get in trouble for laughing and giggling well after the midnight hour. We often stayed at our grandparents house out in the middle of nowhere, N.C. at the very end of the dirt road that their house was off there was a very old dilapidated house with a haunting history. According to our pawpaw via the previous landowner, the house was the property of a woman left after the remaining members of her family had long passed. She dabbled in things occult related and was said to have practiced black magic, curses on people and using the gift she was said to have for negativity, she kept to herself and was ridiculed, unwelcome at the time with the small town that inhabited the area. After a very negative encounter with someone in a local shop, she was said to have gone home, created a new curse and then took her life to finalize the hex on the home and the land. Any future inhabitants of her home would experience paranormal and some even said demonic activity. One night as we were having a sleepover, my cousin, who we will call T and I decided that it would be a good night to visit the haunted house at the end of the dirt road. We waited until our grandparents fell asleep, which all we had to listen for was the loud and obnoxious snoring of Pawpaw. Once we heard the infamous snoring we knew we were home free. So dressed in all black clothing, we snuck foot first out of the bedroom window. It was approximately 1:45am on the way to the house we joked, played around with one another. Our conversations based on the fact that we were finally going to see the house after years of talking about going, sneaking out and trying to hunt a ghost. We were beyond excited so to speak when we Arrived at the house, flashlights lighting up the front exterior, we spotted the way in. Luckily, it was the front door. This door was hanging loosely on its last hinge. A joke of a door, to be honest. T and I pulled at the door and it came off its last hinge completely. Together, we laid on what was left of the front porch and shined our lights into the room. This room was missing part of the floor that over time had sunken into the earth and plants had begun inhabiting the room. We entered anyway. Touring the home, we began to discuss what we imagined it looked like in the past. The area we supposed was the kitchen. We lined in our imaginative conversation with wooden cabinets and a gas stove. Around the corner of what was at one time the kitchen, I spotted a very narrow and steep staircase leading up. Neither of us had ever seen such a staircase before. I shone my light on it and called T to come look at what I had discovered. Brave as we were then, we decided that it was a good decision to climb up and see what we found. As we climbed the stairs, we both froze in place as we heard what sounded like a woman scream as loud as she possibly could. Standing there, eyes wide, skin crawling and hearts pounding. We both pointed our lights in the direction of the scream, but the light landed on just a wall. We then laughed that awkward laugh, the one that says we heard that. But it was something explainable and with just our eyes deciding that we would keep climbing. As we reached the top of the stairs, we entered a room. This room looked as though it were not attached to the same run down ruined house that we entered. There were paper scattered upon the floor, symbols painted on the wall neither of us understood. But today, just the symbols on the wall would have caused me to tuck tail and run. They were symbols of conjuring symbols that called upon dangerous entities. Back then we saw them as bad artwork and just laughed at this time, I would have cleansed myself. Upon leaving, T stepped forward as I warned her that based on the dilapidation of the rest of the home, to be weary of where she stepped. As she crossed safely, I followed behind and as I did, the floor began creaking and almost screaming under my feet. I took six steps toward T. When the area of the floor I was standing on collapsed and down we both fell, the flooring landing on us both. T was able to wiggle her way out, but I was stuck. There was no way I was pulling myself out from under the flooring as most of it landed upon me. And to make the situation worse, a Huge piece of the floor blocked the only safe way in and out of the house. As T. Struggled to move the flooring off me, causing bursts of pain from my knee, I analyzed our situation, trying to come up with an escape plan. Neither of us had phones. Only one of us now had a flashlight, and we were not supposed to be there at all. This night took a terrifying turn. Quickly in the back of our minds. We never forgot this scream. I locked eyes on a small window just big enough for T. To get out of. I pointed this out and handed her my flashlight. As she turned and made her way out the window, pulled herself up and put her feet out. Slipping outside, she left me in the complete empty, full of possibilities and darkness. My scanning of the room and panic was interrupted by T Yelling out in pain. I called out to her asking what happened and she informed me that under the window what was referred to as sticky briar bushes. So she slid out the window, dropped about 5ft directly into thorns. I could hear her call out in pain as she struggled to rip herself out of the bushes and into freedom, continuously scanning the room, allowing every shadow darker than the next to cause my heart to accelerate. I spotted something. Something that was not in place. A silhouette of a woman crouched in the corner, staring at me beyond terror. At this point, I called out to T, asking where she was. As I watched the silhouette stand up and take one step towards me. I screamed. T. Replied with a scream of her own as she inched her way out of the briars. I'm out. She yelled at me. But I was shocked, frozen words unable to come out. I swear my mouth moved. Hurry. But nothing came out as the silhouette moved closer and closer. I shut my eyes tight and started trying to pry myself free, each tug and pull causing a searing, ripping pain through my thigh. But I wanted away from the shadow in the corner, the shadow