← Scary Stories and Rain
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White Claw Seltzer Works Chicago, Illinois Predator Badlands now streaming on Hulu and Hulu on Disney Plus. You're. You're not the predator, you're the prey. Pray, pray, pray, pray. Critics are saying it's epic, stunning and breathtaking. Many have come here. None have survived. Predator Badlands now streaming on Hulu and Hulu on Disney Plus. Rated PG13 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 2.99amonth. 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. Something very creepy happened to me on Christmas. I had celebrated the holiday that morning with my family and went to see my parents. On Christmas night I had to go into work to finish a proposal I was working on for a new potential client. I obviously didn't want to go into work, but it had to be finished. My work was in a building downtown that is fairly close to a few nightclubs and bars. My office is on the 23rd floor and in my position I have an office, but most of this floor is filled up with cubicles in the middle. My office is in the far corner next to my boss's office. So to get to my office I have to walk by all the cubicles. I didn't get there late, probably around eight or nine, but there was nobody else there. This was my second time going in alone and it was peaceful. If I let my imagination run wild, however, I would get spooked easily. As I walked the path next to the cubicles, I was reminded of what I was missing at home. While looking at all the Christmas lights strung up decorating people's workspaces. There were no lights on, but it was lit up enough by all these Christmas lights. I reached my office and unlocked it. I went inside but didn't close the door. My computer and desk faced away from my door so I couldn't see anyone that approached my door on work days through the huge glass window that I had. I found this annoying as I never knew who was knocking until I got up and opened the door. I sat down and began working as quickly as possible so I could get back home. After a while, I'd say about an hour into it, I heard the main entrance door close. I didn't hear it open, but when it closed, it made a noise that was unmistakable. I wasn't spooked at this point, just curious as to who else was unlucky enough to have to come in and finish something. I got up from my desk and walked out onto the floor. I looked around but didn't see anybody. I said loudly, hello. Nobody responded. At this moment, I got paranoid and freaked out a little bit because I definitely heard the main entrance door close. Somebody was either here and then left or was still in here and not responding to me. I was just about to turn around and get back to work when I saw a head sticking up out of a cubicle on the opposite side of the floor. Looking towards me, I could see that it was a man, but I couldn't make out any details of his face. I thought he must be messing with me, so I shouted over to him, what a time to have to come in, huh? Hoping whoever it was would stand up and laugh, but they didn't. The man didn't move and this really scared me. So I tried again and said, I can see you, guy. He didn't move. I wasn't sure what to do next and was now very on edge. So I felt through my pocket for my keys and they were there. I started walking down the path towards the entrance door. The whole time watching this guy as I was walking, he just watched me. I looked over at the entrance door for a second, just one second, and looked back. He was gone. After seeing this, I thought, oh my gosh, he could be moving over to me. So I jogged the rest of the way to the door and went through it. I jogged over to the elevator and hit the button. I turned around quickly and the door closed as it made the same noise as before. The door thankfully opened immediately and I went inside and hit the first floor button. The door closed and I did not see the guy come out that door. I drove home and told my wife what happened. I I had to call my boss and tell him as well so that I had a reason for not finishing my proposal that night. He was understanding and I went back in two days later with everyone else. I never found out who the guy was or what that was all about. Nothing was stolen or tampered with to my knowledge. My girl and I frequent the Drive in theater all the time in the summer. It's May and I don't think we'll be doing it this year because of what happened last year. I'm not sure if it's different anywhere else but at the drive ins closest to us. As a contractor, I don't pay for materials I don't use, so why would I pay for stuff I don't need in my mobile plan? That's why my biz plan from Verizon Business is so perfect. Now I can choose exactly what I want and I only pay for what I need right now with my biz plan. Get our best price as low as $25 a line. Visit verizon.combusiness to get started today. New lines only. Price per month with five plus lines includes auto pay and paper free billing and promotional discounts, taxes, fees, economic adjustment charge applicable. Add ons prices and terms apply. Guarantee applies to base monthly rate and stated discounts only. Add on prices. Additional offers in March 31, 2026, there's two movies that play on a single screen back to back. It's also pretty