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Hey, before this episode begins, I just want to let everyone know that my film that I've been producing for the last two years, Gale Yellow Brick Road, is now streaming on Chilling. So if you weren't able to go see it in theaters a couple months ago, no worries. Click the link in the description to this video or just search Chilling in your app store and you can watch Gale Yellow Brick Road tonight at home. I really hope you enjoy. Please leave an honest rating and review on IMDb and Rotten Tomatoes. Thanks again. 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. My cat likes to go outside every day. In the morning, he follows us to the door, takes the elevator down with us, and then goes about his day outside until we bring him back home again in the evening. Now, my cat isn't the most punctual guy, so it's pretty common for him to stay much later in the neighborhood, sometimes well into the night or for several days. Or he gets bored and doesn't play for more than two hours and wants to get back inside. The problem is that we're not home, so he just has to wait. My family and I live in an apartment on the first floor, so my cat's solution is to sit under one of our balconies and meow at the top of his lungs to get our attention. When we're home, it works perfectly fine, but when we're not, it's a lot less effective. So our solution was to gently ask our neighbors that have the keys to our apartment to bring him up so he doesn't have to wait outside all day. Those that don't have the key sometimes let him inside the building so he's not literally outside. For example, when it's raining, our apartment is a bit special because it's bigger than the others. So to get inside, there are two ways when you get into the main hall. 1. Take the stairs to the left and open the door that has two locks. 2. Use the elevator with this special key that goes directly inside our apartment and the door only has one lock. The cat is used to the second option and me too, because we're both lazy. But when the neighbors that don't have the key let him inside the building, he goes up the stairs and waits. Since I usually use the elevator from the parking two floors below, that means I don't see him waiting in the hall and he meows outside the door to get me to open it up for him. All around we have our habits with my parents and neighbors, and it works fairly well. Now you know how everything goes with my little guy. Anyway, here's what happened a while ago. My parents like the outdoors very much, so I'm usually left alone in the weekends. Generally it means taking care of the chores and inviting my friends over so that we can have the apartment to ourselves, which is pretty nice. This time I was alone. It was late, around 11pm and I was just chilling in the living room before hearing meowing over the sound of the tv. Someone let my cat in the building and he was waiting outside the door. I took my keys and started opening the first lock. I don't know about other pet owners, but I know my cat meows by heart. It's a kind of rising meow that's very high pitched and very cute and that also has a specific rhythm because I have been hearing it nearly every day for five years. So I stopped. The noise isn't what it usually is. It's too deep and just off. This isn't my cat outside the door and he's the only cat around that knows that he has to wait by the door and scream to be let inside. By that point, I had stopped halfway through opening the door and waited to hear him again and noticed scratching. My cat never scratches that door. At that point. I am super weirded out by the situation, but the meowing is getting super loud and I didn't want the neighbors to be woken up. So I continued with my key. But suddenly I heard another noise that freaked me out. A cough. For the record, I am not a very cautious person and in my whole 21 years of living in this apartment, I must have looked in the peephole a total of maybe five times. But a small part of my brain told me to do it that night and thankfully I did. So I let go of my keys and put my eye against the door and saw it. A man standing there. He was meowing in front of my door. To say that I was terrified is really an understatement, but my heart stopped. I just stood there, petrified for what felt like an hour. I don't really know how long it took for me to move again. But eventually my body just took over. I guess I did what you'd expect. Ran for my phone, stood in the corner of the living room and called the police. By the time they came, there was nobody in front of the door. I can't even remember when the meowing stopped. They just took my testimony before telling me to be cautious and left. To this day, I still don't know what that meowing guy wanted. I'm not sure I want to know. I also don't know how he got inside the building since you need a key to access it, and how he knew that I would open the door if he imitated my cat in front of it. At least I will be careful from now on. Oh, and my cat eventually did come back. Since then, This happened during the summer of 2015 and I just graduated high school and still lived in my hometown. I was out with some friends and it was getting really late, like around 1am So I decided to head home. I stopped by a drug store close to my house that was 247 to pick up some aspirin and snacks. The one I went to was in the same parking lot as the supermarket. This is important to no. I parked my car close to the store and it was empty. There were no more than two other cars in this giant parking lot and I was nowhere near them. I head in and grab what I came to get quickly because I had this overwhelming feeling of dread the whole time. I felt like someone was watching me, but I couldn't see anyone else there besides me and the cashier. Then after I had gotten everything I intended to buy, I stalled checking out and just went aisle by aisle looking at random things because I thought whoever was out there would leave if I took too long. Really? The whole time I thought I was being paranoid because I wasn't used to going out late. I had strict parents growing up. After about 20 minutes of that, I pay and leave