3 Hours Of Disturbing Scary Stories | Episode 635

Summary

Southern Cannibal's Scary Stories

Episode: 3 Hours Of Disturbing Scary Stories | Episode 635
Date: February 23, 2026

Episode Overview

This special, extra-long episode of Southern Cannibal features a cavalcade of disturbing true horror stories, primarily centered on terrifying neighbor encounters, stalkers, abusers, and predatory strangers. The stories are contributed by listeners, viewers, and online submissions, ranging in theme from unsettling domestic violence to serial creeps, animal abusers, and chilling brushes with potential killers. Many tales are visceral and emotional, blurring the lines between true crime, abnormal psychology, and the everyday dangers of the seemingly mundane.

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Key Discussion Points & Stories

1. Racist, Abusive Neighbor (00:00 – 14:00)

• A young interracial couple moves into a “quiet” over-50 community but soon becomes the target of ongoing harassment by their neighbor, Nick, a racist, chain-smoking cat enthusiast from next door.
  • Initial friendliness devolves into intimidation, false accusations of domestic violence, and racial targeting (“He just continued to say, ‘I'll apologize to you, but that motherfucker in there will never get one from me.’” – Nick, 13:48).
  • Nick orchestrates confrontations, misreports “abuse” to other tenants, frequently moves their garbage, and creates a hostile environment leading to ongoing police and landlord involvement.
  • The narrator highlights the anxiety of being under surveillance in your own home, echoing how “you never really know your neighbors.”
  • Notable Quote: “You really have no clue on the kind of people you're gonna be running into when moving into a new apartment.” (14:05)

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2. Predatory Polyamorous Neighbors (14:10 – 25:40)

• John, a young transgender man, describes befriending an older couple: David, a Vietnam vet, and Diane, a transgender woman. While initially welcoming, their interactions become increasingly sexualized and boundary-pushing.
  • Discovering a sex dungeon in their attic is the first red flag.
  • David makes a shocking proposition during movie night: “‘I want both of you naked in my bed upstairs.’” (23:25)
  • Diane persistently pressures John for sexual encounters, including inviting him for sleepovers with covert motives, then threatens legal action after he rebuffs her.
  • The couple eventually bans John and his fiancé after being refused a threesome, underscoring the predatory dynamics that can lurk under “friendly neighbor” façades.
  • Notable Moment: John reflecting, “Trust your gut. Stay safe everyone, and stay hungry.” (25:40)

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3. The Neighbor with the Febreze Addiction (25:47 – 29:30)

• A college student’s attempt at amicable neighborliness spirals into horror as they discover their neighbor is hoarding rotting animals, masking the stench with incessant use of Febreze, and is ultimately arrested for extreme animal abuse.
  • Police uncover 15 counts of animal cruelty, including evidence of psychotic breaks.
  • After forced eviction and a traumatic aftermath, the student is left deeply affected.
  • Notable Reaction: “I couldn’t even sleep for weeks afterwards. I’m still traumatized to this day.” (29:15)

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4. Neighborhood Child Predator & Abuse (29:35 – 35:46)

• A deeply disturbing story of childhood sexual abuse by a friend’s father, who not only targets his own family, but the narrator and others, leading to long-standing trauma and PTSD.
  • The abuser, “Dirtbag,” continues to evade justice and start new families.
  • Memorable Reflection: “I'll never feel comfortable with my kids staying the night at anyone else's house.” (35:35)

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5. Creepy Magic Trick Neighbor & The Bleached Cat (35:48 – 43:13)

• Childhood story of “Kyle,” an eccentric ex-military neighbor with possible custody/child issues, who gradually escalates from unsolicited magic tricks to animal kidnapping and menacing behavior with laser pointers.
  • After a catnapping incident, the narrator marks their cat with bleach to end the dispute, later discovering both cats disappeared—hinting at a dark outcome.
  • Notable Quote: “I just hope that Marchie’s okay. And I also hope that Kyle is okay, even after all our weird encounters in my childhood.” (43:12)

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6. Preteen Stalking by Creepy Cameraman (43:15 – 51:37)

• A group of preteens are repeatedly photographed by a neighborhood predator, culminating in a raid that uncovers a child porn ring. The traumatic realization comes years later after confiding in an older sibling.
  • Memorable Quote: “...to me, it's absolutely terrifying to think that I could have been a victim of child porn. I guess the moral of the story is you just don't always know who your neighbors are.” (51:34)

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7. Unrepentant Flasher: The Senile Defense (51:38 – 56:59)

• A string of exposures by a male neighbor towards young girls is repeatedly dismissed as old-age confusion—until one mother witnesses the act herself, ensuring the man is finally prosecuted.
  • The narrator details the frustration of being dismissed, the importance of parental support, and the impact of direct adult intervention.
  • Key Takeaway: Children’s reports of serious issues should not be dismissed.

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8. Trespassing Into an Abandoned Meth House—With a Body Inside (57:00 – 1:01:55)

• A trio of boys investigates a seemingly empty house with rumors of a “meth lab.” Inside, they encounter needles, drugs, and a showering intruder—eventually stumbling onto evidence of a decomposing body, revealed by police to be a murder victim.
  • Narrow escape after the occupant fires a shot at them.
  • Notable Moment: Genuine terror and aftermath; moral is clear: “We never went into the alleyways ever again.”

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9. Friend Turned Groper: Betrayal By A Neighbor (1:01:56 – 1:08:00)

• A broke college student is groomed by an older female neighbor who offers food and company—eventually assaulting him while he’s drunk and then gaslighting him about the incident.
  • Stark warning against ignoring personal boundaries, regardless of gender.
  • Quote: “Just because you’re a strong and healthy young man does not make you invincible.” (1:08:00)

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10. Neighborly Domestic Violence: The Hidden Victim (1:08:01 – 1:13:15)

• A teenage girl describes watching her friendly older male neighbor go from cheerful to withdrawn, gradually realizing he’s the victim of severe, escalating abuse by his girlfriend. The neighbor endures years of physical harm before finally moving away.
  • Touches on the difficulty men face in reporting domestic abuse.

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11. Apartment Stalker: The Light Bulb Trick (1:13:16 – 1:20:36)

• A petite military woman, living alone, is monitored and approached by a new neighbor who unnervingly knows her movements and manipulates her porch light in a possible prelude to an attack—an eerie parallel to a later-watched 'Criminal Minds' episode.
  • Notable Quote: “It gave me chills, and when I received orders two months later, I took them without ever looking back.” (1:20:29)

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12. A Kitten Killer Next Door (1:20:37 – 1:22:50)

• The narrator and her husband discover their neighbor brutally attacking a kitten, whom they later save. Years after ending the relationship, they learn he killed his roommate, underscoring the psychological link between animal and human violence.

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13. Cockroach House and The Night Stalker (1:22:51 – 1:28:38)

• A mother and her children cope with a cockroach-infested house and a neighbor’s adult “creepy” son who repeatedly breaks in—including drugging the mother, leaving evidence behind, and later being imprisoned for rape and attempted murder.

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14. Mental Illness and Nazi Arsonist Neighbor (1:28:39 – 1:34:58)

• In a European capital, a couple’s next-door neighbor escalates from screaming racist songs and making Nazi threats to nearly burning down the building—and then vanishing when law enforcement investigates.

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15. ‘Creeper Joe’: The Neighbor with a Secret (1:34:59 – 1:39:55)

• A social outcast, known to linger and share awkward conversations about music, is eventually outed as a consumer of child pornography, then dies suddenly, leaving neighbors suspicious about his mother’s involvement due to a suspicious life insurance payout.

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16. Extreme Dating App Stalker (1:39:56 – 1:43:38)

• A lesbian woman recounts being cyberstalked by a girl named Toni, who creates multiple Tinder accounts with the intent of contacting her, all while lying about her age and displaying highly obsessive behaviors.

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17. The Laced Blunt & Near Assault (1:43:39 – 1:48:55)

• A young woman accepts a dating invitation from a slightly older man, smokes a laced blunt at his house and narrowly avoids sexual assault, only escaping after the police fortuitously drive by.

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18. Valentine's Day Date Turned Nightmare (1:48:56 – 1:52:48)

• A woman accepts a date with a man who abruptly detours into a deserted neighborhood to make unwanted advances. She refuses and narrowly avoids much worse, ultimately escaping to a nearby closed metro station.

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19. MeetMe Predator (1:52:49 – 1:54:54)

• A woman who agrees to a “movie and pizza” date is instead manipulated, blocked from leaving, and must escape her date's apartment in the middle of the night.

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20. Online Relationship Turned Abuse and Rape (1:54:55 – 2:02:41)

• A harrowing account of a teen's online relationship evolving into extreme emotional, psychological, and sexual abuse after finally meeting in person, culminating in recurring rape, manipulation, and eventual escape thanks to a new, supportive friend.

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21. Coffee Shop Heroin Bust (2:02:42 – 2:06:37)

• A barista details a tense incident as a couple—one obviously using heroin on premises—are ultimately arrested following a tipoff and police intervention.

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22. Janitors, Creepy Boyfriend Stalking (2:06:38 – 2:09:37)

• Church cleaning staff are stalked by a coworker's obsessive boyfriend who begins intruding on shifts and following female staff. The threat of police intervention ends the harassment.

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23. Creeper Co-Worker Returns (2:09:38 – 2:14:53)

• A woman is followed by a persistent and racist coworker years after initially blocking him. His pattern of harassment is compounded by workplace neglect and management’s failure to address repeated issues.

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24. Mall Barista: Trust Your Gut With Red-Flag Customers (2:14:54 – 2:18:23)

• A barista shares two stories—a suspected secret filmer and an aggressive, unstable customer—emphasizing the importance of acting on intuition for safety.

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25. The Dollar Tree Lurker (2:18:24 – 2:22:30)

• A suspicious customer repeatedly invents excuses to lure employees outside, prompting police reports and eventual resignation from the narrator.

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26. Backwoods Louisiana Attempted Abduction (2:22:31 – 2:24:08)

• Two girls are nearly lured into a stranger’s truck. Sensing danger, they hide under a bridge as the man returns to search for them.

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27. Hitchhiker with a Hammer (2:24:09 – 2:26:13)

• A woman accepts a ride, carrying what is presumed to be a swaddled baby, only for it to be revealed as a hammer. The young narrator and her mother safely get away.

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28. Window Watcher Stalker (2:26:14 – 2:32:18)

• A 10-year-old girl repeatedly sees a man watching her outside her window and is later terrified to wake up seeing him at night. Mother doesn't believe her, but later evidence confirms her fears.

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29. Stalker Boyfriend and Tragic Pregnancy (2:32:19 – 2:43:18)

• A woman's whirlwind romance with a possessive man turns violent and ends in physical assault, miscarriage, and ultimately, the man’s suicide following the trauma he inflicts.

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30. Country Garage Intruder (2:43:19 – 2:45:48)

• At a rural family get-together, a late-night errand results in running into a shadowy man in a darkened garage—escaping only by breaking down the door.

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31. Redneck Road Rage and Escape (2:45:49 – 2:49:07)

• A teenage couple’s defiant gesture at staring men in a truck leads to a high-speed chase; only clever hiding at a church allows their escape.

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32. Protective Dogs Foil Home Invasion (2:49:08 – 2:56:20)

• A teenage girl’s dogs keep her from taking out the trash the night two men attempt entry. Through their intervention, she escapes a pair of stalkers later discovered with evidence of long-term intent to harm.

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Notable Quotes & Moments

• On neighbors: “You just don’t always know who your neighbors are. Be safe everyone, and stay away from creepy old men who you don’t know what their intentions are.” (51:34)
• On boundaries: “Just because you’re a strong and healthy young man does not make you invincible. Even to a woman.” (1:08:00)
• On trusting instincts: “Trust your gut. Stay safe everyone, and stay hungry.” (25:40)
• On childhood trauma: "I’ll never feel comfortable with my kids staying the night at anyone else’s house.” (35:35)
• On predatory behavior: “I guess the moral of the story is you just don’t always know who your neighbors are.” (51:34)

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Structuring Takeaways

• Boundaries Matter: Across ages, genders, and situations, predators often rely on politeness or disbelief to worm into people’s lives.
• Most Dangerous Are Close By: Again and again, the stories hammer home that the greatest threats often come not from strangers in alleyways but from neighbors, coworkers, family friends, and romantic partners.
• The Importance of Trusting Instincts: Nearly every narrator reflects regret over doubting their gut reactions or feeling obligated to give others “the benefit of the doubt.”
• Impact: Many stories result in trauma, PTSD, and lifelong damage, even absent physical violence.
• Hope and Survival: Despite overwhelming darkness, several survivors find closure, justice, or new supportive relationships—emphasizing resilience.

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Timestamps for Important Segments

• 00:00 – 14:00: Racist neighbor targeting an interracial couple
• 14:10 – 25:40: “Nice” neighbor couple turns predatory
• 25:47 – 29:30: Animal hoarder neighbor and police intervention
• 29:35 – 35:46: Story of childhood sexual abuse by a neighbor’s father
• 35:48 – 43:13: Neighbor’s magic tricks and catnapping
• 43:15 – 51:37: Neighborhood child porn ring uncovered
• 51:38 – 56:59: Old man exposes himself to girls—finally faces charges
• 57:00 – 1:01:55: Kids break into house, find drugs, body
• 1:01:56 – 1:08:00: College student groomed/assaulted by neighbor
• 1:08:01 – 1:13:15: Teen witnesses male domestic abuse victim
• 1:13:16 – 1:20:36: Stalker neighbor unscrews porch light
• 1:20:37 – 1:22:50: Neighbor kills kitten—turns out to be a murderer
• 1:22:51 – 1:28:38: Cockroach-infested house, neighbor stalker
• 1:28:39 – 1:34:58: Unhinged Nazi arsonist neighbor
• 1:34:59 – 1:39:55: Creepy neighbor, secret child porn, mysterious death
• 1:39:56 – 1:43:38: Tinder stalker creates endless new profiles
• 1:43:39 – 1:48:55: Drugged on a date—escape from predatory man
• 1:48:56 – 1:52:48: Date drives to deserted area to assault narrator
• 1:52:49 – 1:54:54: Online date blocks narrator until escape
• 1:54:55 – 2:02:41: Online relationship becomes coercive, then dangerous
• 2:02:42 – 2:06:37: Barista’s heroin-using customers cause police action
• 2:06:38 – 2:09:37: Creepy coworker's boyfriend stalks at church
• 2:09:38 – 2:14:53: Persistent, racist coworker returns years later
• 2:14:54 – 2:18:23: Baristas face potentially dangerous customers
• 2:18:24 – 2:22:30: Dollar Tree employee targeted by predator
• 2:22:31 – 2:24:08: Two girls hide under bridge from abductor
• 2:24:09 – 2:26:13: Hitchhiker with a hammer “baby”
• 2:26:14 – 2:32:18: Young girl’s stalker outside her window
• 2:32:19 – 2:43:18: Stalker boyfriend, violence, and tragic miscarriage
• 2:43:19 – 2:45:48: Man in garage at rural family home
• 2:45:49 – 2:49:07: Teens are chased by pickup; evade at church
• 2:49:08 – 2:56:20: Dogs save teen from home invaders and stalkers

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Episode Tone

• Gritty, personal, and emotionally raw: Most narrators adopt a confessional and unfiltered tone, peppering stories with shock, disbelief, and hard-earned wisdom.
• Cautionary: Nearly all stories end with a warning or lesson for listeners—about boundaries, awareness, and trusting your instincts.

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Final Thoughts

This long-form episode is a stark reminder of the many forms evil can take in everyday life—including next door. Each account contains practical lessons and insight, but above all, they serve as a chilling tribute to the importance of listening, believing, and supporting one another in the face of true horror.

Quote to Remember:
“You really have no clue on the kind of people you're gonna be running into when moving into a new apartment.” (14:05)

Moral:
Be vigilant. Trust your gut. And never assume familiarity means safety.