cheap so it's an awesome choice for a hot summer night. We were doing our normal thing. We went to the store to get some candy and beer and stuff before heading to the drive ins to save some money. I'm sure you know the food at any theater is ridiculously overpriced. We made it there about 30 minutes before the first feature started and people were still showing up and positioning their vehicles. We got the front row with nobody in front of us, which somehow I always managed to get. After 30 minutes of waiting and munching on junk food, the previews started for the first movie. Everything was completely normal up until this point and during the previews I heard A noise outside and it sounded like someone had kicked a rock at my truck. Not a lot, it just sounded like one good sized rock hit my tailgate or something. We thought nothing of it because our focus was on the screen. An hour or so went by with no other unusual sounds and we were enjoying the movie when suddenly we both heard something strange. It sounded like somebody was walking right next to the truck and dragging their feet heavily. We looked around but saw nothing. As I was looking around I spotted a girl in the passenger seat in the car next to us looking at me. She had a concerned look on her face and motioned for me to roll down my window. I did and she immediately said there is somebody under your truck. This made me feel sick. I knew she wasn't messing with me and I did not know what to say back or what to do. My girls started to quietly freak out and I asked the girl next to us as quietly as I could, what is the person doing? She said back, I don't know. I was afraid to get out and I remembered that eerie feeling I had when I was a kid and I didn't want to step off my bed at night for fear of somebody underneath. Same feeling. I decided to call the drive ins number listed online and told them what was happening. After asking the details of my truck they said they would send somebody over to us well before anyone came. We very suddenly heard more noise under us and then a girl wearing a dress crawled out from under my truck right in front of us and began walking backwards towards the movie screen, all the while staring into the truck at us. When she got to the screen she turned and walked away towards the fence that separated our lot from the one next to us. A few minutes later an employee approached my window and I told him that she had walked away. This story happened to my best friend and I when we were 16 years old on Halloween night. It happened at my parents house which they still live in. Their house is in a very nice neighborhood and it has a driveway that stretches very long about a quarter mile down the street. My parents had bought several huge bags of candy for the kids who came by trick or treating. There were a lot of other houses on their street and they knew of a lot of kids who would be coming by. The night was passing, we were playing video games, watching movies and realized at about 9:30 that not a single trick or treater had come by. We thought that was strange and went out on the front porch to see if we could spot any. The street was far off and I couldn't see anybody. We decided to walk up the driveway and look down the street to see if there were any kids on their way. We began walking and kicking rocks. About halfway up the driveway, we spotted something. There was somebody sitting in the driveway at the start of it, right next to the street. He was sitting in a wooden chair. We stopped in our tracks. We were pretty sure they were facing the street. The person appeared to be a man with long brown hair slicked back that fell over his shoulders. We were tripping out over this because why would somebody be sitting in a chair in our driveway? At first we planned on going back to the house as this was extremely creepy. But curiosity grew too much and we decided to approach the man. We started slowly walking again and walked even slower the closer we got. We eventually reached the man sitting in a chair. My buddy and I looked at each other as if to figure out who was going to say something. I turned back to the man and said, uh, hello? The man turned his head to the left very fast and yelled, if you come any closer, I'll kill you. He then got up and started moving towards us, but we had bolted as soon as he yelled those words. Rocks were being kicked up as we sprinted back to my front porch and reached the front door. I looked down the driveway before we slammed the front door and for the briefest of seconds I saw the man was now standing up halfway down the driveway headed towards us. We locked the deadbolt and chain. I ran over to the kitchen phone and dialed my father. It took my parents about an hour to get home from the party they were at and my buddy and I were terrified the whole time. We locked every window and were hiding in my dad's office until they arrived. To our surprise, they came into the house with a police officer. Apparently the man sitting in the chair was a disgruntled employee that my father had just let go earlier that day. And he was waiting for my father to come home. What was he planning on doing? Who knows? No wonder we didn't see any trick or treaters on Halloween. They were scared off by this guy sitting in a