A (11:30)
There's this trail near my house that my mom and I often ride bikes on. The trail was plotted and built sometime in the 2010s. Nothing too out of the ordinary has really happened when my mom and I are on the trail. Aside from a few close calls with careless bikers and some people every now and then that just give off creepy vibes. What I'm going to tell you about today though is something rather strange. So the two of us used to go a different route sometimes than the one we usually take. Now the path that we usually go on now is just overall much more pleasant and mostly goes through fields and forested areas. But the way that we used to go cut through intersections and neighborhoods at some points. One day when we used to go this other way, we noticed a bunch of stuff that looked like Halloween decorations hanging up in the trees not too far from one of those intersections. First of all, the trail is owned by the city, so you can't just go vandalizing it like that. Second, I don't even think this was around Halloween. Also, this wasn't just any Halloween decor. I mean, sure, there was some normal stuff like a zombie looking thing hanging from a power line and a few other things near it. But what we found to be even more strange was that there were baby dolls which were a bit further away. They were all dirty and very disfigured and some of them had missing limbs. There were also some in cages too. I remember one cage held a doll that was ripped apart and there weren't just a few dolls, there were around 15 or more. There were also life sized plastic body parts just hanging around like literally a pair of legs jammed into the side of a tree. This isn't even the weirdest part though. There were also children's shoes hanging from a string as a garland sort of thing, and it was strung between two trees. There were also a few more shoes like these lying about, along with a couple of tricycles. My mom and I were thoroughly and very obviously creeped out by this, and at different times we saw a few other people stop there who were equally concerned. We really wanted to find out who was behind this grotesque display. A few days later we saw a maintenance man doing his job on the trail. So we alerted him of the situation and we told him where it was and he said he'd check it out. It was only weeks later when my mom discovered the true culprit and then she told me about it later that day when I was home. I don't know why, but I wasn't with her today. Of course, she was riding her bike as she always did, going the same way, when as she passed the sight of the strange decorations, she saw a man walking and carrying a large bucket not too far from it. My mom has a phenomenal sense of intuition, so she stopped to ask the man what he was doing. My mom described the man as short and fat and probably in his mid-60s. He had stringy gray hair and he was bald on top. She instantly got creepy vibes from this guy. She asked him if he was the man who set up all that stuff in the trees and he said yes, that he was calling it art and he said it was a hobby of his. My mom said that it was definitely not art and she told the guy he was creepy. The man replied, claiming that, well, some people like it. And he tried acting like it was nothing. Yeah, who on earth would think this is normal? I mean, like I said, it wasn't even October or around Halloween. My mom told him again that she thought he was weird and then sped off. She told me that this guy had a smug grin on his face the whole time she spoke with them. What a freak. No telling what kind of psycho this man truly is or what he actually hides back at his house. I've always wondered about those shoes and bikes and where he got them from. I really wish I would have been there to protect my mom if something would have happened. But I'm so glad nothing did. Thank God for that also. Thankfully the stuff has since been taken down and there's no sign of the weirdo after this incident. It was Halloween of 2022. I was a freshman in high school. Halloween was on a Monday and we had school the next day. So we really couldn't be staying up until 10 outside. And we needed to be home around 10 as well for the sake of privacy. I'll call my friends by letters. My friend D had a history of throwing parties. Since it was a school night, he only invited about 10 people over for Halloween. We all decided we would trick or treat only for about an hour and then come back for a scary movie. We set off at about 6:15 and then the first 30 minutes were just a normal every year Halloween experience. This is where the story starts to take a turn. The neighborhood was huge so the group ended up splitting up. Three of my friends went to a different part of the neighborhood. The first part of this story I'll tell From my friend C's point of view, as I wasn't present for it. C and my other two friends K and J, rolled up on a house where there was nobody home, but there were some really cool decorations and a bowl of candy on the doorstep. All three of them decided to hide behind the decorations and then scare the trick or treaters. They did so for about 15 minutes before J and K decided to head back to meet up with the rest of us. C then decided to stay and try and scare one more trick or treater. Little did he know that the next trick or treater would be one to remember. C was hiding behind a skeleton when he saw some creepy guy then walk up. He was wearing a clown mask that looked to be like one of the ones from Dollar Tree, and he was also wearing what looked to be an old raggedy white T shirt with black sweatpants. The guy looked to be around the age of about 18 and he was alone. Trick or treating. C did his usual scare and jumped out at the guy. The guy didn't flinch at all and didn't say anything. He just stared at C and then grabbed C's candy bag and began circling in the backyard. How he described it was like something when you're a little kid playing football in the yard and you get hit with a bunch of juke moves. Anyway, C got his bag back and he got around the clown and raced away thinking the guy would get lost. C was in a completely different part of the neighborhood than me and some of my other friends, so before he could tell me anything, I also had my first encounter. The clown must have taken a shortcut because he ended up coming up to me not too long after his encounter with C. Now my other two friends TNA were sort of laughing at him while he was looking straight at me. I thought he was one of their friends and they told him to mess with me or something. So I kept trying to talk to him, but he wouldn't talk. Eventually I gave up and I just let the guy walk ahead of us. Who the hell was that guy? You guys know him? I asked TNA what they said sort of gave me goosebumps. They said they had no idea who he was since he looked so young. I didn't really think anything of it until me and C found each other and he then told me what happened. I also told him about my encounter as well and the whole group decided to go back to the house as it was around seven at this point. Now, D's house had a side basement entrance and since we Were in the basement and might go back outside at any time. We didn't lock it. After about 10 minutes, the door busted open and it was the clown