← Scary Stories and Rain
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Girl, winter is so last season and now spring's got you looking at pictures of tank tops with hungry eyes. Your algorithm is feeding you cutoffs. You're thirsty for the sun on your shoulders that perfect hang on the patio sundress those sandals you can wear all day and all night. And you've had enough of shopping from your couch. Done. Hoping it looks anything like the picture when you tear open that envelope. It's time for a little in person spring treat. It's time for a trip to Ross. Work your magic.
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Focus features in Blumhouse Obsession When I
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have a crush on a guy no one knows.
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Be careful. I wish Nikki love me more than anyone in the entire world. Who you wish for obsession is 96% fresh on rotten Tomatoes. I love you so so so so much. It's blood soaked nightmare Fuel brook hunger spills you put on her. You have been warned. Obsession rated R under 17 anime without parent only in theaters May 15 with special engagements in Dolby.
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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. I have worked for the United States Forest Service here in Texas for just shy of 10 years now. I love my job and it's Rare for anything particularly creepy or scary to occur. But having worked this job for so long, I have my fair share of stories I can share that might just make the hairs on the back of your neck stand on end. For example, we sometimes get jaguars hunting in the forests here. A particularly scary big cat. And that's because of what they do with their prey once they're caught and subdued. So just picture the scene. You're walking through the trees on some bright sunny day when all of a sudden you start to smell something rotten. You look around, but there's nothing to be seen. Just the picturesque view of the pines and the sound of bird song floating through the green. Then something hits the top of your head. Something wet. You place your hand on the top of your head, feeling something cold and slimy dribbling through your hair. You bring your hand down to see what it is, hoping that it's not bird crap. Only it's something way worse. It's blood. You look up, and hanging up in a tree just feet above your head is the mutilated half eaten corpse of an animal. Guts torn out, skin shredded, face half eaten, with hooves or paws missing, with broken pieces of bone protruding from cracked limbs. It seems an utterly bizarre thing to do. But the jaguar has a good reason for doing all this heavy lifting. If a jaguar doesn't bother to hoist its kill into the tree, it risks losing its meal to other more ground based predators or scavengers. Creepy. Yeah, but that kind of natural world stuff is nothing compared to some of the other stuff I've encountered during my time in the Forest service. So this other time I am on a routine walk through some of the trails to make sure all the directional signs and information markers for tourists are all in order. There's a large rock protrusion about 100 meters off of this trail. Like this big sandstone boulder that juts out of the earth that has kind of a shallow cave carved on one side that has been worn away from thousands of years of wind erosion. As I get close, I see a guy in what I first thought was camouflage hunting gear hanging around the entrance. I call out to him, just some friendly greeting, nothing threatening. And he turns to look at me, Only he doesn't say a word. He just runs off through the trees. I start getting worried about what he was doing in the cave, terrified he has left a body or something there. And honestly, I was so thankful that he hadn't. But it seems like he did leave something behind. I mean, I'm not even 100% sure it was him that did this, and I have often considered the possibility that it was him that happened to cross this little find first. And seeing me, he got the idea in his head that it was me that left this there. He got the idea into his head, saw me, and just freaked. But when I walked into that little cave and shined my flashlight around, I saw something that would completely explain why he was so quick to run away, whatever his motivations for doing so were. There was a little circular patch of dirt, one that looked like it had been raked over to clear some space, and in the middle of it all were a bunch of human teeth. I don't know why they were there, I don't know who left them or why, but I did what I could. I gathered them up into a little plastic bag I had on me that had previously contained my lunch and took them down to the nearest police station, giving a little description of the guy that I had seen run away from the cave. I have the usual wild animal encounters, weird noises during the night, but I have never forgotten those teeth. I have no explanation to offer up at all, but it certainly does make for a good little scary story.
- [06:54]
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- [07:23]
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This is something that happens Constantly to me. And I am actually at work typing this out because it just happened again. Three months ago, I started working at a packing warehouse. I'm the youngest one here being only 19 and there's barely any other females here. The women's bathroom literally has only one stall. And since the virus it is supposed to be one person in the bathroom at a time. This wasn't a problem for a while until one of my co workers, we'll call her Jane, started following me into the bathroom. At first I didn't care as sometimes she would come in while I was in there and I would see her feet by the door. I just assumed she was waiting to go. Then I started to notice she would only go as soon as I went in. I gave her the benefit of the doubt for a few weeks up until recently when I would see her standing right in front of the stall while I was in there. I could see her through the cracks and she would just stand there still with a blank expression. I thought she was just a creep. Other people started to notice when she would literally just leave the bathroom and I would go in after her and she would just go right back in. She only did this with me and when I left, she would leave without using the bathroom. All around the factory I see her staring at me. This weirds me out so much. But she hasn't really done anything else. I mean, we have never even spoke to each other until about five minutes ago. She came in again while I was in the stall. She walked closer to the stall door and started to tap it. She kept whispering, I wanna come in with you. I'm freaked out. So I yelled at her. No. She started to raise her voice to the saying she wanted to come in. I screamed at her to leave. I was just scared for my life thinking that she would just slide under the bottom. She just laughed and said she'll see me tonight. I'm getting off super late tonight and I live alone. I don't know what to. Do. Often I enjoy walking my dog at nighttime. This is due to the fact that my dog is harder to walk when people are around with their own dogs. So we tend to walk around parks in the area when they become somewhat