chair. So this happened to my family in early 2002 when my daughter was a baby. My wife and I moved into a new house right after our daughter was born. It was a nice place in the suburbs. I would rather not mention in what city. The house was relatively new and surrounded by other houses with the same exact design and layout. We were still getting used to our new life there with our new baby when one night we heard the baby crying on the baby monitor. We were watching a movie in the living room, paused it and went into the baby's room. The baby wanted her bottle. I stood in the doorway of the room while my wife tended to our newborn. I was smiling at the sight of this when suddenly my wife made a small sound of fear and surprise. She was looking out the window directly beside the crib. I walked over to her and she didn't say anything. I looked outside and saw a woman that looked to be about our age standing on our lawn and looking into the bedroom window. I went into protective mode and immediately walked out of the room and towards the front door with the intention of confronting her. My wife shouted before I could open the door, she ran away. I ripped the door open and walked outside. I looked around the front of our house and walked a bit further onto the street looking in both directions. No sign of her. I decided to walk around the whole exterior of my house to make sure this creepy lady had really left. I walked the perimeter of our house and didn't find her anywhere. I returned to my house to find my wife still holding the baby in our master bedroom and I told my wife that I did not find her. After a little while of being creeped out and looking out the windows to make sure she wasn't still lingering around, we decided she was gone for good and went to sleep. The next day we saw the woman again, this time at night and this time my wife was in the shower and I was holding our baby in her bedroom. I saw the woman standing in the same spot on our lawn peering into the bedroom at me holding my baby. I just looked at her for the longest time and she didn't move. My wife eventually walked into the room with a towel in her hair and approached me from behind, giving me a hug. I said, she's back. Look, she's just standing, standing there. My wife got incredibly creeped out at this point and insisted that we call the police. I was going to, but felt I wanted to confront her again. So I walked out of the room and opened up the front door which was only about 10ft away from the baby's room. I walked outside and the woman was still there. She turned to me. I walked onto our lawn about 20ft away from her and said, what are you doing? If you don't leave right now, I'm calling the cops. If I ever see you around here again, I will call them immediately. The woman smiled at me and then opened her mouth wide and let out a nightmare inducing scream. That Sounded as if she was in pain. I knew right away that this woman was ill, like in the head. She turned around and ran away. This was terrifying as I realized she was barefoot. She ran away like a little kid would, arms flailing. I went inside and my wife was already holding the phone. A couple police officers came by the house a short while later and they said there was really nothing they could do except drive around the neighborhood a few times and keep an eye out for her. They said they would call us if they did see her. About 20 minutes after they left, they called and said they didn't see anyone fitting her description. We were disappointed but eventually fell asleep after taking turns looking out the windows for hours. I had assumed the woman got the hint. A month had passed with no sign of her. Then one night my wife and I were in bed when I heard a noise. I awoke and glanced at the alarm clock. It read 3:32am I listened for the noise to continue and heard giggling coming from the baby monitor. I sat up in bed and my heart stopped. I flew out of the room and into my baby's room to see nothing. My baby was asleep and my wife had followed me. I was very confused for a moment and thought I didn't actually hear anything. Maybe it was just a nightmare. My wife asked what was wrong. I didn't respond for a few seconds and then finally said nothing. I thought I heard something. We both sighed and walked back into our room. My wife went into the room first and upon entering screamed and then threw herself backwards into me. I gasped and almost fell backwards onto the floor. My wife started repeating oh my God, oh my God, oh my God. My heart pounding, I replied what? What? I forced my way past her and walked into my bedroom. The woman was sitting Indian style on our bed. I backed up out of the room and slammed the door. My wife ran and took our baby from her crib and the three of us went outside. As I was closing the front door, once we had walked out, I heard our master bedroom door open. Neither of us had our cell phones on us, so we ran to our neighbor's house and started freaking frantically knocking on their front door. They answered very quickly and asked what the matter was. We explained and they ushered us inside and called the police. The cops showed up shortly after and they went inside our house. The woman was still there. They said they found her upstairs sitting in the middle