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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. Back in 1999, I used to work at Disney World down in Orlando, Florida. I was a custodian, which is really just Disney World's fancy way of saying janitor. We mostly worked when the park was closed to clean the place up, empty the trash, and treat all the water features around the park with cleaning chemicals to keep them from getting stagnant and smelly. But there was also a little guest interaction involved too, including things like giving directions, helping guests plan their day, and answering the millions of questions they'd have about the park. So I suppose My job was 70% janitor and 30% walking information point. There were major perks, but there were huge downsides too. I'd get disgruntled guests come up to me and complain about the stormy weather, as it meant that some of the rides were closed for a few hours. So I'd have to deal with that just smiling and nodding and sympathizing. But sometimes I swear it was like they wanted me to clap my hands and just magically disappear the clouds above our heads, as if I had the power to do it. Like, it's not my fault that you chose to visit Disney World during a hurricane season. Make better choices. I had to deal with lost children a few times too, and I also had to take valuable items to Lost and Found in Main street, which was kind of fun as it meant you could wander through the Magic Kingdom on your way to Lost and Found. That was one of the good things about being a custodian. You're allowed to walk all over the park within reason. For instance, if a guest wanted directions to Space Mountain, I could walk them over to Tomorrowland instead of just telling them how to get there. This worked well when trying to communicate with guests who didn't speak any English. I had a lot of good times during that job. The whole team was like one big family. But I suppose that's why what I'm about to tell you happens to be probably the worst thing that's ever happened in my life and why it still kind of messes me up 21 years later. So this happened on the second weekend in February of 99. The actual park opened at 11am so we used to spend the first two or three hours of our shifts basically doing cosmetic cleans, testing rides, and generally making sure the park was ready to go for the day. The morning section of my shift involved helping out with cleaning and prepping Fantasyland and Tomorrowland. So at one point, I'm walking through the park and I see this guy Ray, up on the platform for the skyway in Fantasyland. He is sweeping away, whistling to himself, generally being the cheerful guy that he was. Ray was in his 60s at the time and had already been with us for like a year. Everyone liked him. He was older than most, but he was super chilled out and friendly and always willing to help out his fellow cast members. Like I said, we were one big family like that. We worked together, partied together, and some of us even lived together. I called up to him like, hey, morning, Ray. Ray. He just smiles down at me, returns the greeting, and waves a little before going back to his sweeping. It was a beautiful morning. Everyone was in a good mood. It was another day in literal paradise. So I'm walking towards Tomorrowland for a few more minutes when I hear this, like, slow electric whirring sound above my head. The sound of the skyway starting up as the four person gondolas started moving along the track. I still feel terrible that it took me as long as it did to realize what was so wrong about the situation. It was a Sunday morning and I was pretty tired and slightly hungover from going out drinking the night before with a few of the other cast members. Honestly, it took me a little while to stop blaming myself for not having prevented what happened, because I figured that if I had been a little sharper, I'd have been able to really help. But then it hits me. The gondolas are moving pretty fast too, on their first test loop, and Ray is still up on the platform. Someone had switched on the skyway and they hadn't checked if the thing was clear or not. So I just start running back the way I had walked, following the platform of the skyway and hoping that I would catch up to Ray before the gondolas reached him. I was running as fast as I could, trying to catch up with the lead gondola, but I just couldn't seem to close the distance in time. I look up and see Ray whistling away to himself with his back to the gondolas, just not seeing them at all. As they are approaching. So I started shouting up to him and trying to warn him before the gondolas knocked him off the skyway, which are like 60ft up in the air. He hears me, turns around and is obviously horrified to see that some someone has turned on the ride before checking that it was clear. He has this mix of anger and fear in his voice as he turns back around and starts moving as quickly as he can away from the gondola. But he just couldn't move fast enough. The thing caught up with him pretty quickly, but it didn't knock him off like right away. Ray grabbed onto the gondola and tried to pull himself inside of it to stop himself from falling, but he just wasn't strong enough. And all of a sudden I'm watching him dangling from the thing, in danger of falling the whole 60ft onto the concrete below. I'm just shouting up to