Experian Advertiser (4:55)

It was more New Year, New Me. Cute, but how about New Year, New Money? With Experian, you can actually take control of your finances, check your FICO score, find ways to save, and get matched with credit card offers, giving you time to power through those New Year's goals. You know you're gonna crush start the year off right. Download the Experian app based on FICO scoring model offers an approval, not guaranteed. Eligibility requirements and terms apply subject to credit check, which may impact your credit scores. Offers not available in all states. See experian.com for details.

LifeLock Advertiser (5:24)

Experian it's tax season, and at LifeLock, we know you're tired of numbers, but here's a big one you need to hear.

Podcast Host (5:32)

Billions.

LifeLock Advertiser (5:33)

That's the amount of money and refunds the IRS has flagged for possible identity fraud. Now here's another big number. 100 million. That's how many data points LifeLock monitors every single second. If your identity is stolen, we'll fix it. Guaranteed. One last big number. Save up to 40% your first year. Visit lifelock.com podcast for the threats you.

Podcast Host (5:54)

Can'T control Work than we anticipated so it was a lot slower than we wanted. We usually worked in 10 or 15 minute bursts and then we would work on a squared off berm with the dirt we had excavated to hide the entrance. Before we finally got bored with the whole idea of multiple tunnels and caverns. We had dug a tunnel about 3ft in diameter and 10ft deep into the bank of the river. At the end of the tunnel we had dug out an area that was more of a small room than it was a cave. We made the floor as level as we could in an area that was about 10ft on each side. The top of the ceiling was probably eight feet from the floor. We finally stopped at that height because we ran into roots from the trees on the top of the bank and we were tired of trying to expand it because we kept getting dirt and grit into our eyes and mouths. We thought the end result was awesome. We dug little alcoves into the walls and put candles in them to provide lighting. It went from our own version of the Temple of Set to a little clubhouse. It was really cool inside there when the weather was hot outside. It was even better when the candles lit up the area in a horror movie type of light and you looked up, you could see the roots hanging down. We were all pretty proud of our accomplishment. We built the berm at the tunnel entrance up to about 6ft high and made the outside look like it followed the natural slope of the sandbar. The end result was that if you were to walk along the shoreline and weren't actually looking for it, you would more than likely have walked past it without even noticing.

Podcast Guest (7:34)

This became our home away from home.

Podcast Host (7:36)