of the hallway in the dark. A few winters ago I got a job as a security guard. My responsibilities were to guard the construction site of a three story industrial building that was still in development. This was a super sweet job. All I had to do was be at the construction site between hours of 7pm to 3am I could sit in my truck the entire time except for two different times I was instructed to patrol the site. What I would do is get out of my truck and walk the perimeter of this site and then go inside and shine my flashlight around. This obviously wasn't a hard task, but it was a bit creepy. It was pitch black around this site at night and there were no working lights anywhere. Every time I patrolled I was a bit creeped out except for one evening where the creepiness turned into straight up Score more with the college branded Venmo Debit Card and earn up to 5% cash back with Venmo Stash Got paid back with the Venmo Debit card. You can instantly access your balance and spend on what you want like game day, snacks, gear, tickets and more. The more you do, the more cash back you can earn. Plus there's no monthly fee or minimum balance. Sign up now@venmo.com collegecard the Venmo MasterCard card is issued by the Bancorp Bank NA Select Schools available Venmo Stash terms and exclusions apply at Venmo me stash terms max 100 cash back per month Monster Energy Everybody knows White Monster Zero Ultra. That's the og. It kicked off this whole zero sugar energy drink thing, but Ultra is a whole lineup now. You've got Strawberry Dreams, Blue Hawaiian Sunrise and Vice Guava and they all bring the Monster Energy punch. So if you've been living in the White can branch out. Ultra's got a flavor for every vibe and every single one is Zero Sugar. Tap the banner to learn more. You're probably driving, working out or doing chores right now. Quick tip. TikTok isn't just entertainment, it's where I find fast practical advice for real life. Download TikTok now. Terror the night was going by normally. I was watching YouTube videos and listening to music in my truck. The clock hit 1am and I was due to complete my second patrol through the site. The first patrol went by completely normal and I had no reason to expect any different this time around. So I jumped out of the truck and started down the path that led around the site. I was shining my flashlight in front of me the whole time and saw nothing out of the ordinary. This trek around the site took the most time out of the patrol and I'd say about 15 minutes after I began. I had circled all the way around and was back at my truck. At this time, I headed inside the building. My truck was parked in the front of the building and so I entered at the front door. This building was still being framed and there were no doors installed anywhere, including the ones that led to the exterior. And that's the reason I was here, to make sure nobody just walked inside and stole any construction equipment or vandalized any part of it. As I walked inside, I heard something upstairs. It sounded like a shovel or something had fallen onto the floor and so I hesitantly started up the stairs to investigate. This was the first time that anything like this happened. As I walked up the stairs, shining my flashlight in front of me, I was spooked. What would I do if there was somebody up here messing around? I didn't have a weapon or anything. I reached the top of the stairs and the second floor. I shined my flashlight around and didn't see anything suspicious. I walked around and eventually reached the front of the building and that's when I looked down to my truck through the recently installed window. There. There was somebody sitting in my truck. I noticed quickly that it was a man with a shaved head. He was sitting in the driver's side seat with his legs still hanging out of the truck facing me. The man had his arms crossed and he was wearing all black. I was just about to turn around and head back down to confront him when he suddenly looked up at me and waved. At that moment, I turned around and ran back to the stairs. I walked down them quickly and ran out of the building. I approached my truck and the guy was no longer there. I got very nervous at this point and looked around with my flashlight. I saw nothing and decided to call my boss and let him know that there was somebody here. As the phone was ringing, I searched my truck and saw that nothing was missing and everything was right where I left it. My boss did not answer and so I left a very short message stating it's 1:22am and there is someone messing around at the site. Have not located them yet. I shined my light around like a madman searching for this potentially dangerous person and thought that it would be a better idea to get in my truck and drive slowly around the site. This did not take long and I did not see anyone. I circled back to the front and parked my truck in the same exact spot I was in before. I put the truck in park and called my boss again. I got no answer once again and got out of the truck. I stood next to my driver's side door and again shined my light around. I didn't see anybody. Then I shined the light up to the window I had first noticed him at and saw him standing in the same spot I was in now, looking down at me. I realized my