secluded. I am not a very big guy. I'm just about 510 and very lanky. So I wouldn't call myself an intimidating figure. However, my 120 pound black boxer named Loki could be somewhat considered threatening to most. From what I hear, I figured his size would be used as a deterrent for anyone looking to cause nightly troubles. I was dead wrong. On one specific night in the fall of 2016, I could recall of an encounter that that reminds me of why I am so reluctant to walk around once daylight falls. This specific park is one I have been to a couple of times, and from what I remember, this park is usually secluded around 6:30 and later. Aside from a couple of joggers, there are very few other dog walkers. Not many people walk the same path I take. I also like to put on my headphones and listen to music while I walk. But on this specific night, I chose not to wear them since my phone was on low battery and I wanted to preserve it as long as I could. Anyway, the walk was going as usual. Loki did his business and we continued our usual path. About midway on our walk, I realized that it had started to get really dark. Since he was done with his business, I decided to cut the walk somewhat short and we took a shortcut that kind of led us off the path. This path had a bunch of trees surrounding the area and there were still leaves on the branches. With that being said, I felt a weird feeling as if I were being watched. I have pretty bad anxiety sometimes, but since I knew the town was safe, I knew that nothing was going to happen. But still, I could not for the life of me shake off the feeling of being watched. I peered back to see if anyone had been following me out of anxiety. And every single time, no one was there. In fact, no one was anywhere. This whole shortcut was essentially secluded. Suddenly, Loki stopped walking and also looked back. I told him, loki, come on boy, we gotta go. One thing I failed to mention was that Loki is a big coward. I noticed his tail was tucked between his legs, which is a telltale sign that a dog is afraid. I was also curious and a bit nervous, but I surely did not want to find out what he heard or noticed. I just wanted to get out asap. I pulled a little and he began to walk, but every now and then I'd see him peer back. After maybe a minute or so of walking, he stopped again and this time he began to growl. Despite being a coward, Loki is a bark but no bite kind of dog. So I took this chance to see exactly what he was growling at. It was quite dark, so I could not see well. So I used my phone's flashlight to see what was up. Trees, Just trees. What he heard was probably some kind of small animal. Once again, I turned around and kept walking. He continued to peer back once in a while. Still. Still. But this time I noticed it was a lot more frequent. I just said to myself, just squirrels, maybe a bird. And I ignored it. Then I heard what appeared to be actual footsteps and branches breaking. There is absolutely no way a small animal could have produced a sound like that. Loki turned around quick and still with his tail tucked. He began to growl and bark at a fish figure that I could only describe as a man in his early 50s, possibly late 40s, appeared from out of the woods. He was dressed in dirty clothing. His hair was long and was graying. He had one hand in his pocket and he said to me, nice dog you have. What breed is he? He's a boxer. I replied. Oh, I know dogs. Mind if I pet him? He wondered. The man got closer and emerged from the trees. As he got closer, I realized that he was quite tall and a bit burly. Loki instantly got bad vibes. He ran behind me and started to bark at him. Actually, I do kinda mind. My dog here doesn't like strangers. Sorry, but it's probably not best if you pet him. I quickly stated. It's okay, really. He seems like a friendly guy. Just a little pet wouldn't harm him. The man retorted as he got closer. I felt extremely uncomfortable as he appeared to get closer and closer. I don't know why this guy couldn't take no for an answer. I mean, I usually don't allow people to pet Loki unless he comes up to them first. If he's scared of you, then I usually do not want to freak him out by letting him be pet by a stranger. Stranger? This is especially the case when said stranger came from the woods behind a few trees. I'm really sorry man. I'm scared he'd bite you or something. I told him as I began to walk away. Like I said before, I wasn't trying to be judgmental or anything, but the dude came from the woods and was possibly the one trailing us from before. I don't know why he won't just let me introduce myself to him. The guy replied angrily. This time I began to speed walk. I was very uncomfortable and my fight or flight instincts began to take over. He followed us and kept muttering curses to himself. I don't know if this man was under the influence of something, but he did not let up. I won't lie, I started to get a little angry. Why can't a guy just take no for an answer? He began to match my speed, almost as if he was trying to catch up to us. Loki and I both took this as an answer to start sprinting A bit. I don't remember much of the running, it was all a blur to me. But I do remember the spine tingling feeling of hearing his footsteps rapidly increasing behind me. For a man of his stature, he was quite fast. I also realized that his intentions may not have been to just pet my dog. No one reasonable would go that far just to pet a dog that clearly wanted nothing to do with him. I looked behind me and he was in pursuit. Maybe about 10ft behind me. He was chasing us. I'll never forget the look in his eyes. I have never had anyone look at me like that. A look of killer intent. All for what? Just because he couldn't pet my dog? My instincts told me that he definitely had sinister intent behind that. Finally, the path led to the park exit and into the busier streets. I lived about 10 minutes away from the park. I made sure no one was following me and I even made sure to walk on populated streets. After what seemed like an eternity, we got home. But I knew for a fact that I was not going to get a minute of sleep. From my window in the porch, I watched all night with Loki just to see if anyone had followed us home. I also made a police report with my parents. After all, this guy seemed to have been quite suspicious. And who knows what his true intentions were. Had his target been someone who couldn't protect themselves or run away, what would he have done? I also often ask myself myself, what if I was wearing my headphones and the sound of music drowned out the footsteps behind me? Ever since, I haven't walked Loki in that park. I have also made it a habit of mine to walk on livelier streets at night. If I could give anyone one piece of advice. Even if you live in a relatively safe town, do not ever let your guard down. You never know what comes kind of person might be lurking in the shadows. Montana has to be one of the most beautiful places in the world. And it's one of the last beautiful places in the United States that still feels truly wild. Unlike my native California where almost every area of natural beauty is plastered with man made trails, ranger stations and tourist traps. But I don't mean to offend anyone. I'm sure your favorite hiking spots in Wisconsin or Washington or