Scary Stories For A Rainy Night - Ep. 344 - A Face in the Screen Door

Summary

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Scary Stories For A Rainy Night – Ep. 344 – "A Face in the Screen Door"

Podcast: Scary Stories and Rain
Host: Being Scared
Date: March 22, 2026
Theme: True, unsettling tales relayed with calming narration and rain ambiance for a haunting yet soothing listening experience.

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Episode Overview

This episode features a chilling collection of listener-submitted real-life horror stories. Each account is narrated in deliberate, evocative detail, set against the constant accompaniment of gentle rainfall, enhancing the eerie yet hypnotically relaxing mood. The stories explore themes of home invasion, disturbed strangers, brushes with violence, and paranormal encounters, making this an intensely atmospheric episode meant for late night listening.

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Key Stories & Discussion Points

1. The Sinister Christmas Party Note

• [01:28]
• The narrator attends a White Elephant gift exchange during a Christmas party.
• A woman opens a curious envelope containing a typed note; she becomes visibly distressed.
• The note is read aloud: “I have killed six people. This is not a joke.”
• The party’s atmosphere turns instantly grim. Guests argue, demand answers. The narrator leaves the party shaken, and the culprit behind the note is never found.
• The story blends social discomfort with true-crime horror, leaving listeners questioning the boundaries between sick jokes and confessions.

Notable Quote:

“I often wonder if it was really not a joke and somebody had confessed in a very twisted way to murdering six people.” — Storyteller ([02:41])

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2. A Night Alone in the Maine Woods

• [02:55] – [06:53], [08:53]
• A cross-country move to an isolated Maine house turns into terror for the narrator.
• The first night alone, after struggling to fight off an intense, inexplicable sense of being watched, they improvise curtains with sheets.
• In the night, they awaken to find a man silently standing in the corner of the pitch-dark living room.
• The narrator fakes nonchalance, escapes to the bathroom, and eventually crawls through a window as the intruder taps on the door with what sounds like a weapon.
• The climax comes when the intruder slices the narrator’s ankle as they flee, but the latter escapes into the woods and survives until dawn.
• Later, the narrator learns of a murder in a neighboring house; the trauma has lingering effects, affecting their relationship and sleep.

Notable Quote:

“My heart began throbbing when I noticed a man standing in the corner of the room. I did nothing and said nothing. Not by choice, but because I couldn’t. I was frozen.” — Storyteller ([09:39])

Memorable Moment:

• The chilling realization that “At this point I made the realization that the man either knew what I was doing or simply wanted me to know that he was outside the door.” ([11:03])

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3. The Man at the Screen Door

• [16:35] – [24:48]
• The narrator recounts a night home with his young son. The son goes missing after supposedly receiving “dad’s” permission to leave.
• The son describes a “dad” giggling outside his door, but the father had been asleep.
• That night, the real father spots a crouched intruder beneath the backyard trampoline, who later presses palm and face to the daughter’s window, cackling.
• The family calls 911; police find no trace.
• Narrator concludes the intruder must have entered the house, impersonated him, and played a twisted game.

Notable Quote:

“My son responded. You knocked and I said come in and you giggled. You were playing. I asked if I could go to Brandon’s and you said yes.” ([18:48])

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4. Craigslist Cleaning Gig Horror

• [24:48] – [28:39]
• In need of quick cash, narrator answers a Craigslist gig for cleaning an old bar's kitchen.
• Employer is unsettling but seems harmless. After hours alone, narrators notices odd silence; then is engulfed in darkness as the door slams shut.
• While searching for the exit, they accidentally touch someone’s face in the dark. The narrator escapes in terror, spotting the employer staring blankly at the kitchen door.

Notable Quote:

“I hit something. Not a door. I hit someone’s face. I made a noise and scuttled backwards, not hearing anything. Whoever I had just touched did not react.” ([27:52])

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5. The Sailing 'Joke'

• [28:39] – [32:22]
• College student accepts a sailing invite from a friendly acquaintance, brings a friend along.
• Host is visibly displeased at the extra guest. After a few drinks, the host “jokes” that he planned to kill the narrator had they come alone.
• Below deck, the narrator discovers rope, a cinder block, and tape—clear signs of foul intent.
• The two escape unharmed, but the story lingers as a chilling near-miss.

Notable Quote:

“He looked at him and said, well, because you’re here, I can’t kill him.” ([30:16])

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6. The Phantom With the Phone

• [32:22] – [39:14]
• As a teen, narrator experiences a string of impossible events with their home phones—a phone hung up and missing, a second-story window propped open, an extension ladder found outside.
• Narrator receives a call: “I came in through your bedroom window.”
• Police find no intruder, but confirm the phone is now outside in the grass.

Notable Quote:

“As soon as I did this, I heard somebody say, ‘I came in through your bedroom window.’ I almost dropped the phone out of fright and thought, that’s impossible. My bedroom is on the second story.” ([41:03])

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7. Insane Staring Nurse

• [41:30] – [44:00]
• At age 10, narrator is hospitalized. At night, a nurse repeatedly walks past the window, head craned, staring unblinking, each time with wider and wider eyes and eventually a chilling smile.
• The sight paralyzes the young patient, who is forever certain it was not a dream.

