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- [00:01]
Narrator
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- [00:31]
Narrator
Lifelock. How can I help?
- [00:32]
Advertiser
The IRS said I filed my return but I haven't.
- [00:35]
LifeLock Representative
One in four tax paying Americans has paid the price of identity fraud.
- [00:38]
Advertiser
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- [00:39]
Travel Advertiser
My refund though.
- [00:40]
Narrator
I'm freaking out. Don't worry, I can fix this.
- [00:43]
LifeLock Representative
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- [00:48]
Advertiser
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- [00:49]
Narrator
No problem.
- [00:49]
Travel Advertiser
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- [00:51]
LifeLock Representative
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- [01:01]
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- [01:27]
Narrator
Go to your happy price Priceline. Hey welcome back to the podcast. I really hope you enjoy this episode and if you'd like to hear more stories like these with a different background sound, please check the description to check out my other two podcasts. And if you want to get rid of all of the ads, you can subscribe for just $2.99 a month. Last thing, I really appreciate you being here and I'd really love if you would follow the podcast and come back again soon. Thank you so much. I hope you enjoy. There have been three instances in my life where I have felt like I was going to be abducted. I am a woman and I am currently 23 years old. I am also on the petite side, standing at a whopping 53 and and weighing around 115 pounds. Because of this, I typically wear heels or platform boots so that I can appear taller than I actually am. This story happened this spring while at a secondhand store. I was looking to find a good side table styled cabinet and my boyfriend came with me because I have already been nearly abducted twice in my life and I suffer from CPTSD in part because of that. So I am not really able to go out in public by myself unless I am with someone, going to class or going to work. Lucky for me, my boyfriend is six three, lean but muscular, has a very deep, intimidating voice and has absolutely no issues with taking physical action if I needed that kind of defense. So it's nice basically having my own caring personal bodyguard for context the area I live in is bad for trafficking. I live in northern Wisconsin but close to Minneapolis. The I94 runs basically straight to Minneapolis from the Dells. I grew up near that area and I know full well that the Dells has bad trafficking issues too because of the high levels of tourism in the area. Plus Baraboo, the next town over from the Dells, still has running cargo trains that are rumored to contribute to trafficking, but that's not entirely relevant. The town I currently live in is split in half by the same interstate and there's a Walmart right by the exit, also infamous for trafficking. There have been many abductions of women in our town in various locations all over and it isn't a secret to anybody that it is an issue for the area. Now moving on, my boyfriend and I go to the next town over to look for a cabinet styled side table because the second hand shops in our town don't sell furniture. We get inside and look around for a little bit before my boyfriend says that he needs to go to the bathroom. I keep browsing nearby the bathrooms in a display area for desks, dressers, etc. And I find this really neat vintage vanity with hidden organizers in the top of the desk and I start looking at it and checking out its little features while doing so. I feel eyes on me so I look around to see if I'm being watched by someone. Sure enough, in the row of desks behind me there is a middle aged man looking at me with no facial expressions. I am dressed in a skirt and knee socks and this is one of my go to looks. So glaring at creepy men eyeing me up isn't something new to me. But since I am alone at the moment and don't want to upset the guy, I give him the cliche midwestern half smile and move up the row away from him but towards the corner of the section. All of a sudden this guy practically runs to the row I'm in. So I take a right and head up towards where he was standing when I spotted him. Initially he picks up pace and I am now half running trying to get away from him and after a small chase around furniture we end up in a situation where I am standing on one side of the row of desks and he is standing in front of me on the other side waiting to see which way I go at a standstill at this moment I try looking to my left towards the other furniture and bathrooms to see if anyone is around to witness this and thank Gaia. My boyfriend is out of the bathroom already walking towards us with very squared up posture. He looks absolutely livid and his eyes are locked solidly onto this creep that was chasing me around furniture just a second ago. My boyfriend reaches my side and puts his arm around my shoulder protectively and he and this creep make eye contact. They honestly both looked equally pissed off. The guy doesn't say anything, just walks away, but every few minutes or so we see him looking at us a few aisles away wherever we are in the store and I am extremely anxious at this point and just want to leave. But my boyfriend is trying his best to reassure me and calm me down in ways he best knows how with little avail. He eventually distracts me from the guy by finding a perfect side table for what I was looking for. Dark cherry wood glass door shelves. Absolutely beautiful and only $30, not to mention a student discount. We pick it up and head to checkout