that wanted me. I could feel all throughout me that I was in harm's way. I could feel the negativity of this silhouette emitted. Finally able to produce my voice, I screamed in a panic for T. To hurry up to come back to save me. I opened my eyes and the silhouette was no longer a dark shadow form. She had features transparent, but I could make out the eyes, the nose, the mouth, the long black hair. She was so close I could smell the death on her. Closing my eyes again, I started crying. I was so terrified. I questioned everything that I had ever believed. The shock to my system in that moment had caused every limb in my body to run ice cold and my fight or flight kicked in as I began to fight. I pulled and tugged through the pain as I released my leg from under the flooring. T's flashlight hit me and I opened my eyes finally as the woman shifted back into nothing but shadows. T was standing there, staring into the empty space that the woman stood in, her eyes never leaving the wall. She saw her too, the last of her. I watched her the entire time I was there. To this day I have never spoke with T about the woman because what is there to say? Did you see her too? That doesn't do that moment any justice. I know she saw her and I know she was as petrified with fear as I was. We made it back to our window and back onto the air mattress bed right before our grandparents woke for church, lying our faces covered, pretending to have been asleep the entire time. We denied joining them for church, stating that T had a bad headache and I was going to stay and take care of her once they left and we were sure that they would not turn around for something forgotten. We threw the blankets down and assessed our injuries. T was covered in thorn prickles and I had three gashes and what looked like claw marks on the inside of my thigh, blood seeping through the rips in my jeans. We patched each other up and though we knew the gashes in my leg most likely needed stitches, we did the patching ourselves and never told a soul. I still wear scars on my right thigh to the side above the kneecap, a permanent memory seared into the eyes of the shadow woman in my mind forever. I still dream of her, and when I do, she's asking me to return to the house or she's fading into view, her features becoming prominent from the shadows. Even in my dreams I feel the evil that she eludes. I feel the terror and I'll wake up sweating. My sleep paralysis moments always involve her. Have I carried her all this time? I have a close friend who used to work as a pool man and he recently told me this truly terrifying tale. He used to do a lot of pools for clients in a place where most of the homes were used as vacation homes. So most of his clients were of course not at home at the time that he did their pool service. So sometimes on particularly hot days, he and his assistant would take a short swim before they treated the pool with all of the chemicals that they had to use. As you probably know, pools are typically treated or shocked with chlorine and sometimes the chlorine levels may mean that you can't swim in the pool for a day or two after the shock treatment. And this day seemed really hot. Especially after the thought of having to work outside the pool and the heat of the midday sun whilst seeing the tempting and cool water the whole time time. My friend happened to know this particular client quite well and since said client was out of town at the time, my friend knew that it would be okay if he invited his wife and mother over to swim and have lunch. Since both his wife and his mother lived only a short distance away, they both happily agreed and soon the family was together enjoying a large sub sandwich with some chips and potato salad together. I guess the old rule about not swimming so soon after you eat is now considered sort of an old wives tale because after everyone finished their lunch, my friend took the liberty of being the first one into the soothing cool water on that uncomfortable and hot day. Not being one to just dive right into the deep end though, my friend started out in the shallow end and enjoyed the immediate cool cool down. His assistant, his wife and his mother were still at the poolside picnic table cleaning up the leftovers and garbage from their lunch. My friend says that he remembers feeling a very, very slight tingle in his hands and arms, but he wasn't alarmed by it. He was too busy just enjoying the cool water on his hot skin. After a few minutes of rest, relaxing in the shallow end of the large built in pool, my friend started swimming towards the deep end so that he could totally plunge himself into the water. But just as he was reaching the deeper waters, he started to really notice the tingling sensation getting more intense and he was now experiencing it in his arms and his legs. He was forced to stop paddling in to the deep end as all of his strength seemed to leave his muscles at once. But it was too late. The tingling sensation was now so bad that he could hardly move at all. As he drifted helplessly into the deep end, he felt a terrifying chill as he realized that he was now unable to touch the bottom of the pool. Unable to move an inch it seems seemed as though his muscles were all giving out on him at once and it started to dawn on him that he felt like he was being electrocuted. As my friend began to sink underwater, he tried desperately to break the water surface for a short breath and he caught brief glimpses of life just continuing on before him. His mother, his wife and his assistant were all oblivious to his plight. The situation got even more terrifying when my friend's wife and mother finally noticed that he appeared to be drowning and they all ran over to the pool Ready to jump in and help. With a burst of strength, my friend managed to choke out, don't. I'm being electrocuted. In an attempt to stop them from jumping into the deadly water or touching him to try and rescue him, and then getting shocked themselves. There was nothing left for his wife, his mother, or his assistant to do except watch in shock and horror as they realized that they really