Notable Quote:

“Every time she walked by, she could not see what was in front of her, because the only thing she wanted to see was me in my bed through my window.” ([43:20])

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8. The Hostile Diner

• [44:00] – [47:37]
• Car trouble leads a traveler to an impossibly empty diner, run by a single, unnervingly strange old woman.
• Food never arrives, the kitchen is abandoned, and the woman’s cackle sends the narrator fleeing, with the woman appearing in the road as he drives away.
• The ambiguity of the encounter raises the question: was she human at all?

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9. Knife on the Beach

• [47:37] – [53:17]
• Couple celebrates their anniversary alone on a night beach. After a peaceful start, a man with a huge grin sits silently behind them in the sand.
• When the husband notices, the stranger brandishes a large knife, acts erratic, and refuses to speak. Only his refusal of a beer (“I don’t drink”) breaks the tension before he finally leaves.
• The couple flees and vows never to return.

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Notable Quotes & Moments

• The chilling confession at the party:
  “I have killed six people. This is not a joke.” ([02:17])

• Stark description of rural terror:
  “If they were out there, they could easily do just that.” ([05:23])

• Relief and terror intermixed:
  “Well, because you’re here, I can’t kill him.” ([30:16])
  —A “joke” that quickly proves to be nothing of the sort.

• The nurse’s impossible stare:
  “This is when my heart stopped beating because of what exactly I saw.” ([42:01])

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Timestamps of Important Segments

• [01:28] — Christmas party & White Elephant confession note
• [02:55] — Maine lakeside house and midnight intruder
• [08:53] — The bathroom escape and violent confrontation
• [16:35] — The son’s story and the backyard prowler
• [24:48] — Craigslist cleaning gig gone wrong
• [28:39] — College sailing trip that nearly turned homicidal
• [32:22] — Mysterious phone incident and ladder at the window
• [41:30] — Hospitalized as a child, haunted by staring nurse
• [44:00] — Deserted diner and cackling hostess
• [47:37] — Anniversary at the beach, stalked by a knife-wielding stranger

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Episode Tone & Style

• Calm, steady storytelling heightens tension by contrasting serenity with moments of horror.
• Rich narrative detail and authentic dialogue put the listener directly “in the moment” of each account.
• Hosts and narrators maintain a sympathetic, non-judgmental approach, allowing stories to stand on their own dread.

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Conclusion

Episode 344 of "Scary Stories and Rain" expertly weaves real-life terror with a hypnotic rain background, delivering a spectrum of unsettling true encounters—from everyday settings to the truly bizarre. With every story, the episode explores how quickly normalcy can slip into nightmare, leaving both storyteller and listener changed.

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Transcript

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[Storyteller/Guest]

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. Last year around this time I was at a Christmas party at my friend John's house. I didn't really know anyone there and didn't do much talking. Everyone at the party seemed very nice. About an hour after I arrived, we started playing a game called the White Elephant. It's where you trade gifts among everyone and everyone has an opportunity to steal a gift from someone else if they like it more than what they have. I had never played it before, but I'm pretty sure that's how it works. In the middle of the game, a woman opened an envelope and read a note that was inside. Her face turned red and she became noticeably very uncomfortable and started looking around and was repeating this isn't funny. Everyone wanted to know what the note said. She started to read it out loud and then stopped. She couldn't do it. She handed the note to a man and he read it. His face turned red as well and he seemed uncomfortable too. Now everyone was demanding to know what it said. He gulped and then read the words I have killed killed six people. This is not a joke. The room became quiet and deadly serious. There were gasps and a couple people said things like oh very funny. It was clear that the joyous mood was shattered. Some people started yelling and demanding to know who wrote it. I eventually asked to see it and when it was handed to me I saw that it was typed. People began to argue and I quickly grabbed my coat from the couch in the other room and told John I was going to take off. He nodded and was trying to calm people down. I walked out the door into the fresh falling snow. I haven't spoken with John too much since then, but I did ask him once if he found out who wrote the note and he said no, that the party broke up shortly after I left. I often wonder if it was really not a joke and somebody had confessed in a very twisted way to murdering six people. I'm 28 years old and this is the first time I have thought about this incident in detail because of how traumatizing it was. I met my ex girlfriend in California in 2010. We had both lived there our whole lives but decided to move to Maine a couple years after we started dating. She had flown to Maine on a business trip in 2012 and fell in love with everything about it, the small towns, the scenery and the people. She came home and convinced me to pack up our lives and move there. So we did. We saved up a bunch of money and rented a huge moving truck. The plan was for me to drive the truck across the country while she stayed behind three days to finish her classes at the local community college which were due to end at that time. I would have just waited until her classes were finished, but we decided to take advantage of an incredibly good deal we were offered from the company who provided the moving truck. She had a car that she had to drive there anyways. While I towed my car behind the moving truck, my brother came with me on the trip. The drive was obviously a very long one and when my brother and I arrived in Maine about four days after we had left, we were exhausted. After unloading the truck and sleeping for about 16 hours, we decided to visit the small town of Belfast, which was about 14 miles away from my new house. We ate some seafood at a little family owned joint, rented a scary movie and made the drive back. My new house was literally in the middle of nowhere. During the day. The view of the lake in my backyard was stunning. The woods around my house were awesome and everything was beautiful at night. The house was incredibly creepy to be in. The whole house had windows completely surrounding it. You could not see anything in those woods looking out those windows at night, but I'm sure if you were standing outside you could quite easily see in. My brother had a flight booked back to California the following day and we woke up very early in the morning to drive to Portland, where the airport was. I eventually made it back.