and the entire time I am paranoid and looking around to see if this guy is near us. He is currently being checked out at the register and we are being separated by two other customers. My anxiety spikes again but I try not to let it show. When he is done he walks through the first set of doors to exit but is still in the first entrance of the store just standing there. He looks at me and we make eye contact a few times while I am in line and then checking out. I make it a point to stand on the right side of my boyfriend carrying my new find out and holding eye contact with the creep the whole time. We exit and get into the car. He doesn't say or do anything, he didn't follow us, he just stared at me and we get into the car safely. Although I am still paranoid and trying to get the side table in the car and secured as fast as possible, which is just making me fumble even more. But regardless we left safe and made it home okay. I can't say for certain that this man was trying to abduct me, let alone if he was working with traffickers, but I highly doubt he was chasing and stalking me around the store with Pure Intentions. I just want to start off and say that before this incident I have always been a skeptic of the paranormal. Growing up, my mom and dad would tell me stories that they encountered with the paranormal in their early years, so I always had an open mind to the possibility. But since I personally haven't encountered anything, I have always thought if I didn't see it then there might have been a logical explanation to their experience, so who knows if it's actually true? Moving on to the incident that made me a believer. This all happened back in the early fall of 2011. Me, my son and his mother lived in a two bedroom second floor apartment on the east side of Cincinnati, Ohio. My son at the time was a little over two years old and was starting to say words and communicate in ways typical kids his age would say or do with body language and gestures. I say that because this ties in with the story later on. On this particular afternoon, his mother was over at her mother's house for the past two days and was staying one more night there to help her cope with the loss of a relative that recently passed. So me and my son, who I will call Kevin to protect his identity, had the place to ourselves for the night. Around 5pm that early evening I invited my longtime buddy, who I'll call Tony, who I've known since fifth grade and also lived downstairs in the same apartment building, over to my place to watch a baseball game. I also called my dad over to my place to partake in the makeshift guys night I set up during the game. Everything is going well, we ordered pizza and soda and we were having a good time during all of that. For reasons I can't remember, my dad started retelling me and my buddy his paranormal experiences that he told to us as kids. Even in our mid twenties we still felt like nine year old boys hearing those ghost stories for the first time. Regardless of my skepticism, my dad is an amazing storyteller so hearing them again is never a drag. With that said, it's approaching 10pm at this point and the baseball game was over so my dad headed out to make it back home at a decent hour. Tony stuck around a few more minutes to smoke a cigarette with me on my balcony and then head back down to his place. So before bed I decide to clean up some of the pizza boxes and soda cans laying around the living room while my son was rolling his toy cars on the laminate floor in the kitchen to give you a quick layout of the apartment to get a better visual as this story continues to the creepy stuff as soon as you walk in the door of my second floor apartment, the opening to the kitchen is right in front of you. To the right is the small closet and to the left is the living and dining room. If you were to be standing in between the living room and dining room, straight ahead opposite the wall where the front door is, there's the opening to the hallway going left and right to each bedroom and straight ahead is the bathroom. So let's get to where things get spooky. Remember me saying my son was just starting to communicate with words and gestures. I am in the living room, still cleaning and in the midst of my son joyfully playing with his toy cars, I hear him abruptly stop it Johnny. And then immediately began to cry. I froze. We didn't know a Johnny so how does he know this name? I think to myself. I then head into the kitchen to see my son on the floor holding his hand in tears. I get down to examine it but see no injuries, no red marks, no blood, etc. I quickly calm him down and asked him what happened. It was at this point he turns his body and points at the kitchen wall and says in mumbled cries, crying two year old Broken English Johnny in the hole in the wall. Every hair on my body stood up, met with a shiver down my spine. To give you an idea of how terrifying it was seeing my young child point towards a wall and say a random man's name. Kids at that age don't fully grasp the concept of lying or playing a prank. If he is pointing at something and calling it by name, that means he had learned it and is doing his best to communicate with me about what he'd experienced. It was in that moment I knew I had to get out of there. So I picked him up and grabbed my keys, wallet, phone and phone charger and was heading to my dad's for the night. He lived 10 minutes up the road. But then it hit me. I would need the mattress from his car bed. See, behind that wall my son pointed at was his bedroom. I stared at the door handle for a moment debating whether or not to just leave, but knew if I was going to that I at least need his mattress. With a swift jog into the bedroom, I