wherever are amazing. And maybe it is just a little internal bias talking, having watched too many old cowboy movies with my dad. But to me, Montana truly feels like one of the last untouched wilderness areas in North America. A buddy of mine feels exactly the same way about it. So every year around September, he and I would Take a trip up to Bozeman to spend some time away from big city life out here in Frisco. We have been friends forever and pretty much spent all of our high school and college days together. But since we have slammed into our 30s and did all the boring grown up stuff like get married, have kids, focus on careers, we don't have nearly enough time to spend together. So I honestly relish our year trips out to Montana together where we can catch up on stuff, get some serious drinking in, but most importantly, indulge in a mutual hobby of ours that's verged on an obsession. Ever since we were teenagers hunting, our stomping ground of choice has all always been Glacier national park, right up on the Canadian border. It's about a five hour drive from Bozeman itself, but we make a point of driving out for a few days. One to get settled into a campsite, another few to actually hunt. All before a few days of drinking back in Bozeman to celebrate our successes or commiserate our failures. So last year we repeated the same old ritual. Driving out to the national park with our hunting gear. In tower, we found a good place to park the truck, hiked a few hours out into the wilderness and found a decent little spot to set up camp. Every year we seem to be a little more exhausted when the day ends. Call it just side effects of getting older, I guess so. Last year in particular, we passed out pretty early in our one man tents with the intention of rising at dawn to begin our day's hunt. 6am the next morning, the little alarm on my wristwatch starts beeping. It's the closest thing we have to that feeling of Christmas morning. When you're a kid. It's just pure excitement. Jumping out of bed to see what hunting Santa has left among the trees for us that day we have a little breakfast, drink a little coffee, then pack up and head out. For those of you that are unfamiliar with hunting or nature in general, there are two times in a day when birds sing sing the loudest. Dawn and dusk. It sounds all pretty to us humans, like this wonderful lyrical bird song. But it's actually just pure war cries. What sounds sweet and cute to us is actually them. Like I'm here and if you come up in my tree, I'm gonna mess you up, so back off. Other birds for real. And it's something that soundtracks every morning hummingbird hunt every single time we have visited Glacier, but that morning it was almost silent. We could hear the odd squawk in the distance, but our Immediate vicinity was as silent as the grave. Now at McDonald's a McDouble is 250.
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Spring just slid into your DMs. Grab that boho. Look for that rooftop dinner, those sandals that can keep up with you. And hang some string lights to give your patio a glow up. Spring's calling.
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Ross.
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Work your magic.
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And that only means one thing. That a large predator is in the area. Something that's on the hunt. I remember the look on my buddy's face when he turned to me and said stated that exact thing. How I double checked that I had my can of bear mace on me just in case anything happened. But that area of Montana right near the Canadian border is known to have wolf packs roaming around. And I shuddered at the thought of what would happen if we were cornered by one. Two aging city boys would be run down in an instant. We wouldn't stand a chance. We would be torn apart and eaten alive right there on the forest floor. Probably before we could even get a shot off. Trigger discipline is probably the most important aspect of weapon safety. But I struggled to keep my finger off the trigger of my Remington. Once I had racked around into the chamber, the fear was palpable. It felt like something was close. Real close. And in woods as dense as the ones we were in, something could be on top of us in just seconds. Then after another mile or so of walking through the near silent forest, we saw it in the distance. A grizzly. And it was huge. I had never seen one in the flesh before that day. And I was completely overwhelmed by the size of that thing. I mean, they are monsters in the very sense of the word. Just a flesh tank, a ball of muscle and sound anew. Perfectly designed to chase down, kill and shred whatever they take a liking to. We watched it staring back at us like this dull expression on its face before it sniffed the air a little, catching our scent. We must have looked like frightened little boys. But to the grizzly we were nothing. This was just another day. And we were just another meal, another kill. Business as usual. We just slowly walked on. Keeping our eyes on that murder machine the whole time. Until it was eventually out of sight. We're not dumb. We knew we couldn't just hang around and carry on our hunt with that thing in the area. Especially not since it had our scent. So Slowly but surely, we made our way back to camp with the intention of packing up and moving to a safer area. But God laughs at well laid plans. And about halfway back, as we're keeping our heads on a swivel, trying to keep an eye out for that thing stalking us through the trees, I heard something heavy bounding towards us. I couldn't see it right away and frankly the idea that something so huge could just creep up on us like that is something that is just pure nightmare fuel to me. But stalk us it did. And in a moment of pure stomach churning horror, it knocked my buddy to the ground as easy as a grown man might knock over a child. I mean it just sent him crashing into the dirt and it was on him in seconds. How I managed to miss that thing with my first shot is something I'll never really understand. I am an experienced hunter and I am a pretty good marksman. But pure panic took over. Crippling fear just had me turning to jelly. The feeling of expecting to see my best friend in the world torn apart before me is something I am never ever going to forget. I am not military. I have never had any official training, nothing like that. So I didn't even think to work the bolt action and chamber another round. I just went for the bare mace, spraying it right in that thing's eyes as it slashed its claws across my buddy's chest and face, tearing up clothing and flesh like with deep gouging strikes. His screams though, that's what I kept hearing in the quieter moments during the months following that trip. These blood curdling screams as he thought he was going to die. And not just die, be eaten alive. Watch his own guts be being torn from his body and chewed up right there in front of him. But it worked. Somehow the bear mace just worked. It immediately stopped clawing at my buddy, started like wrinkling its nose and doing these weird like sneezes or coughs. I can't really think of any other way to describe it. But what was obvious is that it was in considerable discomfort as the ingredients in the mace went to work on its new