the store. I get to the door and literally bolt to my car, pepper spray in hand, and and locked myself in. I turned my head to check the back seat and right before I could breathe a sigh of relief because no one was there, someone tapped on my window. I looked around before I left the store near the entrance and no one was around my car. So how did I not see a person there? This is where I really freaked out. I don't know if this person was Ted Bundy inspired or what, but this was odd. He was a very handsome blond man with slightly long hair and a cast on his arm. Now my first instinct was to drive off, but he was leaning on the front hood part of my car and I didn't want to hurt him so I rolled my window down just an inch so he could speak and maybe back up just a bit so I could drive off without hitting him. But no, he stayed glued on my car. He then asked me if I could help him with directions and look up an address for him. I said I really need to go sir. Maybe ask in the drugstore if they can help. Already went to the supermarket and they couldn't help. That place closed at 8 and there was no way this guy had just been lurking around for five hours waiting for some random girl's help. He then went on about feeling really tired and if I could just give him water or food that I had bought since he had no money. I told him okay and began to reach to the passenger side to grab the chips I got and began to roll down the window slightly and like I expected, he moved closer to my window but he was now off the car so I just hit the gas. He started chasing me and I heard a scraping sound on the side of my car as I pulled away. I didn't drive directly home in case I was followed and drove down the highway for an hour because I was so distraught over what happened. I finally got home and the entire side of my car had been scraped from the door almost to the trunk. I am sure he used a knife or some sharp object because it was a really rough scrape. I reported the incident but they never found him or any similar incident in my town. He was watching me the whole time, maybe from the windows of the store because how else would he have known that I bought food? I also think he hid behind my car so I couldn't see him when I came out. I feel like he was trying to get me before I got in my car but I got in too fast. Thankfully. There is something that makes us feel indestructible in our younger years, teens to twenties. Anyway, that or it's just the simple thoughts of that couldn't or wouldn't happen to me type of attitude. Well, I will tell you of a time when just that type of situation created itself in my life. I was in my early 20s and started working out with my best friend friend. Walking 12 miles each day, weight training and eating healthier. Some days our schedule would conflict and I had to go it alone, so to speak and would always walk a paved path near my home. The path was a mile wide circle similar to a track at a high school or gym and had a small lake in the middle. This particular area was most definitely not a safe area, but it being daylight and having a gas station nearby only served to fuel my confidence and can do attitude. I headed about just before dinner, water bottle in hand and ready to tackle today's 12 miles well 12 plus the 1.5 to reach the path Overachieving today, I laughed to myself reaching the circular path. It was nearing 6p in the evening in summer, so not nearly close to getting dark quite yet. I walked onto the path noting my start time and starting spot. I took off. I had my phone and headphones back when all headphones plugged into your phone, started some music and prayed for a breeze. About three laps in I was alone. Some groups had come and gone, some kids on bikes cut through for a quick trip around, but pretty quiet. Rounding lap four I looked directly across the lake and noticed a man on a bike. I only noticed him because he was wearing a long sleeve black thermal type shirt and was wearing a black skull cap. Making a mental note to stay alert but not freaking myself out, I decided to make this last trip around my last just to be safe. After going around the fifth lap, the man on the bike was still staying a far distance from me, almost precisely half of the distance from where I was at any given time on the path. Realizing this, I figured he must be doing the same as anyone else that had been there, just getting some laps in or hanging out. After a few more laps I started to get an uncomfortable feeling which was prompted by the man on the bike stopping on the other side of the path and just looking in my direction. I didn't want to take a chance at offending the man by doing an obvious U turn right then and there, but I should have. As I got closer to where the man on the bike had stopped, I took my phone out and pulled up my friend's number. If nothing else I could call her and hopefully hearing me talking with someone would be enough to deter this man from anything nefarious. I passed the man giving a nod of the head as a universal hello and the man very softly said, hey, beautiful day out here. I agreed with a quick sure is a bit hot though and kept walking. I looked down at my phone feeling silly and paranoid and decided to finish up and head out before I completely made a fool of myself. A gut feeling of fear hit me and an inaudible warning ran through my ears saying turn around. As I looked behind me trying not to be obvious There at my literal heels was the man and his bike. I could feel the hot air being pushed off the bike tire on my legs. The man was that close to me. I jumped startled looking at the man and said, oh my gosh, you scared me, while grabbing my heart, the man said, sorry, I wasn't looking. Knowing this was a lie but not wanting a confrontation, I simply told him no problem and turned back around, walking a bit faster towards the exit off the path. A few other people were entering to walk around. I was just about off the pavement when the man on the bike shouted, hey girl, it's your lucky day. I waved and kind of laughed, but the way he said this ignited my flight sense and I began to jog towards the gas station on the other side of the trees next to the walking