Transcript

[A]

Hey, it's Sterling K. Brown from the Hulu original series Paradise. The next chapter begins as Xavier's search for his wife takes him above ground and what he finds will change everything. It was never just about the bunker. Tune in and discover the truth lies outside Paradise. The official podcast is now streaming and stream paradise on Hulu and Hulu on Disney. I'm writing this to spread your awareness of keeping your guard up around neighbors, no matter how friendly they might seem. This story mentions domestic violence and racism. So now with a bit of backstory. My boyfriend and I had moved into this new apartment that had seemed very quiet. It was also very friendly and just overall a typical over 50 community. By the way, my boyfriend is 22 and I'm a 19 year old female. Everybody knew everybody to describe the layout. It was four buildings all facing towards each other and it was two story apartments, maybe about 40 apartments altogether. Like I said, everybody knew everybody. So we would be walking to our car and get the occasional hellos or we'd even have to stop to have quick little conversations with someone. Now we aren't the type of younger kids to party or be all up hours of the night. We went to work, ran errands, then came home and repeat. We never had any problems with other apartments near us. The walls were very thin so we could obviously hear the other neighbors and they could hear us. I'd like to also mention real quick that my boyfriend is mixed with long curly hair, so sometimes braided and he also dresses the part, if you know what I mean. On the day we moved in, both his parents and my mom helped us out and we had met this guy right next door to us. His name was Nick. The way that I could describe him as best as possible would be at least six feet tall and he's a middle aged white man who clearly smokes a pack a day and is very obviously obsessed with his cat. Now he had asked my boyfriend a couple of nights after if he wants to come and smoke with him. Obviously me wanting to be nice to the neighbors, I kind of tell him to take a chance and he does. He comes back an hour later and he says he's really cool. And that was pretty much the end of it. So a couple of days later I hear banging sometime in the morning. So I open the door to Nick kicking his door in and he then apologized to me saying he locked himself out. I brush it off and a couple of months go by and we just say hi to each other whenever we're coming back from work. I Like to add that my boyfriend's schedule and mine is completely different. I work the evening shifts and I typically get home around 9, 11 o' clock, five days a week. My boyfriend often switches from mornings to nights, so obviously the times differ. Now to get really into the story, I'd like to add that we have an interracial young couple also living next door to us on the left side. So from here on out, we're gonna start referring to my boyfriend as John. So the man from the next door apartment had caught up with John and he then told him something. He then told him that he had noticed that we had been talking to Nick and well, he wanted to warn us on something. Hey bro, I'm just gonna warn you. That dude next door to you is extremely racist towards interracial couples. When we first moved in, he would stand in front of our door or pace back and forth just to harass us into leaving. One day me and my girl were arguing and Nick came banging on our door. My girl answered it and told him to mind his own business and he spit in her face while she was pregnant. So I had to lay his ass out right there on the concrete. And he never bothered us again after that. Now obviously my boyfriend told me this as he was getting ready for bed and I was honestly shocked because to me, Nick didn't seem like that type of person. Well, fast forward about four months. Me and John were having a very bad argument. Now John was yelling and cussing and so was I. In the moment, we weren't really thinking that our neighbors could hear us. Eventually we had heard a huge bang on our front door. John answered it and as soon as he did, Nick then said, calm down bro. John slammed the door in his face and I then yelled at him for being rude. We stopped fighting just to avoid anyone calling the cops and we just went to bed. I'm sorry to keep interrupting the story, but I keep remembering things that I have to add in here. So it's my job to get the trash ready, but for John to take it out when I clean. I used to empty all the trash bins and leave the bag in the house for when John gets home. I noticed after a time of doing that that we'd started getting gnats in our kitchen and in the trash. Finally I decided to just put it outside of our door until John gets home and then he'll take it out in the middle of the night. One day I was cleaning and I decided to put two empty 12 pack soda boxes on the porch. Because it was way too late to walk to the dumpster by myself. We woke up at around 11 and I hopped in the shower. We were both getting ready for the day and John walks into the bathroom and he asks me if I'm making that knocking sound. I say no. And that's when he realizes that someone is knocking on our door. At this point, we both weren't properly dressed, so when we were scrambling to see who it was, we noticed that it was Nick walking back and forth in front of our front door. We decided not to open it just because we didn't know what he wanted. At that point, we didn't really realize it was about the boxes in front of our door. We ignored it and continued the rest of our work day. As I was on my way home at around 10 at night, John had texted me and he said to be careful because Nick was outside. I agreed and I started to record on my phone just in case he tried to talk to me. Well, as I turned the corner, I noticed Nick standing at the bottom of the stairs just looking at me. I walked towards him and he then stops me, almost like he was waiting for me to come home or something. This is how the conversation went. Look, I know that motherfucker up there is hitting you, and that's not right. I can hear everything that goes on in your apartment. Half of this place used to be mine before they renovated the complex. As he's saying all this, I'm just standing there in disbelief, not knowing why he would even think that that was happening in my home. But he continues on. I can hear everything. I can hear every time you guys have sex. I don't care. It's whatever. When he said that, my heart dropped. Why would a grown man say that to a clearly younger woman at 10 o' clock at night? I didn't know this guy. I was severely uncomfortable by this. And all I kept thinking about was when John was going to realize that I was taking too long to get into the house. And why would he say he didn't care? What if he did care? We're adults. We pay rent to live there. We're obviously not rude and loud to purposely have our neighbors hear that. Nick then says, I just want you to know, if you ever need anything or if he hurts you again, come to me. I'll help you. I just reply back with, I'm not sure what you think is going on, but we play fights sometimes, so maybe that's what you're hearing. I promise nothing like that's happening. He Continuously tried to prove me wrong and was adamant about it. Finally, John comes out and he then asks Nick what's going on. Nick just proceeds to say nothing and John continued with, look man, whatever you have to say to her, you can say to me. This is my girlfriend. Nick walks up the stairs and then gets in John's face. I ran to get in the middle of them and I had begged Nick to go back into his apartment. I'd also like to add that John is only like 5 foot 7 and skinny. So Nick towers over him the entire time. They're both screaming at each other, begging them both to hit one of them. John then proceeds to yell, what trash? What fucking trash are you talking about? Pointing to our porch. Johnny had already taken the boxes to the dumpster by then, thinking that's what Nick was talking to me about. I pull John inside away from him as John then yells, how about you fix your fucking trashy ass door that has a hole in it. Finally shutting the door and calming everything down, we go to sleep. It was very hard. Since Johnny was in a rage about the entire situation. I have him listen to our entire conversation on my phone and he says, are you kidding me right now? Why in the hell would a grown ass man say that to you? Now he's calling me a woman beater? Are you serious? How delusional can this guy be? John felt extremely uncomfortable as well as disgusted on how huge of an accusation that was. Over the next few days, I continued to put the trash out there. One morning I had woke up to John yelling on the phone to his mom about how he was getting ready for work and how he was about to open the front door and how he heard Nick talking to an older man a few doors down about how he was beating up his girlfriend and that he was basically just spreading it around to everyone in the apartments. I had to physically stop John from going out there to confront him. So a few hours later, John went to work and I was sitting on the couch in complete silence, just thinking of what we could have possibly done to deserve Nick and his bullying. Was it the trash? Was it the accusations? No, it doesn't make any sense. And that's when I finally put two and two together. I remember what John had told me about the neighbor. It didn't take a rocket scientist to figure that one out. No, I'm not one to blame racism on everything as well as every situation under the sun, but it just seemed like a pattern. This miserable person was trying to come up with every reason to hate My boyfriend, but was treating me like the victim in the entire situation. I called my boyfriend's mom, who knew everything that was going on, and I told her my theory. She then said to me, bailey, I knew what it was about the moment you guys told me that you were having problems. This happens a lot, and unfortunately we're used to it. And for obvious reasons, I wasn't. Time went on and the end of our lease was coming up. We both woke up in the morning and we decided to clean up the place. And yet again, I had put the trash outside our door. I kid you not. We hear a loud bang on our front door. John rushed out there and we see a trash bag which looks to have exploded at our door, not realizing that Nick had thrown it at the door. I don't think I need to tell you what happens after. It's pretty much common sense. Since it was the middle of the day, more neighbors came out to witness and it was not pretty. I had to lie my boyfriend inside the house just to be able to go off on Nick as well as the old men I mentioned who were now teaming up on me verbally. Nick continued to yell at me about the trash, saying it looks ghetto and that's not who we are here. As soon as he said that, I continued to yell. I'm not a disrespectful person and I haven't been to him even considering what has been happening. But I accused him of being a racist and I even started tearing up saying how what he's done to me and my home and my boyfriend was so incredibly wrong. I told him he needs to apologize to me and him. He just continued to say, I'll apologize to you, but that motherfucker in there will never get one from me. I screamed how disgusting he was that he hated John for no reason besides his color. He didn't even deny it at all. I told him, he needs to leave us alone or I'm taking legal action. He continued to become adamant about how I was being beaten every night by John and the neighbors backed him up. I walked into my apartment and I slammed the door. About an hour after that happened, the woman from next door came over and we talked about it and had some coffee. John had left for work at this point. About an hour later, I said goodbye to her and I left the garbage bag in the corner of our patio and I went to take a shower. As I was leaving for work, I had opened the door to the bag falling on my feet like someone had moved it there on Purpose. I took a picture of it, threw it in the dumpster, and then left. I didn't even mention it to Johnny. Knowing what would happen, I wanted to keep the peace for as long as I could. We signed another lease and weeks went by of the same thing. I'd walked on eggshells. Every time I came home from work thinking he would be downstairs waiting for me, I would wake up to knocking on our front door. If I was home alone, I would check out the windows to make sure he wasn't outside smoking whenever I left for work. I hated being home alone. He would always move our trash bags in front of our door if they weren't taken out by the time he saw fit. At this point, my neighbor was harassing us. And I know most people may be thinking, well, why didn't you just take it out right away so you can avoid the conflict? Me personally, I'm not going to bow down to a bully. He doesn't pay my rent. He doesn't work for the building. If I start doing that, I'm almost scared to see what else he's going to come up with to start more issues. I've learned that's just the type of person our neighbor is. He has severe issues. I hate that I share a wall with him. He can hear every conversation we have and there's nothing I can do about it. We're currently dealing with it via our landlords, but it's still happening. I've begged John over and over to keep his cool if he sees him, but honestly, I really don't know how long I have until things take a turn for the worst. I'm sorry this was so long. I know it's probably not that scary to many, but to have a neighbor terrorizing you and your lover constantly, well, it's been very scary for me. You really have no clue on the kind of people you're gonna be running into when moving into a new apartment. Well, anyways, stay safe, everyone, and thank you for listening. Before I tell my story, I want to give you some background information. No names have been changed and this actually happened to me. My name is John and I'm a 20 year old transgender man that is more into men than women. And I'm engaged to a man. We don't live together yet, though. I live in a rural area in the Midwestern United States. I'm almost one year on testosterone at the time of writing this. With the backstory over, let me talk about my neighbors down the street. It gets quite creepy later on. So Prepare for that. It was early July of 2022 when this started. I'd been hearing a lot of positive things about a couple in a big colorful house. I heard that they had a pool and were overall nice people. David and Diane is the name of the couple I'm speaking of. David is a cisgender bisexual man and an overall very horny person. I know that this is quite common as my fiance is the same way. So I didn't really see anything wrong with it. David is also a Vietnam War veteran and he's 76 now. He was 75 when this all started as I was 19. Diane is a transgender woman that has had all of the surgeries. She's pretty much the same age as David. I believe that she's a year older, but I can't remember for sure. She had pretty much the same horny personality as David, but she was more straightforward about it. She's still the same way from what I've heard. Anyways. One of my close friends told me that Dave and Diane were having a fourth of July pool party and that I could come down if I wanted to. I thought that getting out for a while would be a good idea, but. And I could perhaps make some friends with the couple. I don't have swim trunks and I haven't had top surgery yet and I still haven't even at the time of writing this. Anyways, I put on my chest compression binder, threw on a shirt and I borrowed a pair of my dad's swim trunks that he hasn't worn in several years. I don't really remember what time I got down the street to their house. All I remember is that it was evening when I got out of my car. I walked up to the little gate that led to a small ramp that went up to the back deck with the built in pool. I kinda just stood at the gate unsure on whether or not to just walk in. My close friend that I had mentioned before said that I could just come on up. I did just that and I then introduced myself to David, who was sitting in a chair with just shorts on. It was pretty hot and I would have done the same thing if I had top surgery. My close friend had her boyfriend at the time with her as well. Diane eventually came outside and I introduced myself. My close friend's grandparents that she lives with were also there. I sat in a chair in front of David for just a few minutes before I got in the pool. I remember that David gave off a vibe that I was quite unfamiliar with. My friend her boyfriend and Diane and I were all in the pool throwing vinyl covered foam balls at each other. And let me tell you, Diane had a hell of a throwing arm. She got me on the shoulder once really hard. I told her about me being female to male transgender, and she seemed to open up and start talking to me more. A large portion of the time there was spent in the pool. Once we got out and dried off, we had a couple of slices of pizza. Diane then said that we could explore the house. And me, always wondering, since I was a kid, what the inside looked like, jumped at the opportunity. We explored the first two floors and I couldn't believe how much bigger it looked on the inside. The giant master bedroom was probably the best part of the whole house. I won't go into too much detail about the first two floors as it's quite a lot. When we noticed another set of stairs leading to a third floor, we quietly went up the stairs. What I saw next is when things started to feel off. The attic was basically a sex dungeon. There was an adult swing in one corner and harnesses on the wall. We heard a sound that came from part of the room that we couldn't see. We assumed that it was David and that we weren't supposed to see that room. We very quietly and quickly went down the stairs and the only thing I could ask myself was, what the hell are these people into? I found out later that they liked bondage. Right before I left that night. Diane then said I should come down for dinner sometime and we set up a date in time. Fast forward a few days and I went to their place again. My mom said she didn't really feel quite right about the whole situation. I went down anyway though, assuming I could take care of myself if a weird situation came about. I sat about three feet away from David on the couch as Diane cooked spaghetti. I'm usually pretty good at reading people, thanks to the true crime documentaries as well as all the interrogations I've watched. I wasn't able to read Davin or Diane very well, however, as they were displaying behaviors that I've never really been around before. There were weird vibes from the very moment that I walked into their house that night. It was just me and them this time. While the spaghetti was cooking, Diane came and asked me which movie I wanted to watch. She suggested Betelgeuse, which, surprisingly, I had never seen before. She put the DVD in and turned on the wall lights. This is where things started to get really freaking creepy. David must have had some kind of look on his face. Because Diane then said, what do you want, David? And what David said next made me freeze in place. He then said, I want both of you naked in my bed upstairs. Diane just brushed it off and laughed and then went to check the spaghetti. David was still sat in the same spot he was before, and after about 10 or so seconds of me being frozen in place, staring at the wall, I said, yeah, this is awkward. David then asked me, what's awkward? Um, what you said. David asked me what he said and I just said, never mind. After that, he began to reach towards me and as he was doing so, he then said, you're alright, gently patting my hand. I went stiff and tense. At this point, the feeling in my gut got worse. But I suffer from anxiety, so I don't really know how often my gut feelings are true. Most of the time they end up being wrong. Anyway, the spaghetti and some delicious garlic bread were finally ready and once I got my food, I sat on the couch. I realized later on that I had taken David's spot, but he was comfortable with where he was and yeah, he still had only shorts on. After we finished eating, Diane had asked me if I smoked weed. I'm a pretty big stoner, so of course I said yes. She went to grab her bag of weed, pipe and grinder. She packed the pipe and me and her shared the bowl. David didn't want any. At this point, Betelgeuse was over and we had started watching Rock of Ages with Tom Cruise, which I'd also been dying to watch. I remained in the same position for the most part. My mom wanted me home by 9pm and it was already 8:30 at this point. I had a strange high going on now. I told Diane at 9pm that I had to leave. Diane pretty much begged me to stay for the next song, then the next song, then the next one, which was just a dry hump scene. I got extremely uncomfortable at this point and David noticed. He said that I could go home if I wanted to. I said a quick thank you and I left pretty quickly. But I remained friendly. When I got home, I felt really off. I still think to this day that there was something more than just weed in that damn pipe. I felt jittery and I had tears in my eyes for no reason whatsoever. My mom noticed this, but she didn't ask me about it. I told my fiance about when David made that comment about me and Diane in his bed upstairs. My fiance told me to text David about it and I didn't go down there again for About a month or two. I wanted to work out the issue, so I went back. Not the greatest idea. I then apologized to David and Diane, but more importantly David. He said that I need to grow thicker skin, which is true, but damn. He was so straightforward about his desire that night that he just caught me completely off guard because I'm really not used to that from people. After a while, David and I actually became pretty close friends and I really loved hearing his Vietnam war stories. He told me about how his gut feelings are usually correct. And he told me one story that blew my mind. He was in a building with a few other soldiers and he had the intense urge to leave. And he told the soldiers, most of them followed him and right after that a missile hit the building that they just exited. Anyways, fast forward to this February. I wanted my fiance to meet David and Diane and my fiance wanted to meet them as well. David doesn't really like my fiance though because of his political views. Diane tried to get me and my fiance to go to a motel and have a three way with her behind David's back. The last incident was the craziest. I texted Diane telling her that I had some good weed that I wanted her to try. She responded back by recommending that I stay the night and drink some alcohol. I told her that my fiance really wouldn't like that and she responded back with well, he'll only know if you tell him. I decided to quote on quote interrogate her and asked her what we would do if I stayed. She mentioned wanting to cuddle with me and even taking a fucking shower together and sleeping with her. At that point my fiance knew about this and he called her, pretty much cussing around and threatening to call the cops for somewhat unrelated incidents. Diane went crazy at this point, swearing and screaming at my fiance. She then texted me and my fiance both stating that neither one of us were ever allowed on her and David's property ever again and if we did come onto her property, she'd file a restraining order against us. Stupid, I know. All because I wouldn't sleep with her. I texted David