nose and eyes. Then as suddenly as it had appeared, it took off again, crashing through the trees, smacking into the one odd or two as it obviously struggled to see where it was going. Then it was just a case of checking on my buddy. But oh my gosh, he was an absolute mess. The bear's claws had torn off chunks of flesh from his face, shoulders and chest and blood was everywhere. I mean everywhere. I was frantic too. I Kept alternating between trying to tend to his wounds and looking around to make sure the bear wasn't charging us again. Like, when I think back to it, I can only see certain frames. It's not like a movie in my head, it's like still pictures. Side effect of the adrenaline, I guess. The blood is leaking off my body as I help him to his feet. He was capable of running, but the attack had stunned him and he shook violently as I pulled him up and started dragging him back in the direction of our campsite. I knew the bear mace or bear spray or whatever you want to call it had worked, but for how long, I had no idea. And so we ran as fast as our legs could carry us through trees and over hillocks until we saw the bridge bright orange fabric of our one man tents. Another weird memory I have is of my buddy applying his own gauze bandages. Like you think the guy would be in major pain at that point, but he was just running on pure adrenaline. That bear had torn him up real bad, but he couldn't feel a thing. It was just pure survival instinct kicking in. He was a survivor, and he wasn't about to go down easy. And in a twist, twisted kind of way, I was really proud of him by that point. My one major concern was that he'd lose too much blood on the way back to our truck. I mean, he had already left a blood trail from the scene of the attack, so the bear would be able to trace our path really, really easily. So I was stuck in a horrendous catch 22 situation. Leave him with his rifle and risk getting attacked again or have him come with me to get help and risk bleeding to death or leading the bear onto our trail. But a primal, angry roar that echoed through the trees kind of made that decision for us. The bear was still in the area. Not even that. It was close, and it was angry. I wrapped like half my buddy's head in gauze, taped a bunch of it to his chest, and we got running again. Almost every step we took, I expected that bear to just appear again. Only this time, if it attacked me, my buddy wouldn't have a rifle to be able to take the thing out. Although that fact that the bear mace had worked was actually a huge comfort. So there was no doubt that it would work a second time. But we got lucky for a second time that day. First time when the injuries to my buddy weren't as bad as they could have been, and the second when that bear didn't to want rally for a second attack. We made it out of the park and down to a place called Ennis pretty quickly, visited a medical clinic, got my buddy all stitched and patched up, then actually headed to a bar to just decompress and unwind from the nightmare we had just lived through. Needless to say, my buddy didn't have to buy a single beer that night, not as he told the story of getting full on attacked by a fool fully grown grizzly. We're not sure if we're going on our year trip this September. All this virus stuff aside, I'm not sure either of us is quite ready to get back on that horse, but I look forward to the day when we are. I'm not going to let a horrific encounter like that ruin the one thing that's kept us close for so many years. This happened a few years ago in my hometown. I am not going to say where to protect the privacy of my best friend, but everyone should be on the lookout for these types of situations as they are growing increasingly more common. My best friend and undergraduate we'll call her Maria and I were extremely close. We worked together, had the same degree, had the same hobbies, most of the same classes, the same friend group, and lived very near to each other. As a result, we were with each other very often, so very rarely alone. Keep this in mind as the story goes on, Maria was picking up her cats from a friend's house and parked her car on the street outside. She put the cats in the car, ran to lock the front door and came back. It took maybe 10 seconds to lock it and run back, but she didn't lock her car. About halfway to her house she realized that her purse containing makeup, hundreds of dollars, checks from work, her passport, all of her IDs and cards and bills for her apartment with her address on them was missing from the passenger seat. She had been running errands to prepare for a trip to her hometown, which is why she had all of these things with her. Pulling over, she looked at her bank account online to see someone had already tried to use the card at a gas station five minutes away, so she cancelled her card and drove home. When telling me the story, I pointed out that whoever took her purse purse was so fast that they had to have been watching her and she agreed. She reported it all to the police, but wasn't expecting anything to come from it as we lived in an area notorious for theft at the time. A month or so later she received a phone call from a detective saying that they had found all her items except the cash. Maria told the detective it was fine as she already had new ones. The detective paused for a moment and then told Maria that they would not be returning her items at all since they were now evidence in an investigation. When Maria asked what she meant, the detective told her they found all her items with a woman who was known to be involved in drugs and human trafficking, and our state is one of the hot spots for human trafficking in the us along with the stolen items, there were pictures of Maria from several months prior, walking around our college campus and our work and hanging out with friends on her birthday. There were also photos of her friends and other girls that we didn't know. These people had her hometown address, her address in the state where we lived, where we worked, the places we ate and hung out at, her university, ID card, knew that she had animals and where she walked them, where she did her banking, what kind of car she drove, and who her friends were. Naturally, her boyfriend who was in the military lost it and had his friend sit outside the house when he wasn't home and escort her to and from work at night for the next few months. It didn't seem like I was a target, but I still had my boyfriend and use my car to drive me to and from work for a while, and I bought pepper spray for my keychain. In the aftermath of finding this out, we realized a few things. Despite being followed at fairly close range, somehow neither of us ever noticed somebody following us, probably because the person was a woman. Most of the opportunities for someone to take her, such as walking to her car or house at night, were probably missed because either her boyfriend or I were with her. They must have been learning the schedules of everyone around her as well as to see when there were times she was truly alone. Since they already knew so much about her before stealing all of her information, there must be a big boss somewhere who has at least some information about her, including what she looks like. The one thing they didn't seem to