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[Storyteller/Guest]

month alone and wasn't able to make any phone calls or watch any cable TV because we had no service out there and no cable or Internet hooked up yet. My cell phone did not work anywhere on that property. I had plenty of DVDs to watch and that was it. When I made it back, I decided to try out my new fishing pole we had bought in town. I wasn't out at the lake very long. As it started to get dark in Maine very early in autumn, I went back to the house and sat in the living room in a chair looking out the windows at the scenery. My view was getting darker and darker. I turned on all the lights in the house and quickly became creeped out when it became pitch black outside. Imagine being in the middle of the forest in the middle of nowhere at night and looking around. You could not see your own hand if you held it in front of your face. When I say it was pitch black, I mean you can't see anything. I hadn't hung up any curtains or blinds yet and I had the extremely uneasy feeling that somebody was outside my house watching me inside, watching me go from room to room. And if they were out there, they could easily do just that. I decided to hang sheets up all over the windows using thumbtacks. I sat on the couch in the living room and put on a comedy movie to try and shake the unnerving feeling I had. It didn't work. I eventually realized I had to try and get some sleep and my eyelids were becoming sore. I was getting very tired. I covered myself with blankets on the couch and turned on the tv. After a few minutes my eyes had adjusted and I could see around the living room very slightly. My eyelids were very heavy now and I fell asleep. I woke up some time later and it was still night, still very dark. I reached for my bottle of Coke I had on the ground in front of me and Took a big gulp. I set it back down and looked around the room. I am having difficulty putting these next emotions into words that I can accurately convey to you. My heart began throbbing when I noticed a man standing in the corner of the room. I did nothing and said nothing. Not by choice, but because I couldn't. I was frozen. He didn't move and I was able to think logically for one moment. I'm not sure he knew that I had seen him or was looking at him because it was so dark. I had a blanket over me which might have shrouded my face in shadow in which he wouldn't be able to see my eyes. After about a minute of gut wrenching fear, I somehow decided to do something. This was the hardest thing I have ever had to do in my life. I coughed, but it wasn't a real cough. I did it while standing up in an effort to give him the impression that I did not know he was there. I slowly made it to my feet and walked across the icy cold wood flooring to the bathroom around the corner of the living room. He did not move. I made it to the bathroom and nothing happened. I closed the bathroom door and slowly turned the lock to the upright position. Tears were streaming down my face as I backed up into the bathtub behind me. I was staring at the door. I suddenly realized there was a small window up above the bathtub that I could most likely fit through. I moved by the shower curtain and reached up to the window. Every movement was slow and calculated. In an effort to not make any noise, I unlocked the window and tried sliding it to the left to open it. The window began to squeak when I pulled it and I froze, hoping the man didn't hear me. Just then I heard a tapping on the bathroom door. Not a knock, but a tap, and it did not sound like the tapping of fingers. It sounded like metal, like he was tapping a weapon of some kind against the door. At this point I made the realization that the man either knew what I was doing or simply wanted me to know that he was outside the door. Adrenaline took over completely and I slid the window open and pushed the screen out onto the ground. I tried not to exert any noise as I jumped up and began squeezing my body through the window. My head and upper body were out and I could not see inside the bathroom anymore, only the dense dark woods in front of me. I was pulling my legs through the window when I felt the man grab my foot. Directly after that, before I could react at all, I felt my ankle be Sliced open. I let out a noise of shock and surprise as I pulled out of his grasp and fell to the ground. I started heaving and felt as if my heart would explode by this point. I stood up and looked around. I quickly dashed out into the woods and fell to the ground. Looking back at the house and the window to the bathroom. I felt down my leg to my ankle, which was throbbing from pain, and brought my hand up to reveal it was covered in blood. The deathly serious situation I was in became real and horrifying. I looked back at the house and suddenly saw the back door fly open and the man started gazing around the darkness surrounding me. He was searching for me. I became a statue on the ground and tried to control my breathing. He had a huge what looked like knife in his hand, was covered in all black. He walked down the back patio steps and started walking into the woods, but not near where I was laying. He was grunting and soon after I lost sight of him. I couldn't hear anything anymore. I started frantically looking around, thinking that at any moment he would spot me and plunge the knife into me again. I saw nothing but trees and darkness. There was a bit of snow on the ground from a couple days before and I was