job was to stop people from messing around at this site. But this creeped me out so much that I got in my truck and just waited until my boss eventually called back. He called the police I guess because an officer showed up there about a half an hour later. He went inside the building and looked around but never found the guy. I didn't see him again that night or any other night I was there. I have no idea why he was there. It was Christmas time. I was 14 years old. My family and I were going ice skating one evening. My family consisted of my two younger brothers, my mom and my stepfather. I had invited my girlfriend to come with us and we were just waiting on her to show up at our house so that we could leave. She eventually made it over and we all piled into an SUV and headed downtown. The ice skating rink was packed as it was only open at Christmas time and it was 8 o' clock on a Saturday. After driving around the rink a few times, we found a parking spot. We all started walking over to it and as we walked I saw that all of the lights went off in the skating rink and for about one minute green and red black lights were lighting the whole place up. It was pretty cool, I thought, and I was looking forward to getting my skates on. They were serving hot cocoa right next door in a little booth. My little brothers wanted some and so my parents jumped in line while my girlfriend and I headed to the window where we could rent some ice skates. Skates. There was no line there and we got our skates pretty quickly. We sat down on the bench near the window and put on our skates. My girlfriend had never been ice skating before and she was a bit nervous. She was afraid she would fall. But I told her it's really not that difficult and even if she did, it's not a big deal. We got to our feet with our skates now on and walked over to the skating rink before we stepped onto it. Suddenly the lights switched to the dark green and red lights again. You could barely see when the lights switched and people were running into each other all over the place. Some people were falling down. It was a cool idea to have the lights switch to green and red for the holiday, but whoever set the lights up made them way too dim. My girlfriend told me to wait for the lights to switch back on and we did. A minute later, the normal lights popped back on and we stepped onto the ice. My girlfriend skated awkwardly for a few minutes, but got the hang of it fairly quickly and we were soon flying around the rink. After about six laps, the lights went out again, but this time it seemed to me that it was even darker than before. My girlfriend grabbed my arm and clung to me as we tried not to run into anyone as we skated in the near darkness. Now? She asked me, it's getting darker, don't you think? I agreed and the lights popped back on again. We sighed with relief and continued skating. As we made our way around, we passed a man wearing a dark red trench coat that was about to step onto the ice. He had a dark red hood over his head which covered most of his face. After noticing him, I looked around for my family and spotted them sitting down on the benches drinking their hot cocoa. I looked over to my girlfriend who had broken away from my arm and she looked nervous. I skated closer to her and asked her if she wanted to get off the ice. She said no, but that she was worried about when the lights flipped to the dark green and red again. She was worried that they would flip off completely and leave everyone in complete darkness. As if on cue, the lights switched off and they switched off completely. My girlfriend gasped along with many other people around us. For the briefest of moments, everyone was quiet and it was pitch black. It was an incredibly eerie feeling. Then suddenly, being on the ice with so many people but feeling alone. Then suddenly I heard a woman scream. Then I heard commotion. The woman's screams were silenced and then I heard a man yell in a similar way, like they had just been really hurt by something. My girlfriend and I ran into a group of people and we all collapsed onto the ice. She started calling my name and I could hear the fear in her voice. People were falling all around us and then I heard another woman scream. This scream was piercing and I knew at that moment that something was very wrong. The woman continued to scream when I heard somebody else scream bloody murder. I At this point I could hear noises of frantic people falling, moving and screaming trying to escape the ice rink. I tried to stand up but was hit by people in all directions and my hands were sliding across the ice as I crawled. It felt like razor blades. I was hyperventilating when suddenly I felt an extreme pain in the tip of my middle finger on my right hand. I realized that somebody had just skated over it, I stopped crawling and heard yet another ear piercing scream of agony and terror. I started calling my girlfriend's name but did not get a response. Somebody skated into me, their knee hitting my face hard. I fell flat onto the ice and my breath was taken away when I felt random people topple on top of me. One person landing on my stomach as they all tried to separate from each other and myself. I felt an ice skate slice my thigh. I started crawling again fast and I