path. I grabbed a drink at the gas station, called my friend from the inside of the store and asked to be picked up. I was not about to basically give this man an invitation to my home by walking back. About 20 minutes later, having endured some questioning stares from store employees, my friend's car pulled up and I walked out slowly, making sure that the man wasn't lurking about waiting for another chance to do whatever he had a mind to do. Hopping in my friend's car, she looked at me and I told her the whole story as she drove me home. I said thanks to my friend and she unloaded a slew of be safe, watch out, stay alert, call me phrases. I nodded and raced inside, locking everything that locked the following day. I stayed in, reevaluating my workout plans and kept wondering what that man meant by what he said. It could have been an innocent statement, but I didn't get an innocent vibe whatsoever. My phone rang as I was about to climb in bed and I answered. It was my friend that had driven me home the day before, urging me to turn on the TV to a certain news channel. No thanks. I don't want a bunch of world drama in my head just before I try to sleep. I snapped. Turn it on now. My friend yelled back. I reluctantly went to my living room, grabbed the remote and turned to our local news channel. My heart fell to my stomach as I listened to the story of the grisly assault and murder of a young woman found dead on a walking path. The reporter went into many details I won't share here and unintentionally blocking my friend's words out, I listened to the reporter saying the police had no suspects at this time, but believed the woman had wounds and impressions of a bicycle Tire on her face and neck. This happened a few years ago and sometimes I still have nightmares where I didn't manage to get away. Let me start off by saying I live in a pretty big city, lots of bars and clubs and I have experience with partying and drugs. I have been in blackout drunk situations and this was not that. I no longer go out on my own. That night I decided to go out with some friends, bar hopping. I mainly knew only one of the girls that I hung out with on the regular. The other two were more acquaintances or strangers. I was very outgoing and loved meeting people, so that was nothing new for me. We had a few drinks at a bar and continued on to the next one, having fun, great times. One of the girls I didn't know well pulled out the party stuff sometime during our second bar visit. I decided to skip it because I wasn't looking to get too messed up that night. My friend said yes and she and the third girl went to the bathroom. The second girl, let's call her Barb, kept saying that I should go with the other two. I declined and declined. She got a little aggressive and mean. After the third time, I declined. My friend came back just then and Barb acted like nothing had just happened. We had some new guys join our group to flirt. I am in a relationship, but my friend and Barb were not. By then, the second girl had left. Barb and my friend were starting to get pretty messed up. I went to use the bathroom and text my boyfriend that I was coming home soon and saw that my phone was dead. When I came back, the guys had gotten us shots. I was still pretty sober and declined the shot. Barb shoved the shot into my hand and to avoid a scene, I took it. I started to tell my friend I was heading home, but one look at her face and Barb and I saw that they were out of it. I was starting to feel pretty woozy myself, so I grabbed my things and their things and started shoving them to go. The guys that bought the shots were protesting, but I wasn't getting resistance from the girls. I hailed a cab and I remember putting the girls in the back and telling the driver that we were dropping off my friends at their house and then going to my address, then blacked out. I remember dropping off my friend, then a blackout. Then I was alone with that driver. I was in the front seat and he was holding my hand. I looked around, disoriented, took in the sight of him holding my hand while driving like my boyfriend would. I saw my wallet in the center cup holder. The meter was off and was telling me that he was taking me to a romantic place. I told him, no, please take me home. My boyfriend was waiting at home. He said something along the lines of stop talking about him, I told you. Which to me in hindsight indicates that I had already told him many times. He said he just wanted to pretend for a little and held my hand tighter. I didn't want to trigger a violent reaction, so I left my hand there and started to reach for my wallet with my other hand. He saw, let go of my hand and took my wallet from the cup holder to his other side where I couldn't reach it. I was still woozy and blacked out again. When I came to my senses. We were parked near a very known, romantic and touristy location in my city. Normally this place is packed. Not that night. It's pretty far from anything else too, and surrounded by woods. I started to cry and tell him, please take me home. I want to see my boyfriend. I won't tell anyone, please. He looked at me and said, I will take you home if you pretend you are my girlfriend. For a little while I sat there in shock. I wished my brain wasn't rattled. I wished I had never gone out. I wished I could see my boyfriend for the thousandth time that night. I said, okay. He smiled, put my wallet back in the cup holder. I took it slowly and put it under my leg. He took my hand and looked out the front window out into the little lake that he had brought me to. He started talking and I don't remember what he was saying. I was trying not to black out again. I waited for him to look at me and asked again, please take me home. He said if I let him give me a kiss. I said no. He looked mad for a fraction of a second and squeezed the hand that he was still holding. He leaned in fast and kissed me anyways. I kept my lips sealed tight against him, ready to bite and scratch and not go down easy. He let go of my hand and backed away. He started the car and started our way back to civilization. I was crying as silently as possible, trying not to be heard so he would forget I was there