pulled that bed up with one hand and got out of there asap. I leave, calling my dad and waking him up, telling him that I was heading there for the night and that I would explain it all to him. When I got there. He said he would leave his door open and to just come on in when I get there. Now this story isn't over yet. It gets even weirder. As I was driving to my dad's, I decided to call my buddy Tony to tell him what happened. Immediately upon him learning that I bolted out of the apartment in a manner that I did, he laughed. I can't blame him. I'd probably laugh at me too if I heard he ran out with a toddler in one hand and mattress in the other at 10:30 at night. But I wasn't him. My son saw an entity in our apartment and I was seriously considering never going back. However, in the middle of his laughter, he remembered something. He stops and says, hey, wasn't Johnny the name of Fran's husbands that used to live there? Let's rewind to a few months back. I was just moving into the apartment, unloading things from my pickup truck, and I noticed a sweet little old lady walking her dogs out in the courtyard in front of the apartment complex. As I was walking by her, I introduced myself and told her I was moving into the building. She introduced herself as Frances, but went by Fran, by people who knew her. We exchanged pleasantries as I walked into the building. She followed because her two little pups finished their business and we all started walking upstairs to the second floor to our apartments. My apartment was on the corner of the building, so I went left when I got up there and Fran went straight to her apartment. But as I was walking to mine, her little dogs followed me. I said, wow, I must have made a great first impression. But Fran replied, no, honey, I actually used to live in that apartment with my husband for 15, but when he died six months ago, I couldn't live there anymore and had to move. I sat there not knowing what to really say besides, oh, I'm so sorry for your loss. Fran replies with a slight frown on her face, it's not your fault. When it's our time, it's our time. And then immediately follows up with and just to let you know, he didn't die in that apartment. It was at the hospital. I immediately reply with I wasn't thinking that, but thanks for at least letting me know. But in the back of my head I was wondering that and glad she informed me. Fast forward back to the night of the incident. My buddy Tony tells me I probably need to talk to Fran about what happened and to maybe see if she had a picture of him and to see if my son could point him out, just to see if that's what really happened. I tell him I'm not Sure how I feel about bringing this up to her, not trying to stir her emotions not even a year after her husband's death. We hang up and I arrived at my dad's. I go in and explain everything to him. He understands and then during the night, convinces me that I need to talk to Fran as soon as I could to make sure that Kevin saw her husband in the apartment instead of something possibly sinister. So the next day I decided to do it. I decided to bring this up to Fran and not to just clear up if my son saw the ghost of her deceased husband in my apartment. But if it were him, maybe Fran could get some comfort in knowing that her husband was still there for her. I pull up and who do I see outside walking her dogs? You guessed it, Fran. I approach her saying if she has a few minutes, I would like to talk to her in private about something important. Confused, she politely invites me up to her place to talk. We go in and sit down on our couch. I start off with informing her that I wasn't there to tell her any BS considering how the last year has gone for her. She looks at me, still confused, so I tell her that I'll just get right to it. I tell her that I think my son saw her husband in my apartment and told her to just give me a few minutes to explain why I thought that I told her the story and how I thought if this wasn't her husband, that I would like to at least make sure that it was nothing sinister before I bring my kid back in there. She understood, but seemed skeptical. I can't blame her. I would be too. Hearing all of that, I then asked Fran if she had a picture of Johnny, perhaps one with him with multiple other men in it, so that if my son points him out, that it would prove even more that he did see him. She obliged and brought out an old photo album from her bedroom. She opens it and flicks a few pages over and then shows us a photo of three men. In the photo, it looked like three guys at a cookout enjoying each other's company around the grill. I then asked Kevin if he remembers Johnny that he saw last night. He looked at me and nodded his head yes. I look over at the photo and ask my son to point Johnny out to us. He walks right up to it and heavens to betsy, he without hesitation points right at Johnny. Fran immediately broke into tears and I was right behind her. I reached over and hugged her as we both cried. She said in a sobbing voice that almost a whole year has passed and that she was feeling alone. Her husband for 27 years died and she had really nobody and to know that he was still here looking after her took away some of that loneliness. After wiping away the tears, I told her that anytime she wanted to come in there and talk to him alone to just let me know. She said that she would and I told her that I was going to hold her to that. She then told me what probably happened was when my son was playing in the kitchen, that he might have reached into the drawer where we kept certain steak knives and that Johnny possibly closed the drawer on his fingers and was making sure he didn't get a hold of those knives.