freezing and shaking uncontrollably at this point. About 10 minutes later, I saw the man walk out of the trees from where he started and go back into the house. I laid there the rest of the night and luckily the sun started to rise only about an hour later. After the sun fully illuminated my surroundings, I felt as though the man had probably left and I felt ready to move. I made it to my feet and walked around the house to the front. I saw that the front door was opened completely. I slowly approached it and looked inside. Nothing. I walked in a few steps and grabbed my car keys that were hanging on a hook by the door. I ran back to my car and unlocked it. I got inside and started the engine. I backed out of the long driveway and drove to the little general store a few miles from my house. This is where the story ends. I got away and so did my visitor. My ankle was pretty badly cut, but healed after a few months with no problems. I suffered minor pneumonia from being outside for the time I had, but nothing too serious became of it. I later found out that an elderly man that lived about two miles down the road from me was killed in his bedroom in the middle of the night. This experience took its toll on mine and my girlfriend's relationship and I ended up moving back to California after a few months. This incident has made sleep very difficult to achieve, but writing this has oddly enough made me somewhat drowsy. I think maybe I'll attempt to go to sleep right now. Thank you for listening. I am in my 30s and I am about to tell you of the scariest night of my life. I had just gotten home from work at around 6pm My wife and daughter had decided to visit my wife's parents parents that evening and left my young son and myself alone. It was a long tough day at work and I found myself drifting off while reading on my bed. Meanwhile, my son was watching TV in his room. His door was shut. I drifted off into full on slumber when something awoke me. Not a sound or anything, just a sound. Sickening feeling of dread. I got up out of bed and saw my dog was lying on the ground next to me as she was when I laid down a little over two hours ago. It was around 8:30 at this time now and I realized my wife and daughter were still gone. I walked into the living room and saw that my house was completely dark. I walked to my son's bedroom and opened the door. Extreme uneasiness came over me as I opened his door to darkness. He was nowhere to be found. I immediately did an about face and stomped down the hall yelling his name. No response. I stood in the pitch black kitchen for a moment trying to comprehend what was happening and where my son could be. I pulled my cell phone out of my pocket and dialed my wife. Hello baby, is John with you? Did you guys come home? I felt my heart sink into my stomach when she said a firm and confused no. She then asked, what do you mean? Where is he? I stood in the darkness and felt like I was going to explode with pure fear. He's not in the house. I'm going to call Brandon's house. He's probably. My wife cut me off in a bold tone. What do you mean he's not there? I told her I would call her right back. I called Brandon's house phone and his mother answered after a few rings. Hi Teresa, is John over there? She sounded confused and replied yes. You didn't know he came over? The amount of relief I felt I cannot tell you. I told Brandon's mother to send John home immediately that he was in big trouble. They only lived six houses down from us on the same street, but my son was only nine years old. I should have called the police that night and I will tell you why. My wife got home pretty quick with my daughter. John walked in the door like nothing was wrong. What do you think you're doing leaving the house without my permission? He looked at me like I was insane. Dad. You said I could go. I asked you. I glared at him with an equally puzzled look on my face when No, I did not. When you were outside my bedroom door playing, My look of confusion turned into terror. What are you talking about? I fell asleep on my bed. I was never playing outside your door. My son responded. You knocked and I said come in and you giggled. You were playing. I asked if I could go to Brandon's and you said yes. At this point I was a mixture of extreme confusion and fear. John, I've been asleep. I never said you could go there. I was never outside your door playing. My son looked at me very confused. Fast forward a bit. Now I had chalked this up to a misunderstanding. My son was either lying to me or was hearing things. Or I had done these things and had no memory of it because of how tired I was. Perhaps I really didn't know. That night we were all laying in bed and I was laying there in the darkness. My wife asleep next to me. We had a back door connected to our master bedroom. The back door had a huge glass window on it, almost the full length of the door. And I could see the entire backyard. It was a normal thing for me to look out there periodically throughout the night because it was right in my line of sight. Sight When I would lay on my right side. While laying there trying to make sense of the earlier incident. I felt the blood in my veins turn from a warm flow to an icy cold current. There was a man crouched down in my backyard underneath my trampoline, seemingly looking into my house. I lay there frozen with fear. Probably for about two or three minutes. The man did not move an inch. He had no idea that I could see him. Suddenly, the man forced me to react.