and want to touch me, hold my hand. I waited until we were near enough people that I could bolt out of the car and find another way home. I think he saw me grabbing my wallet from under my leg and knew my intention to jump out at the next red light. He snatched it again and said that he would drive me. I just nodded, but by Then I didn't care about the wall, my phone or anything else. I didn't know what time it was by then. I do know there was almost no cars driving in my usual busy city. No buses, no people. I didn't care anymore. He stopped at a red light. I unlocked the door and yanked it open and ran. I didn't look back, but I heard a car peel out of the intersection. He was running too. My phone still dead. No wallet, so no money really far from my house. I was still drowsy and crying. I had no idea what time it was. I started walking home. I heard a car pull up near me and started running out of instinct. I heard a woman's voice yell out, are you okay? I stopped and swirled around and the most beautiful, beautiful person I have ever seen in the world was walking towards me slowly, hands out in front of her so as to not scare me. I started crying even harder, more incoherent than I had ever been in my life. She hugged me so hard and asked for my boyfriend's number. She called him. He answered straight away. She started telling him where I was, that I was okay, that she was taking me home. I cried the whole way back, trying to explain what happened, but still woozy, still freaking out. It was hard. So we drove in relative silence. When we got home, my boyfriend was waiting outside, losing his mind. My savior gave me her phone number to call her when I felt better and drove off. It was 5am I left the bar at 10pm that's all I can remember. A week later, my wallet showed up in my mailbox. I am an overnight security guard for a large building parking ramp. It's generally a really quiet job with a lot of free time, but occasionally I do have to kick out homeless people. It's a horrible part of the job and I do my best to direct them to the next safest place to sleep. Most people are understanding as they unfortunately go through this a lot. If anything, they want to vent and I try to be an open ear. Our protocol is to ask them to leave. Then if they don't, tell them to leave and if all else fails, we have to contact police. I have only once gotten to that last step. It's important to note my general routine at work. I sit in the shack in the parking ramp for an hour. Then I go for a walk around the building and then back to the shack. The doors are all locked, but there's an entryway with an ATM that's open 24 7. This is usually where I find People looking for a place to sleep. For more context, I am a smaller woman and unarmed. On this night, there was a woman trying to sleep by the atm. I followed protocol and after the first two warnings I had to contact police. She yelled at me, which is out of the normal, but understandable considering her position. It must be frustrating being constantly kicked out of every semi safe space. Police arrived and because I was a little scared, I watched from inside the building to make sure they got her out. If she was yelling at me, she was full on screaming at them. This goes on for about a half an hour before she leaves the building. Unfortunately, that's all the cops are required to do. So she makes her way to the bus stop right outside. The problem with this is the bus stop is parallel with my shack. She just sits and stares at me with hatred in her eyes. This gets uncomfortable pretty quickly, so I decide to take another walk. When I'm passing the door that leads out to my shack, I decide to take a peek out of the little door window. I don't usually do this, but I felt uneasy knowing that she was probably still in the area and it's a good thing I did. Did. I can just barely see it, but behind my shack I see the slightest wobble. There she was hiding right behind my shack. It's not a big thing, maybe a 10 foot cube made out of large windows and metal right at the entrance of the parking ramp. I have no doubt she was waiting for me. I call the police and just keep watching from the little door window while I'm waiting. She eventually lets out an angry scream, kicks the miscellaneous junk in front of the shack and storms up the stairwell in the parking ramp for an extra kick of anxiety. The floor above me had a broken door that wasn't locked at the time. Eventually police get there and after some harsh words they get her to leave again. And this time she walks off into the night. What really scares me was what I found on my next walk. There is a mirror next to the door I was watching her from. I couldn't see it from inside, but from this side it was obvious she had broken the mirror and a large piece was missing. Maybe I've allowed my anxiety to build this all up in my head, but from my perspective, she had taken a large sharp object, hid behind my shack and waited for me to walk up. When I was 16 years old, I decided to surprise my parents with a bouquet of flowers for Valentine's Day. We have always celebrated this as a family holiday rather than a romantic one. I didn't have a car to drive to a florist, but my high school was within walking distance of a hospital boasting a gift shop that sells floral arrangements between classes during the week of Valentine's Day. I set off for the hospital by my lonesome, cutting across campus to walk through a network of side roads populated with specialty doctor's offices that keep odd hours, the sort of buildings where traveling doctors mainly hold surgery consultations or perform small procedures a few times a month. The trip there passed without incident. As I was walking back through said deserted roads with a vase of flowers in tow, I noticed an unkempt 1990s car close behind me. While my memory of the car is hazy, I am left with the impression that there were at least two men within whose faces I could not see. Initially, I assumed that the driver was simply afraid of hitting me, the reason that they weren't passing by. So I made a point of dramatically trudging further into the grassy shoulder of the road, demonstrating to them that they