and I wished him a happy birthday on his birthday and he just went and told Diane about it. Diane never said anything about me not contacting David. My friends still go there and they've tried to tell them my side of the story but. But they're stuck in their ways. I don't try at all anymore. I gave up on them. Dear David and or Diane, if you're hearing this, please consider a change of heart and try and Figure out that it isn't fucking cool to get someone to sneak around their significant other. I know this wasn't as scary as most stories, so thank you for all taking the time to listen. I guess the lesson of this is to trust your gut. Stay safe everyone, and stay hungry. I'm a 24 year old female college student. The story takes place four years ago. It was September 17, 2019. I was only 20 years old and I was moving into my first apartment. My parents were helping me load boxes into the complex while I was talking to the neighbors. I had talked to this lovely elderly couple who was sitting on their porch. They showed me around the apartment building and one of them said how he was the head of the building commission. I went inside and started to unpack when I heard these buzzing sounds coming from the right apartment. It was like one of those electric meat cutters for turkey and such. I went to go tell him that he was being loud and so I knocked on his door and he then opened it very slightly. There was an overwhelming smell of Febreze that wafted out of the crack. I told him that the buzzing noise was way too loud and I'm his new neighbor. He then responded with a hoarse voice. Um, I'm making roasted ham. With a stuttering voice like he was too cold or scared. Half of his face was showing and it was covered in pimples and extremely pale. There was stubble all over his chin and his eyes were red and he was also sniffling like he had just wept. Are you okay man? You look sickly. I can go get you some help if you need it, I said. He just replied back with a no thank you. I then caught the slightest whiff of a rancid odor like if you didn't clean a fish's bowl. I soon left as he slammed the door and the buzzing stopped. Fast forward three months later I hear his hoarse voice screaming and incoherently rambling. I went over to my phone and I called the building commission. He said that many residents complained about him, but his high profile parents had always backed him up and it stopped him from ever getting eviction notices. But this time he was fed up himself and with me. He knocked on his door but we didn't get an answer. So he called our local police department and they came in and knocked on his door again. Suspecting he was on drugs, they grabbed a screwdriver and unscrewed the door and the smell coming out of the room was rancid. Wasn't even an understatement. It was horrid. I felt like I was going to die from the nausea induced by that smell. The sight was so horrible, I won't even be able to describe it in detail. So basically, he would take and steal animals, and he had these sick fantasies that he did to them in horrid ways I can't even describe. But in the end, he would kill the pet, then throw it on the ground and let it rot. Then he would use a shit ton of Febreze to cover it up. He ended up murdering his own pet. He goes into these psychotic states and he was actually arrested for 15 counts of animal abuse. He was sentenced to a psych ward and they had to destroy his room because it was so decayed and moldy. I ended up moving the day after this fiasco happened. I couldn't even sleep for weeks afterwards. I'm still traumatized to this day by this dude. What a sicko. I would like to mention that there are mentions of child abuse, sexual assault, and suicide in this story, and it can be a little dark and upsetting. My name is ALICIA and I'm 21 years old. I've lived in the same house most of my life until I moved away at 18. Let me explain the setup of our house and neighborhood to you. I live in a cul de sac, which is essentially a U in the neighborhood. And there's also houses surrounding with an outlet behind us. We have neighboring houses. One specifically, that was my childhood best friend. For privacy, I'm going to be changing everyone's names. My friend, who I'll call Bella, was the youngest of two siblings who aren't really relevant to the story. Bella was a troubled kid and often got in a lot of trouble. As we got older, she got into drinking and hanging out with older guys. But that's besides the point. When I was younger, around elementary school age, I remember her dad, whom I'll call Dirtbag, was always a little off. He was short, thin and bald. He wore old Looney Tunes sweatshirts, and from what I can remember, he didn't work. I didn't know it at the time, but Dirtbag emotionally and physically abused his wife. I learned more about this as I was an adult through my own father, who Dirtbag tried to connect with. Dirtbag was always around. I remember one time that he took us swimming and he was just sitting on the edge watching us until he then came over and jokingly threw us in the water. Dirtbag always made me feel really uncomfortable. I'd often spend the night at Bella's house and in her room she had a bunk bed. I would often sleep on the bottom. I remember distinctly feeling someone between my legs. It was Dirtbak. This had actually happened for years until Dirbag and his wife had their last child. And I guess that was enough for his wife. And then she divorced him. Around this time I was 10 years old and it had been going on for most of my childhood. Durbag had introduced me to one of his church friends and they both were sexually assaulting me. I remember one time I was around looking for Bella and Dirtbag said she wasn't home yet as he creepily watched me play Barbies. Once we got older, Bella and I were drinking and talking about Dirtbag and lo and behold, he had been sexually assaulting not only me, but her sister and brother as well. I don't know if her mom ever knew about it, but Dirtbag's still out there, still free. He even has a whole new family. He tried to contact my dad, which at the time he was breaking a restraining order. Dirtbag burned his ex wife's personal things in their backyard, like her journals, jewelry and her clothes. As you can imagine, this really affected me a lot into adulthood and it even caused suicide attempts. Whenever I think of him moving forward, I'll never feel comfortable with my kids staying the night at anyone else's house. This is a story about the neighbor two houses down from me when I was a kid. In the house lived two people, a middle aged man and his very sick mother. I'm not really sure what his mother had, but she was sick for as much of my childhood as I can remember. However, the story isn't much about her, but more so her son Kyle. For some background, Kyle had a metal plate in his head from being in the military. He added what some may call an extra story to the roof of his house out of metal scraps from the junkyard. This included a long metal walkway resembling a slide that jutted out from the back of the roof and reached the ground. I would often see him up there. Honestly, I always thought that part was really cool. He also had kids, but he wasn't allowed to see them at all. Ever. I don't know why. It had two double doors facing the street that led to his basement and every time I passed them I thought of Silence of the Lambs. For some reason, he always wore a black shirt and black pants every single day and had a really creepy smile. I spent a lot of time outside as a kid. I absolutely loved being outside and I would play in my yard as often as I could. Kyle started speaking to me when I was around eight years old. He walked in my yard and he asked me if I wanted to see a magic trick. As a child, I was extremely social and talkative, especially with adults. But something about Kyle scared me right away. It was like I could feel inside of me that he was not safe. And this was before I even knew that he wasn't allowed to be around his children. Despite this, I said yes and I let him show me the magic trick. This led to him frequently coming to stand in my yard and show me magic tricks or card tricks when I got a little older. Around early teens, Kyle had stopped showing me magic tricks. Instead, he just wanted to talk to me. I don't ever really remember what he spoke to me about. I remember questioning everything, wondering if he really was a bad guy because he really did seem nice and I mean, he had never done anything bad to me. However, I just couldn't stop being creeped out by him. I got this awful feeling whenever I was around him. Around this time, I'd spent a lot of time sitting on my porch late at night, anywhere from around 11pm to 2am during this time, Kyle began shining red laser lights at me from his porch almost every night. As far as I know, it was from like a cat toy and not a gun. But for some reason this would scare the absolute shit out of me. Whenever it happened. I would usually get up and then just go inside for the rest of the night. But sometimes I'd get so pissed and just sit there. Out of spite of around this time, he had stopped coming to speak to me as much. Also around this time, I had a cat named Marchie. Marchie was a solid black cat I had gotten him when he was a tiny little kitten from a different city, hours away after his mom had passed away from being hit by a car. Marcie was an indoor as well as outdoor cat. Quick rant. I would never let my cats outside. Now, cats are a detriment to the environment. But also I would never want to risk my babies getting hurt or sick. I never wanted Margie to go outside, but my parents would always let him. Well, one day Marcie didn't come home for two weeks. During this time I was very distressed. I didn't know what to do and I cried every day. Finally, one day he came home and I was so happy that he was safe and with me again. I kept him inside for a while after this because I didn't want to risk losing him again. One Day, I was walking home from the bus when Kyle called out to me. Hey, my cat's in your house. He said to me. Um, I don't think so, I replied. He got a little upset and he explained that he had a black cat and that he saw him go inside my house. It then dawned on me that Margie was missing for two weeks because Kyle had locked him inside his house. Yeah, there's no way that's true, I said, because I got that cat from a city hours away as a tiny little kitten. He can't be your cat. Kyle argued with me a bit more and I got really pissed. I kept reiterating that there was no possible way Marchie was his cab because of how I had obtained him, and he just kept arguing with me. After a while, I just got sick of it and I finished my walk home. I couldn't believe Kyle kidnapped Marchie and that he was also trying to tell me my own cat was not mine. This caused me a lot of distress. I decided that I needed to take action to protect Marchie from Kyle. I ended up doing something pretty stupid. I figured that Kyle must be confusing Marchie with another black cat. To mitigate this issue, my friend and I decided that it was best to bleach a skunk stripe down Marshie's back. When I look back on this, I feel so awful for exposing Marshie to those chemicals, as well as the subsequent bath that followed. But you have to understand, I was like 14 years old and I had very little guidance or supervision in this world. And I was trying my best to save my cat. And what I saw was a dangerous situation for him. So please, no judgment. I would never, ever do something like this now, and I feel absolutely awful about it. I would also like to say that he didn't suffer any chemical burns or health issues as a result of the bleach. Anyways, this seemed to work, at least for a while. After several months, Marge's bleach patch had completely shedded and he was back to being a solid black cat. By this point, Kyle had stopped messing with Marcie. Thankfully, also by this point, Kyle never came to my house anymore. He never spoke to me at all anymore. And that was fine by me, though a part of me did always feel bad for him in a situation. A few years later, when I was 18, Marchie completely disappeared. I don't know if it was Kyle related or not. I ended up getting another cat by that time named Marzipan, who also went missing along with Marcie. This leads me to Believe that someone took them rather than something awful happening to them like a car accident. I still miss them so much and I think about them all the time. I ended up moving away for a while and I almost completely forgot all about Kyle. When I returned to the neighborhood a few years later, the house sat empty. I had heard that his mother had either passed or went to a care facility and no one knew what happened to him. I still always wonder if he's out there and what he's doing. Their house ended up burning down within a year or so of me returning to the neighborhood. Apparently squatters were living inside it and had lit the place on fire. I remember being able to see the inside of it as it had been almost cut in half by the fire and just seeing stacks and stacks of flower pots everywhere. It was completely packed with stuff. It was the first and only ever time that I saw inside that house and it looked exactly how I imagined. I never saw Marzipan again, but I saw a black cat that looked exactly like Marchie several times When I first moved back a couple years ago, I called out to him and he would look at me, but he never came. I could never be sure if it was him. If it was, it was like he had turned feral. He was never the friendliest cat in the first place, but I still loved him. I still think I see him sometimes and I leave food out for him. I will always wonder about Kyle and Marchie and how they ended up and what they're doing now. I just hope that Marcie's okay and I also hope that Kyle is okay, even after all our weird encounters in my childhood. A little background I'm a 32 year old female and this happened when I was around 13 years old. Growing up, I didn't live in the fanciest part of the city and my area was primarily co ops and projects that were no more than 15 minutes apart. Now as a kid, the majority of my friends had older siblings that were my middle sister's age and were her friends. God, I remember how annoyed they get whenever me and my friends would try following them all over the neighborhood. Needless to say, I remember one day going to hang out in the project about 10 minutes down the street from where I lived at the time. There was a pole in this project and it was the middle of summer so my friends and I hung out by the pool all day from open to close. As the pool was closing, my friends and I pointed out a huge game of chase. We all agreed to meet in front of the pool steps and start the game and then run off to our respective houses to get changed. As my friend let's call her K and I were running back to our place to get changed. We both then saw a bright flash out of the corner of our eyes. We both just stopped for a moment, turning to see where the flash came from, not finding a source and thinking it was just a passing car, we both turned back around and kept running back to her place. Fast forward about an hour and a half or so and we called the game in. We then started to hang out in the grass by my friend K's place. As my friends and I were talking, K had asked us, hey guys, did anyone else see the random flashes when running down this way? We all just stopped talking and looked at each other with a face knowing exactly what she was talking about. Yeah, I saw it too, but I just thought it was the cop lights or something. I say back, not even fully believing my own words. Just as we were about to shrug it off, we had all seen a flash of light and shut right up. Before we could even say anything, we saw another flash coming from the second floor window. Before anyone could react, one of my guy friends starts looking up and then yells at whoever was up there, giving them the finger and basically acting like an ass as most pre teen guys do. Well of course this didn't go over well and the next thing we know the cameraperson comes out and it's the local weird man. A little background of this guy. He would always walk around the project offering popsicles and lollipops as well as other candy to the kids. Cliche I know. And that would be without their parents there. Before we can say anything, creepy cameraman takes a burst of pictures of my friends and I. I remember pointing and yelling the obvious hey, he's taking pictures of us. And we all start yelling at him, mouthing off to him to stop taking pictures of us. This seemed to just egg him on and he starts taking even more pictures of us. Thank God that I remembered that my sister was hanging out with a few of her friends right across the project. I then turned to Kay and whispered to her, stay here and keep him distracted. I'm gonna go get my sister and her friends. Now it usually takes my tiny self roughly about five minutes to get across the project, but on this night I swear it took all of 30 seconds to get from one end of the project to the other. I ran up to my sister with teary eyes, completely out of breath and shaking like a leaf. Not Able to get a single word out no matter how hard I tried. Dude, what's up? Take a few breaths and calm down. What's going on? My sister says to me in her calm big sister voice. In between wheezes, I blurt out in a very panicked, whiny voice, there's an older guy over there taking pictures of us. I will never forget the look on my sister's face when she asked me, are you fucking serious? It was so serious and fierce. To this day I've never seen that same facial expression on her face. And she has a six year old daughter so that's saying something. As I then screamed, yes he did. My sister grabbed me by the arm and then told me show us. She pretty much dragged my four phone little nothing 80 pound soaking wet body back to where my friends were at. As we all got around the corner, all I remember seeing was a burst of bright flashes. My sister's friends running towards the source of the flash and my sister cupping my face in her hands screaming at me to get my friends and just run home. Don't look back, just run. That's what she told me and that's exactly what I did. I grabbed my friend K and her little sister and I yelled at my friends to run home. I don't think I've ever run home that fast in my entire life. Plot twist after remembering this, I thought over and over what happened after my sister and her friends went after the old creepy camera guy. For the life of me, I couldn't remember what the outcome was. So I finally called my sister asking her what the hell happened. Without any hesitation my sister said, oh yeah, I remember that old guy. He had been taking pictures of us long before then. Well this was news to me. He started taking pictures of me and I remember so and so throwing eggs and shit at his place all the time and our cousin refused to go swimming there because of him. Okay, my mind's a little blown at this point so I ask okay, well what happened after that night when you told me to run? I asked her now wanting to know even more. Me and my friends ran after him. He ran towards the forest so that's where we thought he ran to. But he ended up getting away from us and he ran around the project back to his place. But after TNT's mom found out that he was taking pictures of you and your friends and when she called about him taking pictures of me and my friends, he claimed it was because he was trying to catch us hopping the pool fence after hours. But Once they called about you guys, his place got raided and they found like 10 or something rolls of film of all of us. All of us swimming and tanning and playing around the neighborhood. Okay, now my mind has been fully blown and I'm absolutely floored by this because I had zero clue about any of this. Are you serious? How come I don't remember any of this? Did mom know? I asked, having so many more questions than answers. No, mom didn't know. And TNT's mom told the cops that we weren't going to go forward with identifying us because as it turns out, he was a part of some huge child porn ring and she didn't want us to have to go through the court shit. As far as I remember, he ended up getting evicted and two years later the pool was filled in with concrete. She told me, still trying to process all this new information. Holy crap. I had no clue about any of this. I guess I thanked TNT's mom for saving me and my friends from the nightmare that could have come from all of this. I know this may not seem that scary to some, but to me it's absolutely terrifying to think that I could have been a victim of child porn. I guess the moral of the story is you just don't always know who your neighbors are. Be safe everyone, and stay away from creepy old men who you don't know what their intentions are. Hello everyone. My name is Anna and I'm currently 24 and I'm a female. I want to start off by saying that I'm not very good at telling stories, but I'm gonna do my best. I grew up in a very small town in Missouri. The kind where everyone knows everyone and if you blink, you'll miss it. At the time this story takes place, I was 11 years old. I woke up like any other day and went to school. My neighbor and I, being around the same age, always walked together to and from school. On our walk home was the first time it happened. My neighbor, who will call Maggie for privacy, had leaned over to me and then said, we need to walk faster. And I, being the 11 year old child, not knowing any better, I went with it and thought nothing of it. We made it home and nothing more was said. Fast forward a couple of days later and we were walking home once again. But this time was a little different. While walking down the same old streets that we usually do, I happened to glance up and see an elderly man step directly in front of his glass doorway, completely naked at the exact moment we were in front of it. I remember being really scared and uncomfortable and telling my neighbor Maggie what I had seen. She went on to tell me that that's what she had seen previously, but didn't want to tell anyone. She was a very quiet person, so I can't say I blame her. Immediately after arriving home, I had called my mother on her home phone. She at the time was working for our local city hall and she knew the police officers. She then arrived home soon after and had a deputy come down and take my statement. That night was a bit of a blur. I remember my older brother driving over 40 minutes just to come and check on me. And I remember the police contacting my mother soon after to tell her what they had found out. After talking with the man, what they had managed to come up with was that he was just a harmless elderly old man with some slime memory issues. He said that he had been taking a bath and had thought he heard a noise and then stepped out to check. Yeah, sure. And well, that was that. For a little while life went on. But months later it happened again. I was riding home with a different friend of mine on our bikes and the moment we passed the house, he stepped out exactly the same as he had the first time. I remember telling my mother again and being told that we were most likely just exaggerating. This old man was clearly just senile and didn't know what he was doing. The frustration was real in my little 11 year old head knowing that I had this feeling of something being so off about the situation again. Months went by without a hitch and it began to be a distant memory in my head. Then the third and