guy walking in with what looked to be a gun. We all jumped and started screaming, but we realized from closely looking that the gun he had was fake. He went up to K and tried stealing his candy. Bud had dropped his bag at the basement steps and C then picked it up and ran outside. The clown followed C up a hill and he seemed very mad. He was getting very aggressive at this point, putting his hands on C. So C gave the candy back, wanting no more trouble. The clown then ran away from the house without saying a word. I figured the dude was probably just trying to scare us, but the fact that he followed us home and busted in without knocking still didn't sit right with me. We went back inside for about 30 or so minutes before we heard knocking on the basement door. It was still prime trick or treating time. I opened the door and nobody was there. Me and C started to realize that maybe this guy wasn't so dangerous after all. Or so we thought. We then decided to try and find him outside and tell him to stop messing with us and go home. After about 15 minutes of searching, we then saw him eerily standing in someone's backyard. We went up to him, but he ran away from us. We saw him once again and he was in a different person's yard this time. This time, however, he was sitting down with his back facing us. He had the clown mask off. We couldn't see his face, but it seemed that he had been running a lot and needed to catch his breath. Hey, why are you running? I screamed out to him. He didn't turn. He just put his mask back on and just walked near us. I started to get a really uneasy feeling now that he was no longer running away from us, but now slowly walking toward us out of nowhere. He starts running towards a random group of trick or treaters, Looking to scare them, I think. But before he reached them, Ethan tripped and then faceplanted right in the road. Such a terrible way to express himself as the guy trying to scare people. We just laughed at him, but that would be the last time I laughed that night. He got up and started walking away, not even near us, but he seemed defeated. We were trying to find out who the hell this guy was as he was now walking on the side of the road. Then out of nowhere, a car pulled up and then stopped in the middle of the road. The car was small and black and across the front windshield, it had strange letters that looked to be in some sort of different language. The clown then jumped in the front seat of the car and I saw with the driver a gun. And this time I knew it wasn't fake. He pointed out the window to me and C. And we both ran faster than we ever had back to the house. We didn't have any more trouble for the rest of that night. And we'll never know who it was that was really behind that mask or why he did what he did. That night could have gone wrong in so many different ways. Moral of the story is, don't investigate something creepy that you think will be okay, because you really never know what can happen. Stay safe out there, everyone, and happy Halloween. My friend Shawn has neighbors who own this big forest next to their farm. His neighbors don't mind him going into the forest so long as he doesn't go onto their farm. Today Sean invited some friends and I, Zang, Karl and Declan. We arrived at around 5pm we had played some basketball for a while until Zach said that we should go into the forest since it was getting dark and that it would be something spooky to do since it's almost Halloween. We walked up to the long pathway to the forest surrounded by a short electrical fence. Once we reached the entrance to the forest, we noticed that the landowner had put up a fence to the entrance. It was electrical, but there was a way past it. Sean and Declan went up ahead while Carl, Zach and I then walked in just a minute after them. As soon as we entered, we couldn't see Sean or Declan anywhere. Zach and Carl were walking and talking about the weird mushrooms that were on the ground until we heard this weird laughter. It was nothing like Sean or Declan's voice, so we knew it wasn't them. A second later, I see Sean and Declan run out of the forest into the pathway to the next forest. I then told Zach and Carl and we went on after them. It took us a bit to get out of the forest because Zach got stuck. Once we got out and started walking, I noticed Sean and Declan a little bit behind us. There's no way they could have looped around the entire forest in five minutes. So as soon as I saw them, I got really confused and then pretty scared. Sean and Declan then explained that they had just got out of the forest and they saw a man in a gray jacket somewhere in or around the forest. We got pretty freaked out by this, so we decided to just keep on walking ahead to the next forest. Shawn was talking about an abandoned treehouse further ahead in the next forest. So that's what we wanted to see next. Once we found the entrance, a bunch of cows came over the edge of the fence next to us and they just started staring at us. The cows didn't make a sound, they just stared at us. Zach went in first and I followed after him. While everyone was talking, I noticed a dark figure at the very end of the forest. I told Declan, but the dark figure was gone. As soon as I looked back. Zach walked into the other entrance and found a white bag with blood in it and a ripped sticker. There were also needles and blood smeared all over the trees. Zach refused to go any further after seeing that and the rest of us all agreed that we should get back home and get the hell out of there. Carl was walking slightly ahead of us and he apparently saw the dark figure in the distance. Pretty much the whole walk back we just felt like we were being watched. But nothing else happened aside from that. Thank God My name is Shelby and this incident happened on Halloween in 1998. I was 18 years old at the time and I had been invited to an outdoors bonfire that was going to be held at a distant friend of mine's cornfield. For some context, I live in Tiger, Georgia. Tiger is a very small, isolated town from all the other counties. Our population is roughly about 1300 people, so when a party is talked about a lot of people will show up. And not just teenagers, but adults, elders and even kids. This certain party though, I swear the whole town was there. Imagine a cornfield and all the corn in it are people. Yeah, cheesy, but that's the best way I can describe it. Anyways, back to the story. The party was going to start around 5pm and it was a bring your own beer kind of situation. I went alone as I didn't really have many friends. I got to the field around 5:30 and there had to have been at least 200 people there just sitting and chilling. There was another cornfield across from the main one and that's where everyone was parking at. I then parked, got out and just stood by my car like a snowman, not knowing who I'd see or really what to do as I'd never went to these before. Finally I saw my friend whom threw the party in the first place. His name was Jason. Jason was 19 and he seemed like an easy going guy but there was something off about him and I could never really put my finger on it. Jason and I got to talking about this party and Just being amazed at all the people that had shown up and no telling who else would. We start walking around and head towards where the concession stands were. I can at this point tell that Jason had either been drunk or had been drinking heavily prior to anyone showing up. While at the concession stand, he starts talking about how there's an old trail out in the woods and that him and his family use it as a trail riding event, but that they quit after all the mud and rough ruts in it were hard to ride on. He then starts talking about how at some time around six, him and a couple of other friends were going to go walk the trail and see how far they could get on foot without falling or getting lost. He asked me if I would be interested in going to that as a lot of other girls were going to go as well. I at first felt uneasy and I thought of it as a real way to get hurt being how rough the area is. But after he talked to me about it, I felt a little better and I then agreed to tag along. 