could safely drive ahead. They still refused to pass me by, continuing to creep along behind at a slow pace. Beginning to suspect that the driver was more interested in me than a destination, I began to walk fast. Faster. The car confirmed my suspicions by matching my speed. Despite the impracticality of my shoes and the threat of spilling water from my base, I commenced to run as fast as I possibly could. They hit the gas and again matched my speed. I realized at this point that the car was following me, that there was no one in sight to notice, and I needed to get away. I bolted into the first parking lot that I saw. The car turned in after me. Despite there being only two or three cars in the spacious front parking lot and there being no other sign of activity in the office, this car did not stop to park in the numerous spaces available there. The driver instead opted to pursue me into the partially under construction back portion of this lot behind the office. It passed every available parking space to corner me against a pile of debris and rubble from the construction, coming to a diagonal stop less than three feet away. Before anyone could emerge from the vehicle, I somehow managed to scale the small prominence of the rubble against my back, vase in hand, and jumped from its peak to land painfully on the other side, which fortunately was a plot of undeveloped land within sight of my high school campus. I took a quick peek back over my shoulder to see if they were still in pursuit, but the car had sped off after I reached the top of the rubble pile and was now nowhere in sight. They had not parked in the lot at all. They had no business there. The driver was following me. I sprinted at top speed and didn't stop until I was soaked with sweat in the dead of winter and panting in the student lounge among my classmates who didn't seem to care when I told them. Possibly because our hometown is supposedly a human trafficking capital and the crime rate is outrageous. In retrospect I should have told an adult, alerted campus security and called the non emergency line of the local police station. But I was young, foolish, insecure and afraid of getting in trouble for leaving campus when I didn't have a signed permission form permitting me to do so. I kept trying to convince myself that I had misread the situation or was overreacting. I don't know what I would have even told the police had I called them as I was entirely ignorant on the subject of cars and couldn't have identified the make of it had I been asked and I couldn't see the faces the of of the occupants. I was also worried that my parents would restrict my already extremely limited freedoms if they knew that I had been in any danger. I feel horrible for having never told anyone and earnestly hope that my secrecy hasn't led to someone being hurt or killed. I believe the only missing people aside from runaway children or elderly adults with dementia in this city right now though are men. Aside from one woman a few decades ago. It was mid October. Gentle warm winds blowing the multicolored leaves around the desolate road. The sky had just changed from the warm orange orange sunset to chilly darkness. The moon brought a chill that carried a warning with it. Be alert. This wasn't a dangerous area, but it was known to be full of desperate high risk individuals, possibly to no fault of their own. And some by choice all around. Low income homes, city rent assisted rentals, halfway houses for recently released jailbirds, A few two story homes, once beautiful, now defiled, being known as drug houses or full of prostitutes. So not high crime, just an area with a lot of criminals. You're probably wondering what someone would be doing in this area after sunset on a chilly October evening. I will tell you. I had a friend, we'll call her Rose, who had three children and although she worked multiple jobs and was not in the criminal crowds, it's in this area that she could provide a four bedroom home for her and her children. We had been friends for quite some time, meeting each other at a side restaurant job serving for the quick cash. Rose and I had made plans to take the kids to the movies. The kids were ages 10 to 15 years old, so it wasn't so bad going out places as they were fairly independent at this age. Movie night is tonight. I pull up across the street from her house and put the car in park, crack the window and grab my phone to alert Rose that I have arrived. I typically would go to the door and knock, but the busy road that Rose's place is on makes it difficult to hear someone knocking, so to be cautious, or so I thought, I decided to stay in the car and call Rose. In my anticipation of our night out, I slipped and let my guard down upon putting my car in park. It automatically unlocks the car doors. Normally I am beyond on guard and have a habit of immediately hitting the lock after going into park. Tonight, however, I had grabbed my phone after immediately going into park, thus foregoing my usual protective actions. As I sat there scrolling my phone, waiting for Rose's first response, usually usually an apology for running behind, then another I'm almost ready text. The sound of feet approaching snapped me out of my phone zone and I looked around at first seeing nothing but orange and brown leaves wisping by, illuminated by my headlights, which I also neglected to turn off. As I clicked the main headlights off, leaving only the parking lights on, I instinctively hit the lock button at the same exact time a man in black hoodie and doll tried to open the passenger door handle. Had I been a split second slower, the door would have opened. The timing was absolutely insane. The man bent down, peering into the window while continuing to try to open the door, aggressively grabbing at the door handle as he moved to the back door, trying each handle on the passenger side again and again. All I could think to do was yell, no, no. Not here for you. Wrong car man. The man stepped back as if to acknowledge his mistake and I put up my hand in the universal it's okay motion and his response was to walk around the back of the car and as he approached the driver's window, I rolled it