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[Storyteller/Guest]

quickly out from under the trampoline and toward my daughter's bedroom window, which was just out of my view. Just as quickly as that happened, I heard my daughter scream. No exaggeration, I was out of that bed and in her room in like five seconds. In the midst of her scream, my son opened his door as I flew by, my wife right behind me. I switched on my daughter's light to see her sitting up in bed, screaming, glaring at her bedroom window, glaring at the maniac with his palms press pressed against her glass, laughing hysterically. I gasped, grabbed my daughter and all of us ran into the kitchen where I grabbed the house phone off the wall and dropped it due to the speed I had tried to do so I picked it up off the ground and very shakily dialed 911. The man's laugh had ceased and none of us moved. My wife and I clutched kitchen knives as the four of us crashed, crouched in the dark and waited for the police to arrive. To my surprise, they showed up very quickly and knocked on the front door. I let them in and told them what happened. They walked through the whole house and into the backyard and found nothing. He was gone. After talking with the cops for a while and puzzling all the pieces together, I concluded that the man had been in my house earlier that evening while I slept and played a little game with my son. To this day I have no idea why this happened, who he was, or where he went, but we never saw him again. He was never located and he was never caught. I bought a weapon very shortly after this incident. I pray I never see this man around my family again or I will use it. I have a very scary story to tell you. I was out of work and was desperate for cash. When I looked on Craigslist under gigs a few years back I responded to several ads ranging from painting to helping people move to cleaning. On a Sunday morning somebody called me and told me they had some work. They said the job was to clean a kitchen inside a small building that was recently closed down and he was renovating it. He needed me to show up and work in the evening starting at 7 and ending at like 1 or 2 in the morning. And that was only for tonight, but that he would pay me $200 in cash. That sounded great to me. I had no problem with these hours as my last job was a graveyard shift anyways. So the man I was talking to gave me the address and I told him I would be there on time at 7 o'. Clock. He sounded like a normal nice guy. I showed up a little before 7 and approached the building. This building was amongst many others downtown, but looked eerily lonely in the way that it had no windows and no lights were working outside in front of it. I thought that it might have been a bar that was closed down or something. I knocked on the big wooden door. I heard noise coming from inside and eventually a man opened up. He was tall, had a goatee and looked to be in his 50s. He greeted me with a smile and asked me to come inside. There was a single lamp lighting the room we were in and it indeed looked like an old bar. The room wrapped around another smaller room in the center of looked as if he was painting the walls and working to fix the top of the bar which was rotting old wood. He showed me to the center room which was a kitchen. The kitchen was very dirty. A couple of old glasses were lying around. The oven was pulled from the wall showing rotting drywall behind it. Sawdust and dirt was covering everything. He told me I was to clean this kitchen and to get as much done as possible before 2 in the morning. I told him I would work my butt off and he pointed out some cleaning products sitting on the ground by the wall with some rags to scrub with. I asked him if he had any gloves. He said no, but that the sink in the corner still worked and I could clean my hands when I wanted with that. That sucked and I was a bit hesitant to clean some of the stuff in here without gloves. But I remembered that $200 that he promised and I moved past my disappointment. He told me while I was cleaning that he was going to be working outside at the Bar. I asked where I should begin and he said scrubbing the baseboards around the room. I told him okay and he walked out of the room. Fast forward. I had been cleaning for about two hours, making a bit of progress and I was getting very thirsty. I told myself I would finish this then that's before exiting the room to ask if there was anything I could drink. I kicked myself for not thinking to bring a water bottle or something. After finishing my goal, I stood up and realized I had not heard him working outside the room at all. I hadn't heard anything. As a matter of fact, I walked to the door and opened it to darkness. Complete pitch black. At that instant I became very confused and nervous and shouted out hey man, I'm making some good progress in here. Expecting to hear him respond, he didn't. I looked around but seriously could not see anything. I looked back into the kitchen which was bright and lit up with all the lights on. I peered back out into the dark room. I began taking steps out into the room surrounding the kitchen. After about 10 steps I stopped and was about to speak out again when to my horror, the door slammed shut and I was engulfed in blinding darkness. I could not see anything and spun around waving my arms around the room, walking back towards the kitchen door. My steps were small as I was afraid I would run into something and I did, waving my hands around in front of me. I hit something. Not a door. I hit someone's face. I made a noise and scuttled backwards, not hearing anything. Whoever I had just touched did not react. I backed up completely until I hit a wall and realized I must have been close to the entrance door to the building. I turned and felt around for a doorknob. Luck was on my side as I quickly found it and pulled the door open. It was dark outside at this point and only a very small amount of moonlight came into the room, just enough to where I could see the man standing