6pm rolls around and Jason and I start heading towards the trail. It was about 200 yards from the bonfire, so we were in a discreet area. As Jason and I are walking along, I realized that there's about four other guys walking with us and they had no girls with them. It was literally just Jason and four of his friends. Okay, no big deal, I said in my head. As we're walking, we start to get into the rough parts of the trail and up over ahead on one of the ruts, I can see what looks like another fire, but this one was much smaller and there was also some odd death metal music playing. I tap on Jason's shoulder and point while telling him that someone is on his property. He then calmly and creepily replies with oh no honey, that's for you. Now at this point I'm slightly feeling anxious and I kinda just brush off what he says. We all get to the small fire and Jason then tells me to take a seat on one of the logs. As I'm sitting down, one of the guys that was with us pulls out a blanket and vodka and then he and the other three guys start taking off their shirts and they then start pouring each other shots. As I'm watching this in utter confusion, Jason walks over to me and then says, alright, the fun is about to begin. I hope you brought an extra pair of clothes. But before I could even comprehend what he said, he picks me up, walks me over to the other guys and drops me on the blanket. Then him and two other guys hold me down and use zip ties to tie my hands together. At this point, my adrenaline is going haywire and I start kicking and screaming and trying everything in my power to get out. Jason then punches me full on in my face and then yells, shut up, bitch. You're ruining our mood. You don't want to do that because you won't be leaving these woods. They all then surround me and start taking off their pants as well as telling me how sexy I look. Jason then walks over and he turns up the music really loud. He then comes back to me and starts trying to yank my pants off of me. I'm still just fighting for my life, and in a glimpse moment, I'm thinking to myself, yeah, this is it. I'm gonna be raped and killed here. And somehow, out of pure adrenaline, I managed to get my hands out of the zip ties and then full on punch Jason dead in his balls. Before any of the others could get to me, I jumped up and started sprinting as fast as I could throughout the woods. I didn't even know where I was going. All I could think about was just getting away from there. I ran for what felt like an eternity until I finally managed to make it back to the cornfield. By this time, the bonfire was huge and it was easy to see. Once again, a surge of adrenaline jolts me to start running straight to the fire. Once I get there, there's at least 700 people there hooting and hollering as well as live music playing and fireworks totally going off. I ran straight to one of the deputies that was standing guard near the parking lot, and I then explained everything that happened to him. He could see my nose being busted and my pants ripped along with the zip ties cut into my arm, that I wasn't joking. He calls an ambulance for me, and him and four other cops that were there asked me where it took place as well as who were involved and if they had any weapons. I was so traumatized at the time that I couldn't really speak full sentences. All I could really muster out was Jason and four other guys on the trail, and I then pointed in the direction it was in. They all started going in that direction as a female deputy stayed with me and waited for the ambulance to arrive. This incident, of course, drew a lot of attention, and There was about 15 people asking me different questions while also trying to comfort me. Once the ambulance finally got there, they checked me out and they told me I had a broken nose as well as some bad bruising on my wrists and where Jason had torn my pants. My zipper had actually cut my lower stomach. They took me to the hospital and on my ambulance right there, the paramedics were asking me what all I remembered while also comforting me. I honestly couldn't remember much at the time because it all happened so fast. So to cut everything short, after the doctors fixed me up at the hospital, two investigators came to question me about the incident. And after I had told them everything that had happened, they then told me that they had Jason in custody and that he also had previous charges against him for sexual assault that he had committed but was still ongoing. As far as the four other guys with him, I found out that they had caught three of them that night, that they had passed down drunk, and that they gave up. I guess after I ran. Their names were Chad, Brian and Daniel. And as for the fourth guy that was with them, he was never caught. Jason had ran after me after I ran but quit due to how drunk he was. All three men were charged with kidnapping, attempted rape and aggravated assault. I've tried finding their arrest report on our news page, but it was so long ago. I don't think it's up to date anymore. I'm now married and I don't go out much and I still have trauma memories that pop up, but therapy has really helped me out a lot. So to all those guys and to the fourth guy that never got caught, I really hope all of you rot in hell. I'm a 24 year old female with strawberry blond hair, blue eyes and light freckles. As many girls experience, I was pretty used to getting catcalls from strange men on the street or in stores. But this situation was much much different. This happened to me on Halloween of 2019 when I was a junior in college. I was 20 years old, a few months shy of my 21st birthday. My roommates had turned 21 that past summer and they wanted to go out to the bars for Hollow weekend. They asked me if I would drive them to the bars so they didn't have to Uber and I agreed since our other friend who is also 20 said he would be on pickup duty. I was hanging out with my boyfriend in his dorm with his friends when they texted me saying they were ready. When I met up with them, they were already tipsy from their pre game dressed up as the sun and moon. We hopped in my car and I drove them to the bar about 10 minutes away from campus. When I got back on campus, I was really excited to see the spot I parked in was still open. It's parallel parking on a side road and was a closer walk to