up, now face to face with this mysterious man dressed in black. The darkness and his clothing hid his face, making it impossible to judge his intentions. As I stared out at this stranger, I told him I'm waiting on friends to come out with their kids and I couldn't help him with anything. He continued looking inside the car, I assumed, not being able to see his eyes, I looked back at my phone, startled by the chime of a text alert. I heard a tink tink sound. Looking back up at the window now staring at a weapon being gently tapped, tapped at the window. The man motioned for me to roll the window down. In this situation, we all think how heroic we would be. I froze, but had the mind to barely crack the window. The man held the weapon in my face and demanded money. He actually only said money. And I looked at him and said, I don't have cash. I don't carry cash. If I did, I would give it to you. The man remained calm and steady and again said, money. You think I'm playing? I began to look around my car, telling the armed man, hold on, let me check around, reminding him again that I don't carry cash. Looking back to the man, I again said, I'm sorry, I don't have cash. The man was not giving up. All of a sudden I remembered my change wallet I kept behind the seat and told the man, hang on, I have a wallet in the back. I reached back and grabbed the wallet, praying I stuck some cash in there. Wallet in hand, I quickly unzipped the larger pocket. To my relief, there was a ten dollar bill. I took it out, slipped it through the crack in the window with weapons still in my face and said, this is everything I have. And the man took the $10 and began to casually walk away. He didn't run, he didn't yell. He just started walking away, calm as can be. I rolled the window up, flipped on the headlights and put the car in reverse to back into the driveway behind me and turn out onto the road opposite of the way the man was walking. As I started backwards, the man turned around and again pointed the gun directly at me through the windshield. I paused, put my hands up to show him I was stopping. The man started walking backwards, weapon pointed at my car until ducking behind a house and disappearing into the night. And just like that, the situation was over. I had been robbed. I sat in shock for a moment before continuing to back up, turning around and driving the opposite direction. I pulled into the next open gas station, called Rose and told her and the kids to lock the doors and stay inside. Movie night was cancelled. I ended my call with Rose, having summarized the events that unfolded directly in front of her home across the street and reminded her to lock up and consider moving and I would help however I could. Glancing into the passenger seat, I pulled the blanket down, seeing my son still fast asleep. Sleep. I was thankful that he slept through the whole situation and that he had brought his favorite blanket to nap with this night. He was only six years old and I woke him up, carried him inside the gas station and called the police. I wanted to notify the police in hopes of them catching this guy so that another person wouldn't have to be in this situation. Thinking back on the whole event, I was thankful the man didn't get too nervous as I was digging around in my car, and even more thankful his intentions were money motivated and not worse. Needless to say, I don't go to that area anymore and Rose was able to move a month later. The mysterious man was never found. There was a carnival in town that weekend and the police thought that he may not even be from the area. Not to mention I couldn't give them much of a description. The report was filed, I tucked my son back into his seat, buckled him back up and just in case, covered him once again for the ride home. When I was 18 I worked at my college's residence building at the front desk and I think I almost got assaulted or murdered. You be the judge. During the summer the building operated as a hotel, so two and a half floors were hotel rooms and half of the third floor were student rooms. The whole building operated with a hotel swipe key system that was pretty outdated and all the doors were powered by four AA batteries. If the batteries died, there was a decently lengthy process to replace them and reprogram the door. A dark haired guy came to the front desk from inside the building while I was working an overnight shift at around 1 or 2am and said he left his key card in his room. I made him a new one and made my first error of the night. Hotel guests could have as many room keys remade as they wanted, hypothetically. Students, however were supposed to be given a temporary key card and charged $2 to be returned when theirs is located. I gave him a new key for his room and asked if he was a student or a hotel guest and he replied student. At this point I should have checked our system to charge his account, but I was caught up doing administrative duties and forgot. I used to trust people way too easily at this job but quickly learned not to. Later on in the night, maybe around 3 or 4am he came to the desk again and said that he couldn't get into his room. I asked if he just forgot his key again and he said no. The door wasn't working. I asked if the light was coming on when he swiped his card and he said no so I figured the batteries were dead. I told him I would have to change the batteries and went up to his room with them. He asked me for my name and I told him. He didn't tell me his. I opened the room door manually with a master key and told him I would have to prop it open while I worked on the back panel to replace the batteries. He said, no, it's okay, I'll close it, and closed and deadbolted the door. Locked. Really weird, but I tried not to think about it. I had changed the batteries on plenty of other doors by this point, and some students were iffy about having their doors propped open for the room to be on display for anyone walking by. He also had a really thick accent and I thought he might be an international student since we had a lot of students from other countries where English was not their first language. I gave him the benefit of the doubt and thought maybe it