against the kitchen door with a blank expression on his face. I ran out the door and never looked back. That's the last time I used craigslist to find work. What was that guy doing? What was he going to do? Makes me sick to think about it. This happened when I was in college four years ago. I went to a university that was very close to the ocean. Hold on the East Coast. I made friends with some people one weekend and one guy in the group of people I met invited us to go out on his boat with him sometime. He described his boat to a bunch of people and was very proud to have sounded like an expensive sailboat by the way he described it. I'm not really familiar with boats and hadn't ever been on one other than a cruise ship. When I was 11, this guy said his parents bought it for him and that made sense because he was known to be a spoiled rich kid. He was nice though, and the idea of cruising around some Saturday afternoon and drink some beer sounded appealing. After that conversation, I saw him around in school but didn't talk to him much until one day he approached me in the library and asked if I still wanted to go sailing. I said sure, that sounded awesome and he told me the following day he was going out on the water and it would be a perfect opportunity. After a lengthy conversation about how sailing works and him assuring me it was safe and he had all the proper training, I told him I would meet him at the docks the next morning. That night my roommate asked me what I was doing for the weekend and I told him that I had made plans to go out sailing. He freaked out on me and told me he really wished he could go. My roommate and I were really good friends and honestly it sounded like way more fun if he was to join us. So I invited him to go and that I was sure that the other guy would be cool with it. The next morning, my roommate and I grabbed some coffee and grabbed some beer to bring along with us on our voyage. We ate some breakfast and then headed over to the docks to meet the guy. We were pretty excited and when we got there we followed the direction he gave me and found his boat. It was a huge orange and white sailboat. We stood on the dock next to the boat looking at it when the guy popped his head up from somewhere and immediately showed a look of concern on his face. He jumped off the side of the boat and onto the dock next to us. He looked at my roommates and then at me and asked who is this? I told him he was my roommate, that he was cool, and that he had asked if he could come along. I told him I didn't think he would mind. The guy looked very annoyed and it was very awkward for a few moments. The guy kept looking back and forth at the boat and then at us. He took his hat off and rubbed his head like he was really stressed out. Eventually he sighed and said that it was fine. I'll fast forward now to the part of this story that is very, very, very scary. A few hours later we were on the boat drinking and having fun. The water was pretty smooth sailing and the sun was shining bright on us. The guy acted a bit off the whole time and I figured it was because I brought my roommate. After drinking three or four more beers, I felt the courage to ask the guy what was wrong and if he was still upset that I brought my roommate. He responded with something along the lines of it just kind of ruined my plans. My roommate chimed in with a smile on his face and asked the guy what plans. I could tell my roommate thought it was funny because it sounded like the guy wanted to be alone with me. The guy looked at him and said, well, because you're here, I can't kill him. This took me off guard completely and I felt fear and unbelievable relief hit me at the same time. My roommate and this guy started cracking up and my roommate brushed it off as a joke completely. I didn't know what to think. Was this guy serious? Did I avoid being killed by him? Is his sense of humor just that weird? I believe I got my answer when I went below the deck an hour later to grab another beer from the fridge. Next to his fridge was a brown swinging door that led to a small private bedroom quarters. I was feeling the beer pretty good by this point and without thinking I pushed the door open. Lying at the foot of the bed that was in there was a big cinder block, some yellow rope, tape, and what looked like a recorder of some sort. After seeing that, I felt safe, sick to my stomach, and wanted off the boat as soon as possible. I wanted to go back up and confront the guy, but decided against it because of what he might have been capable of. What seemed like hours and hours more being with this guy. We finally made it back to the dock, we said our goodbyes and on the way back to my room I told my roommate about what I saw. He couldn't believe it. I am pretty sure that my roommate saved my life that day by wanting to go with me. Not joking. I never saw that guy again on campus. What he had planned, I don't want to know or even think about it. I have a story I'd like to tell you. All this happened when I was 18, about 16 years ago. I was still living with my parents in their nice house in suburban Colorado. It was getting late. One night around 11:30pm I was on the phone with my girlfriend and had decided to go up to my room and switch phones using the one that was in my room so that I didn't wake my parents that I now assumed were in bed. Voices downstairs echoed upstairs easily and I had gotten in trouble for that a few times before. I told my girlfriend to hang on that I was going to put the phone down for a minute while I went upstairs to turn on my phone. I set the phone down on the counter right next to where it gets hung up on the wall. I quickly walked upstairs and into my bedroom. My room was cold. I left the window open. I slammed my window shut and picked up the phone next to my bed. Alright babe, one sec. I'm gonna go downstairs real fast and hang up the living room phone. I set the phone down on my bed and went downstairs. I reached the last step, turned left and stopped. The phone was now hung up.