- [19:29]
Sterling K. Brown
Hey, it's Sterling K. Brown from the Hulu original series Paradise. The next chapter begins as Xavier's search for his wife takes him above ground and what he finds will change everything. It was never just about the bunker. Tune in and discover the truth lies outside Paradise. The Official podcast premieres February 16th and stream paradise on February 23rd on Hulu and Hulu on Disney.
- [19:56]
Narrator
Whatever the reason, I know that nothing odd ever happened to us in that apartment before that night. I think when my dad was over telling those paranormal stories, perhaps Johnny felt that this was the best time for him to communicate. I was telling Fran that it's time for me to leave and asked if she wanted to come with me to maybe talk to him. She politely declined and said that she needed to let all of this soak in before she tried to do anything like that. I understood and told her to never hesitate to ask me to talk to him when she was ready, she said she would and I hugged her and left. Me and my son headed back over to the apartment. I walk in realizing I left the door unlocked all night due to me running out of there the previous night. I set my keys down and began to talk out loud saying hey Johnny, it's me, the guy that ran out of here last night because he's too scared of ghosts. I just want to let you know that Fran is three doors that way and that she would love to have you go over there and keep her company instead of me who scares too easy. Anyway, thanks for protecting my kid from the knives. Please don't try to communicate with me though. I obviously showed signs last night that I cannot handle it. Anyway, thanks. And again, Fran is three doors that way, buddy. After that, I never felt creeped out in that apartment. Nothing ever happened and my kid never saw Johnny there again. Fran never came to me to talk to Johnny and when we would talk after that the topic never came up. Seven months later we moved out. I walked up to Fran's door and hugged her goodbye. I handed her the keys and said if he wanted to go over there that it's all hers to do so until they rent the place to a new tenant. She took the keys and hugged me with a tear in her eyes. We said goodbye and that was it. I don't know if she ever went back in that apartment to talk to him or not. However, I do know my son. Seeing him that night and pointing him out in a picture to her must have made her feel not alone, that her husband was still here with her. And that to this day, always brings a smile to my face whenever I think about the incident that made me a believer in the paranormal. I am from Aotearoa, New Zealand. We do have the odd missing person or scary case, but it's otherwise safe here and not much happens. I mean that in a way that as a 19 year old girl I feel comfortable to walk the streets at night or go on hikes alone because it is pretty safe and everyone looks out for one another generally. This happened in the summer of 2019. My boyfriend and I were headed out on a picnic date to a spot we had visited before plenty of times. Karakariki Track. It's at the end of a very long, windy rural farm road off the state highway. So you drive for like 15 to 20 minutes from the main road down a long farm stretch and at the end is a large cul de sac and a surrounding massive farm. The owners of the farm have left the land kind of open to the public as a reserve because there are native trees and and other things because about a 15 minute walk from the cul de sac car park there is a small waterfall you can swim in. The track is really popular as it's one of the closest swimming spots to the nearest city, Hamilton, and it's really scenic. You cross footbridges, pass by creek beds, etc. The farmers still go through every now and then to do their farm work and there are fenced off off areas that the public can't enter as they still actively work the land. This particular day my boyfriend and I were super happy because it was empty in the parking lot and it was a super hot summer's day so that was really rare. The farmer was crossing the cows through the gate on a quad as we arrived and he smiled and waved at us. He's an older man and we had spoke before as we were regular visitors. So we set off towards the waterfall, we crossed one foot bridge and passed through a big paddock of cows. The track is quite narrow and the creek is right off the edges so you have to be careful. We saw the waterfall, decided against swimming as we had no towels and headed back toward the car park. Now on our way back, we decided to go down a little bit of a steep, steep gravel off ramp on the track that led to a more private tree covered area right by the creek. Here is where it starts. We were kissing and whatnot. I was laying on my stomach reading a book and my boyfriend was sitting up playing on his phone and he was rubbing my back and playing with my hair. We were there for about 10 minutes before I turned and glanced up the gravel path and way up even further on a hill through one of the farmer's gates, I saw a big man on a quad bike who I did not recognize as one of the farmers as there is only the one old couple