And provided us with hour upon hour of fun and entertainment. We even camped out there a few times that summer. One weekend we Found that our little hidey hole had been used by someone else. When we crawled into our cave, we found several beer cans and a blanket and a pair of socks. Evidently, some of the older teens in the area were using it, too. We spent that day discussing booby traps and other means of discouraging the invaders from using our cave. But we finally decided that if we did anything to protect our cave, it would probably result in someone destroying it. Over the next few weeks, we found more beer cans, cigarette butts, a crushed pack of Camels that was empty, a Styrofoam cooler without the lid, a Frisbee, and a keychain with three or four keys on it. We put the Styrofoam cooler upside down in the middle of the cave and left the keys sitting on it. The next time we returned, the keys had been replaced with a Budweiser that we all took turns sampling and a new box of candles. We had a lot of adventures in the cave that summer. We were Conan in the temple, we were Rambo in the mines, and it was the Castle of the Crystal from the Dark Crystal. Then one day we all met at the cave to find that part of the ceiling had collapsed. An area about the size of a big tractor tire had fallen, leaving even more roots showing. We got an old galvanized tub that was about the size of a turkey pan and tied a piece of clothesline we had liberated to each hand handle, One leading inside the cave and one to the outside. Me and Jerry would pull the tub out and empty it after Terry and Bobby filled it inside the cave. After it was empty, they would pull it back inside and fill it again. We were about halfway finished when we heard the laughter. At first we thought it was whoever was using our cave. When we weren't, we were a little excited to see who it was. But then we heard the voices that went with the laughter. It was Bubba Hain and his brother Henry and a couple of their friends. They were the bullies of our area. They were notorious for being the local toughs. They all walked around with their elbows cocked back and their chests puffed out. They all smoked and talked with language that would have caused me to get beaten half to death and my mouth washed out with dish detergent if I had ever been caught using it myself. Bubba was 19 or 20 and had been in jail several times. He was mean and quick to fight, and it didn't matter if you were half his size. He terrified all of us younger kids. We debated crawling into the cave and keeping quiet until they passed us by, but if they knew about the cave, then we'd only be caught without anywhere to run. So we took off running in the opposite direction of the voices. We climbed up the bank, around the bend and circled back to watch from the top of the bank where we were safe and able to run if necessary. As we watched from our elevated vantage point, they came around the bend. Bubba and Henry were pulling a small aluminum boat through the water with a rope to tied to the loop in the front. The boat had an ice chest and several flathead catfish laying in it among empty beer cans. And they were talking about finding more fish. Evidently they were planning to have a big fish fry. Walking along in the front of them were Gerald and Ricky, also known for being less than friendly. They were both walking in the water about chest deep along the far side of the riverbank. They were all wearing cut off shorts and drinking beer. Ricky would stop occasionally and feel the wall of the bank under the water. As we watched, he disappeared under the sandy water for several seconds and then surfaced again and said nothing and they continued walking. They were talking about which girls would be at the event and who they hoped would come and who they'd like to hook up with. They were noodling for fish. Noodling is one of those activities that can be both exciting and dangerous. The way it works is you look for where a catfish or natural erosion has made a hole in the bottom of the riverbed, usually on one side or the other as the current isn't as strong there. The person doing the noodling will stick his hand into the hole and feel around for a fish. If a catfish is there, it will think the hand is a smaller fish and therefore food, and try to eat it. When the catfish has your hand in its mouth, you grab it by the lower jaw or through the gills and pull it out. Obviously, any catfish with a mouth big enough to engulf your hand is a good sized fish, ranging in size from 20 to 60 pounds on average. The problem with doing this is that occasionally you can get a fish that is actually too big to easily extract and doesn't want to let its lunch get away. It is then a fight to retrieve your hand and get your head back above the water before you drown. While they don't actually have teeth, catfish have millions of tiny little spikes on their lips that can scratch you up pretty good. Another danger is that you encounter something other than a catfish like a snapping turtle. If this happens, it is entirely possible to lose a finger. I am not too proud to admit that I am too chicken to go noodling. As we watched, Ricky went under the water again. After what seemed like two or three minutes, his hand suddenly shot up from the water and waved back and forth. Gerald immediately went under to help him, and they came back up a minute later, sputtering and gasping for air. They had caught a big one about 4ft long. Henry and Bubba pulled the boat over to them, and they all wrestled the fish into