my dorm than parking in the parking garages. It's important to note that since the streets aren't university property, the security cameras on campus don't reach that far anyways. I wasn't surprised that there weren't a lot of people out yet. It was still early, about 9pm and most people start walking to off campus house parties around 10, as my roommates and I had done plenty of times before. I parked my car and I began my short trek back to my boyfriend's dorm. The night was dark and chilly and I was wearing an oversized sweatshirt and leggings. Nothing special. I was all alone, no one else around on the sidewalks. I barely paid any mind to the old rusty navy van that was passing me. That is until I saw it slowly coming to a stop. When there was no stop sign or stoplight, I thought to myself how ironic it was for to be a stereotypical bed o van on the prowl on Halloween night. But what really freaked me out was the person who rolled down the window and then shoved their head out from the passenger side window. They were wearing a mask of an old man, which just made the whole thing much worse. I stared at him, still walking and the van rolled slowly beside me to keep my pace. I figured it was just some college students pulling a prank since it was Halloween after all. The guy in the old man mask stuck out his arm pointing at me and then gestured for me to go over to him. I just shook my head and kept walking, looking away to show that I wasn't interested in whatever they were trying to do. Hey, I'm talking to you bitch. Come here. He yelled at me. I was taken aback by this and I stopped walking, turning towards him again. As I did, the sliding door on the side of the van opened up and two more men wearing those creepy ass old men masks then appeared once again calling me a bitch and telling me to get into the van. As much as I hate to say it, all I did was just stand there frozen. The guys at the open sliding door began to get out of the van towards me. The only thing I can do was just stand there frozen. Just then I had heard more voices. Up ahead of me coming down from the hill from campus were a group of about four college guys drunk out of their minds and they were yelling at the guys in the van. Hey. What the fuck do you think you guys are doing? Get the fuck outta here. Leave her alone. At this the masked men quickly got in the van and then shut the sliding door as the van took off up the hill. The group of boys then asked if I was okay, but all I could do was nod and then quickly walk away to make it back to my boyfriend's dorm. I told my boyfriend as well as his friends what had happened and they were livid, wanting to go out and see if they could find the van lurking around campus, but I just convinced them not to and to just continue our movie. So the next day my boss at my on campus job convinced me to report it to the campus police and then drove me there as support. The officer took my note and checked the cameras, but unfortunately because it was right off the campus, there was no video footage nor any other reports made of those men in the van, so there really wasn't much they could do. But at least there was a report on file in case those sick fucks decided to come around campus again to harass girls by themselves. I don't really know if it was just some disgusting joke they were trying to pull or if they were actually going to take me and do God knows what. I'm just glad those drunk guys from my college were there to scare them off. Stay safe and always pay attention to your surroundings, especially if you're alone this episode is brought to you by Marshalls, where you never have to compromise between quality and price. The buyers at Marshalls hustle hard working to bring you great deals on brand name and designer pieces because Marshalls believes everyone deserves access to the good stuff. Visit a Marshalls store near you or shop online@marshalls.com when did making plans get this complicated? It's time to streamline with WhatsApp, the secure messaging app that brings the whole group together. Use polls to settle dinner plans, send event invites and pin messages so no one forgets mom's 60th and never miss a meme or milestone. All protected with end to end encryption. It's time for WhatsApp message privately with everyone. Learn more@WhatsApp.com a few years ago I belonged to a very questionable group of friends. Around September of 2014. I would always hang out with my best friend Elizabeth, her boyfriend Anthony, and Anthony's best friend Hunter, and their other friend Matt. When I first joined the friend group, I thought Hunter was very cute and I wanted to get to know him some more. He was bearded with tattoos and had a nose ring. I thought he was the most handsome guy ever. The three of the guys were in a pom punk band so we would always hang out at band practice, Anthony played guitar, Hunter played bass, and Matt was the singer. I don't recall the drummer and other guitarist names, but they're not very important in this story. After practice, we would all hang out around empty parking lots, parks, and Hunter's mom's house, too. His mom was never home, so it was an anything goes kind of environment. The guys would all get stoned and drunk and act like idiots, while Elizabeth and I would just hang out. She eventually told me that Matt was interested in dating me, but I told her that he wasn't really my type. He seemed like a nice guy, but that was all. He really was a nice guy. I had my eyes set on Hunter. He was more of a player, bad boy type, and I think I just wanted to change him. After a month of the five of us hanging out, Hunter and I decided to start seeing each other. But he would never let us have a deeper relationship. October had just come around, and I was very excited to get into the Halloween festivities with my group of friends. They knew a bunch of people in our town throwing Halloween parties. One night before a party, Hunter was supposed to pick me up, but of course, he stood me up. I was so upset when I saw him post himself at the party on Instagram. I was about to change and get into bed when I received a knock at my door. It was Matt. Uh, hey, Matt. I said. What's up, dude? He told me that he was hoping to see me at the party, but I didn't show up. When I told him about Hunter, he started to shake his head and tell me that Hunter always does this. He's not the best guy when it comes to girls. You can do better, he told me. He then offered to take me for a ride and maybe hang out in the park. I agreed to this since I was already dressed and I didn't want to spend the night alone. He took me to the park and we got into a very deep conversation. You know, I've dealt with a toxic love interest, too. He said. She was my best friend in high school and we spent every waking day together, but she just only wanted to be friends. I took her to our school's homecoming, and she would even tell me that she wished all men were like me. I asked him what happened to her, and he told me that his constant acts of kindness were just never enough. He didn't really go into detail, but he did say that they can no longer communicate and that she's having a kid with some idiot. He used really mean names when talking about her. He would call her things like loser and