him, hang on, Ray, just hang on. But there was nothing I could do. I just had to watch him struggle to hold onto that gondola as it moved along the skyway, knowing that it was only a matter of time before he lost his grip and fell. I can see Ray looking over his shoulder and down at the ground below him every so often, and I will never ever forget the look of absolute terror on his face, or that feeling of pure helplessness I felt as I watched the whole thing unfolding. Then the gondola starts passing over these flower beds instead of just peeling. I figured the soil and the plants would have to be a better option to fall onto. It had to be. So I just started shouting, jump, Ray, jump. The flower beds go. Then I don't know if he deliberately let go or lost his grip, but he fell 60 whole feet down and landed with an audible thump in the flower beds below. Watching him fall was like slow motion or something. He seemed to fall so slowly, but I guess that's just because he had such a long way to fall. He was in a bad, bad way. When I reached him, he wasn't moving at all. He just lay there among the flowers, all glassy eyed, and he wheezed and groaned in agony. And in the moments before I ran off to get help, I saw him spit up blood onto his bottom lip and chin. I was in tears by the time I found another cast member to help out, begging them to call 911 so we could get an ambulance out there as fast as possible. Emergency services got there less than 20 minutes later and they carried Ray out of the park on a stretcher before driving him over to Orlando Regional Medical Center. We all prayed that he would be okay, and it brought us all a great deal of hope that he had actually landed in the flower beds and not onto straight concrete, which definitely would have killed anyone who had fallen that far. But a few hours later, we got word that he did not make it, that his injuries were so bad that he had passed away, despite what the hospital staff had done for him. The fall just caused too much trauma, too much internal bleeding, and he had slipped away after they had operated on him to drain the blood from his lungs. We were all absolutely devastated to have lost such a cheerful, charming, dedicated cast member. Ray made all of our days just that little bit brighter, and it would be impossible, possible to really replace him. I felt for his family, I felt for his friends, But I really felt for the cast member who had turned on the gondolas before making sure the skyway was clear. Technically, Ray should have been done with his sweeping by that time in the morning. But like I said, he was dedicated, the kind of guy who didn't finish a job until it was properly done. The person who had turned on the skyway, who I won't name, was totally inconsolable. So much so that they had to be put on leave before they eventually quit. They blamed themselves for Ray's death, saying they should have checked the cameras, done a walk around to make sure the platform was clear. It was no one's fault. I've come to terms with that. It was a simple breakdown of communication and it could have happened to anyone. It wasn't my fault. It wasn't Ray's fault. It wasn't the skyway operator's fault. It was just a horrible twist of fate. Everyone that could get time off attended Ray's funeral. We all wanted to be there for his family as best as we could to assure them that their husband and father was one of the sweetest guys we had ever known. Ray was the first cast member to die in the park in over 10 years. And a little memorial was put up backstage for him so that we could all remember him at his best with a smile on his face instead of scared and broken. Rest in peace, Raymond Barlow. We love you and we miss you every single day. I have been a long haul truck driver for a good few years now. I find it pretty enjoyable, to be honest. It just suits my lifestyle. I have never been the most sociable person, so I actually really like the whole thing of it just being me with nothing but my stereo system and the open road for company. My job has taken me to some incredible places too. Things that regular nine to five office workers just never get to see from their dusty, dimly lit office spaces. Even those with views from skyscrapers and stuff. They never see the landscape change, how the sun frames mountain ranges or how the moon shimmers off boundless lakes. Even with all the built up areas, this country really is beautiful in parts. Wyoming and Montana are some of my favorites, the mountain ranges and prairies being like picture postcards and places. But, and I mean no offense here, but the Iowa cornfields get so teeny tedious in places because there's literally nothing but cornfields as far as the eye can see. However, my least favorite place to drive in the entire country had to be Louisiana. Again, I mean absolutely no offense to any native sons of the Bayou State. I have had some of the best fried catfish I have ever tasted in little roadside diners while rolling through that place, but there is something inherently creepy about Louisiana too. Maybe it's just the humidity, the gators, or the way the Cajuns can just switch from English to French on a dime and shut you right out of a conversation. The whole Southern hospitality is as real as I am surely breathing, and I really have met some of the nicest, most generous people in the entire