final time happened. I was now 12 years old and I was currently in the sixth grade and I was learning all about Dare. This will be relevant. Later, I became friends with another girl in my class that also lived very close to me. We can call her Lucy. On this day we happened to be in a little spat as many little girls do. So this day was a bit different. I made the usual walk home alone and again by this point the whole thing was a distant memory. While walking past the house, I once again saw the old man standing there completely naked. In the exact moment that I walked past, he had locked eyes with me and I immediately looked away knowing this was wrong. I began sprinting home and telling my mother in a panic that I had seen it yet again. And I was extremely worried about Lucy as I knew that she wouldn't be far behind. My mom and I jump in the car, her being determined to prove me Wrong about the situation once and for all. As we pulled up the street, I had saw my friend about to pass in front of the house. Just as we were pulling up to it, my mother looked at the house and I looked at Lucy. I mentioned her to please get in the car quickly. And in that same moment, my mother said, I saw it. Oh, my God, I saw it. You were right. Lucy jumped into the car and we took her home with us. And then we explained the whole situation. My mother once again called her police friend and got them to come down and we wrote our statements. The police did a follow up at the old man's house and they found him hiding on his back stairs. Now, this is the part where it all gets a little hazy for me, but I'm gonna do my best to remember. But what I assume happened is they kept him in the county jail until his court date. Now back to the reason why I mentioned we were learning about Dare in school. The officer doing the program just so happened to be the same exact officer who was involved in my ongoing case. He would pull me aside from time to time and ask me a question privately about the case. Yeah, I know this is a bit unprofessional of him to do, but please keep in mind it was a very small town and things like this didn't always just happen. Months later, our court case was finally here. They brought in all three girls who had seen the man. Me, Maggie, and Lucy. But they had let me know that I would be grilled the most as I had seen it three times and the other girls only saw it once. The moment came for me to go on the stand, and I remember being so scared to look across the room and see him. I trembled with each question until I just couldn't take it any longer. I burst into tears and I was taken out of the room. I won't go into details with the questions I was asked. The next person to go on stand was my mother. And to this day, I truly believe if an adult had not been there to witness it happen in real time, that we wouldn't have won the case. She was able to prove that his actions were deliberate and not a simple forgetful mistake. He was sentenced to one year in prison, as well as having to register his name on the list of local sex offenders. As far as I know, he's since moved out of the state. I know this might not be the most scary or suspenseful story of them all, but I can honestly say that this went on to affect me into my adulthood. And to all you parents out there letting your kids walk home from school, please be aware that if they come to you with something serious, they're telling the truth. The story takes place when I was 12 years old. My younger brother and I had just moved to a new neighborhood and had been really excited to explore it. We had liked to hang around alleyways and goof off. Mainly we would smash electronics or entice people's dogs. You know, dumb stuff like that. One of these days we went into an alleyway that we hadn't been to yet with a friend of ours who was the same age as my brother. It was small and to the left side, didn't have any houses. But we decided to continue onward. At the very end, we found something worthwhile, a busted gate. We peered into the backyard, but there was nothing there. No pool, no furniture, no shed, nothing. It was just grass. We decide to walk in to get a better look, and we notice that there's a metal gate on the back porch preventing you from reaching the door and a security camera pointed at it. This creeps us out a little, so we head back to our bikes and book it. A few days later, we were riding through the neighborhood and we decided to try and find which house had the broken gate. We match it up with a house that is pitch black. The house had stuck out like a sore thumb since all the other houses were white. Of course. My mind went straight to the house from Monster House and I started to joke around. Our friend notices the pitch black mailbox and says we should open it, so we do. Inside is a small package with mail stuffed into the sides. We noticed a white paper taped to the inside of the mailbox that has a date written in Sharpie. I don't remember the exact date, but I remember it being 1960 or 1980 something. Now, we all had started trying to explain what we think happened, and it mostly blended into some old dude that lived there and died. And that's why no one did anything about the gate. I said that it was probably some kind of meth lab and that's why they made it seem abandoned. But they thought I was full of crap. It kind of made sense that it was a meth lab because apparently the house's next door neighbor was a former drug addict. At least according to a kid who lived nearby. Apparently his mom knew the guy. About a week later, we decide to see if the back gate is locked. It was simple. Whoever stays the longest got 20 bucks. So we ride back there and we park our bikes on the Wall next to the gate. We check to make sure that no one is outside, and then we walk up to the gate. We try the handle and the gate swings open. We then look at each other dead in the eyes, then say, should we go in? My brother suggests we look through the window first. So we do, and we can't see anything since no lights are on. Our friend slowly turns the handle as if he's thinking whether it's a good idea or not. I remind him that if he runs back, he won't get paid. Eventually we collect ourselves and we decide to go in. So we open the door and step inside. We leave the door cracked so we can easily escape, and we start to creep inside, making sure not to make any noise while we were sneaking around. I then noticed a horrible smell, but I try not to assume where the smell is coming from. We stopped dead in our tracks after we hear a small crack. By now our eyes have adjusted to the darkness, but I still take out my phone to see where the noise came from. I then shine the flashlight all around the living room, but I don't see anything. Then I look at the ground and I see that we stepped on a glass needle. Along with the needle are several tiny plastic bags. We hear a noise coming from the hallway, so we walk towards the source. We tried all of the doors, but they're locked. One of the rooms in particular had an even stronger rotten smell coming from it. Then we get to the end of the hallway and the door opens, leading into the master bedroom. We step inside and we notice that the bathroom light is on and the shower is running. Being oblivious to the danger, we decide to search around the room. By the window sill is a large black case standing against the wall. I open it halfway and my heart sinks as I then see the barrel of the rifle. I whisper to the others that we need to leave now. And just as I say that, the shower turns off and we hear the door slide open. And with no regard for noise, we run across the hardwood floor. A man jumps out and then yells, I'm gonna shoot you. We then kick the door open and we run to our bikes. But our friend realizes we won't make it far if we try to ride away. So we hop on a dumpster and jump the wall. Immediately after we hit the ground, we hear a gunshot and the man then yells, I'm gonna call the cops on you, damn kids. Stay the fuck outta here. We have to pray that he doesn't take our bikes because we can't explain the situation. To our parents. We wait for a while and then we jump above the wall to see if our bikes are still there. Sure enough, they are. But the man is dragged a chair outside and he's sitting with his rifle in his lap. Now we just knew we were screwed. So we wait until it gets dark outside and walk back. We see that our bikes are now gone. But when we look inside the backyard, we notice that our bikes are against the wall. We walk in and one by one, we grab our bikes and and then pedal as fast as we can the hell out of there. Fast forward about two weeks later and we find out that the men did end up calling the cops. But when they were talking with them, they noticed the bad smell and they had managed to get a search warrant. So when they broke down the door to the smelly room, they ended up finding a body that was later identified as the previous homeowner. Apparently he had no family and he was an old man, so no one noticed when he died. They determined that he had died from being strangled and that he had apparently been dead for at least three months. As for the rifle, it was found to be unregistered and they took the tiny bags and needles in for testing where they then found out it was indeed narcotics. After we found out about this, we never went into the alleyways ever again. And we always refused to ride past that house. To start off. I'm a 24 year old male and I possibly have Asperger's as I was never officially diagnosed. The story takes place when I was 20. I was a sophomore in college and I had just moved into my first apartment with my best friend. It definitely helped my logistics with school and work. Since last year I lived in a town 30 minutes away. My roommate and I were in the same classes together. Due to low grades, he ended up dropping out and moving to another city. Before he left though, he had introduced me to our neighbors as he was there before me. We got along fairly well with one in particular. Her name was Jessie. The three of us hung out together quite a bit. When I wasn't in school, we would often watch movies together at her place and have dinner. Now, during this time, my financial situation took a turn for the worse. I lost my job at a piano restoration shop due to a fire burning down the shop. Later I got a job as a dishwasher at a hotel restaurant. I only had the job for a month since the job didn't fit well with my school schedule. Later on, I ended up doing doordash on my bike. Which was a gift from Jesse. I did this while occasionally working as a ranch hand for a friend. I was barely scraping by financially and I lost like 20 pounds that year. I really have no idea how I managed to pass any of my classes. Anyway, Jessie was aware of my situation and would frequently offer me food if I wanted to come to her apartment and hang out with her. Now, she was 15 years older than me and she told me she had a boyfriend and and she knew that I carried a gun. She said that she was scared of guns. And on top of that she made sure to tell me that she didn't want her kindness to be seen as anything but kindness. In short, I thought that I, a 20 year old man, had nothing to worry about. But boy was I wrong. It started out with small things. She liked to play with me physically by kicking and tickling me. She also asked me one time to come down and apply some pain relief cream to her back, to which I obliged, thinking nothing of it at first. One night while I was laying on her couch, she came and spooned me. She assured me that she didn't mean it sexually, but only that she found it comfortable. I believed her, even though a part of me just knew that something was off. Then one night she had offered me dinner for a movie night with her as per usual. She also, as before, allowed me to drink alcohol with her when I was in her apartment. There were certain drinks that we both liked that were easy for me to forget were alcoholic since they were so sweet, such as Bahama Mama or Sex on the Beach. So after she had started the movie, I had started eating and drinking a lot. I remember being drunk and tired and in this halfway state of sleeping and being awake. It was to the point where I thought I was dreaming. Jesse lied down with her head in my lap and had interlocked her fingers with mine. Again. I was drunk and half asleep, so I shrugged it off as a weird dream. Then she had asked me to kiss her after I didn't give her what she wanted. She had pulled my head down and kissed me. After some time had passed when I was now fully awake and the alcohol wore off, I confronted Jesse, worried that maybe it wasn't a dream. She denied all of it and just said I'm sorry if I did anything that made you want to kiss me. Ever since that night, I never went back to her apartment again. This may not be particularly scary to some, but I find it horrifying that someone I thought was a friend groomed me and kissed me without my Consent when I was vulnerable. Thankfully, she didn't do anything more that I know of. Let this be a lesson to all you young men out there. Just because you're a strong and healthy young man does not make you invincible. Even to a woman. You too should establish boundaries and don't let your guard down so easily. Stay safe out there. When I was 12, my mom and I moved into an apartment that was really nice. I really enjoyed having a new place to explore and our neighbors were all chill. The man next door, who all call Richard, seemed like a very kind man. He was friendly and polite and after having lived next door to him for years, we began seeing him with a woman. I'll call this woman Jess. She was very quiet and she seemed reserved. This isn't a bad thing. But I also didn't really have an opinion on her because, well, I was still a kid. The story really takes off. When I was 14 to 15 years old, we started to hear Richard and Jess arguing. Jess would scream at Richard outside their front door, calling him names and threatening him. We would see Richard in passing with black eyes and scars on his face. Richard was the type of guy who always wore T shirts and shorts in all weather. He suddenly began covering himself in thick layers. He seemed withdrawn. My mom Angeli asked him if he was okay, but he clammed up and he would never admit Jess was abusing him. We really thought she was, though it was obvious the signs were all there in full view. One evening my mom and I were home and in the living room having a movie night. We then heard shouts and bangs coming from next door. My mom paused the TV and we listened to. It was Richard and Jess and we both had a really bad feeling. My mom had looked out our peephole at the front door and we ended up seeing Jess lying on the floor outside in a ball. She was clearly drunk and was wailing. We weren't really sure whether to call the cops. Jess didn't look injured and Richard had clearly kicked her out. Well, the police ended up showing up 20 minutes later and escorting her out of the building. This became a pattern. Richard and Jess would argue when she was drunk. He'd kick her out and then the police would escort her out. The police would interview all of us neighbors and it was the same story every time. One day Richard had opened up to my mom and he said they Jess had threw him through a glass table. One night he told her that she would sit on top of him and punch him in the face as well as scratching and biting all over his body. She was rough and violent with him every time she drank alcohol, yet claimed to be sorry. The next day, Richard said that he kept forgiving her because whenever she wasn't drunk, she was apparently perfect. My mom obviously urged him to leave, but it fell on deaf ears. I know leaving abusive relationships are extremely difficult, and it takes multiple attempts. So I don't want to come off like I'm judging Richard. Well, one weekend evening, the same scenario played out, only this time, Jess was screaming that Richard was hitting her and was basically yelling as if he was hitting her in real time. Yet when we looked out the peephole, she was lying on the ground with her legs in the air, screaming at nothing. It was truly unhinged. Once again, the cops came and she was taken away. The wildest thing that ever happened was this next part. My uncle was visiting from another country, and it was Sunday. Well, unfortunately for him, he just so happened to be coming up the stairs when Jess was lying in the stairwell naked from the waist down. Yeah, she had her trousers and underwear at her ankles and was leaning against the wall, legs wide open. He told us that he really saw way more than he bargained for. We don't even know why she was out there, because she was silent. She must have come back drunk and was waiting for Richard or something. I don't know. The story ends pretty abruptly because shortly after this, Richard moved out. Apparently, Jess had promised him that she would go to rehab to get help with her drinking, and they were moving to get a fresh start. I still think about Richard sometimes because I really hope he got out of that relationship. I like to think that he saw Jess for what she truly is, but I guess I'll never know what happened after he moved. I just really hope that he's away from her now. This occurred in the winter of 2013, when I was 21 and in the military. I'm a petite female for context, and I have the appearance of looking younger than I actually am. A little backstory at this point in time. I had been in the military for a little over two years, my first duty station being in Detroit. I had lived off base and at first lived in a township north of Detroit where my apartment was broken into. I woke up to my door handle being completely disassembled and my car was broken into, although that was partly my fault, since my car at the time had manual locks and I might have had a back door unlocked the night it was broken into. After those events, I decided to move, since my lease was up and I chose a gated community even further north northwest into a different township. I lived on my own the entire time I was stationed in Detroit, which always kept me on edge because SVU and CSI really messed with my trust of strangers. Anyway, the new place was super nice and affordable and even though it wasn't completely secure as far as a literal gate surrounding the apartments, resident residents had to have a pass to even drive through the community and visitors had to check in with security before being allowed on the premises. And I felt way safer at this new place than my prior residence. The apartments were set up to have four units per housing building and the front doors leading into each of the apartments were on the outside. Due to this, each door had a light next to it so when you checked your people you could see who's there. That's important for later. Our duty rotation was similar to a firefighter's duty rotation where we would stand duty for two days and have sliding weekends duty every other weekend. Meaning it's a pretty predictable schedule. This will come into play later. I'm super introverted and I keep to myself most of the time, but I am friendly when I meet new people, etc. But never one to make best friends with the neighbors. So when I first moved in summer of 2012, I had a neighbor next to me on the second level and one below me on the first level. But over the next two months they moved out and I was alone in my housing building, which I would be lying if I said that didn't give me anxiety a bit. Fast forward to December 2012 and our duty rotation had a complete overhaul making it a little less predictable. We would stay on duty for a day and overnight and the next day work until 14:00 clock and go home for the next two days. Over the holidays my then boyfriend visited me from out of state. We were doing a distance relationship so we barely saw each other. A week later I was taking out my garbage to the dumpster and collecting my mail. Once I unlocked my mailbox by the dumpster and turned around, there was a guy standing around 30ft behind me just staring at me. I I was startled because it was broad daylight and I didn't see him when I was walking to the dumpster mailbox area. He's dressed in black pants and a black hoodie and larger than me so I would have seen him or heard him at least. I just stand there not making a move and he says hi, I'm Jim, how are you? So I introduce myself and he asked if I'm in the military because he's seen me in some type of uniform. So I say yes and that I'm in a branch here. He then makes me super weirded out by mentioning my schedule. I've noticed your work schedule is different. You used to come home every two days. Now it's like every other day. Is that going to be the new normal for you? So my spidey Chris Hansen senses kick in and I just say oh no, that's just the new holiday routine schedule they have me on. We will be having a completely different one in the coming weeks. Bold faced lie. That actually was the new normal, but he didn't need to know that. I then receive a trailing oh from him. Then he asks was that guy who was around you over the last week a family member? To which I replied that he's my boyfriend in former military and that's how we met, taking care to not mention he lived in a completely different state. Jim doesn't say anything and I want to scrim before anything crazy happens so I just say it's nice to meet him. And then he says if you want to come to my apartment sometime, feel free to. I live in the first floor unit right over there. My buddy who's in a different branch is over and we're going to watch Star Wars. The unit he lived on was the unit directly across from mine but with a parking lot in between them. So I turn it down even though I love Star wars and I say my farewell. I felt weird about it but went about my day and over time it left my mind. Another fast forward to the end of January 2013. I was leaving work for the day after my duty day and one of my friends asked if I wanted to join him and another mutual friend at a bar later on for a beer and karaoke. Of course I'm down. This person is my best friend and it's really depressing in the dirty deed during the winter months so it would lift my mood. From here on out we'll call my friend Tom. Tom was working in the galley at this time and didn't have to stand duty, but he planned to meet me in my apartment after he got off work at 5pm, meaning he would be at my place around 6 6:30. My duty section got off at 2pm so I went home and chilled out on my couch for a bit because I stood mid watch the night before. I was insanely tired and fell asleep on the couch probably around 3pm Obviously since it's wintertime in Detroit, the days are super short. So it gets dark around 4.35pm While napping, I wake up to a knocking on my door. At first I thought that it was a dream, so I kept snoozing. Then the knocking turned into banging and half awake, half asleep, I look at my phone and see that it's 5pm no way is it my friend. And besides, even if it was, he usually calls my phone if I didn't answer my door right away. In my utter exhaustion I blow it off and fall back to the snooze. I then wake up to my phone going off and it's my friend Tom. I pick up and he says he's there and to answer the door. I go to my people completely paranoid and I see that the area is completely black. So I called Tom back and asked if he can start talking at my door because I can't see that it's him. He does. I open it and he asked what happened to the light and why was it off? I had no idea why my external door light was not on