slut, which seemed really harsh coming from Matt, but I didn't try and overthink it. I mean, he had the right to be hurt. I guess the conversation got really weird when he randomly told me that I was much prettier than her. He also began to ask me personal questions about Hunter and I. He asked if we ever had sex and just really personal questions. We had actually never had sex. And when I told Matt that, he told me it was a good thing. You should definitely hold off on sleeping with Hunter. I know you aren't some kind of whore that spreads your legs to guys like him. He then went on a rant about how he was still a virgin and how badly he wanted to lose his virginity to a good girl who could be his wife. I went home later that night and thought long and hard about some of the advice Matt gave me. I knew in my heart that I would break things off with Hunter, but to my surprise, he texted me the next day to break things off himself. Just a few hours after we broke up, I got a call from Matt. Hey, I heard about you and Hunter. His loss. Trust me, you'll bounce back and you'll meet a great guy eventually, he said. Hey, while we're on the phone, why don't we go to dinner? He asked. I couldn't really think of an excuse to bail, so I just accepted. He then told me he would be over very soon. I wasn't expecting it, but Matt showed up maybe like six minutes after I hung up on the phone, almost as if he was already in my neighborhood. Before he called, I told him I had to get ready and to just wait on my couch in my living room. Then my mom was in the kitchen doing dishes. I had heard him introduce himself, and he began to take over the dishes. A lady like you should rest. Why don't you let me handle the dishes? He told my mom. This made me a little uncomfortable, but I let it slide. After about 15 minutes of getting ready, I stepped into the living room to see him going through my record collection near the record player in our living room. He was holding on to my Taylor Swift record and began to stare in my eyes and began singing a song very loudly to me. This made me so uncomfortable and creeped me out. I could see my sister in the kitchen cringing and trying not to laugh. He kept going for what seemed like half an hour, until I then giggled and said, we should be leaving. The entire car ride consisted of Matt talking smack on Hunter, which was Just what I needed in that moment. Hunter wasn't exactly my favorite cup of tea at the time. At the restaurant, he was very polite and had great manners. He even paid for our meal and kept me entertained with jokes. By the end of the night, he dropped me off and when he hugged me goodbye, he forcefully kissed me. I didn't know what to do, so I just laughed awkwardly. The next few days were, well, rough. He would show up every day with flowers as if we were dating. He would leave creepy love notes in my car mailbox and taped to my window. I knew this could only go on for so long, so I knew that I had to break things off with him. I tried to ask Elizabeth to tell him I wasn't interested and that I needed space, but she was kind of a bitch about it. You need to tell him in order to spare his feelings. Adults don't get other adults to break up for them, she would say. The saddest part was that I wasn't even dating him. It was like he was forcing himself to be my boyfriend beyond my will. After a few days of not texting him back and ignoring his calls, I had woken up to a frightening encounter. I opened my eyes in the middle of the night and I could see Matt standing by my window. He had this blank smile on his face. I screamed and he then came into my room through my window. Sh, he said. You don't want to wake up your hard working mother, do you? I hadn't heard from you today and I was worried sick. So when I came by, I couldn't help but watch you sleep. You look so beautiful and peaceful. Sorry for waking you. I told him that he had to go and that I didn't want him to come over again. Matt had finally got the hint that he was being a little pushy and that he was getting out of hand. Or at least I thought so. On Halloween night, Elizabeth, Anthony and I went to a friend's costume party where we were all dressed up and having a great time. There was a ton of people in costume, so it started to get hard to tell who was who. I noticed a man in a full body Ninja Turtle costume. He was kind of alone but would wave at me every time I would see him. Whenever I would try and approach him, he would somehow quickly disappear. I ended up getting pretty hammered after a few rounds of beer pong, so I was getting ready to head home. I let Morgan know that I was going upstairs to use the restroom and that I'd meet her outside when I was done. Whenever I was finished. I then stepped into the long empty hallway to see the man in the Ninja Turtle costume. He started to walk towards me very quickly and before I knew it, he then shoved me in the bathroom and then locked the door. He then unmasked himself to then reveal that he was Matt. I've missed you, he told me. It's good to know that I'll finally be losing my virginity tonight. Thanks, slut. Now do what you're good at. He then pulled his pants down and he had also pulled out a printed image of Hunter's face and then set it down on the countertop. Just look at him while I'm screwing you and you'll never know the difference. I screamed. He covered my mouth and told me to be quiet. I then kicked him in the groin and then screamed at the top of my lungs. He then put his Ninja Turtle mask right back on and then ran out of the hallway before anyone could come. I just stayed in the bathroom crying and screaming until someone came to help. Thankfully, nothing else happened to me that night. I eventually told all of Matt's friends about this incident and they all cut him off. The band eventually broke up and so did our group of friends. Matt hasn't been present on social media ever since. I have no idea what he's up to anymore and I don't care to. This was Halloween of 2019. I decided to go trick or treating with two of my friends. For my costume. I was wearing a prom dress and heels. This is important to the story, I promise. We decided to go to the rich neighborhood next to ours to get better candy, but didn't tell our parents. Dumb, I know. But they wouldn't let us go if we told them. In order to get there though, we had to go through a slim wooded path, no larger than 2ft wide and very overgrown rough, and then through a field. After about an hour and a half of trick or treating and our pillowcases filled to our liking, we decided to leave. It was near pitch black, but white enough that we didn't need flashlights to navigate home. This also wasn't our first time cutting through to get to the Rich neighborhood. We had walked most of the field approaching the wooded path when we then saw a flashlight. All three of us stopped dead in our tracks and pulled out our phones to turn on the flashlights on our phones. After about five minutes of looking around, we couldn't find where the light came from and we decided to just brush it off, still a bit shaken. This is when things go down. I was first in line with my two friends behind me. We thought someone was behind us, but it was dark and we couldn't really see anything so we just thought it was us just being scared. 