the boat with the others. They congratulated each other and toasted their fortune with a fresh beer. After a few swigs, they continued on their way. Eventually, they were out of sight, heading toward the more populated areas of the bottom where they lived. We didn't think they would be coming back, so we jumped back down and continued our work. Bobby realized that they had walked right by our cave and didn't even notice. That was just fine with the rest of us. About five minutes after we had started working on the fallen dirt again, we heard screams and shouts from the direction where Bubba and his friends had gone. They were sounds of fright. We forgot about getting pounded on and ran around the sandbar to the direction of the screams. When we saw Bubba and his friends. They were on the opposite side of the river than before, and the boat was floating downstream toward us. Terry caught the line as it passed, but he wasn't strong enough to stop it, so Jerry and I grabbed on too, while Bobby waded into the water and pushed it from behind. We all figured that our helping gesture would make us immune from any bullying for at least a little while. As we walked the boat back to them, Gerald was actually getting sick in the sand and Ricky was retching. Bubba and Henry were both white as a bedsheet and were walking back and forth, hugging their arms in tight against their chests as if they were freezing. They saw us coming to them and immediately went into the tough guy mode with their chest puffed out and elbows cocked. For a minute I thought we'd made a mistake in thinking they'd appreciate our assistance. Henry was the first to realize what we were doing and shouted an enthusiastic thanks and jogged in our direction. He helped drag the boat up to Bubba and the others. We were all apprehensive and ready to take off running, but no one seemed interested in being a bully. I looked to see who got hurt, but everyone seemed to have all their fingers and toes and there wasn't any blood anywhere. So I asked what happened. Bubba glanced out across the river to the other side about 60ft away, but didn't say anything. Henry finally said that they thought they saw a dead body. Gerald turned around, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand and spit. They ain't no thinking to it. I had my hand around its damn ankle, he said. I reached into that hole and felt what I thought was a tail and pulled on it and came up with a damn sock and shoe. We all looked at the opposite bank of the river, searching intently for any signs of blood and gore, but couldn't see anything. When we asked where it was, Ricky told us that it was about five feet down at the bottom of the big catfish hole. We we gotta call the police, gerald stammered. He kept wiping his hand on his pants. He stooped and gathered a handful of sand and washed his hands with it. Bubba told him to call the police if he wanted, but that he didn't want any part of it. Then he looked at us and told us to forget he was there. He told us not to mention his name at all. Then he and Henry turned around and began walking upstream toward where everyone lived. Gerald and Ricky looked back and forth at each other. Nobody knew what to do. Finally Ricky told Gerald to wait and he'd go call the sheriff and ran off. We all stood there for a minute, half afraid to talk. We knew about Bubba and acted accordingly, but Gerald wasn't as well known to us. We all know who he was and had heard stories, but none of us had ever had any direct contact with him before this. Finally Terry asked him how it happened and who had screamed. Gerald looked at him with big bulging eyes, still wiping his hands up and down his pants. I don't think he realized what he was doing. He stared for a minute like he was waiting to see if we were going to make fun of him. But we were all half scared of him and wouldn't have dared to poke fun at him anyway. After a minute he told us they were going to have a big fish fry later. They had been out noodling to get more fish so they'd be sure to have enough. They were planning to get just one more before they stopped. He looked at us and held his hands at shoulder level, palms facing inward, and shook them vigorously. Just one more, he said, shaking his hands so hard that water sprinkled on us from his wet hair. He told us that he had been walking along, feeling for holes in the riverbed with his feet. We he found the hole he had gone under and felt around with his hand. When he felt what he thought was a tail, he said that he grabbed it really hard Ready for the fish to try and swim away when he felt something oozing between his fingers. He told us that he braced his feet and pulled, and it just came up. As he told the story, he mimed all of his actions. He told us that just as it was getting close enough to the surface of the water for him to see how big it was, that he noticed it was white instead of the dark gray color. Then he saw the sock and shoe. That was when Ricky saw it and yelled. Ricky's sudden yell startled Gerald, who thought the leg was alive. They both ran to the boat and told Bubba and Henry what they had seen. Bubba didn't believe him, so he and Henry waded over to the hole and found the body. In their rush to get away from it, they lost the boat. After a minute, we came around the bend, bringing the boat with us. Ricky came back in a few minutes and announced that the sheriff was on his way. They hurriedly removed the ice chest and empty cans from the boat, and Ricky took everything away. After another few minutes, he came