have photos of was her hiking with her dogs. Either they didn't know she hiked often alone, or they were worried it would be too obvious if someone were to follow her, thus tipping her off. And perhaps the most terrifying, if they decided after all this time to make a move and steal her things. They must have been planning to do something big fairly soon. It's likely they took her IDs in order to make fake ones to get her out of the country undetected. Unfortunately, I can't give an update as nothing ever happened after the arrest and every time she asks about the case, the detective says it's an active investigation and they cannot disclose any information. We have never actually seen the photos either. All of the explanation was done over the phone. It's been three years since all this happened and even though we have moved past, still terrifies me to think about what would have happened if they hadn't found that woman. I urge everyone to be aware of their surroundings. Be wary of anyone following you, not just men. Stay with your friends, check in on them to see if they made it home safe and always, always lock your do. Before I begin, I'd like to state that I am a paranoid schizophrenic. This will come into play later. This happened recently on July 6th at around 8pm just starting to get dark when I happened to notice a man walking around my housing car complex. I saw this on my security who
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system with about six cameras in total. He is wearing a black hoodie with the hood up and a pair of ratty blue jeans and he had a wild looking beard. I see him walking around and think nothing of it until around 30 minutes later. I see the man walk around near my house and notice him walking a bit too close to my car for comfort. He then just walks away and I don't see him for another hour when I get an alert on my monitor with all of my security cameras that says there is a proximity alarm. I have each camera set to a different proximity alert and the two garage door cameras were set to around 15ft away from the camera. At this point it's dark outside and the cameras switch into infrared mode where I can get a better look at this guy. He looked crazy praised and had a small grin on his face. It didn't look too obvious, but it was definitely noticeable. I kid you not. What he does next is just downright terrifying. He looks up and then begins to stare into the camera with his wild looking face and just sits there for a good five minutes. He then tries the rear left door and fails to open it, then tries the driver's side to no avail. The crazed man begins to then knock on the windows of the driver's side door and starts pounding it. After a short period of time, this guy was getting more visibly agitated and angry with each second he couldn't get into my vehicle. By this point I am already on the phone with the police and they say they'll be at my place soon. I get off the phone with the operator and just continue to walk. What this guy is doing, he's still trying to get into my vehicle, then stops and just stares into my car with no regard to anything else. After 10 minutes, two police cruisers come onto my street with their lights on and their weapons drawn at the man. He looks at them and starts walking toward them slowly. By doing that, the guy got tased. I assumed the guy had a weapon of some sort because why else would four officers officers had their weapons drawn? Then I hear a loud scream come from outside. Once the officers got the guy in cuffs, he turned his head back toward the main garage door camera and stares into it with the most deranged and insane look on his face. I give the police a statement and a USB drive with all of the footage of what just transpired and I am still waiting to hear back from the police. I am not allowed to show any footage from these events as there is still an active investigation going on. This is a true story. I'm a female and when I was in my 20s, I went to a retreat in the beautiful Berkshire Mountains in Massachusetts. It was a weekend of lectures and activities on how to live your best life. Basically, little did I know that by midnight I would be living my worst nightmare. Upon our arrival, we were given a tour of the campus, which consisted of various buildings for lectures and activities, dormitories, a cafeteria, and an arcade shade. We were warned about ticks and that there had been recent bear sightings. I was so mesmerized with the beauty of the place that I admit I may not have been paying the utmost attention to the tour guide. It was autumn in New England and the leaves wore a multitude of colors. Standing on the edge of the mountain, we were able to see a babbling brook below us. I had never been that high up on a mountain before and the view was insane. The highlight of the tour was definitely the arcade building, which consisted of various game rooms. There were all kinds of games, from a pool table to classic arcade games. After touring the arcade building, the tour guide warned us to be back in our dorms by 11pm we are very strict about lights out at 11pm no exceptions. You must be in your dorm at 11 11pm so keep an eye on the time. It seemed odd to me that there was such a strict curfew for a bunch of paying adult customers, but I guess they wanted to make sure we got enough sleep to be well rested for the lectures in the morning. After dinner, I decided I would spend the rest of my first day at the arcade building. Since there were no activities planned that evening, I had been eyeing a racing game. It was the type of arcade game that used to sit inside and there's a steering wheel and you have to stay on the track. Well, this game was extremely engrossing and I was enjoying myself to the fullest. So much so that I could not believe it when the lights suddenly went out. The game went dark as well as everything else in the building. Could it possibly be 11pm already? I actually spent 5 hours playing this game. No way. I was scared sitting there in the dark. Is anybody here? I called. Nobody answered. Apparently everybody had their eyes on the clock except me. I couldn't blame my fellow guests for leaving me behind because this was a loud arcade and I was sitting inside a game where they couldn't see me. Plus, we had just met each other and they had no idea of the headcount. After calling out several times to no avail, I accepted the fact that I was alone in this pitch dark building. Every single game had turned off as well as every single light and you could hear a pin drop. Terrified, I decided that the best strategy to avoid getting hurt was to hold my hands out in of front front of me until I could feel the wall and then slide my hands along until I found the door to the outside. It seemed to take hours to get myself to the wall, never mind to get to the door to the outside. I kept walking into things and getting hurt, but finally my hand turned a doorknob that was heavier than the rest and I knew I had finally found the door to go outside. I was so thankful that my nightmare was about to end. As I opened the door, I realized that to my horror, when they said lights out at 11, they not only meant indoor lights, but street lights as well. I was standing outdoors in the pitch darkness on the edge of a mountain in an area that