13 year old kids. That's when we all heard a snap of a twig. We began sprinting through the wooded path getting scraped. When we were almost out of the woods, the mix of uneven ground along with my heels made my ankle roll and I nearly fell. I was able to catch myself on a branch and then stand back up and kept running. The friend last in line, who I'll call Sarah, looked behind her and there was a man a few feet behind us. Sarah then screamed at me to hurry the hell up. So I listened and I began to run even faster. Somehow we exited the woods and got into our own neighborhood. Running about 100ft into our neighborhood before we stopped. We turned around and looked and no one was behind us anymore. We then walked the rest of the way to our house, most of our families back inside due to it being late in the night. Let's just say I was never so excited to see my parents outside with their candy bucket. For every teen out there trick or treating, please tell your parents where you're going and always be aware of your surroundings because you might not get as lucky as we were. It was the early morning of Halloween in 1992. I was doing laundry. I lived in a nice side by side apartment with a laundry room about six doors down. We each had a small gated backyard. I'd go out my kitchen door, through the back gate, turn right and then walk to the laundry room. It was around 5am My plan was to get my laundry done then travel to my mother's house about two hours away now. I had a black cat that followed me to and from the laundry room, but she would walk along the top of the back wall of each apartment's backyard area. On one of my trips back to my apartment from the laundry room, a man seemed to appear from the back parking lot walking towards the street. He was around 5 foot 8, had a ponytail, was wearing a jogging suit type thing and I thought he was heading out for a run. I went into my apartment and set a kitchen timer so I could get clothes right into the dryer and then another load into the washer. I put the load in the dryer and started another wash. As I headed back to my apartment, I saw that same man again. Just like before, he was headed toward the street. I felt a bit off. After the second encounter. I felt him watching me walk. Even though I'd kept him in my line of sight, something was up. I packed some things and my timer went off. Time to check the dryer. I stepped outside my back door and my cat was on the wall waiting, but she kept looking over her shoulder and down. I think that man was hiding and she was tipping me off. I then went back inside and grabbed my biggest kitchen knife. I then went to check the dryer and came back more packing. Timer went off, headed back to the laundry room. As I closed the dryer, I then saw movement outside the door. I grabbed the doorknob and opened the door with all the bluster I could muster. It was him. He was turned sideways behind a light pole trying to hide from me. I then hollered what's up? And he peeked out from behind the pole. What the hell are you doing? I demanded, making eye contact. He started toward me. I stilled myself. This laundry room locked from the inside. The last thing I wanted was to be trapped inside there. He veered to his left and walked behind the building. I then thought to myself that I dodged a bullet. Fast forward a week and the guy's face was on the tv. He had apparently held two women at knifepoint and assaulted the both of them on Halloween evening and he was also implicated in other similar attacks. I called the police and told them my story. When the investigator asked me why I didn't call the police, I then explained because, well, nothing really happened. I was willing to cooperate with identifying him if need be. I still don't know if they ever caught the guy. I'm a 31 year old male and this happened about 15 or 16 years ago when I was a freshman in high school myself. My girlfriend at the time and a group of our friends who were all female except for me, decided to go trick or treating one final time. Now towards the end of a fun evening, we decided to go to a house. The urban was legends said that it was John Wayne Gacy's mother's house. It wasn't, but that was what all the rumors said. Now every year people would spray paint things like clown or threatening messages on the garage of the house. So we're just standing on the sidewalk just looking at all of this. Well, anyways, this old lady who must have been in her 70s or 80s, comes running out of the house with a loaded shotgun. She then fires it right into the air and then proceeds to run after us at full sprint forward, firing the shotgun at us. We all of course took off like a bat out of hell and ran away. Luckily, we eventually outran her and literally ran straight into a cop out patrolling. Funny enough, he had received multiple calls of that same lady being threatening and acting violently towards people, including small children, all night long. But as she apparently had dementia, they couldn't really do too much to her. That was when we told him about the gun, which number one, this was a small town in California, and two, with her history of mental illness, she wasn't supposed to have it. I know the cops came and took her gun away and then arrested her where she ended up being put in some sort of home. But we were never called to testify or anything. I don't know anything else that happened to her. But as a 14 or 15 year old kid getting shot at, that was one of the scariest moments I had ever had in that point in time. The story happened late October of 2022. It was my senior year of high school. My girlfriend Jade and I decided to go to a party that was to celebrate our football season which had recently just ended. I had played football for eight years at this point and Jade had been doing cheerleading for 10 years. We felt like we should attend to give a proper send off to our respective sports. Plus I knew the host pretty well. We'll call him Jake because he was also on the team and he had the house all to himself. The plan was for me to be the designated driver for Jade, my friend, who we'll call Michael and his girlfriend, who we'll call Morgan, who are also coming along with us. Michael lives two cities away. Him and his family moved his senior year and he decided to just finish high school in our city. Besides the main downtown area, that's our state capital. Our cities aren't very big, so Michael was only a 20 minute drive. This is important for later. Halloween was right around the corner, so that was the theme of the party. I went as Jack Skellington, just wearing the suit and had Jane do my makeup to look like a skeleton. While she went as Sally, Michael went as Chucky, and Morgan went as his bride. I'm like 90% sure her name is Tiffany, but if I'm wrong, I apologize. Anyways, we go to the party and a lot more people than I expected showed up. Basically the entire cheer squad, almost the entire football team, and even people from our rival high school, their football team and their cheer squad there as well. And like what you would expect from a typical high school party, people didn't know how to control their drinking and well, things got really rowdy. I was playing a tag team Beer pong game with