country down in Louisiana. I'm talking the kind of people that would give you their last dollar or the shirt right off their backs. But I guess it's just a place of extremes because I also met some of the least welcoming and quite frankly, most terrifying people I have ever met in my whole life down there. And this here is the story of one of those encounters, one that still keeps me up at night sometimes, and that takes a few glasses of vodka just to shut the memories out. So this one time I am rolling along this highway late in the evening, way behind schedule on a shipment due in Dallas, Texas. The tight timing meant it looked like I was going to have to pull another brutal all nighter to get my load to the depot on time. But if that was going to be the case, I'd have to stop at some roadside crawfish shack to fill up on greasy food and coffee so that I had the energy to keep going. So I turned my truck off the road at the first place I saw this place with a glowing, luminous sign that flashed with half the letters missing, but it was all I needed to see. Rustin Crawfish Shack the place was called, and it was little more than a collection of sheet metal shacks at the side of the road But I can tell you those are the kind of places where some Cajun mama bear has been making the same delicious po boys for the last 30 years. And man, I just love what those people can do with a few shrimp and a slice of lemon. So I order up my food, get it to order, and then sit outside to wolf it down before I get back on the road when some older guy comes up and asks me where I'm from. He was pretty friendly, and I don't mean to be judgmental here, but he had a very, very unusual appearance. He dressed normally, had close cropped hair, but he was very, very skinny. Like unnaturally skinny. Like he was just skin and bones with no muscle keeping his body upright whatsoever. I tell him up north originally, but that I'm based in Arkansas for my job and we start just casually talking about the area and its history. He was a nice enough guy, but I had to excuse myself telling him that if I didn't get this load to the Dallas depot on time that I would be in a whole world of trouble. It's the kind of thing that guys lose their jobs over. So I could not afford to play fast and loose with my timing. And in my case the risk was extra high since I had a high value load of electronics, new TVs and such, and every day a delivery is late, the depot can fine a trucking company and dramatically lower their bottom line. He puzzles the thought over for a moment, then told me he thought he could help me out and to wait there for a moment while he fetched something from a back room of the shack. At first I thought it was going to be some pills that would keep me extra wired all night. But what he brought out of that crawfish shack was something that sends chills through me even thinking about it. Today the guy returned with a piece of cypress wood in his hand, like a bear piece, looking like it had been freshly cut from a tree. He had me follow him over to my truck out of sight of the rest of the crowd that was gathering outside of the shack. Once we were alone, he pulls out this huge knife and tells me to carve my name into the wood. My full name, or it won't work, quote unquote. I was just about to ask him what it was when he shushed me, hands me the knife and tells me to obey. The blade looked into, jagged and slightly bent, like it was home forged or something. That was creepy enough on its own, but it was only when I take the knife from his hand do I see what the handle is made of. Have you all ever heard of a jawbone knife? It's literally what it sounds like. The blade is obviously metal, but the handle is made of an animal's jawbone. Some places, it can be made of a bear or cougar's jaw with the teeth kind of blunted so they don't rip your fingers up. Sounds weird, but they actually do make for a great grip. And they were actually really popular back in the old frontier days. But this jawbone knife that he passed me was different. There was something horribly familiar about the shape and the size of the teeth, the way only one of them was pointed, while the others were flat or jaggedly cupped. I thought it might have been a pig's jaw at first, but the actual jawline was way too thin for that. And it was with terror in my heart that I finally realized what I was looking at. It was human. That jaw had once belonged to a human being. I thought to say something, to ask him where he got it. I mean, I wanted to shove him away and throw this wooden board right back at him. But I'm telling you, when a guy has handed you a knife that you strongly suspect is made from a human jawbone, you ain't nothing but polite to this guy. So I did as I was asked. I carved my name into the wood, then handed him back the knife. All while he seemed to take an immense amount of pleasure in knowing how afraid I was. He then tells me that he's going to bury the piece of wood out in the bayou somewhere, and that once he had done that, I would get to Dallas with my load on time, and that I wouldn't have to worry about a thing. So, long story short, I did get to Dallas on time. I was wide awake for the entire journey, Made every exit and turn just like I was supposed to. But I was only so focused on the journey ahead because I wanted to keep the thoughts of where that