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On the Wall I stood there bewildered for about 30 seconds. A bit creeped out but mostly confused. Maybe my parents came down and hung it up. No, that wasn't possible. I would have heard them and I was only upstairs for about 30 seconds. I walked over to the phone and then turned around looking around the living room and into the kitchen. Nothing. No sign of my parents. Nobody else was in my house that night. I convinced myself that I must have hung it up before I went upstairs. Wait, no that's not possible. Then I would have hung up on my girlfriend. I walked into the dining room and nobody was there. I walked back upstairs and over to my parents bedroom. I pressed my ear to the door and could hear my dad snoring. What is going on? I walked into my bedroom and almost had a heart attack when I saw that my bedroom phone was now hung up. I turned around fast to the dark hallway. Nobody. I ran downstairs and to my horror I saw the phone in the living room was now gone. I got goosebumps all over and my heart was now pounding in my chest. I ran back upstairs and into my room. I ripped open my closet but nobody was there. I walked over to my phone and picked it up. As soon as I did this, I heard somebody say I came in through your bedroom window. I almost dropped the phone out of fright and thought that's impossible. My bedroom is on the second story. I turned around again expecting to see someone but did not. I turned and opened my window. I looked outside and saw a large extension ladder there leaning on my house just below the bottom of my window. I dropped the phone on the ground and ran to my parents room. I slammed against their door with fists and yelled open the door. There's somebody in the house. My mom opened up and was confused with a terrified look on her face. I went into their room and my dad was sitting up in bed. I locked their bedroom door and repeated myself, there is someone in here. They have the phone. They just said something to me. My mom ran to my dad's side of the bed and grabbed his work cell phone that was still in his jeans pocket. She called the police and they were at our front door knocking around. Fifteen minutes later they searched the house and found no one. They did find the living room phone though. It was lying in the middle of the grass in our backyard. I was 10 years old and being wheeled into the hospital Late at night, I remember seeing Christmas lights decorating the front of the hospital Once I was inside. I remember the doctor telling my parents that I had pneumonia and my mom started to cry. Those are the only things I remember about my visit up until I was left alone on the first night. I have no idea what time it was when this occurred, but probably very late at night. Everyone else in the rooms around me were sleeping, and so was I, until I heard something. I was facing the center of the room. When I opened my eyes, I heard someone's shoes squeaking on the floor outside my hospital room. I turned over and saw a nurse walk by, but she had walked out of my vision past my window before I could see her face. About two seconds passed and then I saw her walk by again. This is when my heart stopped beating because of what exactly I saw. She was walking by at a very fast pace and was looking directly at me through the window in an exaggerated stare, meaning she was walking by, but had her head turned completely to the right side as she did. Not able to see in front of her as she walked, just staring at me. Very quickly she was out of sight again. Then suddenly she started walking by again in the opposite direction. She was walking back and forth in front of my window. This time her head turned completely to the left again, staring into my eyes. She had brown hair that was messed up and she looked insane. On this pass, I noticed that her eyes were opened very wide. At this point, I thought my heart would explode because of how it was beating and how scared I was. Nobody else was in sight. When she walked out of my vision a second later, she was walking by again. Every time her head turned to the side looking at me. I remember thinking, even at 10 years old, that something about her was very wrong. I didn't move a muscle and could do nothing except just watch this incredibly scary woman walk back and forth in front of my window. One of the times she walked by, she was smiling a huge sickening smile that made tears well up in my eyes. Every time she walked by, she could not see what was in front of her because the only thing she wanted to see was me in my bed through my window. It seemed like several minutes had passed until finally she did not walk by again. She simply walked by one last time and then was gone. I sat there in my bed and peered out my window, expecting her to walk by again at any moment, but she didn't. I must have stared up my window for the better part of an hour before my eyes got so heavy that I fell asleep. The next morning I awoke with my dad sitting in a chair next to my bed reading a book. He smiled when he saw that I was awake and I told him what I saw before I fell asleep. He didn't seem to be scared by this or even very alarmed. He asked me if I was sure it wasn't a dream. I was 100% sure then and I am 100% sure now. The woman was real, it happened and she was wearing the same thing as every other nurse I saw. I was in the hospital for two weeks and did not see her again. When I was 24 years old I experienced something so strange, so scary that I just had to write about it and share it with the world. It is absolutely true and was the scariest thing that has ever happened in my life. I was traveling at the time, going to visit my best friend who had moved a few states away from me to go to college. One day I was driving in Ohio. If I remember correctly, I was on a long highway that stretched across the state when out of nowhere my car died. I shifted to the side of the road where I eventually came to a stop. I didn't run out of gas, I had just filled up at the last town. I tried starting my car and I was very happy when it actually started. I was coming confused and was worried about why it just died on me. As I started to pick up speed and get back on track, my car started making weird noises and it sounded like something was grinding on something else. I looked up and saw a sign that showed that there was a gas station and food at the next exit. My car was moving but with this grinding noise I decided to get off the highway and take a look at it at the gas station. There were only two places off this exit that I could see a gas station with one pump and an old looking diner not too far off next to it. I pulled into the gas station and it looked closed. I checked my watch and quickly realized this was very strange as it was only 2:30pm what kind of gas station closes before this time? I wondered. I got out of my car and approached the glass door entrance to the station. I put my hands up and cupped the glass around my eyes to look inside. The place looked abandoned. It was obvious nobody was there and I turned and looked around me. I felt a bit uneasy at this moment when I saw that there were no other people or cars around me. Where am I? I checked my phone and of course I had no service. I looked up at the sky and it was white, the clouds were moving fiercely and it was extremely