walking back with two uniformed men. The sheriff listened as the story was told again. He took everyone's name and address and phone number. He went back to his car while the deputy was asking Gerald and Ricky more questions. Was the body a male or female? Was the body white or black? Was it an adult or a child? Are you sure it was human and not animal? After what seemed like 10 hours to us kids, but was probably less than an hour, the sheriff appeared again. He was walking with four other men who were all wearing wetsuits and had scuba gear. Two of the men started taking a bunch of photos and plotted the area on a map and took more photos from the bank above the hole and from where we were standing and from the opposite bank on our side of the river. As the two men took the photos, the other two went underwater and confirmed that it was indeed a human body. Two of the men went back to wherever they had parked and returned with a table and another camera. As they returned, the sheriff told us that we should probably leave the area and stared at us until we took the hint and left. We ran back toward our cave and climbed the bank again, this time circling the opposite direction and sneaking to the edge of the bank overlooking the scene of the excitement. The scuba divers used the second camera to take more photos underwater. They couldn't have been very good photos because the water was only neck deep and they completely disappeared in the murky water. After they finished taking photos, they brought the table out to the edge of the water. The table was actually a large float that two of the men held in place while the other two went underwater again. I don't know exactly what I was expecting to see, but this thing they brought up out of the river actually gave me bad dreams for a few weeks afterwards. It was evidently a man. His face was swollen and his eyes and ears were gone. His belly was huge. He was wearing blue shorts and only had one sock and shoe. The thing that got me the most was his color. Gerald had said he was white, but he was actually a dull gray color with darker gray and green mottled spots. And he looked slimy. Two of his fingers were just bone. His mouth was open, and as they rolled him over onto the float, a bunch of nasty water flowed out. As I watched them walk the float back over to our side of the river, I noticed more and more details. The skin covering his elbows and knees was gone. The part that I thought was sock was actually skin. Evidently, when Gerald grabbed the leg and pulled on it, he had separated the skin and it just slid down the ankle. The part that I remembered most, the part that made me have bad dreams, was his head. No eyes, no ears. His mouth opened and full of who knows what. His facial skin was swollen to an almost comical size. But the skin around the tip of his chin was gone, showing bone from watching television and reading books. I had expected the body to be locked stiff with rigor mortis, but it wasn't. His arms and legs actually fluffed around as though the bones had turned to rubber. The last thing I remember about the man's body was the sight I saw as they carried him off toward the houses. The bottom of the foot without a shoe wasn't wrinkled, and it was snow white. This was the first time I had ever seen an actual dead person. Of course, I had seen countless dead people on television and in the movies, but never in real life. I don't know if that was the reason for the bad dreams or if it was because of the condition of the body. It was probably a combination of the two. I never knew who he was or how he died. I asked my mother a few days later, and after yelling at me for being down at the river, she said that she had only heard about the police finding a body. We went to the little cave a week or so later to see if there was anything new left in it, but it had completely collapsed, leaving a huge divot on the top. One of the trees on top was still standing, but at a drunken angle. It had rained, and that was evidently enough to collapse the cave in on itself. None of us cared though. The gruesome discovery had killed the magic of the place for us. The following summer, that whole side of the bank was gone, including the tree. It was a Thursday in August of 2002. I was 12 years old and had lived with my mom for the past six years since she and my dad got divorced. Soon after their divorce, my mom met a new man who moved in with us a few months later. Looking back, I can remember a few times where he had shown red flag behavior. Like one Evening maybe in 1999 when we, my sisters and I were watching a TV show finale very late. He was drunk and came into the living room smashed the TV with his hands. Back then the TV screens were made of glass. He cut his hand badly and yelled at us while bleeding. My mom forgave him after. He probably came up with a million excuses in the following days. In the beginning of 2002 my mom finally decided to have a break in their relationship and her and I moved into a different apartment a few miles away to get some distance. Me, still being the naive kid who thought she could have two dads, wasn't very excited about the idea. I already hated seeing my mom and dad split and now I had to let go of a man I had gotten used to over the course of all these years. I was still just a kid and and ignored all the signs and I even remember resenting my mom for leaving him. As I said, my story starts on Thursday 8th August 2002. I was in school and not feeling very well. I also noticed some type of rash on my hips so my teacher