had recent bear sightings. All around me, as far as the eye could see was pitch black. I had no idea which which was north, south, east or west. I knew I was on the edge of a cliff because the babbling brook from earlier kept getting louder and louder. So instead of walking with my hands out in front of me like I did in the building, I decided to crawl to make sure I was still on land. I would put one hand lightly in front of me to make sure there was still ground and then the other would follow and then my legs. I had to crawl like this for hours, fearing that I would fall off the cliff at any moment. As the brook got louder and louder, fearing that a bear would come and attack me at any moment, wondering if I would ever be able to find my dorm. I was crying in the pitch darkness. I was praying like crazy. I honestly thought I was going to die. I was either going to fall off the mountain or a bear was going to find me, or I was going to tire from this crawling that I had to do, which was exhausting physically and emotionally. About three hours later, at 3 o' clock in the morning, I finally saw a light in a window. It must be a dorm. I figured I was going to knock on this window at three o' clock in the morning and I did not care. I just couldn't take this anymore. I stood there scared that the people would be mad that I was disturbing them at 3 o' clock in the morning. But on the other hand, I didn't care because I didn't want to die. A man opened the door and I burst out crying and tried to sob out my story. He took pity on me and gave me a lantern and pointed me in the direction of my dorm. By the time I reached my bed, the sun was coming up and it was almost time to attend the lectures. As you can imagine, all I wanted to do at that point was sleep. I was very thankful to be alive. I used to be in the Boy Scouts and spent many summers working on a camp camp staff as the pool director. Another staff member named Chris and I arrived two weeks before the camp opening for the summer to clean the pool, check equipment and get all of the canoes and rowboats out of the storage and cleaned up. The rest of the camp staff would not arrive until the next week. It should be noted that before working on staff, I had camped here for about 10 years and never had one single problem. This is a 600 plus acre camp that we both knew like the back of our hands. When you first enter the camp, you drive up a long road about 2 miles long and drive into a large gravel parking lot. At the front of the lot, off to the right is a large lodge with a gravel road that goes in two directions, straight ahead or to the right. By going straight, you can drive either to the dining hall or continue past and continue down the road past many different campsites and four different cabins on the three mile drive down. Ultimately, this road leads you to the back winter entrance to the camp at the lake where there are additional cabins and a parking lot. There are lots of trails throughout this area that led to all of the different campsites and cabins. About three quarters of the way down this road there is an amphitheater surrounded by large cliffs with caves. Many of the trails crisscross through the cliffs and back to the top of the camp. The dining hall was located about 100 yards from the lodge at the edge of the parking area. About 75 yards downhill from the dining hall is a large swimming pool where the showers and changing rooms are located. About another 100 yards down the hill is a large park pine forest where the staff campsite was located. The staff area had several small ponds around it and several large cabins with a road leading back to the camp's top. After working outside the entire day, Chris and I get cleaned up and meet his mom and dad in the nearest town for dinner. Dinner was great and we returned to the campsite around 9:30pm as we walked down the road to the city staff area, we decided that instead of sleeping in the cabin, we would sleep in the staff tents that we had already set up because it was warm outside. All of a sudden we heard a truck turn down the gravel road. At first we thought it might have been the ranger coming to say hi as he knew we were there, but it did not sound like his truck at all. Luckily, the cabin we were standing in front of was back off the road so we could not be seen. We hurried behind the cabin to the back entrance, unlocked the door, entered and locked the door. Thankfully, we never had the lights on. However, the windows were open. As we snuck over to the window, we saw three trucks parked with four guys standing in front of them. None of them was anyone that was on the camp staff or that we had ever seen before. We thought at first first that maybe they had a legitimate reason to be there. All of a sudden we heard one of the men say, where'd they go? I saw them come down here. At the moment I knew they were looking for us, the cabin was empty, so we knew that they would see us if they came to the doors or windows. Luckily, there was a storage room across from the bathroom at the opposite end of the cabin that had a door in the floor with a ladder that led underneath the cabin. As it is about this episode is
- [50:41]
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is there six feet off the ground. If they tried to get in, we at least had an exit. We heard the people at the front and back entrance knocking on windows telling us to come out. We quietly crept down the ladder and moved slowly to the opposite end of the cabin and we were able to slide out the end where a piece of the lattice was missing around the edge of the cabin. Once out, we had to quickly decide if we run up the road to our cars, which was about a half a mile away, and risk them catching up to us in their trucks, or turn and run down one of the many trails in that area. At least we had the advantage of knowing the place if they decided to run after us. We snuck out from under the cabin and began walking towards one of the trails that was about 50 yards from the cabin. About halfway there, someone screamed, they're over there. We began running down one of the trails that we knew led to the middle of the camp where there were many campsites, cabins and areas we could hide. We could see flashlights running behind us and on the trails next to us. We quickly jumped onto another trail that led up to the amphitheater where there was a hidden trail that led to the top. We knew we would be safe there because we would be able to see anyone that was walking up the trail. We finally made it to the amphitheater and to the top of the cliffs where we stayed for what seemed like forever but was only a few hours. We kept seeing flashlights off in the distance. Finally, the flashlights were moving towards the lake opposite where we were. We took the back trail which took us around the far back side of the canyon camp and to the top where the lodge and dining hall were located. It took about 45 minutes to reach the top. We then slowly walked back to the staff camp so we could get our keys. The staff area was about 200 yards from the parking lot where my car was parked, which is a different lot next to the archery range which had a separate exit. We ran to the car and drove out of there as fast as we could. We drove to the camp ranger's house which was at