cold outside. I decided to get back in my car and drive over to the diner. When I reached this place, I thought for sure it was closed as well. But to my surprise, before I could even reach the door after getting out of my car, an older woman opened the door to the place and greeted me with a smile. She looked nice and I was so relieved to see somebody else and maybe get some hot food in my stomach. She just said hello and asked if it was just me, did I want a booth, blah blah blah. I told her yes, it was only me and a booth sounded fine. This diner looked very old fashioned and there was no other customers inside. The woman showed me to my seat and I scooted into the booth. I looked up at her. She was wearing an old apron with stains all over it. Her teeth were old, yellow and cracked. She had a pleasant voice though and seemed to be a very nice person. She handed me a menu and asked what I would like to drink. I told her a Coke or a Pepsi would be fine and she smiled and said she would be right back. I sat there looking at this menu and I noticed that there was actually dirt on looked like it had been sitting outside for years. I cleaned it off and the food on it that was available was very basic. Burger, chicken sandwich, fries, salads. That was pretty much it. I decided to order a burger with some fries. A few minutes passed and she hadn't returned with my drink yet. I was anxious to ask her if there was a mechanic around there to look at my car. A few more minutes passed and I started thinking, what is going on back there? I yelled out, uh, hello? In as nice a voice as possible. No response at this point. I was annoyed and got up. I walked over to the door that led into the back cooking area and swung it open about to ask where my drink was. The back of the diner was empty. There were no cooks, no fryers, no grills, nothing. The woman was nowhere in sight. It was obvious to me at that moment this diner was not a running establishment and I felt sick to my stomach. I started to walk into the back area when I heard the scariest, most evil old lady laugh I have ever heard. I stopped and backed up out of the door into the front area. I turned and walked out the door I came in from. I ran down the three steps and over to my car and got inside. Thankfully, my car started and I floored it out of there. As I was driving away, I looked into my rearview mirror and saw the woman standing in the middle of the road. This happened two years ago on our anniversary. My wife and I were celebrating three years married and we decided to both take the day off work and go for a drive down to the beach. It was a bit of a drive, about three hours one way. The drive was amazing. We had fantastic conversation and enjoyed all the sights on the way out there. When we arrived, there was only a few hours of daytime left, but we didn't mind. We kind of liked the idea of walking along the sand at night to gaze at the stars and listen to the sounds of the ocean peacefully, without the usual noise that comes with visiting the beach. We ate dinner at a nice steakhouse right on the water and when we finished, decided that it was time to hit the beach finally. From the restaurant we walked to our car which was parked in the lot right next to the beach entrance. My wife grabbed a sweater and a blanket while I grabbed a six pack and a small cooler I had brought. We headed towards the sand and went through a very old wooden fence with an opening cut out. We walked out towards the water and marveled at the sight of it and the moon lighting our way beautifully. We stopped and chose a nice spot about 30 yards away from the waves crashing against the sand. And about 70 yards, I'd say, from the wooden fence leading back to our car and the small seaside town that we were in. We unfolded the blanket and sat down on top of it. After a few minutes of talking, kissing and drinking, we laid down. We were truly amazed by all the stars in the sky and it was a gorgeous night, I'd say. About 15 minutes later, I felt a presence. I was still watching the stars, but I felt like there was somebody watching us. I sat up and noticed my wife had drifted off and fell asleep. I looked around the beach and saw nothing. Complete serenity. Then I turned completely around and this is when my heart stopped. About 15ft away from us, a man was sitting behind us in the sand. Obviously I was put on edge, mainly because he didn't speak. When he noticed I had seen him, he sat in the sand very close to us with a giant smile on his face. A giant creepy smile. I was in shock to see this and at first was not even able to speak. I glanced at my wife who was completely asleep at that moment. I am not sure why, but I felt like our lives were in very real danger. I looked up and the man reacted. His smile disappeared and turned into an angry look. He then pulled out a huge knife from underneath him. I shook My wife awake and said at the same time, what are you doing? Are you serious? In a scared but firm voice. My wife woke up and focused, spun around to look at the man. At that moment he smiled again. His giant smile makes me shiver thinking about it. And my wife gasped when she saw he had a knife and didn't say a word. He did not respond to me and instead stood up. He clutched a very big what looked like kitchen knife and took a single step towards us. My wife gasped again. I forced myself to do something. I stood up as well and said, what do you want? You can have our phones, our keys. I don't have any cash though, man. The man looked like he didn't care, which was terrifying. He wore a brown suit, kind of wrinkled. It looked like he came out of a trash can. His long brown hair was a mess and he looked homeless. Once again he didn't reply to me. After about 15 seconds of unnerving silence, he did something. He ran up to us very quickly and my wife screamed. He stopped before he stepped foot on our blanket and once again his smile turned into a crazy and angry looking frown. I spoke one last time. Dude, you can have everything. Just be cool. You can have a beer. My voice was cracking. I was petrified. I tried to humanize this guy and make him feel almost welcome to our stuff. Like his knife wasn't a big deal. He then spoke to us. He said in a normal, sane voice, I don't drink. Then he turned around and started walking away from us. Relief hit me like a ton of bricks. I kneeled down and grasped my wife's shoulder. He continued walking away and then turned around again. He didn't look at us but instead looked up at the sky. He then turned around once more and made his way through the fence and disappeared into town. My wife started tearing up and I said, we very quickly grabbed our belongings and started walking down the beach. Quickly towards a different entrance leading to a parking lot next to the one our car was in. After circling around the huge parking lot, walking around the restaurant we ate at, we saw people laughing and talking outside. They had no idea what we just experienced. We approached our car, we got inside and drove away. We were pretty much silent. On the way back home. My wife just hung her head out the window. We haven't gone back to the beach since then. To realize the future America needs. We understand what's needed from us to face each threat head on. We've earned our place in the fight

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