sent me to the doctor and the diagnosis was shingles. I can still see the doctor right in front of me telling me that if the rash gets worse and goes all the way around my hip it could potentially be very dangerous. So I went home for the day and was allowed to stay home the next day too. Friday the 9th On Friday morning my mom woke me up about 20 minutes before she went to work so she could check on me, have a little breakfast with me and bring me back to my bed to make sure that I would rest after she left. I remember lying in my bed and being relieved that the rash had gotten better overnight when I suddenly heard a noise from the hallway. My room was not connected to the hallway so I could only see the adjacent room and since my mom had left a couple minutes prior, I assumed it was her and called out to her. Seconds later my mom's Ex boyfriend appeared in my door frame asking me what I was doing home and why I wasn't in school. School. After I told him that I was sick and had shingles, he immediately said to me how much he missed us kids and my mom and how sorry he is for not being there and that he would love to talk to my mom and make things right. Since I was still unhappy about their breakup, I said stupid stuff like I missed him too and I wanted them to get back together. I cannot believe I seriously believed that. At some point, after a few minutes of small talk and him pretending to care about my well being, he made me promise not to tell my mom that he came by before he left. I obviously told her the minute she came home because I couldn't keep secrets from her and I also just wanted her to know. And again, me being a stupid 12 year old did not even question how he even entered the apartment without a key, without someone opening the door for him. I never in a million years would have thought that this might be illegal or inappropriate behavior. I knew that man and he had lived with us for a number of years. The same day, just a few hours later, my dad drove me to my grandma's as I had planned weeks in advance to stay the weekend with her and I already felt much better. My mom was supposed to pick me back up on Sunday, but on that morning my mom hadn't answered her phone for about 12 hours, which was unusual. A friend of the family picked me up, drove me home, and still no news from my mom. Since there's a rule in my country that a person has to be missing for 24 hours before breaking the door to the apartment and she became missing on Saturday evening. The police were only allowed to open the apartment on Sunday. My sisters, my dad and I all went inside. I grabbed all of my school supplies and went to the bathroom. After exiting the bathroom, I found my mom's dental prosthesis on a counter in the hallway. Not realizing it could be potential evidence, I picked it up and brought it into the kitchen where my dad was sitting with a police officer. My dad later told me that as soon as he saw the prosthesis, he knew something had happened. My mom had her teeth fixed just a few months prior and would not leave the house without that. After picking up our stuff from the apartment, my dad drove us back to his house and we waited. Monday morning and still no message from my mom. We didn't go to school that Monday, but planned on returning the next day. Tuesday morning I woke up on my own, even though my dad had said he would wake us up and take us to school. I was about to go downstairs when I saw the village priest leaving our house. Police had found my mother the night before. On Monday evening, one of my mom's neighbors went upstairs to do laundry in the attic when he noticed one of the doors being locked. No resident from the apartment building had a key to this specific room, so they had to call the landlord to open the door. I tried not to think about what they discovered, since it was the middle of summer and my mom had been dead for about 48 hours. My mom was murdered by her ex boyfriend after he returned to the apartment on Saturday afternoon to talk. The last person my mom spoke to was my aunt. Shortly before they hung up, my mom said, there's someone knocking on the door. It's him again. I gotta go. I'll call you later. He gained access to the apartment the same way he did on Friday, with a credit card. He was arrested only a day later in a bar after telling the barman that he had done something really stupid. Stupid? Yeah, I'll say. Eight months later, in April of the following year, my sister and I had to testify in the murder trial. But before we gave our testimony, our father argued with the court and made sure that we didn't have to face the killer. I remember sitting down in a large and very cold room, my father right by my side, holding my hand, lawyers to my right and to my left, as well as the judge in front of me. I remember being asked about the day he came into our apartment and answering all of the questions as truthfully as I could. They sentenced him to nine years in prison. Manslaughter, in effect, was the official cause. Seven of those nine years he spent behind bars. And as far as I know, he moved back close to our hometown, close to where it all happened. Over the years, people have told me that I was lucky. He could have killed me, too. If my mom had still been at home that day, if she had left just a few minutes later, maybe she would have run into him downstairs. Or if he had gained entry to the apartment while we were still eating breakfast. Lots of ifs and could haves. I know I won't be able to change the past, but I am sure glad I can control my future.