who work the land. He was just sitting there staring at my boyfriend and I and I don't even want to think about how long he had been there before I noticed. I told my boyfriend and as soon as the guy saw we were both looking at him, he opened the gate and started heading down. Now both of us immediately got up leave as we did not want to have a conversation with a farmer about us getting freaky on his land, which is what we both assumed would happen. But it was so much worse. This guy came down the gravel track and ran his quad right through the creek. He left it there running in the water and got off. He was talking to himself, saying things along the lines of ah, I messed up the engine over and over before he even got near us. My boyfriend and I were gathering our things to leave at this point and he starts to head towards us. He didn't even make small talk, which was really strange because he went straight into saying have you guys seen any fish? I'm looking for some fish to kill. My boyfriend tells the guy that there is no fish in the creek as it's fresh water and he's probably best off to catch some eel and this sends him into a fit and he starts saying I don't want no eel, I want to kill some fish. I had made it a point to not look at the guy in the eyes as I didn't want to draw the conversation towards myself because I was already extremely freaked out and I didn't want him to notice that my boyfriend is much more more of the calm and strong one when it comes to stuff like this. But for a second I did look at the guy and I thought he looked like his face was slightly deformed, possible bell's palsy. As I work in aged care and I have seen it a bit and it looked similar. I bent down to tie my shoe and when I was standing back up, that's when I saw the weapon on the man's waist. Listen to me close now. This is my first and last time in my entire life I have ever seen a real life weapon. It is incredibly hard to get one in New Zealand, especially after the regulations following the incident in Christchurch. And not only that, he had one weapon on his belt and was waving another one around in his hand while he talked to my boyfriend about wanting to kill some fish. Fish. He was aiming it down to the creek every now and again and then swinging it around on his finger. My boyfriend gave me this stern look and stern is the best word for it because the look spoke a million things to me in the moment and he nodded his head towards the gravel hill leading back to the track. I grabbed the two bags we had fake, checked my phone and told the man that our family were waiting for us back at the car park. He completely ignored what I had said and instead said that's a cool hat you've got on. Or something about my hat. That was completely irrelevant. So I dismissed myself and said goodbye and made my way to the hill. In my mind, I did not want to look back and see my boyfriend be hurt and then have a weapon pointed at my head. I knew that our best bet was me getting up this hill onto the narrow path he couldn't ride his quad down and sprinting to the farmer's house. As I'm walking up the hill, this guy says to my boyfriend, that's a really pretty girl you got there. And it was like all the intentions of his I didn't want to believe were confirmed. I felt like I would die. My boyfriend though, said a quick thank you, will be off now and headed up the hill with me. The guy kept talking on like the conversation hadn't ended even as we headed away and he stood there weapon in hand, watching us leave. As soon as we were around the corner we sprinted all the way back to the car park where we hadn't noticed before There were over 10 empty shells laying on the ground. We had run into two girls in bathing suits just arriving at the spot as we did and informed them about everything. They got in their cars and left immediately. We tried to go to the farmer's house to ask if he knew the guy as we had never seen him on the land before but they were not home. As for the weapon, it's still so freaky to me as I had never seen one before. Not a big deal, I know, but it looked quite old and rusty and when we discussed the incident on the way home, my boyfriend suggested that they were probably handed down to him from someone else. This incident has stuck with me for the past few years and my boyfriend and I have not been able to return to the spot. Which sucks because that's where we had our first date and it was a really sentimental place for us. I had to drive past the road leading to the track for like a year as I commuted between towns and it always made me feel sick. I could have lost my life or my partner that day and I'm always extremely grateful that my boyfriend is the man that he is and was able to steer the guy away from us for us to leave and to communicate to me through movement to tell me what to do in my freaked out state. He told me after that that he was ready to die if he had to because knowing the guy had been watching us beforehand and complimented me in the way that he did was clear that he could have had some scary intentions. It's also made me way more fearful now to travel in the bush alone, which I have