and we go to fix it. Lo and behold, the bulb was twisted to make it turn off. We twist it back to the on position and I explain what happened earlier. Finding the events of the day pretty shady right away. I didn't think that it might have been Jim, but it would make sense if it was. He gave me weird vibes and after that I didn't feel comfortable in my apartment and couldn't wait to leave. Side note, I watched that episode of Criminal Minds where the serial killers twist the light bulb to the off position of their victims outer lights. Like two weeks after this happened to me, it gave me chills and when I received orders two months later, I took them without ever looking back. When my husband and I first moved out on our own, we had this neighbor that we would sometimes see outside and would talk to. We even went to the local pool hall and played pool with them. One day we were hanging out at his house and were sitting outside. The cutest little black kitten walks up in the yard. My husband and I are animal lovers, so I'm all about this kitten. My husband and the neighbor walk around the side of the house and are gone maybe a minute or two and my husband returns. The look on his face was horror and fury. He looks at me and says, he killed that cat. I get up and walk around there and my husband is holding this kitten. The neighbor had hit him in the head with the rock, but at this point the kitten is breathing. It had knocked him out. Long story. Short. We took the kitten to the vet and he had to have an eye removed. We now have had this kitten, who we named midnight for about 10 years. He's doing good now and one hell of a mouse killer. We found out a few years later that this neighbor had been out of town for work and was rooming with a co worker. He later went on to stab his roommate to death and he returned back to his home here. It is scary to believe someone like this lived right beside us and had been in our home and we had been in his. Obviously after the kitten thing happened, we stopped talking to him after letting him know what we thought about it and what a piece of shit he was. When I was 11, my single mom, 9 year old sister and 6 year old brother moved into a beautiful older craftsman style house. I'd heard it was about 80 years old back then. In 1984, soon after we moved in, we found out it was infested with cockroaches. I've never seen anything like it. You'd turn on the lights at night and they'd scatter from every surface. We had to store all of our food that wasn't canned in the fridge so they wouldn't get into it. We tried bug bombs and professional exterminators numerous times with no effect. Those things can really survive a nuclear war anyway. They weren't the reason we lived in this house less than a year before fleeing for our lives. I just thought it was an interesting side story. To this day, roaches are near the top of my detested bugs list. I remember my mom discussing our next door neighbor's creepy son with my grandma. He was in his 20s or 30s. She had been doing dishes one day and looked up to see him standing directly on the other side of the kitchen window staring in at her. Normally she would have kept something scary like this from us kids, but about that time she told us to tell her if we ever saw him near the house and we weren't allowed to play outside. She also told us about a couple of times when she woke up to see him standing over her bed. And one time he put a cloth with chemicals over her face to knock her out. This is the part of the story I know the least about since she didn't tell us about it until years later. I think she might have thought she was dreaming, especially if he was drugging her. I don't know if anything else happened. I've never asked her about it in case something did and it brought up bad memories. So one afternoon we were all doing some spring cleaning when my brother said he had found a cigarette butt in the upstairs toilet. Weird since nobody in our family smokes. Being a dumb little six year old, he flushed it before telling her mom. I still remember her trying to get the entire story out of him. Being upset that the evidence was gone and thinking he might have been mistaken or maybe he'd picked up a butt somewhere outside out of curiosity. She soon dropped it and we mostly forgot about it. I think it was a few weeks later. My brother was spending the night at our grandparents and my sister and I were the only ones upstairs. Our mom's bedroom was downstairs. My sister heard a sound like a screen door slamming, but she insisted it came from in the house and she was freaked out. I told her it was just from outside and to go to sleep. A minute later we heard a strangled cough coming from just outside our bedroom door. A man's cough, and it sounded like he was trying to keep from making noise. I whispered that we needed to get downstairs immediately. We sneaked out of the room and I had the irrational urge to turn on the light in the bathroom which was just across the hall from our bedroom and check to see if anyone was there. Then just as strong of a feeling to get away from the bathroom and get downstairs now. The scariest moment of my life was when we were creeping down the stairs in the pitch black. It was a spiral enclosed stairway with walls. The perfect place for someone to hide. The stairway light was burned out and the wood steps were creaky, so. So it was terrifying. Making our way down, we got downstairs and woke up. Our mom panicked that there was a guy upstairs in our bathroom. She started to tell us to just go back to bed, but could see we were seriously scared. She went over to the bottom of the stairway to go up and show us that there was nothing to be scared about. Then she had just as strong of a feeling to close the stairway door and lock it immediately. She did call the cops. They found nothing and didn't really take us seriously. The next day she called a PD detective friend of hers from high school to come over and inspect the house. Remembering the cigarette butt in the toilet, she had him look at the upstairs bathroom window. It was a high, narrow rectangular window, not very big, but just wide enough for a person who knows how many times the intruder climbed our roof to get in and was upstairs while we were sleeping. Across the hall, the window swung up on hinges when my mom's friend let the window drop. It sounded like a screen door slamming he said the locks on all the windows were so old they were practically useless and we needed to get out of this house right away. We moved into my grandparents house that same day. When my mom went with her brothers a few days later to pack up some things, a back door had been smashed open but nothing in the house was disturbed. Edit to clarify why it seems like my mom was in denial about the guy going into her room. I'm honestly not really clear on the details since she never told us about what she saw. I think she might have been out of it because of the Chora forum and probably thought she was imagining it or something. The puzzle pieces came into place after the detective checked out our house and confirmed someone was breaking in. As soon as she knew we were in real danger, she got us out immediately. A few years later we heard the neighbor's son was actually arrested for rape and attempted murder. I still wonder what might have happened if I had turned on that bathroom light, if my mom didn't lock the stairway door, or if we didn't leave the house when we did. I also wonder if it's still infested with cockroaches. My mom got back to me. She said that she only remembers seeing him in her room one time and felt like she was struggling to stay awake. Another time she didn't clearly wake up, but felt like she was trying to get something off her mouth. That's all she can remember. So I did get the details a little wrong in my memory. It's no wonder she didn't think anything was wrong at first if she only thought they were dreams. The cigarette butt was a clue and what my sister and I heard was proof. I have to say, as a single mom myself, I can only imagine how freaked out my mom must have been when her friend told her we needed to get out immediately. The story I'm about to tell is probably a lot less scary than many stories on this forum, but it was actually kind of traumatizing to me. This is a few years ago, so I'm sure I've left out some details and events. Please excuse my English. This happened in the summer of 2016 when I was 24 and my husband was 29. We had two years prior moved to a European capital and it was a real struggle to find a place to live. So we were living about an hour outside the city until the owner decided to sell his apartment and we had to find a new place. We were really lucky and we found this great apartment right in the middle of the city center the rent was quite high and despite the fact that we were trying to save up to buy our own place, we decided it was worth it. The first two weeks were awesome. After we had been living in the suburbs for two years, we now had everything just outside of our building. My office was in walking distance and there were plenty of shops, restaurants and nightclubs. One evening after work, we were chilling at home watching a movie, when we became aware of someone screaming and singing songs with extremely violent Nazi content. We were looking out our window, trying to locate the noise, but couldn't exactly figure out where it came from other than from inside the courtyard that was surrounded by several buildings and a lot of apartments. So we finally gave up and just shut the window so we could have some peace. Suddenly, we hear a loud knock on our door. Kind of startled, we both went to open, thinking this was either the police or some neighbors who were also bothered by the absurd singing and screaming. We opened the door and a man in his late 30s was looking back at us. He was probably about my height, 5 foot 8, a bit chubby and bald, and looked relatively normal. I later learned that this guy had been quite a famous child actor and had been in several movies up until his early 20s. Because he didn't look crazy and appeared relatively calm, we figured he was just another neighbor trying to locate the noise. This neighbor lived in the apartment next to us. The building was L shaped and if we wanted to, we could look directly into his apartment from our windows. He then proceeded to accuse us of filming him through our window and we were so confused. We had been in our windows unlocked this evening, trying to locate the commotion, but we had never recorded anything and why would we record his apartment? He now had this crazy look in his eyes and he was saying all kinds of crazy stuff that I have now forgotten. But it was some kind of insane Nazi conspiracy theory stuff and we were of course sent by someone to come and harm him. That's when we realized that this is the guy behind the obscene singing and screaming. As he was getting more and more agitated, he tried to enter our apartment, but my husband shoved him out and closed and locked the door. We heard him walk into his apartment and slam the door. For some days, maybe a week, we didn't hear or see anything of this neighbor, but we did see some strange drug addict type of people coming and going from his apartment. Then the singing and screaming started again. This happened at all times, but especially at night when we were trying to sleep. We almost went crazy, but because it's so hard to find a place to live in the city. And because we really hate moving, we just put up with it. Later, one afternoon, I felt this burning smell, and I went out in the hallway to try and figure out where it came from. And together with another neighbor, we. We quickly found out that it came from the Nazi guy's apartment. We tried knocking, but no one answered. We tried peeking through his mail slot, but saw nothing except for smoke. We obviously called the fire department, who came and knocked down his door to find him sleeping naked with something burning on the stove. They put the small fire out. He apologized, and I don't think anything else ever came of it. Of course, though, he continued to sing and scream Nazi songs and racial stuff. But we were now also introduced to wolf howling. It sounded totally crazy. Even with our window shut, we could still hear him some more. Time passed, and one night before we were going to bed, my husband felt a burning smell. We immediately suspected the smell to come from his apartment yet again. And we were just about to dial the fire department when we heard this loud bang in the courtyard. We looked out and could see the Nazi guy throwing out his belongings and furniture from his windows into the courtyard. And not only this, but his apartment was in flames. We were panicking because the hallway was starting to fill with smoke and we didn't want to die from inhaling the toxic smoke. On our way down from the third floor, we grabbed our stuff and my husband went knocking on all of the doors to get our neighbors out. He didn't get any answer from the crazy guy's apartment, and together with another neighbor, came up with the brilliant idea of breaking in to rescue the Nazi guy. They finally managed to knock on the door, covered their faces with some clothing, and went in. They couldn't find the guy, and they had to give up and run out before there was just too much smoke. Shortly after, the fire rescuers came and put out the fire, but they also couldn't find anybody in the Nazi guy's apartment. He went missing for some time until eventually he showed up trying to get into his apartment. The locks had been changed at this point, and the police were still investigating. He had actually started the fire and then left his apartment, apparently trying to burn down the whole building with all of the neighbors asleep. He was later on charged with arson, but managed to run away and didn't show up in court. We moved away shortly after. So I'm not sure what happened to this guy, if he ever did time in prison. But when I google his name, it looks like he's still living in the same apartment. I also found several stories about him online and police reports, so he's obviously a guy with a lot of issues. Too bad he has to involve other innocent people. Okay, so I'm a longtime lurker here and this is my first post on this sub throw away because obvious reasons, after reading someone else's story it reminded me about this one. I apologize in advance if this isn't written to perfection. I'm a very detailed, oriented person, so there might be a lot of parentheses further explaining stuff. I honestly don't even remember the guy's name, so we'll just call him Creeper Joe. This happened a good seven years ago, toward the end of high school for me. Anyway, this is my old neighbor's son who was in at least his mid-30s and he still lived at home with his completely able and mostly sane 70 something year old mother, his moderately overweight, deathly pale, and a ginger. No offense to gingers obviously, but that coupled with never seeing daylight made him almost translucent. He also always wore stained clothes and he didn't have very good hygiene at all. Anyway, I didn't see him very often. He would stay inside and not leave his house for weeks if not months on end. He had no job, no friends, nothing. We'd occasionally catch each other getting the mail or something, so he'd strike up a conversation, usually about metal because he'd often hear my music coming from my room. I left my windows open a lot while I was at home because I liked the fresh air, so we'd awkwardly talk for a few minutes and then just go back to our respective houses. I figured he was just lonely, so I didn't actively try to avoid him. My dad hangs out in the garage and a lot with the door open, having some beers with friends, working on cars, etc. One day he told me to stay clear of Creeper Joe because he saw him looking at our neighbors kids. A lot of mainly this kid Isaac across the street. He was a few years younger than me, so he was probably about 13 or 14 or so at the time I think. Anyway, I just tried to avoid him a little bit at that point because it kind of weirded me out. A few months go by without incident and my dad comes into the house visibly uneasy. My mom and I ask him what's wrong and he says the neighbor, Creepy Joe just told him that he likes little boys. My mom and I are obviously distressed at that statement as well, so we talk to him and tell him that he needs to call the cops or something, especially after we noticed him checking out our neighbor's kids. So he calls the cops anonymously. A few days later they show up at the house and sees his computer and all other electronics as well. They of course found child porn. I don't remember him being arrested, but I do remember not seeing him for a while again after that, so I'm not entirely sure whatever happened with that. When I did see him again, he actually seemed to avoid me in the sense that if I was outside getting mail, he'd wait until I went inside to get his. I didn't want anything to do with him at that point, so I didn't really care and just went about my business as usual. Several months go by and then there's an ambulance at the house. I thought maybe his mom was having issues, but nope. Turns out Creeper Joe kicked the bucket and apparently his mother only even realized it after three fucking days. And only because she put a meal in the microwave and he never came out and got it. Which means that for him to not even leave his room for several days at a time was a common enough occurrence for her to not be alarmed, not to shower, not to use the restroom, etc. I can't even begin to imagine how gross his room must have been. She also evidently had taken out a life insurance claim on him for a pretty good chunk of money, enough for her to redo her entire kitchen and live comfortably from then on out. Why she had life insurance on him, I have no idea. He didn't do anything. No job, no dangerous hobbies. He wasn't even her caretaker. She still took care of him at this point, so it was all pretty oddly suspicious. Also, supposedly, according to the autopsy, he died of a heart attack. To this day, all of the neighbors still have suspicions about the mother. Nothing would have seemed weird if it wasn't for the random life insurance on a guy whose biggest posed risk was losing the remote. While it may not have been as close a call as the other stories posted here, the whole thing creeps me the hell out. I'm a female and this happened not too long after I had just turned 21. I'm also a lesbian, which is relevant to the story. I went on Tinder with the mindset of whatever happens, happens. Everything was fine for a week until I had matched with another girl, who I'll call Toni. Her profile said she was 21 too, and my age range was set to exclude anyone under 20. She looked her age and there was no issue. The second we matched she messaged me. I didn't think much of this. I figured she'd been on her phone and just received the notification of us matching right away. Honestly, sometimes I felt like pulling my teeth trying to get other girls to talk on Tinder. I hope that doesn't sound rude saying that, but most of the girls I matched with just seemed really shy to the point of awkwardness and it made me feel awkward too. But that's dating apps, I guess. Anyway, Toni messaged me first, which I appreciated, and the conversation really flowed. She replied within seconds to everything I said, which did feel slightly overwhelming, but I told myself that I was being too judgmental. We matched in the afternoon. It was like 4pm on a Saturday and we did message back and forth for a bit, but I had plans that night, so obviously I told her this. And at a certain point I wasn't on my phone much because I was busy. Well, at the end of the night I saw that I had messages from her, but I thought I'd check them the next day. When I did look, she had sent me 20 messages, some long and some short. She was telling me random stuff she was doing as well as asking me what I was doing. She messaged me good night three times and she told me that she hoped I was sleeping well during the night as well as saying Good morning at 9am I felt really suffocated and uncomfortable, but I felt really bad for her and I didn't want to be rude. I thought maybe she was just nervous. Maybe she was coming off as super clingy because she'd never talked to another girl with the possibility of romance occurring. It's always a bad idea to ignore your gut instincts, but at the time I really hated seeming rude. I've since learned that it doesn't matter what anyone thinks of you. If someone's being weird, that's it. Walk away. Don't give them the benefit of the doubt when you have that gut feeling that something's wrong. I've had girlfriends in the past, but I know some people don't actually experience that until later, so I thought maybe she was one of those people. I replied nicely and I told her about my night and asked how she was doing again. She replied instantly. It was sorta unnerving. It was like she was glued to her phone 24 7. I felt really pressured to reply fast as well because if I didn't she'd send more messages. We chatted for a bit and the topic of my birthday came up. I told her I was excited to finally be 21. When she then told me that she was 19, I was confused by this because her profile said that she was 21, but she told me it was a mistake and she couldn't change it. This had put me off about her even more, especially with what she said next. She told me that it said in her bio that she was really 19 and had put her age in wrong, but that was a lie. I knew that I'd read her bio very carefully before swiping on her, and I know for a fact she did not mention any age mistake. I called her out on it and she said I was mistaken and to see for myself. What do you know? Her bio suddenly said right in the first line. Actually 19, not 21. She obviously edited it right then to try and manipulate me into believing her, but I knew her bio never said that before. I was really annoyed at her for lying. I'm not saying there's anything wrong with an age gap of 19 and 21, but for me, I assumed that I wouldn't have much in common with someone at 19. It isn't a huge gap, but just how I felt. Tony lying to me about her age and going to such a length to pretend that she didn't was also a gigantic red flag to me. Surely if you really did somehow input the wrong age, you would delete your account and remake it, wouldn't you? I no longer replied to Tony and I finally just unmatched with her. You'd think that would be the end of it. But it wasn't. When I was scrolling through Tinder that night, I came across a profile from Tony. Her age still said that she was 21, but it was clearly a new account that she'd made on a different device. Her profile photos were all the same and her bio had all caps and said please just talk to me. I'm sorry, but I really enjoyed talking to you. It addressed me by my name, so I knew it had to be addressed to me. I was so creeped out that I immediately put down my phone and just tried to compose myself. I thought about deleting my own account altogether, but I wasn't sure what to do. I swiped left so we wouldn't match. Then I thought about reporting her profile. Too late now though, since I'd already swiped her away. I hadn't met anyone that I thought could develop into anything, so deleting my account wouldn't have even been a huge deal. Part of me wanted to avoid going on the app, but I kept checking it out of Paranoia that I'd see another Tony account. A couple of