Depop Advertiser (33:20)

Kids, they grow up so fast. One day they're taking their first steps, and the next they don't fit into the tiny sneakers they took them in. You blink your eyes, and their princess dress is two sizes too small. And their dinosaur backpack isn't cool anymore. But don't cry because they're growing up. Smile because you can profit off of it for real. There are a bunch of parents on Depop looking for the stuff your kid just grew out of. Download depop to start selling.

Podcast Host (33:59)

In 2014 I moved to England from Canada to gain work and travel experience and also to quote unquote find myself. I ended up living in Essex with three other roommates. They were all women, all a bit older than I was. I was 24 at the time. Megan was 31, Cherry was 34 and Cassie was 38. Megan was from New York, Cherry from New Jersey and Cassie from Poland. All four of us shared this three story flat. The back of our home was the living room and kitchen. The back wall was complete glass that looked out into the garden. The garden was completely fenced in. The house had an interesting dynamic to say the least. Tons of stories from that time in my life. I adored all my roommates except for Cherry. After living with Cherry for seven months I was over her antics. One day I come home from work. I lock the door, make myself something to eat and go up to bed. I brought some work home with me. So I'm in my nightie with all these papers around me and my headphones in and jamming out. I had headphones on because Cherry was out to dinner with work friends. That meant booze. And then soon after that a tantrum was surely to come. I just didn't want to have to listen to her crazy scream crying. I am working away, completely focused until I feel something. I look up to see a man standing over me. I don't register it right away and passively say Cherry's room is on the second floor and continue to work. He doesn't leave again. Cherry's room is downstairs. You. He then interrupts me. I'm not here for Cherry. A cold chill iced my veins. My fight or flight kicked in just then. I start surveying the situation. I look him up and down. He has a bottle of Prosecco in one hand and a knife in the other. He is about 5 10, wild, muddy brown hair and black eyes. He has a light blue polo shirt on and one side of his collar is popped up and a distinct Manchester accent. Once I focused in I realized his eyes were black because his pupils were completely dilated. Crap. I was in trouble. I needed an escape plan. Unfortunately, this man was standing in between me and my bedroom door. I needed to get downstairs but I needed for him to think it was his idea. I decided to play along. Just then he uses his knife to pop the cork. Prosecco started flowing onto my carpet. I said, oh no, let's clean that up. I prefer to drink out of a proper flute anyways. He nodded, replying, yeah, you're a proper classy bird. Let's go. I try to act as natural as possible. I try not to show that I am shaking all over and try to gain control over my breathing. We take the long journey down to the main floor of my flat, all three floors. He has the back of my nightie bunched up in one hand and I could feel the point of the knife graze my back with his other. I was trying to playfully speak with him as we walked down the stairs. I couldn't tell you what I was saying. I was most likely rambling. I couldn't hear anything over my heart beating in my ears. We get to the bottom of the stairs and there is a hallway to my left that leads to the front door. On my right, which is much closer to us, is the kitchen and living room. We make our way into the kitchen. I point to the cabinets that had the wine glasses. He said he knew where they were and started towards them. I now had the kitchen table in between us. It was time to run. I burst into a sprint down the hallway towards the door. My hands fumble over the locks, shaking and sweating, I swing open the door and see two men walking across the street. They must have been walking home from the train. There was a big train station in front of our house. I call out to them for help and suddenly I am flung onto the ground. Little pebbles, peace piercing my skin sent sharp pains where they jabbed. The intruder pushed me out of the way to run and escape. One of the men chased after the intruder while the other said for me to go inside. While he surveyed my home and to call the police. I locked the doors and I called the police. While I am on the phone with dispatch, I manically run around the house to double check all the windows and doors. Suddenly I hear a loud bang on my door. I inform the dispatch of the banging and she informs me that police weren't there yet. I thought it might be one of the gentlemen who helped me. I go to look out the eyehole and it's him. The intruder. He came back. He's banging on my door screaming that I had his glasses and that he was not done with me. I absolutely freaked out. The dispatcher attempted to calm me down but I am losing my mind. She then said, they are pulling onto your street now. You should hear their sirens. I did. Thankfully. The intruder then blasts off. One officer jumps out of the passenger side while the car is still moving and chases after him. The second officer comes to my home, interviews me and the two gentlemen, collects some evidence and takes photos. After some time of him being there, Cherry comes home and