had no idea how to save him. My friend says that right about then, he started to feel totally drained. Then he started to feel himself giving up. A peaceful feeling began to settle over him as he started to sink. He gazed up at the bright, lively sun shining down on him through the silvery, rippling water. And he felt more at peace in that moment than he ever had before. As a lifetime seemed to pass, my friend sank lower and lower towards the pool's cement bottom. But finally, just as he had almost, almost completely given up on surviving his mysterious and terrifying ordeal, his feet finally made contact with the bottom. That caused him to ground out or something, he said. And that right there, it gave him the life saving jolt of electricity that he needed to survive. As he shot off the bottom of the pool, he used that last bit of strength in order to save his own life. Fortunately for him, he had somehow drifted closer to the edge of the pool. And that allowed him to get a grip on the side and pull himself up and out as he shot out of the water. As he put it. In an instant, as he lay there on the pool's edge, catching his breath, he didn't even care about the heat of the cement touching his skin. In fact, he was just grateful to be out of the water. It wasn't until a little while later that after my friend's client got home from out of town, that he finally got to find out what actually happened to him that fateful day. As it turned out, his client had just had a new pool light installed a few feet under the water on the far side of the pool in the deep end earlier that very same day. Obviously, the light was somehow wired and installed wrong, therefore literally electrocuting my friend as he simply tried to enjoy an afternoon dip on a hot day in the cool pool. He is extremely thankful that he was the first and only one to jump into the pool that day. It just goes to show, at least in my eyes, that danger can often lurk in unexpected places, allowing others around you to be completely and totally oblivious to your dangerous situation. Not only that, but it also alarms me just how quickly anyone's life can change or even end at any given moment, October 2022, I was in Jamaica for my best friend's wedding. We had stayed at a nice, all enclosure inclusive resort. It was built like a kingdom with small portions of a village to go to, restaurants, insane pools, clubs, shops, everything. But you could tell it was pretty old with renovations. I was single then and stayed in my own room, though I didn't spend much time in there because we were out doing stuff. Well, when traveling, local food doesn't always agree with me. So one night I stayed in, just trying to find something on the TV to watch when late at night, someone knocked on my door. I knew my friend might come to check on me at some point, so I figured that it was him, but I opened the door to no one there. The halls were big and wide with marble floors, so you could see in both directions and would surely hear someone running away. Also, the resort had two sides to it, family and singles. I was on the farthest side of the singles side, so I don't think there was any little kids playing pranks. Honestly, I would say it's nearly impossible for someone to knock on the door and hide that quickly without hearing them sneak into another room or something. Oh well, I think later I'm sitting in the bathroom on the toilet because again, the Jamaican cuisine didn't sit well with me and they actually had a landline telephone on the wall at the toilet. How neat. Well, the phone starts ringing. I pick it up, stunned, and say hello. There was a kind of analog sputtering sound that had no rhythm to it, just clicking sporadically. So I hang up and at this point I'm really trying to pretend like both occurrences are just strange coincidences. I told myself if the front desk needed to call me, they would call back, but they didn't. It then occurred to me that I had only heard the phone ring from the bathroom and did not hear the phone by the bed ringing, which shouldn't be the case if anyone was to call this room. Having no way to process this logically, I try to put it out of my mind. I've experienced some strange things before, so I wasn't freaking out, but this was beginning to mess with my peace of mind a bit. Anyway, I ended up getting some not so great sweaty sleep and feeling better, but not great. The next morning, I decide to take a long shower with the lights off, something I found very relaxing, when all of a sudden I hear another three knocks at the door. Only this sounded different. It sounded louder, closer. It sounded like it had come not from the front door of the hotel room, but the door to the bathroom. I sat in the darkness in the shower, naked, replaying the sounds of the knock in my head, trying to convince myself that I was wrong. But I wasn't. My brain immediately recognized it as the bathroom door, and I have to trust that at that point I knew this was not normal. This hotel room had another visitor. When I mustered the courage to get out of the shower and hurriedly turn on all the lights, I remembered something peculiar had happened earlier in that trip. So throughout the trip, I kept having problems with my key card. I had to have a new keycard linked to my door twice, seemingly for no good reason. Once it was two in the morning and I was very drunk and sat outside my door for about 20 minutes waiting for a maintenance guy to come help. He comes and links a new key to my door and I ask him, why does this keep happening? And he responded, this is an old resort. Some strange things happen here sometimes. He said this with a bit of a smirk on his face.

[F]

Long day, late night. Love putting on your makeup but hate taking it off. There's really no better feeling than coming home, getting comfy and removing your makeup. With Garnier Waterproof Micellar Water, it easily removes even stubborn waterproof mascara. None of that harsh rubbing needed and you don't even have to rinse afterwards. It leaves skin cleansed, refreshed and never dry. Head to Amazon to shop Garnier Waterproof Cellar Water.

[A]

It's.