knife had come from out of my mind. So I suppose, in a matter of speaking, the little ritual did work. Maybe not in the way he had intended it, to where some weird bayou spirits had taken care of me for the remainder of my journey. But it was the thing that spurred me on to get away from that crawfish shack. Spring starts at the Home Depot, and we are bringing the heat to your backyard this season. Fire up the flavor with our wide variety of grills for under $300. Like the next grill 4 burner gas grill that's perfect for hosting your spring cookout. Then set the scene and turn your outdoor space into the go to spot with the patio sets for every budget. Bring it this season with grills that deliver flavor and patios that set the vibe from the Home Depot. Start your spring with low prices guaranteed at the Home Depot. Exclusion supplies to homedepot.com Pricematch for details. Get in the game with the College Branded Venmo Debit Card. 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I was in my room listening to a scary video. One of those where you listen to scary voices that say creepy things or eerie children laughing or a creepy woman crying or something like that. Don't ask me why I like to scare myself like that, but I do. There's something about that adrenaline rush that you get from being scared that I find super fun. The video I listened to was a five Nights at Freddy's video where the animatronics were talking in a creepy way and saying eerie things. Nothing more than that. I lie in my bed while I listened to it. Suddenly the lights went out. Hmm, that's odd, I thought to myself. I paused the video, getting scared. I brushed it off, thinking there was probably a natural explanation for it. I had to check the fuse box. I went out of my room and the whole house was dark. I pulled out my phone from my pocket and turned on the flashlight. I started to make my way towards the fuse box, but while doing so, I couldn't help but feel like someone was watching me. The entire house was engulfed in silence. I brushed the feeling off, reassuring myself that I Was just scared. Scared. I got to the fuse box and flipped the switch. The lights came on and I sighed, feeling relieved. The feeling of being watched disappeared and I felt much better. I got back to my room and resumed the video. After about one minute the lights went off again. What in the world is going on? I thought to myself. I pulled out my phone and turned on the flashlight again and made my way back to the fuse box. This time I felt more scared than I did the first time. I opened the door to my room to find my house once again pitch black. It was nighttime so there was absolutely no light coming from outside. I made my way cautiously towards the fuse box feeling like someone was watching my every move. I suddenly got the feeling of someone standing right behind me. But when I checked there was no one there. I looked around to see if I could spot something. There was nothing. I stopped to listen for a while, but I couldn't hear anything either. I got to the fuse box and flipped the switch again. The lights came back on. I stood still for a moment, listening. Nothing. Even though the lights came on, the feeling of being watched would not go away. This time I had an idea. I would put some tape over the switch. That way the power wouldn't go out again. I went downstairs and looked in the kitchen drawer for tape. To my luck I found some. I went back up and taped the switch so it would stay in place. It made me feel a little better. But still I couldn't quite manage to shake the feeling that someone was watching me. I got to my room again and sat on my bed. My room was just the way I had left it. Nothing suspicious. I listened for a little while longer. Nothing. I'm probably just scared and that's why I keep imagining that I'm being watched. I told myself. I tried to calm myself down by saying that it was just my imagination. After all, it was impossible that someone was watching me. I live alone. No wife, no pets and no kids. Just me. I moved out of my parents house when I was 2020 years old and now I live in another town far away. That's the way I liked it. I liked being alone, focusing on myself and doing exactly what I wanted to do. I pressed play on the video again. I was still feeling a little on edge. There was a part of me that actually thought this was fun. But at the same time, the light incident freaked me out. I listened to the video for about five minutes. When the lights went out again, the light went off for a third time. I paused the video and got really Scared this time, I knew that someone had to be in the house. I grabbed a pair of scissors that was on my bedside table. I don't really know why I had scissors on my bedside table, but right now I thanked myself for it. I was going to use the scissors in case there was someone in my house. I pulled out my phone and switched on the flashlight once again. I slowly made my way to the door and listened. Nothing. I listened a little while longer. Still nothing. I opened the door quietly. Everything was dark. The only light came from my phone. I stood in the doorway with my guard up. I tightened my grip on the scissors and listened. Nothing. I looked around but couldn't see anything. I decided to check the fuse box again. Maybe the tape wasn't as strong as I had thought. I tried reassuring