was also just a language barrier issue. At this point though, I really felt like something was wrong, but I tried to ignore it so I didn't freak him out. While I was trying to focus on fixing the door as quickly as possible, he kept trying to trying to entice me to go further into the room, saying his bed was broken and that he needed me to take a look at it, that there was something underneath it that needed to be fixed, etc. He held out a little gold house key and said, I have a key, go get it and threw it under the bed. He said there was a leak under the fridge. He just kept trying to get me down on the ground, throwing random problems at me. Obviously, I told him no, I would send maintenance up in the morning to take a look at it if anything was broken. I had my back to him and he asked me if I would take off my glasses. I said no, I need them to see. His tone of voice changed and in the most steady, chilling manner he said, ella, it's okay, you can take them off. And from behind me he reached around and tried to take off my glasses. I swatted his hand away and trying to remain composure, said, no thanks, I need to keep them on. Even though he was really creeping me out, I didn't want to get in trouble if he complained about me or risk upsetting him and having him yell at me. I got up to grab something from the door repair kit and undid the door deadbolt and opened it up. In the process, he jumped toward the door to close it again and told me to keep it closed. Closed. I told him no, I had to open it to start reprogramming it from the front. While I held the door open with my foot and grabbed something from the door repair kit, he started playing with the little wispy hairs at the top of my forehead and trying to touch my shoulder. I swatted him away again and asked him not to touch me and focused on getting out of there. He once again tried to get me to follow him into the bedroom, saying the bed was broken and I went as far as the door frame to see if I could spot any actual problem with his bed. This is when I realized that he had nothing in his room. No dishes in the kitchen, no shower curtain in the bathroom, no sheets on the bed. Nothing. This wasn't his room. My brain once again went back to the International Student Theory, thinking that he had just arrived today and hadn't gotten a chance to buy anything yet. But in the pit of my stomach I knew something was wrong. I fiddled around with the door for a few more seconds before announcing that it was fixed and quickly gathered the door kit and left. Before I had reached the elevator, he came back out with his shoes on to follow me. He tried to get back in to get his shoes and called out, ella, the door isn't fixed. You need to come back. I went back and opened the door manually and told him if the door was broken, I would have to send up maintenance to fix it in the morning. I knew he was going to follow me to the elevator again, so I closed the door behind me once he went inside and ran down the stairwell as fast as I could. When I got to the front desk, I checked the computer and saw that the room he was in was supposed to be empty. It wasn't a student room or a hotel room. I locked myself in our back office and called campus security. He came back down a few minutes later and went behind the desk. I yelled at him to get on the other side and wait. Now that I knew he wasn't a resident, he tore the corner of a slip of paper I had sitting on the desk and drew a flower on it, then put it back on the top of my papers. When security arrived, he ran back up to the empty room and tried convincing them he lived there so he wouldn't have to leave. He kept showing them his key, key which had decided to work on the door again somehow. They escorted him back downstairs and came to ask me if he really did live there. Obviously he didn't. That's why I called you guys. Crying and terrified, he kept interjecting to argue that he did live there, but couldn't even recall his room number when asked. Security asked him for a student card and he couldn't produce it, so they told him he would have to leave if he Couldn't prove that he lived there. While they were grabbing his information, I listened from the office and could immediately tell he was lying. The phone number he gave was just a bunch of random numbers. The name he gave was prefixed by as if he was trying to think of a name. When they asked him for his address, he just said across the street. One security guard asked if he lived in the apartments across the street and he said yes, but couldn't tell them what the building number was. He said his apartment number was 1200, but I moved into that building a few months later and apartment 1200 doesn't exist. When security asked what his purpose was to be sneaking into a room, he just kept up the ums and us and saying he didn't know. They would ask, were you trying to see a friend? Do you know anybody who lives here? Were you here to hurt somebody? And he kept fidgeting and saying, I don't know. No reason, I was just here. At one point he tried to tell them he was my friend. At which point I poked my head out of the office to say that I literally have never seen him before that night he left. We didn't call the police because he didn't actually do anything. But it was still unsettling. Later on, it dawned on me how we figured out the real room was vacant. One of the housekeepers had been using it as her personal break room. A few days later, a housekeeper came to the desk and told me they found the door deadbolted open, the TV on, and a housekeeper inside watching tv. She must have forgotten to close the door when she left for the night. And when the creep let himself into the building, he found it. I never saw him again. And to this day I have no clue what he was doing there. I haven't worked there since last winter and overnight shifts still give me the heebie jeebies. I lived with my dad until about age 8 and this is the age I was when this event took place. Now, my dad wasn't a normal dad. His profession was on the not legal side of things. And even at a young age I was aware of this. He would constantly have people in and out of our home and constantly be making deliveries