days passed and an account from her showed up again. It basically said the same thing with my name in her bio, as if she was talking directly to me. Now I lived in an average town at the time, so it wasn't like a massive city with millions of people crammed in the same vicinity. I was so freaked out and I knew that I had to delete my account. I never heard from Tony since then. Thank God. I don't know what her deal was, but it creeps me out to think that she somehow made other accounts and got the algorithm to see me. I still have so many questions. How many accounts did she make? Are they still up there right now? Is she still searching for me to this day? What did she expect to happen when she lied about her age? And why the hell was she so clingy? It's the first and hopefully only time I've ever had to deal with someone behaving this way. I'll never use Tinder again. I'd much rather meet people in real life. This was an experience that I hadn't thought about until recently when I was having a conversation with a friend. I'm in my late 30s now, so I had to be between 1719 years old when this happened. I had briefly dated this guy I met while I was working in the mall. He'd come into the store and flirt with me almost every day that I worked. I was extremely shy and naive and I wasn't really used to guys approaching me. Thinking back on it now, I'm quite sure he noticed my lower self esteem and awkwardness. This makes you easy prey for a person with ill intentions. He was a little older than me, being in his mid to late 20s at the time. We had our first date while I was on my break at the food court. Everything went fine until he invited me to his place to hang out after work. Now this should have been the first red flag before red flags were even a thing. I initially blew it off, but after a few weeks of talking to him on the phone and him still coming to my job for a food court break dates, I decided to meet up with him one day after work. He actually didn't live far from me at all. A good 10 minutes away if that. So I'm on the way to his house. I remember feeling uneasy, but also thinking that I was just nervous. Like I said, I hadn't had a lot of dating experience and I was extremely self conscious at the time. I was damn near rehearsing in my head cool things to talk about and how to hide my quirkiness. I arrived at his house. I go inside and we sit in the living room and start watching tv. He then sparks up a blunt. Now, I smoked, but not heavily. I smoked more now than I ever would have thought of back then. You know, life despairs as a millennial. But anyway, he passes the blunt to me. I hit him maybe two or three times and immediately I knew that something was off. I remember feeling way too high, having taken just a couple of puffs. I also noticed that he wasn't smoking when I passed it back to him. He was pretending to hit it, then passing it back to me, saying that I needed to light it again. I also had trouble keeping the blunt lit. I think I had put it down out of frustration with this and decided to just focus on chilling with him. Also, my head was spinning and I started to feel increasingly incapacitated. I remember him suggesting that I finish my smoking, then lay down and relax a bit. At this point, I was just ready to leave and get the hell out of there. I remember it being so difficult to stand up. He notices this and he gets up like he's trying to help me get up, but he kept pushing me further on the couch. At this point, real fear sets in as I now realize he has ulterior motives and it's escalating quickly. Now, I'm not small by a long shot, but I was struggling like hell as he was trying to take off my clothes. He had me by my throat and was forcibly kissing my neck. I managed to roll down onto the floor and he fell down with me. We tussled a bit, but I eventually got up and stumbled to the door and made it outside. He was running behind me. As fate, favor, or whatever you want to call it, has it. The police just so happened to be at the stop sign down the street. When he saw the police, he ran back in the house. I remember trying to flag them down, but I don't think they saw me as they just kept going. This area wasn't the best, so the police patrolled quite a lot. It's kind of funny because we all used to joke about how they were not even stopping crime, even though they seemed to be on every block all the time. But after this day, I most certainly believe their mere presence stopped a more serious crime. I fumbled my keys and got in my car. I drove down the street and pulled over after turning at the stop sign. I was so out of it, everything was double blurry. And I was hallucinating. Thankfully I made it home after driving two miles an hour the entire way. I sat in my car for what felt like hours debating if I should call an ambulance and just tell the truth about smoking. Clearly it was more than weed in the blunt. I felt horrible. My heart was racing and my head was pounding. I called my friend and she told me to just sleep it off. She said so casually that it was probably some angel dust or some form of crack or cocaine. Yeah, we're no longer friends for a number of reasons, but that's another story. Stories if I'm being real. But I did finally make it to my house and I woke up the next day with a hangover. Not like an alcohol hangover, but more of an exhausting feeling if that makes sense. I pretty much nursed myself the next day while reflecting on my choices. There were so many lessons with this situation. I essentially went to a stranger's house as a teenager and I was drugged and almost sexually assaulted. This really made me fearful to date or even talk to anyone new for a long time. I never smoked again unless I saw it being ruled by a trusted person, which was usually within my friend group. I did see this guy a couple of times after this. He would come by my job and just smirk at me. It was truly terrifying and it gave me a literal panic attack. I found another job shortly after this and I really kind of regret not calling the police. I don't know if it would have done any good, but who knows how many girls have fallen victim to this. Sorry asshole. I still to this day have never found out what the blunt was laced with. But I have a tip for marijuana smokers. If you ever have trouble lighting your joint or blood, that's a key indicator that there's more than just weed in it. Also, after hearing this, it should go without saying to only smoke with people that you completely trust. If you aren't rolling it, take a look at the weed before it's rolled. If that feels awkward, just say you want to look at the buds for strain study or something. It may sound nerdy but but who doesn't love the educated smoker in the group? Seriously guys, be careful. I've learned that not everyone has good intentions no matter how persistent they are with showing interest in you. It also helps when you're not making stupid decisions like I did. Regardless, it doesn't give this guy and guys like this a pass. Be safe everyone. I'm a 34 year old female but the story happened when I was maybe about 19 or 20 on Valentine's Day. Growing up, I never dated anyone until I was 17. Needless to say, I never had a Valentine. So on the day this happened, I had posted on my Facebook wall that I would again be single with no date. Yeah, I was that girl. So that people would feel bad for me and try to cheer me up and maybe even boost my ego. I had gotten one reply from a recent friend request. A guy who now I can't even remember his name, but I do remember he was a good looking man. He messaged me saying that he would be alone too and that maybe we should keep each other company on such a special day. I lol'd and I asked what did he have in mind? To which he replied with dinner and a movie. I agreed and we made plans on time where he could pick me up that day. I worked, but I would get out at an early enough time to go out on this date. I got home, got ready, and I told my mom I would be spending the night at my best friend's house. My mom believed it and just said okay mija, just be careful. This guy was supposed to pick me up at 7:38 at my building complex. I got the message that he was outside and I grabbed my things to leave. When I get in his car, we greeted each other and I remember thinking, oh my God, he's so cute. He had asked me about my day and if I was ready to go, which I replied with, yeah, let's go. He asked me if I wanted to go to a movie theater in my area. I lived in D.C. and I said we could go anywhere that wasn't too far. Virginia or Maryland was less than 20 minutes away. Also, parking where I lived was horrible and people would usually just get around in the train or buses. So he says we can go to Virginia and watch a movie there and then we can go eat. I agreed and off we went. I was pretty familiar with the area that we had driven through, so I knew where the movie theater was and we were going the opposite way. I then said, um, isn't the movie theater the other way? He replied back with yeah, but I don't like that one. There's a better one this way. Is that cool? Something in me felt a little off, but I just agreed and said, yeah, sure, whatever you say. Everything seemed normal until we then turned right into a dark road. There were houses, but it looked like a newly constructed neighborhood. And the houses that were built completely were dark. Which is weird because even if everyone's in bed, there's always some type of sign that people live in there. I started to panic a bit and asked him, um, what's this? Why are we going through this street? And he smirked and looked at me then said, don't worry. I just want a little bit of alone time with you to get to know you. My heart started to race. I felt like this is the moment where I get sexually assaulted and maybe even killed. He parked and got closer to me and attempted to kiss me, but I just pulled away and told him that I didn't want to do that. He then decided to grope me on my chest, then said, relax, baby, it's okay. I pushed him off of me and I told him, we're not going to have sex. He began to freak out then, what the fuck? No girl's ever said no to me. You should feel lucky to be with a guy like me. He kept repeating that over and over. My eyes widened and I was in complete shock. But I mustered up the courage to say, well, I guess there's a first time for everything. Then he looked at me with disbelief that I was the one saying no. A 5 foot 3, over 200 pounds girl was saying no to a tall, muscular build, handsome guy like him. I could tell that his ego was really hurt and I was really scared of what was going to happen next. A million thoughts ran through my head. Should I get off now? Where will I go? I don't know where I am. I really thank God was on my side that night because this man turned his car on, then sped off, then took a different route and I told him, take me home now. If I knew you just wanted to hook up, I never would have came out with you. You really should have told me about your intentions then let me decide if I wanted the same thing. He just ignored me and he drove to the nearest metro station and waited for me to get out. I was in shock to say the least, but I gladly got out of the car and then slammed his door. He sped off and I was stuck at a station that had been closed for construction. I called my best friend and she said she'd get me a taxi and pay for it. I thank God every day for giving me a best friend like her and for not letting anything bad happen to me that night. After that experience, you'd think I'd learned to stop dating people online, but that continued. What I didn't do again was meet someone alone or at night. After that, I don't know what happened to that guy. I just Remember blocking him and never looking back. It was truly one of the scariest things to happen to me. My name is Felicia and I'm a woman who's always developed better relationships with people online than in real life. But I've had a share of bad experiences and this is one of them. I remember when I was around 22 years old, I had went out on a date with a guy that I met on MeetMe that I'm going to just refer to as he and trust me, it was a very messed up situation. He first walked me around the city, just really enjoying the evening sky with being a gypsy and always on foot. It didn't bother me whatsoever. But he was also having this awkward, weird conversation that he chose for us to have as he ignored my topics and such. But then he was insisting that we go back to his house for a movie and pizza, which didn't seem weird or so I thought. So I agreed. And I didn't realize that he had literally been leading me there for the last 10 minutes without me knowing until we show him to his house only a few minutes later. We went there and we were watching the movie when he kept trying to cuddle and kiss me but I just kept avoiding it all to the point that I sat on the floor away from the couch. What made him angry and he started talking crap to me for doing it. He never ordered or cooked dinner and when I started feeling severe stomach pain I went to this bathroom and I had a medical issue. I was bleeding pretty badly, so when I came out and announced I had to go home he got even angrier than before. I tried getting my shoes on and he then grabbed them as well as my purse before pushing me into his room then onto his bed and told me to go to bed. He put my stuff on the side of the bed beside him and he laid down with his back to me. So I pretty much laid there for what felt like an eternity before he was hard body snoring so I knew he was asleep. That was when I carefully and slowly rolled off the bed onto the floor and then crawled over to get my things and then crawled out of the room. I quietly put on my shoes and unlocked the door. I then slipped out and closed it before running down the stairs and then rushing out into the night air. But I didn't stop running until I got all the way home. I got home just in time to deal with the medical issue and change my clothes. I was in a shocked state for over an hour or so before my friend and roommate woke up and found me laying in the tub crying. Yeah, it was a really awful experience that I don't wish on anyone. Please, everyone, please be safe. My name is g. I'm a 23 year old woman and I'm in the happiest relationship of my life. But it wasn't always this way. Around what I think was 2017, I was socially awkward and I spent most of my time online. I had gotten out of an awful relationship full of trauma and I didn't want to meet anyone. But this isn't the ex I'm here to talk about. At the time there was an app called Geeking. It was this weird app for role playing and 15, 16 year old me loved it. However, it is now off the app store because of some alleged pedophilic actions by either the creators or the users. I can't remember which, but that isn't the point. I'd met some people on there, one of which I'm still close friends with to this day, but I also met John. John and I headed off pretty quickly. I dropped my roleplay Persona fairly early because he was pretty easy to talk to. He was very pervy though, and he liked to ERP a lot over the text function. Earp meaning erotic role play. I found out that he was one year older than I was at the time and that he lived somewhere in Indiana. I lived in Virginia at the time. It was unlikely that we'd ever meet in person. John had no plans for college, but he had plans to become a voice actor. He spent all of his time playing video games, masturbating, and smoking pot. But young me was naive and for some reason, I suppose it was loneliness and extreme anxiety interacting with people in real life. We started dating shortly after I graduated high school online. I had never met him in person, but we had talked a lot about it. Neither of us told our parents we were dating. He said it wasn't a good idea since my folks are very judgy, which they still are to this day. We dated in secret for a long time and finally college had started for me. It felt like I had everything in line perfectly. I felt like my life was coming together. I felt safe enough to tell John about my sexual trauma from my past relationship, which was a big mistake. He had asked me all sorts of uncomfortable questions about it, almost like he was fetishizing it. I remember him actually asking me if it felt good when my ex raped me. He asked me if I'd ever done butt stuff with my ex. I felt very uncomfortable, but I thought he was just looking out for me, so I said I hadn't. Well, a couple of nights later, he confessed to getting off to the thought of doing what my ex did to me. Even saying that he wanted to anally rape me until I bled. He talked in great detail about taking my anal virginity from me because he couldn't take my actual virginity. He could tell that he had upset me. Then it got mad at me when I said it had. He told me to get over it. Then he hung up on me. I apologized to him the next morning after crying myself to sleep that night, really wondering what I'd done wrong. Pretty soon college had started. I lived on campus and I wanted to do campus activities like any freshman would. I was determined to rebrand myself and start fresh. John didn't like this. He would regularly complain or cause fights before I was about to go do something. And when I'd go off to do something on my own, whenever I'd get back, he'd call me a bitch and then accuse me of cheating on him since I was hanging out with some guy friends from a class I was taking. Side note, sort of. I should have noticed this was a red flag early on, but I didn't. I thought I was happy and in love. I'm bisexual, meaning I'm attracted to both men and women. Before John and I were dating, he had multiple Earp partners. I didn't mind this, but I had asked him to stop when we started dating. He said that wasn't fair because I was limiting him. I'm bisexual, so he thought it would be okay if I have sex with women but not men. So therefore he can irp with other girls and I didn't get to be hurt. I don't know why I took that. I didn't want to do anything with anyone else but him. I quickly stopped going to places in college. I didn't go to club activities and pretty soon I was way too depressed to even go to class. And I actually filled my first first semester. My parents were pissed. Understandably. I said that I'd do better the next semester after winter break. That Christmas break would change my entire life. We were visiting family in Kentucky, which was about a three hour drive from John. We decided that stupidly we would meet up and I'd stay with him for a couple of weeks until I go back to school. My parents were against it, but I was determined to make it work. In January of 2020, after dating in secret for five months, we finally met up. And it was weird. My Parents got a room and John's mom was going to take him and I to dinner since, you know, he didn't have a driver's license. We went to a Red Lobster. He, his mom and I sat at the table and he casually said that, oh yeah, G and I are dating. And she kinda just went, oh, I kinda figured since you talk about her all the time. And then we ate dinner in peace. His mom had to run errands or something and it brought us along, but we could stay in the car. In the back of the car, John was touching my thigh. I was really uncomfortable because his mom could have caught us, but he kept going. Eventually his mom went into the store and before I knew it, he was then kissing me and touching my chest. I wasn't expecting it and it felt weird. He was squeezing way too tight and it hurt. He pulled back and looked around before unzipping his pants. I told him that I didn't think that was a good idea, but he insisted that I suck it a little bit when I said that I still didn't know. He then said that he could always just make me, so it's much better if I just agree. So I did as I was told. His mom came back after he decided he was done with me and we went back to the hotel. She had told my parents that John and I were dating and that she was more than happy to have me stay for a while. Everything went to shit. My mom started screaming and crying and a lot of things were said that I regret to this day. John and his mom left, planning to pick me up so I could stay with them for the month. That night my parents screamed at me and when I tried to sleep, my mom sat over me and just glared at me while I slept. Which by the way, I didn't get any real sleep that night. I just laid there. John and his mom picked me up at 8am the very next day and my parents left for Virginia. She dropped us off at his former stepdad's house and went back to her place. John and I were alone and I wanted to go to sleep. I got in his bed and I closed my eyes so I could sleep. He held me close and he asked what was wrong. I said that I just didn't feel good and that I wanted to sleep. He held me tighter then then saying, I know something else that will make you feel good. I knew exactly what he was implying and I asked him if we could do that later on that I had a long night and I just wanted to sleep I was so tired. That's when he then sat up and got out of bed. I had unpacked some of my stuff like a laptop and some clothing. He started packing it away angrily telling me that I may as well just go back home. I was crying. He knew that I didn't want to go home and that there was no way for me to do that. I didn't want to go home so I just let him have his way with me. It felt like an out of body experience. It was like I was just watching someone else. After he was done, he had held me close and kissed me, telling me that he loved me and I was wonderful. He then went to sleep and I just cried. Throughout the whole month we would just spend time either at his ex stepdad's or his mom's. He regularly drugged and raped me. That month of my life is a blur. I don't really remember any of it. I finally went home on a bus ride but I was way too embarrassed to tell my parents they were right and that being with John was a bad idea. I lied to them and I told them he was a perfect gentleman the entire time after that. My life for the next two years went by fast. And then the pandemic happened. I did community college and I kept failing courses. John demanded all of my time and he would threaten me if I didn't talk to him 24 7. He continued to tell me that I was worthless and how I didn't deserve him. This story does have a happy ending though. About one year into my community college, I had made friends with this really nice guy. He developed a crush on me and we became close friends. He helped me realize very quickly that I didn't deserve how John was treating me. He treated me with more kindness than anyone had ever had in my life. I eventually found the courage to finally leave John and I largely credit my friend to helping me out. It scares me to think that I'd still be with John if it weren't for him. He and I have now been dating for almost three years and I've never been happier. John, if for whatever reason you're hearing this, I hope that I never run across you again and that you can either get help or heal the toxic, abusive person that you are. Good luck with that. Let me preface this by saying that this situation didn't turn out to be as scary as it easily could could have been. My co workers and I were incredibly lucky with how this was resolved. But that didn't stop it from being incredibly nerve wracking. At the moment, I'm writing this story only a few hours later. But enough said. Let's get into the actual story. I've been working at a big name coffee shop for the past few months. No, not a Starbucks. Somewhere