the very edge of camp by the main road and told him what happened. He called the local sheriff when they arrived about 40 minutes later. They searched throughout the camp and never found anyone. We never did find out who it was. We also never had any trouble the rest of the summer. I worked there the next two summers without issues. When I was about 16 or 17 years old, I was walking home from a party being held at my friend's house. The streets were dark and eerily empty as I strolled down the road that led to my home. The beeping of the watch I wore then notified me of the passing of the hour and I glanced at it to confirm the time. 3am I didn't normally go to parties or come home so late. In fact, I can count the times I came home after midnight in high school with one hand. But I was a good kid and my parents knew my friends well. All I had to do was let them know who I would be with, what time I would be back, and give them a call before I left my friends houses. And I pretty much had no curfew. As I wasn't really accustomed to coming home so late, I wasn't used to the empty streets. They were normally bustling with people playing and living their lives. The emptiness gave the walk a creepy vibe. I was about two short blocks from the bridge that led to my house when I saw a hooded figure step off the bridge headed in my direction. One thing you should know about that bridge is that it was a hot spot for mugging and other violent crime. I was always told never to walk on that bridge at night and to go around the long way. I did mention I was a teenager at the time, however, so of course I didn't listen. Seeing the hooded figure made me wish I had, however, as even from afar he gave off a threatening vibe. I decided that I was a tough guy and if the guy started with me, I would finish it. I continued toward him. Big mistake. As I drew closer, the strangest thing I had ever witnessed happened. From either behind or out of that hooded figure, another hooded figure came forth and fell in line with the first. Then out of the second, a third emerged, and from the third, a fourth. I couldn't believe what I had witnessed. It was almost as if the first guy multiplied into four people. Either that or they were walking in such a perfect sync that you could not see one behind the other. There were four hooded figures, all dressed the same, with the same height and weight, walking toward me in a perfect cadence. I have seen my share of creepy stuff before that day, but nothing like that. Every instinct in my body was shouting for me to flee, and I decided at that moment that I wasn't as tough as I thought. I began to cross the street to take the long way around, and they also began to cross. It was clear that they were matching my movement. I picked up my pace and got to the corner before they did, almost at a jog. At one point I was close enough to get a look at them, but all four of their faces were obscured by their hoods. I couldn't even see their chins or noses. It was just darkness, almost as if they had no faces. I was just about to start sprinting in abject terror when suddenly I found my backbone and decided I would not run from whatever they were. I took a deep breath and summoning all my courage, I turned around to face them. They were gone. I looked around for them, but they were nowhere in sight. They had completely disappeared. There was no place they really could have gone. However, they weren't close enough to any buildings to have gotten into. In fact, they were right behind me. I didn't spend too long searching for the creepy hooded figures, however, and 10 minutes later, I was home. As soon as I entered my house, my mother comes from out of her bedroom and approaches me and asked, are you okay? And thought maybe she didn't remember me calling her before leaving my friend's house. I'm fine, Mom. We spoke an hour ago. I told you I'd be home at this time. You did, she confirmed, but after I spoke to you, I fell asleep. Then suddenly I was awoken by an angel that told me, your son is in danger. Come with me. My mother was and still is a Christian, as am I, so hearing her speak about angels wasn't uncommon. But her saying she went somewhere with one wasn't your average dinner conversation in my house. The angel led my spirit into a room where there were a bunch of other teenagers that were chanting around a table, and they had a picture of you on the table and their words sounded foreign. It felt like they were trying to send something after you, my mom explained. I swallowed hard. What happened next? I asked her hesitantly. The angel prompted me to step forward onto their table, so I did, and suddenly I was wearing this beautiful white gown and the kids that were chanting could see me and they all fled in terror. I think I disrupted whatever they were trying to do. Mom, when did this happen? I asked, although I already knew. Just now, like maybe 10 or 15 minutes ago, she responded. I couldn't believe it. That was about the same time those guys appeared Was there any connection between my mom's vision and the four hooded figures? I don't know, but all I do know is that I don't ever want to meet those hooded guys again. This was a few years ago and I don't expect many to believe me considering it was also Friday the 13th. It was my best friend's birthday the night before and he had just turned 21. Mind you, we were all around that age at the time. I am Now a newly 26 year old male and what happened later that night still sends shivers down my spine. We had a compact but close friend group back then and had planned to visit our local pub to celebrate his birthday. The night went on and as we shared our experiences, talked and ultimately had fun, which was the most important thing. We arrived at the pub around 8:30pm and got kicked out at 12am due to closing reasons. After that we chatted for a bit more outside the pub before walking home as we were all pretty drunk. The night was silent and dark, but thankfully not stormy. My house was on a slight hill in what I assumed a safe neighborhood. Before this happened, let me quickly say that I was living with my aunt at the time. I was walking down the street when I noticed someone dressed in black head to toe in my peripheral vision. They had their hood over their head so it was next to impossible to capture their identity in the dim street lights, but they seemed to be in their mid-30s to 40s with a more muscular build. They were on the adjacent street from mine and coming towards the intersection I was walking through. I didn't think much of it as I thought he was out walking home or out somewhere. So I continued to walk and was almost home by this time. It was around 1:30am when I turned around to see the same guy I saw before following me. I was a little alarmed, especially since I had been drinking a couple hours before and my paranoia senses were elevated. Needless to say I have always been paranoid walking anywhere late at night. I started to pick up the pace to get some distance from him and to my surprise he did as well. That's when I knew I was in a fight or flight respawn situation. Instead of trying to act all tough and risk getting myself jumped or possibly worse, I decided to sprint down the street since my house was on the corner of it. Of course he was right behind