done my whole. Last night. I was laying in bed reading a little before I went to sleep. I think it's important to clarify that I live on the outskirts of my town, still in town, but definitely on the edge off the highway that leads out of town and into about a 15 mile long stretch of lots of country, woods, fields, a few residences, but mostly open highway. So other than the other tenants in my actual apartment building, it's normally very quiet in my area. My building is a square with four apartments and for each of us our door simply faces out into the open. There's no lobby or foyer or anything. My door in particular looks out into a large field that goes up a hill. I don't remember the exact time, but sometime between 1 and 2am Someone randomly started banging on my door, which would freak me out in the broad daylight, but especially in the middle of the night. I nervously went to ask who it was and this guy with the deep voice claimed he was a police officer and that I needed to let him in. That's what he said I needed to let me in, not that I needed to open the door. Luckily, I watch and listen to a lot of True crime stuff. So I got pretty suspicious real quick. I got near instant alarm bells because he couldn't tell me why I needed to let him in what I supposedly did, and he never asked what my name was. He also didn't really sound like a police officer, if you know what I mean. Obviously I was feeling creeped out, So I called 911 to confirm that there was actually an officer at my address and they said there wasn't. At this point I am freaking out and I kind of call out through the door that I'm on the phone with the police and the guy just kinda bangs on my door one more time, then stops making all noise, I presume because he ran off. They dispatched two cars to my apartment and the officers took a good look around. Unfortunately, the guy was long gone by the time they got here and I never saw him. So I don't have a description of him or anything. But the cops said two things to make me feel better. One, they would post more patrols in my area over Halloween weekend. And two, it was most likely a Halloween prank because the bar down the street from my apartment had had a party and it was just closed not too long before. Always trust your instincts and remember that if you have any doubts about someone claiming to be a police officer, call 911 and confirm that they are who they say they are. Dispatch and the officers who came tonight told me you will not get in trouble for making sure the person talking to you is actually an officer. This also applies to situations where it's nighttime and dark, so you can't really see for sure if it's a real cop car behind them or not. If you see flashing lights behind you on a back road or a dark area at night, put on your hazard lights and call 911 first to make sure it's actually a police car. You won't get in trouble. Better safe than sorry.
- [34:59]
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- [35:22]
Narrator
Okay, so I will preface this by saying that these events happened exactly 20 years ago, pretty much to the day. I will also mention that this could come across as anticlimactic as it does not end with a dead body or an imprisonment. It is, however, true and accurate as I remember it. So it was not long before my ninth birthday. I was a shy, introverted kid who only had a few friends. Therefore I was eager to impress them. A few friends are Better than none, right? This story involves my closet friend at the time whose name was Damon. Being so shy, I would never turn up to any parties or social events. I just couldn't face it. But it worried me that this would eventually cause me to lose my few friendships. You can imagine my horror when my dad picked me up from the school gates and Damon's mother picked him up at the same time and asked me on the spot. Damon and his brother are going to caravan park this weekend. Would you like to come? For those unfamiliar, a caravan holiday in the UK is just a cheap couple of days in a huge field full of trailers with tacky nearby entertainment and amusements on the spot. And terrified of being rude, I accepted. And come Friday evening I was sat in the car in the back in between Damon and his little brother Lucas, who was two years younger than us. It was only a short car ride, but all this felt so uncomfortable and unfamiliar to me, floating through the dark back streets I hadn't seen before as wind and rain lashed the windshield while the wipers did all they could to keep up. When we arrived it was already late. We watched some stuff on TV and went to bed. I had one of those brick Nokia phones that you could play Snake on that I promised I would text my dad on to let him know I was okay, which I did. The strong gale swayed the caravan that night as I fell into an uneasy sleep. The next day we hit the shops to spend our pocket money and then in the afternoon we went to the quote unquote entertainment with Damon and Lucas's parents. It was just awful. Live acting with clowns and such things. I may have been eight but I wasn't a baby. So then later on at around 8pm the adult entertainment comes on. A