else, but it's a job that I honestly love. It's fun, easy, and it's in a great location. The town I live in is very safe compared to other areas of the country, populated mostly by young families, retirees, and college students. I'll say that the area of town that the college is located in is notorious, to say the least, for wild parties and its fair share of crime. Still, outside of that area, the town is truly safe. Which is why I doubt any of us were prepared for the slightest for what happened earlier today. There were three of us girls working at the time, struggling to fight our way through the Labor Day rush that refused to let up due to the deal we had going on. During this rush, I noticed a young man standing by the bathroom door. He and who I assumed was his girlfriend had been in the shop when I clocked in about an hour earlier, and according to my coworkers, they hadn't come in much earlier than me. I could tell that the bathroom was locked by a little red slot on the door, so I assumed that he was simply waiting for it to open. Yet several minutes later he was still standing outside the bathroom. Only now he was right at the door. He was speaking in a low voice, seemingly to whoever was inside, which made me realize that it was probably his girlfriend who was inside. I turned out to be right when, a minute or two later, she exited the bathroom and headed back to their table, followed by her boyfriend. I noticed that she didn't seem well, like she had been feeling sick, but due to the busy nature of the shop, I didn't pay much mind to it. Towards the end of the rush, a customer approached my co worker and I, expressing that she had a concern. Pretty much immediately I knew that her concern was about the aforementioned young couple, and once again, I was right. She told us that based on what she observed, as well as due to personal experiences, she had reason to believe that the young woman who'd been in the bathroom had been shooting up in there. Of course, this alarmed my co worker and I as we scrambled to figure out what steps we should take. I wasted no time in putting a pair of gloves on and heading into the bathroom to check it out. The second I stepped inside, I was then hit with an odd, incredibly pungent smell. It smelled like a hospital but not in the clean way that a hospital usually would smell like. I did my best to ignore the smell as I searched the bathroom for any evidence, a search that resulted in absolutely nothing. Still, I took out the trash and I updated my coworkers on my lack of findings. One of my coworkers, however, who had been around heroin abuse like the customer, took interest in the smell. Once she asked me if it had smelled like a bitter hospital sort of smell. My eyes then widened. That was exactly it, I told her. Still, the smell was the only evidence that we had, so we remained unsure of what to do. As we discussed our next moves, we noticed that the boyfriend was staring at us. Over the next half hour or so, he kept watching us as if he knew that we were suspicious of them. The girl seemed quite out of it the whole time, either resting her head on the table or simply keeping it down. Eventually, I couldn't take the tension and anxiety of the situation anymore, and I rummaged through the trash bag I had taken out earlier with my gloves in hopes of finding any evidence. Once again, I didn't find anything, but I wasn't going to just sit around and wait any longer. I had no concrete proof that this girl's boyfriend was dangerous, but the way that he was watching my co workers and I, paired with his occasional phone calls that he stepped outside to make, was more than enough to make me not want to take any chances. There was no telling how this could escalate and I wanted to take action before things got dangerous. I stayed in the back after searching the trash, dialing the non emergency number for the sheriff's station. The woman who answered the phone asked me what I'm assuming are the usual questions, such as my name, what was happening, and what the tomb looked like. I had a rough description readily available. By wanting to make sure I was giving an accurate one, I stepped out onto the floor to get another look. As I walked out, the man met my gaze, causing me to give him the usual customer service smile before pretending to look through the pastries. The moment he looked away and I had refreshed the image of them in my mind, I then hurried to return to the back. The woman told me the deputies were on their way, to which I requested that they come around to the back, a request that the woman actually agreed to. I was on my break at this point, so I spent it sitting right outside the back door, keeping an eye out for the cops. I had been waiting there for maybe about five minutes when one of my co workers came to get me. As I left the back, I realized with a small sinking feeling that the cops had come through the front in full view of the couple. I recounted the story that I told to the woman on the phone to them, but as I was speaking, I noticed that the man was hurriedly getting their things together to leave and that the woman was nowhere to be seen. I alerted the cops to this and the two of them followed the man out the door. As I continued speaking to the remaining cop, only a minute or so passed before I saw quick movements outside which resulted in the man being handcuffed. The cop who I'd been speaking to hurried outside to join the other two, and I then rushed to the back to close the back door after my co workers encouraged me to do so. As I reached the back door, which was still propped wide open, I came face to face with the girl who was rounding the corner a few feet away. Now, unlike her boyfriend, she seemed completely harmless, but I wasn't about to take any chances. I smiled nervously, my heart jumping in my chest, and I shut the door quickly, noting that she was heading towards the left side of the back lot. I rushed back to the front, getting the cops attention, then informing them of the girl's whereabouts. Two of them went after her, while one remained with the man out front. After several minutes of receiving no updates, my co worker decided to venture outside to see what was going on. She didn't spend too much time outside, quickly coming back in to inform us that the man was in the back of the cop car, but that the girl was still nowhere to be seen. We haven't received any updates at this point, so I honestly have no idea what happened to her, but I truly hope that she's okay and that she's getting the help she needs. As I told my co workers and the cops, if it had only been the girl, I don't think I would have called the cops, at least not as soon as I did. I have nothing but compassion and sympathy for her, but her boyfriend was another story. One of the cops returned to write down my statement and get a photo of my id, after which he thanked us and left gratitude, which we earnestly returned. I'm no fan of cops for obvious reasons, but these three seemed nice and they helped us out of a sticky situation, so I was immensely grateful. It was only after everything that was over that I realized just how much I was shaking due to the adrenaline and nerves that had been coursing through my veins. I had to take a moment or two to sit down and Collect myself. And it didn't take me long to get my shit together and get back on the floor. Like I said, this situation could have turned out to be a whole lot scarier than it did. And for that, I'm so very relieved. The story happened to one of my old co workers, who I'll call Kate. Everything's based on what she told me. For some context, we worked as janitors at a church which had multiple buildings on two sides of the street. It was on one of our other co workers. Bailey was the kind of woman that would start all kinds of problems. She would always argue with everyone around us, would show up late to work, if not show up at all. And some of her personal problems were constantly creeping into the workspace. One of these problems being her boyfriend. I had never met the guy, and the most I've seen of him was a silhouette in Bailey's car, which the two of them shared. So I'll just refer to him as Daniel. Now onto the story. Kate and Bailey were working on a weekend shift together, just the two of them, cleaning up after a kid's sports game and making sure things were set up for church service on Sunday. Daniel drops by Saturday evening, and Kay managed to listen in on his conversation with Bailey. Kay caught Daniel asking questions about her things like, who is she, Is she married, is she single? Very personal questions. Needless to say, Kay was pretty creeped out by this, as was I when she told me about it. A few weeks later, Kate and Bailey are on another weekend shift together. And once again, Daniel makes another appearance. This time, however, it's on Sunday. After service, Kate goes across the street to lock up one of the buildings. Well, Daniel decided to drive across the street and follow her there. He parked the car somewhere the security cameras couldn't see. And while Kate's locking up the front doors, Daniel just stands out in front where she can see him. Surprisingly, he didn't try and come in. He just stood there in place, staring at her through the glass doors. After about 20 seconds, Daniel walked back to his car and drives off. Whether or not he even visited Bailey, his girlfriend, at the church, was unclear. As soon as Daniel laid eyes on Kate, it was like Bailey didn't even matter to him anymore. Of course, Kate told our boss about what happened. There was also a security camera that caught Daniel following Kate. Our boss gave him a warning to stay off the property or the cops would get involved. Thankfully, the threat worked, and Daniel was never seen at the church again. It wasn't too long afterwards that Kate had left the church for unrelated reasons and eventually our boss would have no choice but to fire Bailey after she failed to show up for work several days in a row. I don't know what ever became of her or Daniel and I almost don't want to know. The story requires some background that may seem out of context. When I was little, my friends and I had passed the bubbling pool and would go almost every day in the summer. We would also hang out with all the other kids there. One of them was named Robert. I'm using his name for this story because I want to put my story out there and also share how much women go through every day. Anyways, when I met Robert, he initially approached me asking for my number because he thought I was cute. Appearance wise, I thought he was kind of cute too, so I agreed. I immediately regretted that decision as literally the second I left the pool, Robert began texting me about everything about my day, if I was going to the pool tomorrow where I went to school and was just being very forward and a bit aggressive. So much so that the next time I went to the pool I asked my friends to stay with me and watch for him as I was very scared to be alone with this man. The texting aggressively continued until I eventually told him to stop and as he didn't and kept on with the behavior, I eventually blocked his number and I just decided it'd be easier to just ignore him at the pool. After a few weeks he had finally left me alone and I didn't see him again for years. Now to recently when I was looking for my first job, I needed something local because it was winter and I didn't have the money to buy a car yet. I found an indeed listing for a hostess job at a very popular restaurant in my city with a cool vibe and it really suited my energy for what I was looking for. Once I began working there and meeting all of the people, I noticed that most of them were kind from my first impression. I even made a wonderful friend with one of my co workers. On my second night there, I walked back to the kitchen desk ask for my boss's number to talk about my payment and I then saw someone there who genuinely made me gasp and jump behind a wall. I did a double take and genuinely wondered if I actually saw this person working there and then thought to myself literally what are the freaking odds? But it was Robert because of course it was. It just had to be. I remember that in that very moment of everything he put me through, but I almost laughed it off and Just hoped he was just being immature at the time. I had asked for my boss's number a bit too loud as my co worker kept getting distracted and Robert came over to me then saying I can give you her number, just give me yours. I felt so uncomfortable and pressured, but no one would have understood why I said no to him, so I reluctantly agreed. After I went home, I had texted his number and I asked for my boss's information. He sent it to me and then directly after started to talk small talk about the job. I'm a huge people pleaser so I answered shortly and sparsely. But I was also morbidly curious if he had changed at all since the time at the pool. He then tried to FaceTime me and after I denied him multiple times he texted me again claiming that he just wanted to talk about work and about life since we last met. After I got on the phone with him, he had actually talked for about five straight hours with me not even fully responding to him throughout most of it, but there was one conversation I remember fully well and it still gives me goosebumps. He out of nowhere began ranting then saying things like black girls are so crazy and I as a black girl genuinely was so confused why he brought this up. He then went on to talk incredibly violently about his ex girlfriend in a very violating way, describing her body parts to me and telling me this is why black girls are crazy. I felt so done with the situation as it went from just weird to dangerous in just a few minutes. I hung up the phone without even saying bye as again I'm a people pleaser and I felt it would be easier to just say that my phone died. The next day I was stuck alone at work with him cleaning and he asked me if I needed a ride. After I said no, he had sped off down the street. He also later that day figured out where I lived because his aunt is literally one of my neighbors and he texted me multiple times to come listen to his car with him because he had installed customizations to it and when I said no he got very upset. After this behavior of him being very offensive and then getting incredibly mad at me for being upset, I realized I was falling into the very same situation that I was in years ago. I decided to block him again and I put in my two weeks for my job and on that same day he then texted me that he was fired. It felt really good to leave knowing that no other women would have to be susceptible to that irrational behavior and my coworker and friend and I actually had a laugh about the whole situation as she let me know as soon as he approached me the first night to ask for my phone number that she knew he had a certain intention and a really creepy vibe. Although Robert was bad enough in full, the job itself was majorly flawed and there probably was a few issues that could have been legal issues if brought up. Not only that, but before I was hired, another black girl had quit because she was being harassed by the boss's husband who was the chef there. I also received weird comments about my hair making me unrecognizable when I was there and my boss just laughed at them. I'm glad. Now I know what to avoid from future careers and I'm so happy I left when I did so things didn't get any worse for me. Sadly, food service attracts these kinds of men and they often thrive and often get away with way too much. I hope this man genuinely never has this opportunity to meet me again. I'm much smarter now and I could never imagine putting up with this shit today. New Year New Me. Cute, but how about New Year New Money? With Experian you can actually take control of your finances. Check your FICO score, find ways to save and get matched with credit card offers giving you time to power through the those New Year's goals you know you're going to crush. Start the year off right. Download the Experian app based on FICO scoring model offers an approval not guaranteed. Eligibility requirements and terms apply subject to credit check which may impact your credit scores. Offers not available in all states. See experian.com for details. Experian. I'm a barista at a coffee shop in our city's major shopping mall. I have two stories that I want to share. While they may not be as extreme as most of the stories shared on this channel, they're more of trust your gut kind of situations. For context, I'm a 29 year old female. The first incident occurred a few years ago. We had this customer that would always sit in the corner and almost always appeared like he held his phone, positioned in a certain way as if he was recording us. This would only happen whenever the female employees were on shift, whenever the male employees were working. He wouldn't do it. The cafe is small so he wasn't being discreet at all. While he was super friendly, we eventually all felt really uneasy around him and suspected he was recording us. One co worker eventually had enough and called mall security. When the guard walked into the cafe and started making their way towards the guy, his Behavior switched in a split second. He frantically packed up his things, threw on his backpack, and then bolted out of the cafe. The guard didn't even have time to speak with him. He just took off and he hasn't been back since. If that doesn't scream guilt, I don't really know what does. Once again, I'm the same person from the last story. This one happened last week. I was working alone. We're often single staffed, especially during openings and closes. During this time, there was a customer who would come in regularly. He was a homeless man. He was very clearly struggling with drugs, alcohol, mental illness, or a combination. He would make certain employees uneasy, including myself. Some employees would say that he's harmless or it's fine. While I sympathized with him, I also wanted to be cautious for my own safety. This particular morning, I was getting ready to open the cafe. The doors were locked but the lights were on so he knew I was there. He was just lingering outside the cafe, pacing back and forth, peeking his head in constantly. Being that I was alone, I the thought of opening the doors and having him barge in made me extremely nervous. I once again decided to give mall security a call. The female security guard answered my call and she said she was watching him. She offered to go up and talk to him as I expressed our interactions with him in the past and that I was nervous anyway. 15, 20 minutes pass and the guard comes into the cafe. She then informs me that when she approached the man, he ended up spitting in her face and then kicking her in the shin. He was banned from the mall and if he was to ever come back to inform security immediately. Moral of the Trust your gut. If I hadn't called security that morning, could that have been me? One of my co workers? Maybe even an innocent bystander or customer? I'm so thankful for those security guards and these situations just ignite my frustrations with employees having to work alone. It should never be like that. Even in broad daylight in a tiny coffee shop, scary stuff can happen. This happened a few years ago when I worked as a closing assistant manager at Dollar Tree. I'm now a 24 year old female, so at the time I was probably around 22 when this occurred. I was taking my lunch break and I was sitting in the office and when I came out to go check on my cashier, Lloyd, I had noticed a tall older man standing next to his register. As soon as I approached, the man then said, oh, you're the perfect person to help me. I'm trying to fill out this unemployment thing online and I'm not sure what to do. My girlfriend wants me to send it in right now. I was very confused as to why he had come into Dollar Tree and was asking for help with something like this. But being the overly people pleasing, kind person I am, I tried to see what I could do to help him. I thought that maybe he just didn't have much technology knowledge. He began telling me that he needed me to help him send the document to his girlfriend's email and handed me his phone. I was still very confused and the guy continued to talk on and on about how he was supposed to submit the paperwork yesterday, but something came up, etc. It was all just very odd and suspicious. I didn't want to come off as rude though, so I continued to try and assist him and I asked him what his girlfriend's email was. He had started to stutter and then he says he doesn't even know his girlfriend's email and then he'll call and ask. He then takes his phone from me and calls his girlfriend. He's talking on about how this nice girl at the Dollar Tree is helping him with the paperwork. He kept acting like he was answering someone, but I kid you not, I didn't hear anyone talking on the other line. He gets off the phone with her and continues to talk to me without telling me the girlfriend's email. And he offers to come back and buy me a candy bar and pop for my help. I quickly decline and at this point I was just trying to get back to my work. He then all of a sudden was like, thank you so much for helping me. I've gotta go. And he then rushes out of the store. It was very strange because, well, I hadn't even helped him do anything. I then turned to Lloyd and I gave him a weird look and said that that was very suspicious. He then told me initially that that man had come into the store before and had asked if there was another employee here that could come outside and help him because his car ran out of gas. He then waited in Lloyd's register for several minutes until I left the office for my lunch and then approached me about the unemployment paperwork that he needed help with. I was even more creeped out than before and I thought maybe I should call the police. But I do have a lot of anxiety and I thought maybe I was overreacting and Lloyd maybe thought I was just a lonely old guy that wanted someone to talk to. Exactly one week later, I was working once again. I cashed out a customer and she had left the store only to return a few moments later, then approached me to say that she felt very uncomfortable because apparently there was an older man scoping out the parking lot, walking up to random people, claiming that his car ran out of gas from across the street at the speedway and that he needed someone to come help him. She said that she felt very unsafe walking to her vehicle. I ran outside to look because the story was very familiar to the one the man the week before had said to Lloyd and sure enough, it was the same man. I ran back into the office to grab my phone and called my mom to see if she could find the non emergency police phone number because the one we had in the office in my work wasn't working. I walked back out of the office and then out of the store and the man was nowhere to be found. At this point I was pretty scared because this was the second time this man had been lurking at the store while I was working. The very next day I had to work another closing shift and my husband got out of his work about an hour before I did. So I asked him if he could sit outside the store while I closed and see if he saw anyone suspicious come into the parking lot. My shift went pretty well and I tried not to think about the strange man and just give my shift over and done with. While we were counting the deposit for the night, my husband called me to say that