could feel my finger pulsating as blood gushed from the wound. I hit a wall and I remember feeling the tiniest relief. I called my girlfriend's name again, but once again no response. In the midst of of screams and frantic mayhem. It sounded as if everyone was screaming now and I thought that I might have a heart attack. I stuck to the side of the wall and attempted to stand up onto my skates again. I reached my feet and started coughing. I felt somebody clip my back as they skated by me and then suddenly I felt pain. Pain in my back. Monumental pain. The worst pain I have ever felt. At first I thought somebody had somehow cut my back with an ice skate. But I twisted my arm and reached around to my back to feel what it was. Somebody then crashed into me and I fell onto the ice once more. Tears poured from my eyes and screams erupted from all around me. I twisted my arm to reach my back again and I felt it. Somebody had stabbed me. My breathing started to get heavy and a full breath was difficult to achieve. The pain was growing more intense and I felt panic set in as it felt like the pain would not reach a stopping point and would just increase and increase. Suddenly I heard another scream very close. It was mine. My screams joined the rest and I began sobbing. In between screams. I started crawling once more but I couldn't move as I did before. My muscles were becoming weaker and I felt as if I were falling asleep. I moved slowly and I could feel thick syrupy liquid wherever I put my hands on the ice. It was warm. I knew it was blood, my blood. And I suddenly began coughing again with no control and didn't stop. I put my hand over my mouth and stopped crawling. I felt blood coming out of my throat as I coughed and it started to block my nasal passage and I could barely breathe. The screams were absolutely ear shattering. At this point I lay on my back and started to shiver. After a few minutes I felt people fell fall and trip over me once again and I flipped over onto my stomach. After this I looked up and I could See small beams of light all over the place. And then I heard people speak. It was the police, I thought to myself. They were running and tripping over people, trying to get people out, trying to help. I put my arm up and said the word help, but nothing came out. I couldn't say it. I dropped my arm back to the ice and I felt my eyes start to close. I cleared my throat full of blood and coughed it onto the ice. Everything at that moment went black. I awoke in a hospital bed. 24 people were murdered on the ice skating rink that night, my girlfriend included. This horrifying encounter happened on Halloween in 2005. I was taking my daughter trick or treating around our neighborhood at around 8:30, when most of the other trick or treaters were out. We were going from house to house, filling up her pillowcase when we decided to make a turn and go far up a street we hadn't gone down before. There were parents, kids and teens all over the place and they all seemed to be attracted to a certain house down the street. The house was relatively far, but so well decorated with Halloween stuff. We could tell from a distance that it was a haunted house house. My daughter was 10 at the time and got really excited when she saw it, so I told her I would take her down there. We hit a few houses on the way, but she was very excited to get to the haunted house that we just skipped most of the other houses on the way. We finally reached the house. It was a single story home painted white with no cars in the driveway. The garage was open and had two black tarps taped up onto two 10 foot ladders that extended down the driveway and created a tunnel. There were fake spiderwebs all over the house and tunnel and skeletons and zombies and such laying around the front yard. We walked into the tunnel and it led all the way into the house. The tunnel was very well made with smoke machines creating a very creepy effect as you walked through it. Whoever set this up also had scary music playing throughout the house. The tunnel ended when you reached the inside of the house. My daughter was in front of me. She eagerly and quickly walked into the house. When we first walked in, the living room was set up in a normal fashion but with fake skeletons sitting on a couch with their head positioned to look at whoever entered through the tunnel. My daughter acted scared and laughed as she walked into the next portion of the haunted house. It was another tunnel to the right which I guessed led into a dining room. People were rushing by us, mostly teenagers. I lingered for 10 seconds and then walked into the same tunnel as my daughter. As soon as I did, I saw that she was gone. I figured she must have ran through it. I hurried down the tunnel and it indeed ended in the dining room. A mummy was sitting at the table along with a vampire and a werewolf decoration. My daughter was not there. I again hurried through into the next black tarp tunnel. Smoke was everywhere in this place. Whoever owned this place must have had like five machines going at once. I walked at a fast pace through the third tunnel and found myself back outside. The third tunnel led you through the front door. I looked around but didn't see her. I walked out to the street and looked around