comedian of some sort and me and Damon and Lucas are absolutely bored stiff. Me and Damon decided we just want to head back to the caravan, watch some south park park and look at our cool new stuff we bought. Earlier that day I saw Damon ask his parents who are happily drinking away and chatting to other parents and as a child it seemed swapping life stories. Eventually they gave Damon the keys to the caravan which was about a five minute walk away but instructed us to take Lucas too. We took the keys and headed out. We walk for about two minutes in the cold and dark, mindlessly chatting about our eyeball rings we bought earlier at the gift shop and saying how they automatically give you a super hard punch. Just stupid 8 year old chat when we notice that in between two caravans there is a White van. I know cliche. It had its back doors wide open. I thought nothing of it. Maybe someone had just got here and was unloading his stuff. Wrong. As we walk by the van, a man emerges from the blackness and approaches us very slowly. This was not a normal walk. I remember it being like how you would walk in the dark, being very careful not to step on anything. Strangely, we still weren't too worried until he actually spoke. He stared at us for a few seconds, but did not smile or physically acknowledge us. Then he blurts out an enthusiastic alright boys, can one of you strong lads help me shift this heavy box into the back of my van? I hurt my back. Now. Back then, stranger danger wasn't as commonly spoke about as it is today. But I absolutely knew this was not right. His walk, his voice, his eyes. I had a million thoughts in about 10 seconds. What can I do? Call my dad. He's miles away from here. Scream for help. There's no one in these caravans. They are all at the entertainment. Fight this guy. Yeah, right. I thought things couldn't get any worse. I was wrong. As me and Damon stood frozen, his younger brother naively says, yeah, okay, I'm strong. And starts marching towards this guy's van, which was only about 15ft away from us. I will never forget his horrid face when he saw Lukas walking towards him. It was like a spider that had caught a fly. I heard Damon let out a broken screech. Lukas, no. It is at this point I am ashamed to say that I continued walking the way we were originally meant to go, and fast. I couldn't watch this. What if he murdered Lucas in front of me? What if he came and grabbed me? The only thing I could think to do was walk quickly and try to find someone, anyone, who could help. About 10 seconds later, Damon and Lucas came sprinting up behind me and shouted, run. And ran. We did. Oh, how we ran. I don't know how Damon got Lucas away. I don't know if the man chased us. I don't know what he wanted with us. But I have a few ideas. As we approach the caravan, I begin to feel semi rational again. As we catch our breath, I can remember saying to Damon, why couldn't we just run back to the entertainment area to get your parents? And Damon replied, what? And run towards him? It was a good point, but I was too busy trying not to cry to say anything else as Damon fumbled around with the keys at the caravan door. For some reason or another, the keys just did not work. We tried all of them, turning them in all directions, pushing and pulling and hoping and praying. I can clearly picture in my mind being stood there on that dark night with Damon and Lucas, the key halfway hanging out of the lock, the fear and the confusion. But most of all, I remember Damon looking straight at me after turning bright red with puffy eyes and bursting into tears because he had New Year, New Me.
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- [43:51]
Narrator
Britain realized what I would then realize seconds later. We had to go back. Strangely, Lucas was the only one not crying. I think he was too young to understand the danger that we were truly in. After deciding that we were in just as much danger standing there as we would be going back, we headed back towards Damon's parents. I have never ran that fast in the 20 years since then and I dare say that Damon would say the same. About halfway there we hear the most disgusting primal wail you can imagine. It was about five seconds long and it sounded like a mixture of anger and pain. We never stopped, just made brief eye contact and kept going. Had the man killed someone or was this man screaming because he knew that we had gotten away? We would never know. We burst through the entertainment area doors and sprinted towards Damon's parents who were blissfully unaware of the horrors that had just occurred. I remember his mother staring at us wide eyed with her mouth open and we burst into floods of tears half because of the trauma and half because because of the relief. I felt so warm and safe. We tried to explain in babble and gibberish, but I am not sure we got our point across. The next morning I asked to go straight home. I don't truly understand what happened that night. I don't know who he was, what he wanted or why he screamed. But like I said, I have my theories. But no one was killed that night in the caravan park and nobody else was around to scream.