freaks out. Once the situation was explained to her, she said, oh my gosh, that could have been me. Yeah, thanks Cherry. It's all about you. The next morning I am called in to identify a man they had in custody. I pointed him out. I go into a little room and the officer pulls out an evidence bag. He asked me if the items were mine. They were. They were my underwear and photos taken from my home. The officer informed me that the intruder had been stalking me for some time now. He estimates about three months. He had made a nest outside our home on top of a hill that overlooked into our living room kitchen. He is a known offender and dealer. He then told me how lucky I was to get out practically unharmed. Others weren't so lucky. I really hope I never see that man again. However, I would love to run into those two gentlemen again. Every day I am thankful for them. This summer I decided to pick up some graveyard shifts at my current full time job simply because it pays more and I am a university student drowning in student debt. About two weeks ago, on the rare occasion that I get to sleep during the time the sun is down at 3:30 to 4:00am, I was suddenly awoken by a loud sound. Sound. Me being half asleep, I honestly didn't know what the sound exactly was. So I just chalked it up to being one of my neighbors dropping something because I live in an apartment with very thin walls so I just try to go back to sleep. After about 10 minutes of laying there with my eyes closed, I hear the sound again. But this time I am pretty much awake. So I recognized what the sound was immediately. Someone was knocking on my window. For context, I am a single female living alone and in a basement suite. So my windows are basically level with the sidewalk. Obviously I am freaked out. I don't know what to do. I don't want to move and make any loud noises so they don't know I am home and I am just frozen laying in this bed. Then I hear the knocking again. I instantly bold up as my fight or flight kicks in and run to the front door which has my keys with my pepper spray on it. The keys clink together and make a noticeable sound and the knocking starts to get more intense and loud. This is when I realize the window with the screen by my bed is almost all the way open because my cat likes to sit on the edge and I forgot to close and lock it. I start to freak out. Already having major anxiety, I start looking for my phone just in case I need to call the police. Me being clumsy and shaking from anxiety, I drop the phone on the ground and whoever is at my window proceeds to what sounds like slid either their fingernails or a sharp object down the screen. I realized this person's intentions are either to come in or scare me. So like an idiot and not thinking, I run to the window as fast as I can, slam it shut and lock it while avoiding looking outside at whoever it was. The knocking stops and I wait about 30 minutes without hearing anything else. I lay back down and eventually fall back asleep. The next morning I honestly couldn't believe that even happened. I start to think maybe it was a dream, so I go outside and investigate and I see an empty beer bottle and a ripped blanket. I text my only friend who knew where I lived and asked them if they were messing with me and they said no, which I figured because they don't drive and live quite far away and the buses around my house stop running well before 3am So I called my landlord and told him what happened and he says to ignore it and that this has happened before, which is creepy anyway. I obviously recognize now I should have done a lot of things differently and called the police right away. It hasn't happened since. Nonetheless, still super terrifying. I live in a small, small town. You blink and you miss it. The best way we can boast about it is a single stop sign and a gas station, which we only have because of the nearby highway. Any actual semblance of a town is 25 minutes away, so when things get scary out here it's amplified. The occasional homeless person is no big deal. They are often drifting through addicts running rampant and will steal everything they can from your house. But it's the normal out here. However, what happened a few years ago certainly wasn't normal. Originally I was dead asleep in my bed. I only woke up because it was burning hot in my room. But it was summertime and there wasn't much I could do. I just remember tossing and turning until I got a creepy feeling that fell into the pit of my stomach. I glanced over to the bathroom door that was open with the light on. Everything was normal. I left the light on so I wouldn't trip and die if I had to pee in the middle of the night next, I glanced at the window directly across from my bed. I had no curtains, but I did have a crappy set of blinds. Part of the blinds were broken from wear and tear and the crappy AC output beneath it would make them move back and forth so you would get a glimpse outside every so often. The yard light was still going, but what made me stop was the outline at my window. The figure of someone was directly at my window, almost like it was waiting for the blinds to move to watch me. I didn't have an imagination as a child that had been trained out of me, but the sight was enough to pour every horror film into my head. At that moment. I squeezed my eyes shut and pulled my blankets over my head and slept in a cloth oven that night. By