again. My daughter was nowhere to be seen. Kids and teenagers were all over the place. But my daughter was dressed as a pink rabbit this year and stuck out like a sore thumb. I called her name after not hearing a reply. I panicked a bit and thought she must have gone back in for a second time. I walked over to the first tunnel entrance and walked through very fast. I got to the living room and called her name again, but louder. I was getting worried and impatient. Just after I did that, I heard her say no from somewhere in the house. It sounded like it came from the second tunnel, so I walked back into it and called her name again. This time I heard her say, daddy. Her voice sounded like somebody had cut it off, but I heard it right next to me. I felt through the tarp and my hand gripped a doorknob right at this spot in the tarp. The tarp broke into two pieces and had tape holding them together. I pulled them apart and opened the bedroom door in front of me. The room was dark, but I could still see. A man and a teenage boy were holding my daughter by the arms and the teen was covering her mouth. I did not expect to see this. I walked into the room and said, let her go now. They did immediately and she ran into my arms. I told her to run outside. She did, now crying. And I looked at the older man in the eye and he gave me a very, very bad feeling. His eyes were sinister. I whispered to him, if you ever touch her again, I will kill you. I called the cops and told them these two guys had just put their hands on my daughter and were trying to hold her against her will in their house. I walked outside and looked at the house address. I gave it to the cops and walked back inside to find the man and the teen gone. Two cops drove up to the haunted house together. We all walked back in demanding to speak with the homeowner. After about 30 minutes of asking people who lived there, we finally found a woman who climbed claimed the house and all the decorations were hers. We asked about the two guys and she seemed genuinely puzzled and disturbed by what we told her. She said it was just her and her two daughters, both teenagers, that lived there. The older man and the teenage boy were never located and I never saw them again. I recently moved into a big house, just temporarily. It's kind of a complicated situation. The house belongs to a family member. They were going to be gone for a few months, that sort of thing. I was going to be there on my own. So obviously I thought, what if this place is haunted? There wasn't anything in the house when I moved in, but there is now. I was in the main hallway unpacking some stuff when the doorbell rang. That put me on edge right away because the house is at the end of a long driveway and kind of out of the way. You have to go looking for it. There was an old, old woman at the door, or sort of old. It was kind of hard to tell this was in broad daylight, but there was still something kind of off about her. She was really tall, like a full head taller than me. And there was something weird about the way she looked. It was like none of her clothes fit her properly. She shook my hand and smiled really wide and told me that she was from the neighborhood council or something and asked if she could come in and talk to me. My gut reaction was to say no, but I couldn't really think of a reason to. She was just an old woman. What was she going to do? I really wish I had just slammed the door in her face. Face. I brought her into the living room and she sort of tottered behind me like her feet didn't fit into her shoes properly. She sat down without asking and grinned at me until I took a seat across from her for about half a minute. She didn't say anything, just smiled and stared at me while it got increasingly awkward. Just as I was about to break the silence, she fished into her pocket and pulled out this really big old fashioned candy. The type that comes in see through wrapping. Here, she said. Eat this. I should probably point out here that she spoke really quietly so it was difficult to hear anything she said. I accepted the candy, kind of taken aback and unwrapped, was dark red, almost black. I popped it into my mouth because she was still grinning at me and nodding her head. Have you ever walked around behind a supermarket where they keep those big bins they Throw meat that's gone bad in those bins. Imagine that rancid smell, but on a hot summer day it's so thick you can almost feel it in the air. That is what this candy tasted like. I almost spit it out onto the floor, but social niceties made me chew the thing and force it down my throat. The woman was talking the whole time, but between the taste and her quiet voice, I barely heard her. My mouth tasted like rotten meat, so I politely told her I was going to get some water and walked fast into the kitchen. When I came back, she was gone. I had been in the kitchen for less than 30 seconds. My first reaction probably should have been to assume that she went to the bathroom or had to leave in a hurry. Instead, I searched the entire house. I went through every single room, convinced I was going to open a closet or look under a bed and see her stuffed in there, grinning at me. That didn't happen, obviously, but I was still extremely on edge. As the sun