to a vast cast of characters. We moved more times than I can count and it was difficult to fit in anywhere as most people quickly became aware of my dad's job, quote unquote. I will say this, even with all the terrible life choices he made, I knew he loved me, he never hurt me. And one night my dad proved just how far he would go to provide me safety. We lived out in the middle of the woods in the country, where the neighbors literally were miles apart. We had a landline phone and basic cable with a slew of movies to keep me occupied, as my dad put when he was working. It had been a very long day, full of aggravation and frustration for my dad, and he had a horrible cough. As it grew dark, my dad went through, locked everything up and told me he was taking some cough medicine and going to sleep, reminding me not to be up all night. He disappeared into his room, excited to have the night to myself. I made some cereal, put in a movie and got comfortable on the futon in the living room. About two movies and way too many bowls of cereal later, I got up to use the bathroom, tiptoeing through our home, cautious to not wake my dad. I went back to the kitchen for something else. The only light was coming from the tv which faced away from the kitchen, so not much help but enough to not turn anything else on. Something caught my eye on the floor floor in front of the sliding glass door. I bent down, finding a piece of paper on the kitchen floor. I quickly looked up and all around the kitchen, wondering if my dad was playing a joke on me since I didn't listen and was up so late. But I was alone. The note read, I see you. I quickly checked the sliding glass door, locked the front door, locked windows, I don't know. I went to my dad's room and poked my head in the door. There he was, fast asleep, snoring like a train. I didn't dare wake him. I went back to the living room, hopped on the futon and covered up. Suddenly I heard a light tapping on the window, like if a pebble was being hit against the glass. I didn't move a muscle. The tapping grew into thunderous pounding on the sliding glass door. It was so loud I thought it would shatter. Daddy. I screamed at the top of my lungs. My dad didn't wake. I ran to his room to find him still snoring and I shook him with all my tiny might. But he barely woke enough to tell me to go to bed. I urged him to wake up. I heard something and someone was banging outside. He growled at me and slowly got up, going to the living room together. He stopped dead in his tracks and I ran my face right into his back. Being so close to him, I peeked around my dad to see several notes all around the kitchen floor. My dad looked scared, then angry. Did you make this mess he began asking me. I assured him I did not and that someone was pounding on the glass door and quickly showed him the I see you note. He didn't believe me, thinking I just wanted attention. He told me to clean it all up and go straight to bed, reminding me again that he was not in the mood and felt miserable. He went back to bed and I stood there shaking. I started picking up the notes, not wanting to read them, but curiosity getting the best of me. Run. Hide. Die. Three more notes. I couldn't ignore this. And no matter how angry it made him, I was showing my dad. I ran to his room again, shoving the papers in his face, begging that he read them. Seeing the fear on my face, my dad sat up, flipping through the notes and said, coat and shoes now. I didn't hesitate. I was ready in seconds and so was my dad. He grabbed the car keys and pepped talked our escape plan. Basically, it was run to the car, buckle up and hold on. As he opened the door, a dark figure stood, weapon in hand, lifting it and hitting my dad square in the face, knocking him backwards. The figure grabbed me up like a cat and began walking away with me. I started kicking and screaming and trying to get out of the grip of this stranger's arms. I couldn't. The man threw me into a van and took off. I moved inside the van to the back doors, banging on the rear windows and screaming for my dad. The man yelled at me to shut up or he would knock me out too. I didn't stop screaming. The man pulled the van over. Our home was out of sight. The man got out, walked around to the side and slid the door open. I jumped out as soon as the door opened and ran as fast as I could. The man was faster, catching me with ease. The man grabbed me by my hair and said, don't run. Don't scream. I didn't listen. I screamed for my dad. I kicked and squirmed and gave it my best. But I was no match for the man. As he pulled me alongside the Venture van, I saw lights coming up fast. I knew it would be my dad. I started screaming again, as loud as I could. And the man threw me inside the van and shut the door. 1, 2, 3, 4. What sounded like shots so loud I couldn't help but scream. This somehow gave me the strength to go from the back of the van to the front and hop out the driver's side door. I ran out into the street towards. Towards the oncoming lights. It was my dad. He was going fast. I moved to the side of the road. And as my dad passed me, he looked over at me. It was like everything slowed down for a split second and suddenly he slammed into the van. I ran to my dad's car, screaming for him to be okay. His face was bloody and busted up. He stumbled out of the car, grabbing my shoulders, asking if the man had heard hurt me. I sobbed and shook my head no. My dad told me to stand behind the car and he approached the van. I could hear the man yelling curse words at my dad and saying threats of death and something about, this ain't over, Billy. And then silence. It seemed like forever, but was mere minutes. My dad scooped me up and told me, let's get out of here, Paul. My dad held me close and told me that he loved me. He put me in the car and got in the driver's seat. Smoke was coming from under the hood, but we were able to drive away. Eventually, my dad drove us away from our home, the van and the man. I didn't see the man as we drove by. Just a small flicker of flames turning into a roaring blaze as we drove away from everything. I soon fell asleep, gripping my dad's finger and knowing I was as safe as could.