myself that the tape must have just fallen off on its own or something, but to no avail. I could not get rid of the feeling that someone was in my house. I made my way to the fuse box again, steadily, with the scissors in one hand and my phone in the other. I looked around for the slightest movement, but found nothing. I had a gnawing feeling that someone was watching me, mocking me from the corner of my eye. I turned to look. Nothing there. I couldn't hear anything other than my heart pounding loud in my chest. I just knew that someone was in my house. I got to the fuse box to find that the tape was completely gone. I searched all around for it, but it was gone. That's when I heard it. The most awful sound I have ever heard in my life. A loud screeching sound. I covered my ears, thinking that I was going to die. It stopped after 10 seconds. I stood still, listening. Nothing else. Nothing else happened. I was too scared to move. I stood holding the scissors and my phone, listening, waiting for something else to happen. I waited for what felt like an hour. I suddenly heard footsteps coming towards me in the dark. And a little girl's voice said, wanna. I have been a long time victim of sleep paralysis. I had my first experience as a young boy, around five or six years old. There's something super unsettling about waking up and not being able to move any part of your body. You feel entirely and utterly vulnerable to everything. You have no way of defending yourself or calling for help. You're just a sitting duck and anyone or anything can take advantage of it. For years, I would wake up in the middle of the night unable to move a muscle to save my life. But I didn't have to. Yet, as I did not experience anything scary at that time. And all it took was for me to go back to sleep, as you might think. It wasn't that bothersome to me back then. And honestly, I didn't think much of it though. As I got older, the paralysis got got more frequent and more intense. It only took a few years before I started hearing sounds and seeing shadows, as you hear often in stories of sleep paralysis experiences. But there is one that haunts me every day. I was about 15 years old and it was a cold winter night. I love staying warm under the sheets as the cold air entered my room through the crack in my window. The feeling of warmth in an otherwise cold environment is somehow soothing to me and it helps me sleep. This night was no different. I was snuggled up under my blanket as I drifted into a comfortable sleep. It didn't feel like more than a few seconds before I opened my eyes again. After feeling the cold winter air on my skin, I managed to to look down at my body being unable to move anything but my eyes, only to see that my blanket had disappeared and there was no warmth protecting me from the biting cold that entered the space. My body was shivering in this cold, but I could not feel it. I could not feel my body at all. As I was trying to figure out where my blanket had gone, my eyes looked around my room, scanning, scanning it slowly, only to spot a swift and fast movement from the corner of my eye. I quickly shifted my vision towards the window in the right corner of my room. The window I had left open a crack for the cold air that now pierced through my skin. It was then that I spotted something that froze my body in yet another manner. A hand came from outside my window, grabbing the frame inside. It wasn't a human hand or any hand I would be able to recognize. It was entirely black. From wrist to fingernails, pointy long shadowy fingers were moving alongside the frame of my bedroom window, looking for the handle that would push it out of the lock so they could open the window entirely. Screaming internally, I desperately tried to move any part of my body, starting with the tip of my finger. Slowly, the hand reached the height of the handle and the pointy black fingers curled around it and pulled it down as the window slowly slipped out of the lock, making a creaking noise. The hand slowly pulled back outside the window, giving me a second to catch my breath, only to lose it entirely again when the window slammed open with such force I thought it ripped the hinges right out of the wall. I started drowning in my fear as the arm I saw opening my Window from the outside finally made its way into my bedroom. It grabbed the window sill and slowly pulled its body through. It grabbed my window sill and slowly pulled its body through the window. I watched in horror as an impossibly skinny and fully black colored humanly shaped creature emerged from the darkness outside and fell onto the floor outside of my vision. The figure was now inside my room, blocked from my sight by the right bottom corner of my bed. Everything went dead silent after the loud thump of its body hitting my wooden floor. The only sound that could make its way to my ears was the sound of my heart beating viciously through my chest as I stared at the corner of my room where it fell without a single blink. Just as the silence started to feel comforting and I asked myself if it was over, I could hear something dragging across the floor behind my bed. I closed my eyes and started begging for this nightmare to be over. All while hearing multiple unidentified silence sounds coming from all around my room. With my eyes closed, I kept trying to move my body as this