morning time, the figure was gone. I remember running to my mom's room on the verge of tears in the morning telling her what happened. She laughed at me like I was an idiot and told me it was probably just a stray cat that had climbed up there for one odd reason or another. I almost believed her since my window was pretty high off the ground. But something didn't sit right. Later that day when we were doing yard work, I glanced over at my window and saw one of our metal patio chairs had been pushed up to it. I pointed it out to my mom who then proceeded to chew me out. That's how the cat probably got up there. Moron. Stop. Leaving furniture everywhere but I hadn't moved was heavy enough that I struggled with it, so we moved it back. And so began a pattern. At night I would see the figure complain to my mom and we would find a chair moved back every single morning. This went on for a few weeks. My mother stopped carrying caring about my concerns until one morning we saw where the outside screen of my window had been sliced open. I still remember her shaking her head and complaining about those dang stray cats that we had still yet to see. I could tell she was unnerved by that development. I couldn't handle it anymore and I opted to sleep in our living room that night. The only problem was our kitchen and living room connected, which meant there were always several windows. The first night of my move went well. Despite my back hurting from the couch, I avoided my room like the plague. It wasn't until about four days later when we ran into an issue. I woke up and glanced at the clock above the fireplace. It read a little past 3 3am I couldn't realize why I had woken up until it happened again. There was a beam of light shining in from the kitchen window, almost like someone was shining a flashlight in. I saw it trace along the walls and land on the love seats across from the couch I was on. I was mortified when I told my mom. She continued to laugh at me. I gave in and decided I would sleep in my dad's room even though it had a gigantic window. He slept in the recliner with a huge tv, so I felt more safe having someone around. The yard. Light was directly outside the window anyways. It seemed foolproof. That was until I woke up out of habitual fear and watched through the window across from the bed. Everything seemed normal as time drug on and I felt like a moron. Maybe my mom was right. That was until I saw a lone figure come out of the woods by the backyard shed, walk directly under the light and head to the patio furniture like he had been here plenty of times before. I still remember the large build the man had and the confidence like he was the one who lived here and wasn't creeping around my yard in the dead of the night. I just remember listening to the TV until I fell asleep again, hoping to get another glimpse. My dad would have been angry if I had woken him up. He was grumpy on a good day and terrifying on a bad day. I didn't feel like risking it until I had solid proof because I was scared. The next morning my mom chewed me out again for the patio furniture, which was routine almost a month later. But this time something new happened. She demanded I stop playing in the toolboxes in the garage. A bunch of tools had been taken out and left on our doorstep. Screwdrivers, a hammer, flashlights, etc. It wasn't me. I begged with my mom and pleaded with her, just stay up with me. One night we couldn't close our garage because it was an open carport and I wasn't going to get beaten for touching tools because of someone else. It was driving me mad. Finally she agreed. That night we would stay awake in the living room. I finally fell asleep before my mom did, but I remember her waking me up in a panic. She pointed to the window that overlooked into our garage. We could see the top of someone's head as they walked back and forth. There was a sound of someone placing metal tools down on the brick steps as if they were trying to be quiet but couldn't fully muffle it. She whispered for me to go wake up my dad. My dad was angry, having been woken up in the middle of the night by his frantic daughter. He grabbed his weapon and headed out from the back door towards the front of the house where the garage was located. We heard my dad screaming and someone dropping tools. Then a shot rang out twice. The frantic footsteps pounding out of the garage felt like they were coming from my chest. My mom peeked out of the window and then opened the door and my dad stumbled in. He had missed both times because of his unstable aim, but told us that there was a man crouching at our front door, looking at our door handle. None of us slept that night, and in the morning the law from the closest town arrived. They didn't do much besides ask if anything had been stolen for a description of the man, and then told us that we should install cameras. That was it. They said the guy was probably just looking for something easy to steal for quick money. If that had been the case, why hadn't he stolen the tools, the generator, the welder, or broken into any of the vehicles just sitting in the garage? We finally set up hunting trail cameras around the house, but nothing has happened since coming home from college for holidays. I still have nightmares about the incident years later when I sleep in my own bed. I don't know what he was looking for or why he did the things he did. It's. It's.