started to go down, I felt like I was turning off the light in my bedroom after spotting a giant spider in there that night. I propped a chair against my bedroom door because I just couldn't shake the feeling that the woman was still in the house somewhere, hiding. I woke up at around 2:30 in the morning and heard creaking floorboards downstairs. It was an old house and unfamiliar. I kept telling myself that until the noises stopped. When I woke up the next morning, there was a red candy on the living room table. I'll tell you the same thing I told the police. No, I couldn't be absolutely certain that the candy wasn't there the day before. Maybe I had just overlooked it, but I didn't think so. They told me that the organization the woman claimed to come from did not actually exist and clearly thought I was wasting their time. After they left, I searched the entire house again and the grounds. Then I searched them again. By the time I was finished, I had managed to calm down a bit and looked at the situation rationally. The woman probably left the candy there the previous day and I just didn't notice. I had searched the whole house twice now. There was nowhere she could possibly be hiding. She was probably just some doddery old lady who wandered off while I was in the kitchen. As I prepared to go to bed, I had managed to fully delude myself into thinking nothing strange was going on. I decided not to do anything childish like walking my door, because what was I afraid of? Even if she somehow was still inside the house somewhere, what was she going to do. At some point in the middle of the night, I woke up abruptly, knowing in the back of my mind that something was wrong. I guess I must have heard something in my sleep. I turned over onto my side and reached out to turn on the bedside lamp. Groping around because I was in an unfamiliar room. When the light came on, I saw the old woman standing right next to my bed. I only got the briefest glimpse of her before she vanished into the unlit hallway outside my door. I now believe that the human brain has a special compartment for dealing with experiences far outside the realm of the natural. If I had woken up to find a burglar in my room, I probably would have gone numb with panic. If there was a lion at the foot of my bed, I would have been too paralyzed with fear to do anything. But as soon as the woman. The woman was gone, that special compartment took over. I jumped out of bed and slammed the door shut and then shoved a chair up against the handle. Then I dashed for my phone. No signal. No Internet. I later found out there was nothing wrong with the phone or the local service. I think she was interfering with it somehow. The drop from the bedroom window wasn't too high. If I landed just right, I would probably avoid injury. But what if I sprained my ankle or broke my leg? I had a sudden vision of pulling myself across the dark garden while the woman sprinted after me and decided I didn't want to risk it. That gave me two wait out the night in my bedroom or try to get out of the house. Now I went for the second option. I had a thought that my flimsy barricade would not hold if the woman decided she wanted back in. I broke one of the chair legs off and cracked crept slowly into the hallway, reaching carefully for the light switch. When I pressed it, the lights came on for a second and then faded out. I flicked the switch a few more times. Nothing. Some gut instinct told me she was sabotaging them somehow. I used my phone for light as I slowly, quietly crept along the upstairs, upstairs hallway and down the stairs. The light barely traced the shapes of the walls and the dark, yawning frames of open doorways. I jumped at every single shadow and unidentifiable shape, certain that any second that grinning face would appear out of the shadows. I got downstairs into the front door. I had double locked it and put the chain in place. Just as I was reaching for the first lock, I heard rapid, uneven footsteps at the top of the stairs. Approaching swiftly, I undid the first lock A high pitched shriek came from the hallway down the stairs and I screamed as I undid the second lock and wrenched the door open. It stuck fast. I had forgotten the chain. I glanced behind me and saw the tall, spindly shape of the woman half running, half falling down the stairs toward me, her head lolling backward and her mouth hanging open. I can't even remember getting the chain off. I might actually have just yanked the door open so hard that it broke. In any case, the last I saw of the woman was her face inches away from me as I slammed the door shut. I sprinted to the nearest house and they called the police. Possibly because I was half delirious with fear and babbling incoherently, the police once again failed to find anything unusual. It's been a week. I'm staying at a friend's place, sleeping with the lights on and the bedroom door barricaded. The house's real owners aren't back yet. I'm not sure what I'm gonna tell them, but I have to stop them from going back there somehow. This isn't a haunting. It's an infestation. I can't stop thinking about all the holes in our defenses, the windows and doors left open, the strangers invited into our living rooms. I just hope it's the house that she wanted and not me.