Michael against two other friends when a familiar voice called my name, I turned to look and it was a kid from our high school who we'll call Bob, wearing a Jason mask and his usual hoodie with jeans. Now, Bob was an odd specimen to say the least. I met him in my first term history class when he randomly came up to me and started talking to me. From the start, I could tell that he wasn't very good at socializing. Being on the football team, people expect me to be stuck up, but I try to be very open and nice with everyone. So I got to know him pretty well in that class. A little too well in fact. He would openly tell me and my other friends in class about his frustrations about being being single and a virgin and how desperate he was to lose his virginity. He also didn't really know how to read a room or pick up on social cues. He also would talk like we'd been buddies forever and would make really unusual or out of pocket jokes. He also had really well off parents. Both of them drove sports cars and he lived in a huge house. Despite this though, he would wear the same clothes almost every day and had really long greasy hair. He would also start high fiving me in the hallway, which wasn't a big deal because it was just one more person to high five on my way to class. Well, not long after that I knew someone who went to junior high with him and Jade told me how he had the biggest crush on her in junior high and how he was only trying to be friendly with me to get closer to her. That didn't make much sense to me at the time, so I tried not to look at him differently. But the thought had always lingered in my head. Especially since when he would high five me. Jade was always there and he would try to stick around a little longer and always include himself in the conversation. Again. I had no problem with this, especially because he wasn't stalking me 24 7. It's just at times I found it mildly annoying and creepy. He started small talk and I had tried to answer his questions as much as I could, but to be honest, I was way more focused on the beer pong game. He left me alone. After a while the party started to die down and I was sitting in a circle with some teammates reminiscing over our times on the team and talking about how we'd really miss it. When I decided to rally my group and head out, Jade was sitting in a circle of Rome with the cheer team, maybe five Feet away from me, probably doing the same thing. So gathering her wasn't that hard. The hard ones to find were Michael and his girlfriend. I tried calling Michael but he didn't answer and I didn't have his girlfriend's number. Our first assumption was that they were probably just making out or something in a bedroom. So we went about the house, knocking on door to door, opening them and seeing if there was anyone there, then shutting the door. Bob saw me and Jade peer into our room and close the door. When he then came up to us and said, whoa, what are you guys trying to do in there? In a joking tone that just came off as creepy and awkward, I asked him if he'd seen our friend and he just replied no. So we kept looking. Bob then started following us around, which I was starting to get annoyed with. I eventually found Michael in the bathroom puking his guts out in the toilet with his girlfriend. While he was finishing up, I went to my friend Jake and thanked him for his hospitality and I offered to come over the next day to help him clean up. He said it was okay that he actually had some people spending the night, including his girlfriend who was going to help him in the morning. I still told him I would stop by if he needed help. We were heading to my car when I had then heard Bob say, hey man, could you give me a ride? I was a little annoyed because I was already pretty tired and I already had to drive out of the way to drop off Michael, Morgan and Jade. But I just said yes anyways because I'm nice. I also didn't mind driving up to his neighborhood because there were a lot of nice houses and around the Halloween season they're really fun to look at. I dropped him off first and started to drive to Michaels which was now probably going to be a 25 minute drive and it was already around 2:30am at this point Morgan was spending the night at his house. So after dropping them off, I had started to drive back to our city. Jade had offered spending the night because I was tired and I thanked her profusely. We got to my house and after I changed and washed off as much of the makeup as I could, I just about crashed in my bed. I woke up to Jade in the bathroom that connected to my room. She apologized for waking me up and then laid down next to me after a couple of seconds. She then got up and asked if I heard that. I listened and heard footsteps right above my window. Well, my room is in the basement of my house so the footsteps would be in our backyard in the west alleyway between our house and our gate and fence. It's probably just raccoons, I said. No, they sound too heavy to be a raccoon. Jade then said. It's probably just beer, I said referring to my 100 pound malamute. No, we locked his doggy door, remember? She asked. He has a special doggy door that only opens when it senses this fob that we keep on our dog's collar. This keeps the raccoons out. It also had an option to completely lock so even with the fob the door won't open. I didn't remember locking it, but I also didn't have an answer so I just stayed silent. She then got up. Where are you going? I asked and she then replied that she was going to check if it really was Bear. I would really feel bad if I had let her go check it out alone. On my way up the stairs to the first floor I saw my dog sleeping in front of the basement door so it couldn't have been him. But now I was curious so I go to our backyard door and opened it and then stepped out onto the porch. I looked around and couldn't really see much from on the porch with the porch light, so I stepped down and started investigating with my phone flashlight. I could see the glow of my LED lights through my window and didn't really see anything else. That's when an animatronic in my west side neighbor's backyard went off, scaring me. It was some sort of crypt keeper thing that has green glowing eyes and talks. My neighbors love Halloween so they have decorations in their front and back yard. I jumped and this caused me to speedily walk back inside. Jade had asked me if I saw anything and I just said no because I really didn't. We got back into my bed and I fell asleep. I woke up again in the middle of the night to the sounds of the animatronic going off yet again. I just assumed it was a motion sensor or something and it was picking up a stray cat or raccoons, then went back to sleep. I woke up again in the middle of the night because of my LED lights. I like having them on while I try to sleep, but after I sleep they really bother me and mine doesn't have a timer. I heard the animatronic again but this time when I turned off the lights I was surprised to see my window well glowing green. We have barred covers over them so that nothing can get down in them, but the well was glowing green and it sounded like the animatronic was right above my. Well, I was now freaked out. I don't know how Jade stayed asleep, but I laid there scared