enables you to wake up from whatever state you might find yourself in during sleep paralysis. My efforts were interrupted by a million sharp cracking sounds coming from the foot of my bed. Unable to keep me in the dark any longer, I slowly opened my eyes to face whatever made these sound sounds. My eyes slowly started to adjust to the pitch black room, only illuminated by a shimmer of moonlight, able to peek through the thick winter clouds. Finally, the objects in my room started to stand out. I saw my light dangling from the ceiling, the closet in the corner of my room, the glass of water sitting on my nightstand, and the shadowy figure standing at the foot of my bed. It was tall, taller than any person should be, and skinnier too. It was as if this creature's skin only covered the bones inside. His arms were way too long for the body. They reached what can only be called a knee, but looked more like a round ball poking out from under its thin skin, practically crapping my pants. My eyes slowly ventured up the long body and retreated to the back of my skull as I glanced upon what can only be called a face. But it did not have eyes, a nose or ears. No. All it had on that dark canvas that is supposed to be its head was a malevolent and deeply disturbing smile that was entirely disproportionate to the rest. I could not stand stop the horrific thoughts from flowing into my mind as my eyes hid behind my eyelids. I had to open my eyes and at least look at what it will do instead of closing my eyes and subjecting myself completely, I opened my eyes and just as the creature noticed it was looked upon. He bent his neck as if to lay his head on his shoulder, making a million sounds of cracking bones in the process. With every small movement he made his bones seemingly break and splinter inside his body. I stared into where his eyes should be as he slowly stepped onto the bed and stood over me. He bent down slowly more and more towards me until my entire vision was only the sight of his psychotic smile. Mile slowly the rows of teeth started to come apart and what I can only describe as black glue tore apart as he opened his mouth wider and wider until it was big enough to fit my entire body inside. In only a split second I went from being swallowed whole to screaming at the top of my lungs as I launched upright in my bed, drenched in sweat. Almost instinctively I looked at my window only to find it opened a crack just like I had left it before going to bed. Finally it was over and I could move again. I had woken up from the horrible nightmare I had been stuck in. I have never slept the same after that night. I still see the creature in my dreams even a decade later. He has appeared in multiple instances, places and houses, not just in this bedroom. It sucks being so tired all the time but never feeling truly rested because at any moment he can enter my room again and swallow me whole. Quite a few years ago, long before my haunted restaurant days, I did in home care for the county that I lived in. That particular job entailed me traveling from one client's home to another pretty much all day. I met the peeping Tom of this story at my second clock client's apartment. That day he was introduced to me by my client as the maintenance man for the apartment complex that she lived in. He would just do basic handyman fix it duties in the tenants apartments as well as the yard work around the small complex. I say small complex because that apartment complex was only two stories tall and only had about 20 or so apartments in it. On the day that the maintenance man and I were introduced, everything seemed fine and normal. No red flags as of yet. Anyways, my client and I sat and talked with him over lunch since she was a sweet person and he had come over on short notice to fix her leaking faucet. He told us a little about his wife and kids and how much they loved playing outdoors on his expensive expansive property in their new side by side atv. He even jokingly said that if I were ever near his neck of the woods that I should stop by and meet his family and take a ride side by side to tour his woodsy property with its beautiful views if I wanted. Fast forward to a few weeks later when I needed to hire him at my new house to do some emergency plumbing because my normal plumber was away on vacation at the time. My client agreed that he would be a great fit for the job and plus he really needed the extra money, so she gave me his business card and I called him up to schedule him for the next morning. He showed up on time and did the work, although I found it to be honestly a little bit janky if I may say. So what he did worked, it was just that he didn't even bother to go get the right parts to make the plumbing permanent. So I ended up with sort of a long term temporary fix. Everything was fine. After he did the job, he left, still showing no red flags or anything until later that month. That is when he began calling me for really weird reasons, like he would just want to know if I was working with a client the next day, day or whenever. He wanted to know that because according to him, he needed to do some work she had called him about, but he was unable to reach her on the phone. Weird, I thought, especially since I thought he had worked in her apartment complex almost every weekday, so why couldn't he just knock on her door