me. I ran up my driveway, slamming the gate behind me before abruptly opening the back door and almost shaking the whole house trying to lock it. What I didn't notice is that the motion sensor light we had connected to our garage. There's a new way to sweetgreen Meat wraps handheld. Hearty and made for life on the move with bold, chef crafted flavors, fresh ingredients and over 40 grams of protein. There, they're built to satisfy without slowing you down. Try wraps today in the app or@order.sweetgreen.com available at all participating locations. Didn't turn on when I came into range of it. I found this to be odd since we always kept on top of its battery life and the light was extremely, extremely sensitive to motion. The next morning, when I felt it was safe enough to exit the house, I checked the motion sensor light and was shocked to see that it had been intentionally covered and turned towards the garage so that it couldn't be activated. I felt a severe pain in my chest when I realized that the man had more sinister intentions planned for me. I went back inside and checked with my family members and none of them had touched the light after I left for the pub. What happened Friday, October 13th would be the first and last time I have ever seen that person. What confuses me still today is how he knew I lived at that house. Okay, so bear with me as I kind of suck at telling stories. Without some rambling, I changed the names for anonymity's sake. I'll give you a little background and then dive into the story. My husband we'll call Michael and I are in our 30s. We have two toddlers. The couple I will talk about I'll call Liz and her husband we will call Klinger. Now let's dive into the story. I was scrolling through Facebook when I noticed a post on one of our local Talk of the Town groups. Liz posted saying she isn't from the area and wanted to know where everyone hangs out and she said she wants to make friends. Me being my outgoing self, I decided to comment saying, I'll be your friend. I know, I know. It was a very stupid idea on my part and I let my overly trusting and friendly personality get the best of me. Liz and I started Facebook messaging and quickly realized we had a lot in common. Klinger and I had mutual Facebook friends, so that made me more inclined to meet up. I arranged for the four of us to get dinner and hang out. We had a good time and shared the same sense of humor. It turned into Liz and I hang out weekly and Klinger inviting Mike to play pool every week. Mike was working a very demanding job that made it hard for him to have the time to hang out and when he did have the time. He was too tired. Well, this made Klinger turn a bit crazy. Klinger asked if Mike could go to pool night and he said no because of work. Klinger completely freaked out. He started texting Mike saying that he was being a quote unquote part time friend and that he couldn't deal with having a friend that didn't give enough effort. He said that Mike was leading him on as a friend. Naturally, Mike and I thought, what the heck? What is wrong with this guy? Mike started saying that Klinger was overreacting and that he has obligations like work and family time. He said that he doesn't have to be Klinger's friend and to chill out. Mike ignored all all messages from Klinger and we went about our days. Liz and I still hung out regularly, just us girls and figured that Mike and Klinger didn't have to hang out with us. I thought, okay, problem solved. Wrong. Klinger started messaging me saying that he doesn't understand why Mike wouldn't want to hang out with him and that he wasn't being nice. I tried explaining that he's got a lot going on and to chill out. This just angered him more and he lashed out by saying that Mike didn't give enough me time and that everyone deserves that. He insisted that Mike take time for himself and have a guy's night weekly. I told Klinger that him and Mike don't have to be friends and it's not a big deal. You would think I would have cut Liz and Klinger out of my life right then, but I thought I could be friends with only Liz. I then started to notice that Liz was becoming too clingy and would get mad if I said I felt like just hanging out at home instead of with her. She made me feel guilty for wanting to have time alone, so my idiot self fell for it and thought that it would be wrong of me to leave her to be lonely as she didn't have any other friends in the area. This in turn made me spend more money than we could afford as she always wanted to get drinks or food. Mike and I started arguing because Liz would twist things I said to her, then Klinger would spit them out to Mike. I thought about ending our friendship but wanted to give her the benefit of the doubt. This all changed when I got a text from Liz asking if Mike and I would want to come over and do Molly with them. I am not into that stuff except for smoking occasionally, so I definitely wasn't about to go over to their place to do Molly, I said that we could couldn't and I'm not into it anyway. Plus we didn't have a sitter. Liz had the audacity to say that I should bring our kids over with us and their kids could play with them. I told her absolutely not and she got mad that I said it was a bad idea. Meanwhile, Klinger is non stop texting Mike saying that he's a piece of crap alcoholic and that he doesn't give me enough time. Mike and I were totally taken aback as this came out of nowhere and I never complained about my sex life to Liz or Klinger. In fact, I told Liz that I was content with it. I did mention Mike drinking a lot at the time, but didn't go into further detail and it wasn't some big secret. Klinger then lectured Mike about him needing to quit drinking and that he's a piece of crap father just like his dad. My husband has his share of issues, sure, but he's not a piece of crap crap dad and he has dramatically improved since this occurred. Klinger then said that our kids are annoying and ugly. He told Mike that our son shouldn't have a pacifier and how we are intentionally screwing up his teeth. Keep in mind that they were around 16, 17 months and 3 years old with standard tantrums. Mike said that he was done with the conversation and that there was no reason for him to disrespect our family, which obviously included a few choice words. Mike said that he doesn't care what his sexual preference is, but it seems like Klinger seems to be looking for a boyfriend, not a friend. Klinger lost it and threatened Mike and said that he would break him in half. Mike blocked him on everything. Then I texted Liz saying that our friendship was over due to her psycho husband. After we blocked them, we didn't hear from them again, but I was nervous for a good month that Klinger would show up at our house and try to do something. It didn't help knowing that Klinger regularly went on the Dark Web and hearing all the horror stories surrounding that. Also, at the time they lived about 10 minutes away. Thankfully, I knew beforehand that they would be moving to a city about 40 minutes away in the near future, so I knew it would be unlikely that I would run into them them. So long story short, I learned the hard way that when it comes to friends, it's quality, not the quantity of friendships. We have a couple of good friends now and are more than happy with that.