to move or anything. Eventually, it stopped. I just sat there for a while, awake, trying to calm down. I thought that it had to be someone messing with me. So after scrolling through my phone a bit to get tired again, I fell back to sleep. I woke up the next morning and saw my LED lights were still off. So I definitely wasn't dreaming about it. Last night, while Jade was getting ready, I called Michael to see if he was messing with me. He didn't answer. He was probably still asleep from being hammered last night. I then realized, why would Michael drive all the way over to my house drunk just to mess with me? I know his girlfriend wouldn't drive him either because she's more of a homebody type. Then it hit me. Our neighbors have a son who's my age. In fact, he played on the football team as well and I knew him very well. I called him and I was actually surprised when he answered. I started telling him about the animatronic scaring me while I was outside. But I didn't mention the part to him about it being above my will. I wanted him to think that I just slept through it and that he went through all that work just for me to sleep through it like a baby. Well, he then told me that all of the animatronics should be unplugged because he and his family are out of town for the weekend and that they wanted to prevent an electrical fire or anything of that nature. I've known him for a while and I know that he can't lie very well. So this really caught me off guard. I also realized that I didn't see him at the party, so he really was probably out of town. I asked if I could go over and just make sure that they were unplugged. I texted Michael to call me when he was awake. Jade was finished and she said she would come along because she wanted to hang out with Jake's girlfriend. I explained how we have to go over nearby to check on all the animatronics and she came with me. I went straight to the Skeleton One to see if it was plugged in. It was unplugged. I followed the wire up and down at least three times just to make sure I was holding the right unplugged wire. I was. When we got there, the mess was already picked up. Besides a few cups. I went down to the basement to get another box of garbage bags with Jake. And I then saw a Jason mask on the floor. I picked it up, and it was Bob's. The events of last night hit me. The footsteps, the skeleton. I wondered if it was Bob in my backyard. I thought there was no way. He doesn't even know where I live. He also isn't very coordinated, so seeing him carry an animatronic is just something that I couldn't even imagine. We did find it weird, though, how we would find his mask in the basement of the house. The one part that was off limits. Michael called me later in the day. I explained everything to him, and he was adamant that it wasn't him. I still don't know if those footsteps were connected with the animatronic or. And I still don't know if Bob was even connected to those events. After that, though, he had started acting even more strange. Either that, or my mind really was open to how odd he was. Either way, as Halloween comes up, those neighbors have continued to put the crypt keeper in their front yard. And I still wonder to this day what happened on that chilly October. The year of 2003 was a tough one for my family and I. My mother and father had just gone through a divorce, and my father was working late one Halloween night. I was 14 and my sister was 7. So my dad trusted me to take my little sister Emily, trick or treating. When Emily and I had gotten back from school, I had noticed a piece of paper on my mailbox. It was just a piece of paper that said, I would die for you. As you can imagine, this gave me the chills. So I brought it in to show my dad, but he wasn't home. He must have left the house early for work. So I decided to just throw it away and not let Emily know about it. That night, our plan was to go out and hit every house and get more candy than ever. We went out and we had a very fun time and I even ran into some friends. We were on our walk back home when we had heard a voice coming from someone's house. Hey, kids. Hey, come over here. A man said. We looked around and we didn't see anyone until Emily grabbed me and then screamed and pointed at the window. There was a man dressed like a clown. Come in. I have play doh. And I have any candy here you can imagine. We then ran as fast as we could down the road, screaming until we finally made it home. Once I got home, I realized that our front door wasn't just unlocked, but wide open. I remember saying hello a few times until I figured that maybe the wind just blew our door open. We sat in the living room and tried to just forget all about our encounter with a strange clown in the window while we're counting our Halloween candy and watching Hocus Pocus until we had heard someone knock at the door. We knew that it couldn't be our dad and knew for a fact that it wasn't our mom. Who's there? I said. There was a long pause until the person responded. I'm Jesus Christ. I'm here to save you from the evil of Halloween. Emily screamed, and we then ran into our dad's room with the door locked. I tried calling our dad a few times, but he wouldn't answer. Then we saw a figure near the window of my dad's room. It was a person standing there in a suit with a pig's mask. It's okay. I'm Jesus and I died for the sins of the children, he said. We then hid behind our father's bed and were scared shitless. We could hear him tapping the window and humming some strange song. Let me in or I'll slit my wrist tonight when I watch you sleep, he said. We both just laid on the floor shaking in fear. Emily had started to cry and I had to stay strong for her. After a while the man had left, but my sister and I still stayed in the same spot behind our dad's bed for over an hour until my dad got home. We told him what happened and he didn't even really care or listen much. He just wanted to rest after a long day of work. The very next day we had had a disk on our front porch. It was a blank DVD disc that had do not watch Unless yous Love Jesus written all over it with Sharpie. I went into my room and started watching it on my PlayStation 2. It was some of the scariest and disturbing imagery I had ever seen. It was just very disturbing images of a very, very tall man walking in the woods on stilts in a suit. The video would cut with a VHS static effect to a silhouette of a man in a field on a cross. It would just keep cutting to random, disturbing images. One other image I remember was in black and white of an extremely overweight man in bed with a ton of white face paint eating out of a tub of ice cream with his bare hands. The video had no other sound than a slight static sound in the background. I gave the DVD to my dad and told him what had happened and he said he would take a look. That was the last I'd ever seen of that dvd and my dad never mentioned anything of it again. He told me that he just threw it away and didn't really get a chance to watch it. I guess if my dad didn't care, then neither should I. I wonder who that could have been and why they wanted to scare a child so damn badly. Were they really dangerous or were they just playing some really sick prank? I guess I'll never know. So good, so good.