or let the manager know? I brushed it off though, considering I had just moved into that house and I had a lot of work to do on it still to make it more livable and comfortable. But soon enough, the calls came more and more frequently over the next couple of weeks until I woke up with 17 voicemails from him one morning. Enough was enough with that, I decided right then. And so when I went to work for that client the next day, I showed her all of his voicemails. She was absolutely appalled at seeing them all and she immediately called the apartment's manager and informed them of the situation with the maintenance man and I. I would be lying if I said that it wasn't totally awkward after my client made that phone call, but unfortunately it was. At first I was able to just simply ignore him and go on about my job duties as per usual, but I wouldn't be telling this story if that's all that happened now would I? The calls began to really amp up and eventually they turned into incessant texts. Some of the texts were angry and some were almost sexual in nature. They were all still nonetheless quite creepy indeed. To my great dismay though, I thought I was beginning to Hear strange noises and outside of my isolated house some nights. At first I figured that it was just some local wildlife, which we got a lot out in the country where I was. But since I happened to know a little bit of tracking, I got bored one late afternoon and decided to go out exploring and tracking a little. I was horrified to find several human man sized 13 inch outsole boot pro all around my house and field. I brought out my tape measure just to make sure, and sure enough, it looked as though someone had been traipsing around my house and outside my bedroom window. I just knew deep in my gut that it was all the strange sounds I had been hearing late at night outside. I went out to a local electronics store that very next day after I got off of work and purchased a motion sensored night vision camera for still pictures and a small night vision live camera for outside that I could view on my tv. At first, unfortunately, the game camera didn't really come up with any good pictures except for some deer and a skunk. But one night as I sat in front of my TV by myself, I decided to switch from the satellite dish to the live camera that I had placed outside a couple of days prior. Prior, I didn't see anything at all for the first few minutes, but that all quickly changed. I began to hear the faint and then familiar sounds of light footfalls outside. Then, to my absolute and complete and utter horror, I watched on my TV as a man in a dark hoodie walked right past my camera. I instantly froze, not knowing what to do. I didn't dare move a muscle or even breathe as I listened to him creep past outside my window. In my mind, my heartbeat must have been audible to him as he slipped past outside. I don't know why I didn't call the cops right then and there, but I figured he was probably already gone since all had gone silent outside once again. It wasn't until about two weeks later when I returned home from work to find both my front security screen that I had locked standing open along with my previous locked front door that I was forced to call the police. They sent an officer out, but all he could really do was look at the footprints outside my bedroom window and make a report. Fortunately, the handyman was fired shortly after that due to unknown reasons to me and all the weird activity outside my house at night stopped. If I learned even one thing from that whole scary experience, it was that you should always watch who you invite out to your house, especially if you're a single female. The world moves fast your workday even faster Pitching products, drafting reports, analyzing data Microsoft 365 Copilot is your AI assistant for work built into Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and other Microsoft 365 apps you use, helping you quickly write, analyze, create, and summarize so you can cut through clutter and and clear a path to your best work. Learn more@Microsoft.com M365Copilot this episode is brought to you by Welch's Fruit Snacks Big news for your kids Lunchbox Welch's Fruit snacks are now made without any artificial dyes. A snack parents can feel good about and the same delicious taste kids can't get enough of. All made with no artificial dyes. Try Welch's Fruit Snacks today. Experience a membership that backs what you're building with American Express Business Platinum. 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Podcast: Scary Stories and Rain
Host: Being Scared
Date: March 26, 2026
This episode features four unsettling true accounts, narrated against a backdrop of soothing rain, ideal for sleepless nights or anyone seeking an eerie escape. The stories explore workplace tragedy, supernatural encounters, chilling home intrusions, and the terror of sleep paralysis. Delivered with calm empathy and a haunting edge, the tales evoke both fear and reflection.
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Host “Being Scared” maintains a calm, empathetic, and slightly conversational tone throughout, which paradoxically amplifies the unease. The tranquil rain background creates a unique juxtaposition with the disturbing stories.
Final Note:
“Rest in peace, Raymond Barlow. We love you and we miss you every single day.” (13:18)