while he was sitting out in the parking lot, this truck drove through very slowly three different times. The third time he drove through, he stuck his whole upper half of his body out of his window, was driving slowly and trying to look into the windows of the store, and then he pulled next to my car and parked. My husband then called the police and tried to take pictures of the vehicle's license plate. As soon as the man in the truck realized my husband was taking pictures, he then flew right out of the parking lot. The police had come by to still check things out, but at this point the man was long gone. But they did watch me and my co worker get safely into our vehicles. I shared this whole story with my store manager and he filed a police report and had police officers wait outside the store and closing for a few nights just to see if the man would return. He never returned on my shift, but I did quit not long after this incident. I don't know what the man was up to, but I truly think he was trying to lure someone to his vehicle and I don't think he had good intentions. This happened when I was a kid about 12 years old. My family and I lived in the back bayous of South Louisiana. Louisiana. And we didn't have a lot of neighbors, so there were long stretches of woods and water with no people around. One day my best friend and I were playing between our houses. They were about a half mile apart and we were walking on the main road, which was really just a single lane gravel road. And that's when a large red truck came rolling down the road. Huge tires, double extended cab. We knew he wasn't local because there were only a handful of people living back there and we knew them by sight and their vehicles too. The truck had slowed as it reached us and we were smart enough to back up away from the road, out of arm's reach. The man in the truck was your typical redneck mullet, scraggly beard, wife beater and jeans. But he seemed friendly enough as he explained that he was lost and looking for the way back towards town. Since getting lost in the depths of the Louisiana bayous happens more often, often than you'd imagine, we didn't think much of it. Politely, from a distance, we gave him directions back towards town. He thanked us and he drove off around a curve and we continued walking on the road. Suddenly we heard the sound of a truck spinning out on the gravel road and revving its engine. We looked at each other and then as we had heard the crunch of tires coming at us quickly, we broke into an all out run. At top speed we rounded another curve and there we saw the wooden bridge that had flowed over the bayou channel. Without hesitation we dove over the side and crawled up under the bridge where it nearly met with the road. Huddling as tightly as we could, ignoring the spiders and ants that we disturbed, the truck came roaring up and over the bridge and then turned around and came back. The man stopped the truck on the bridge and got out, coming to stand by the railing. He then walked the length of the bridge on both sides, frequently looking over the edge and stopping to peer between the slats of the bridge. Fortunately, we were deep into the shadows that he couldn't have seen us without physically climbing down. After what seemed like forever, he spit, swore, and then he got into his truck and drove off. We waited for a long time before we eventually crawled out from under that bridge. To this day I'm convinced he had bad intentions. My mother and I were driving through our small town in southwest Virginia. My mother and father are divorced and he lived in Tennessee. Anyways, they had very different viewpoints on helping out hitchhikers as my dad was very much into hiking, camping, etc. But there was a woman walking down the road. Mind you, it's very hot outside and it's the summertime and I noticed she was carrying a child swaddled up in a blanket, which struck me as a poor choice considering it was the middle of summer. It just seemed way too warm for a swaddle. So I said to my mom, we really need to go pick that woman up. Surely she isn't too far from where she needs to go. But she has a baby and to my surprise, my mom pulls into the gas station parking lot and she tells me to go in and get a large bottle of water and we'll ask her if she needs a ride. So we pull out of the gas station and approach the thin, almost sickly looking woman and she very quietly just grabbed the door handle and got inside, not saying anything at all, not even a thank you, which really didn't sit right with me because this is the south and everyone is friendly and approachable. Well, for the most part. So we ask where she's needing to go and me being in the passenger seat, I turn to look at her and she's looking down at her baby and cooing at it. She replies without ever looking up from the swaddled. About two miles past the Dollar General on Jeb Stewart, we were very close to that area. I decided to turn and speak to the woman and maybe get a conversation going. But as I got a better look at her baby, it actually was a drywall hammer wrapped up in a blanket. Inside another blanket, I froze. It was like I had just walked into a deep freezer. I told my mom that I really think we should stop because I heard what sounded like knocking and was very adamant we needed to stop at the upcoming Dollar General. As we pull in, I told my mom to get out of the car, that I needed her help locating the noise, and we met each other at the hood of the car where I told her, mom, that's not a baby, she has a hammer in that blanket. To which my mother advised me that we should walk inside to see if they have anything to close that up, and told the woman we would be right back. We walked inside and we had told them to call the police so they could help this woman, that we could no longer have her in our vehicle and explained why. My mom gave her some vague reason as to why we couldn't take her further. And she got out of the vehicle very angrily but almost confused, and we pretty much just left her in the parking lot. She very well could have just been a really confused woman, maybe with some mental issues. I don't know what was going on with her, but what I do know is that I don't think she had good intentions for us. Some Backstory I'm a 20 year old female from South Florida. I lived in Mississippi most of my life, right in the middle of the woods up until Hurricane Katrina, so I was used to very simple quiet places. When I moved here with my mom fall 2005, I was 10 and we moved to a small neighborhood. It was near two main roads so it wasn't very quiet. The house was sitting on the first corner in the neighborhood entrance. There's a small corner store at the entrance that many people walked and blanked to, so you can say we saw a lot of traffic. My room was very small, like I think 9x10, but pretty suitable for a 10 year old little girl. There were two windows in the room, one small one on the left side of the room and one large on the wall parallel to the door. The window was mostly covered by a very large tree which is actually still standing to this day, but you can see a small part of the sidewalk. Basically, if you were passing and could see into my room, you'd have to know exactly where to look. The the events that took place are the very reasons why I can't have uncovered windows ever and I can't look out of a window at night without becoming so fearful. I cry. It was maybe a year or so after we had moved into the house and my family and I were all becoming very accustomed to the life South Florida had offered. I had always been an outgoing pretty girl. At least many people told me. So many people that were walking to and from the corner store would stop and talk to me and my friends about how cute we were. We were pretty adorable and no one ever stuck out as being creepy or having bad intentions. One afternoon I was outside by myself. It was just about to be dusk so the sky was turning orange and I knew that it was almost time to go inside. I stood to go inside when I noticed a man standing across the street just staring at me. I didn't recognize him, but I had smiled and waved at him anyway. He just smiled at me like something I had never seen before. He seemed like he was so happy to finally get attention from me, like he had been watching me for weeks and I had just now noticed him. I had never been very judgmental so I just waved again and skipped inside. This Went on almost every time that I was playing outside, Always around the same time in the evening. And I never really saw him leave. I always skipped back inside before he left. I ended up telling my mom about him, and the next day she had told him not to come back. I didn't see him for a few days, so I really didn't think anything was strange, so I forgot. I rearranged my room so that my bed was on the other side of the wall near the door, so that the window overlooked my bed. I always had curtains so I couldn't hardly see anything outside unless I just looked really hard. I always loved looking at the moon and stars at night back in Mississippi. It's really amazing if you're out in the middle of nowhere. So I decided tonight I'll sleep with my curtains open so I can actually see the moon and stars. And I did. Little did I know that night would be burned into my memory for the rest of my life. I was eating supper with my mom and brother, and I had asked my mom if it was okay if I could sleep with my curtain open. She said yes, seeing as you can't really see the window from the road and sidewalk, and it should be fine. I was so excited, I even went to bed early that night. I watched TV until I was sleepy enough to drift off to sleep. I woke up and automatically felt a sense of fear. I don't know why, so I didn't move. My back was to the window so I could see the light that was cast by the moon. My breath caught immediately and I'd never been so terrified in my life. The silhouette of a man was standing just outside of my window. Just typing this out right now is giving me chills and makes me want to throw up. I rolled over to see the man that I had seen outside my house for so many days. I gasped, I screamed, and ran to my mom's room, frantically telling her what had happened. She shushed me and told me it was all just a bad dream. I told her that it wasn't, that I wasn't just dreaming. She got out of bed and went to search outside, but found nobody there. I slept in my mom's room with her for the rest of the night. The next day, after school, I went to my window with my friends. They didn't know and still don't. And we had found a piece of fabric that looked like a makeshift handkerchief. It didn't belong to my brother or my mom, and it definitely wasn't mine. Before we get started on this story. The story mentions domestic violence, sexual assault, and the loss of an unborn child. If that's too dark for you, go ahead and stop listening right now. I'm going to give you some time to decide. Okay? For all those who want to continue listening, let's begin. I was 19 years old. I was always hanging out with my best friend Jamie and her boyfriend Bobby, his fraternal twin brother Billy, and Billy's girlfriend Sarah, all the time, everywhere. We usually hung out at Billy and Bobby's house. Cable, video games, and food galore. I always felt like a fifth wheel, though. I was slightly depressed and lonely and I just wanted a man of my own. I learned the hard way to be careful what you wish for. I lived in a duplex community, and I was walking down the street to the cluster of mailboxes with Jamie, and I had started hearing whistling. I looked over and saw my neighbor sitting on their porch. But there was a guy with them that I didn't know, and he was the one whistling at us. He was hot. He had curly blonde hair, blue eyes, and dimples in both cheeks when he smiled, and he had muscles for days. I was immediately smitten. He walked right over to us and started a conversation. He went with us to check the mailbox and accompanied us back to my place. We talked for a while and he asked me out. Of course, I said yes. The very first day went great. Needless to say, we started dating. It wasn't long before I'd started noticing things that had kind of rubbed me the wrong way. I. I won't go into extravagant details, except to say that he was really clingy and possessive. He would always say things like, you're my dream girl. I can't imagine my life without you. After only being officially boyfriend and girlfriend for about a week, he would read my text messages and delete numbers from my phone. He eventually started trying to alienate me from my friends, but we had all been friends since freshman year and we were really tight. I knew that he was frustrated because he couldn't separate us. So he would find other ways to try and come between us. Like being really rude and obnoxious whenever they came over, or turning off the ringer on my phone so that when they called, I wouldn't know about it. He would send messages from my cell to theirs and say awful things, but my friends knew it was him. Not long after we got together, I found out he didn't have a job, didn't have his own place, was living with different friends until they Got tired of him being there and asked him to leave. And a lot of the things that he had told me about himself were lies. Three months into the relationship, I was ready to call it quits. The final nail in the coffin was when we were being intimate and he had started getting really rough with me. Apparently, he had overheard a conversation that I had with Jamie a few days before where she was urging me to dump Shane and get with Billy. Since Billy had broken up with Sarah and wanted to be with me. He was yelling, saying I belonged to him and that he wouldn't let me be with anyone else. How I was slutting it around with Billy behind his back, and how he would do whatever he had to do to make sure that I stayed away from Billy. He would slap me or bite me, pull my hair. I was getting hysterical and crying and screaming. Now, during the conversation with Jamie, I had never said one way or the other that I wanted to be with Billy or that I was even gonna dump Shane. Although I was certainly thinking about it, Shane never actually heard me respond in any way that would have made it seem like I was gonna dump him. But that night, Shane was horrible to me. He talked about maiming Billy, crippling him all during sex. I pushed him off of me and ran into the bathroom and locked the door. He was standing in the hallway, banging on the door and screaming at me, butt naked. Jamie and Bobby were spending the night and they heard everything. Bobby got up and told him he needed to leave or else he was going to really hurt him. Shane finally put his clothes on and left. We then called the police and they took a report. They never even spoke to Shane about that incident. Twenty minutes later, after the cops left, Billy showed up with a co worker named Danny. Danny and Bobby sat in the living room with the lights off, waiting to see if Shane would come back. Billy stayed in the bedroom with me and Jamie. Shane didn't come back that night, but he called me the next day and tried to apologize. I told him to never call me or try to see me again. Well, about two weeks later, we were all in a bar down the street from my house when Shane walked in. Billy and I were slow dancing when all of a sudden, Jamie ran up to us and pulled me away, saying she wanted me to come to the bathroom with her. She said that she had seen Shane come in and he was staring at Billy and me and he looked pissed when she grabbed me. He had been walking towards the dance floor, and since our table was right next to the dance floor, she got to me first. As I'm trying to figure out what to do, we heard this loud roar coming from the bar. We ran back out and there they were, Shane and Billy fighting. The bouncers pulled them apart before any real damage was done. And they were hauling Shane out. He just kept yelling, you'll never have her. She's mine. I'll kill you. You're dead. I was shaking. I looked at Billy and the look on his face. If Lukes could kill, shame would have been obliterated. We spent the night at Billy and Bobby's mom's house. I thought for sure that my budding romance with Billy was kaput. But that night, he had actually kissed me. And he told me that he had feelings for me since junior year, but that he didn't think I dated white guys. So he never said anything. Up until Shane and then Billy, I had actually only dated black guys. I really cried that night because even though Billy and I were now together, I realized that Shane wasn't going to go away. And he didn't. He started blowing up my cell phone with calls and texts. And if I turned the phone off, he would call my house phone, bombarding me with emails. I had started seeing him everywhere I went. But it really got bad when Billy and Bobby had to go away for work. They worked construction, and the company they worked for landed a contract in Mississippi. I would wake up in the middle of the night and see Shane standing outside my bedroom window. I would find notes on my door from Shane telling me what a whore I was and how he would get even. To make matters worse for me, I found out that I was almost 12 weeks pregnant when I got the results. I immediately called Billy and told him. I knew that if Shane found out, there would be no getting rid of him. And I was right. To this day, I don't know how Shane found out, but he did. He left a suitcase full of baby stuff on my porch, along with a note that said, I've got you for life now. Okay, so this is part two. I tried to get a restraining order, but me being black and Shane being white, I was pregnant with this kid in a small southern hick town, which didn't bode well for me. I was denied the restraining order. Shane would show up to my prenatal visits and sit in the parking lot staring at me. He just generally made my life a living hell. He harassed Jamie and Bobby, but he didn't really bother Billy all that much, you know, since Billy laid the smag down on him at the Bar. Anyways, every time I had a run in with him, I would report it to the police hoping it would return. Result in me being able to get the restraining order. No dice. It eventually got to the point where the police would come, write stuff down and just look at me as though I was crazy. It all came to a head when I was about five months along. Billy and Bobby had come home from Mississippi for a visit, so of course Jamie and I spent the weekend with them. They had to drive back to Mississippi Sunday afternoon and Jamie had to work. So that night I was alone. As I was setting in for the night, I heard a knock on the front door. I looked through the peephole, no one was there. I went back to my bedroom and I had heard a knock again and again. No one was there. I was starting to freak out. I called Jamie to see when she would be leaving for work and she said she got off at 11pm it was right around 8:30 when this happened. I didn't want to be by myself anymore. So after I got off the phone with her, I called Billy's mom and asked if it would be OK for me to come over until Jamie's shift had ended. She said yes. So I set about getting ready to leave. I called Jamie back and told her I would be at Linda's, the guy's mom. I hung up the phone, sat on the bed and put on my shoes. As I walked away from the bed, I felt a hand grab my ankle. I fell hard on the floor and immediately started cramping. I was trying to get up and I could feel hands on me. Shane was under my bed. Apparently the second time he knocked while I was checking to see who was there. He had entered the house through my bedroom window and hid under the bed. I crawled into the hallway with Shane right behind me. I made it to the front door but Shane had yanked me back. Before I could open it, I was on the floor again. He got me on my back and straddled my legs. He pulled up my shirt just below my breasts. And then he did the oddest thing ever. He just stared at my belly. I was showing pretty good by this time. He just stared for a few minutes. Then he started rubbing my belly. I was shaking, scared of what he was thinking, scared of what he was gonna do. But for what seemed like forever, he just stared at and rubbed my belly. Then he looked me in the face. He grabbed my arms and held them over my head. I had started to struggle, but he squeezed my wrists. I really hated Shane at this point, but I had really come to love my baby and all I could think about was getting him off me and getting out of the house so he couldn't hurt me and the baby. He leaned over me until his face was an inch or two away from mine, then just said stop. The look on his face, coupled with the quiet way in which he said it made my blood run cold. Still holding my wrist wrists with one hand, he reached into his bag pocket with the other and he pulled out a pair of handcuffs. I had started screaming and trying to fight harder. He was so much stronger than me and within a minute or so I was handcuffed, both cuffs around my wrists and the little chain in the middle was kind of around the leg of the couch. He sat on the floor next to me, raised my shirt and once again it started rubbing my belly. This went on for about 15 minutes. He went into the kitchen, grabbed a bottle of water from the fridge and sat down again. After finishing the water, he put the empty bottle on the couch and got on his knees. He had started touching me inappropriately and I was wetting myself. I tried to pull away but couldn't. And to make matters worse, he was getting aroused. It was by this time that the cramping became even more intense. I groaned. Unfortunately he misinterpreted this to me also getting excited. So he kissed me and proceeded to put his hands between my legs. The cramps then turned into full blown pain and I arched my back. I knew what was happening at this point. I was mumbling against Shane's lips as he was still kissing me and wouldn't stop. So I did the only thing I could think to do. I bit his lip. He reared back and raised his hand and slapped me. But when he did, it had left a blood smear on my cheek. He then looked at his own hand. The one that he slapped me with was between my legs. It was covered in blood. My face was stinging. I begged him to call an ambulance. I'm losing the baby. I screamed at him. He jumped to his feet, but Instead of calling 911, he just ran out the door and left me there. I couldn't get my hands free and the pain was unbearable. I realized that when he ran out, he'd left the front door open. So I started screaming for help. Thank God my next door neighbor was coming home right at that moment from a doctor's appointment with our little girl. She heard me and ran right over. Seeing my predicament, she pulled out her cell phone and called 911. She wasn't able to get the handcuffs off, but she was able to detach me from the couch. The ambulance arrived maybe 10 minutes after the call, but it was too late. I lost my daughter. The police came to the hospital and I told them what happened. They went looking for Shane, but when they found him again, it was too late. He had committed suicide. Jamie showed up at the hospital later that night. Billy and Bobby came the next day. For almost a year, I suffered from PTSD and grieved the loss of my child. But through all of it, Billy was by my side. Three years after this incident, we got married. And today we have a four year old and another one on the way. So my story has somewhat of a happy ending, but I do still grapple with the fact that my decision to get involved with Shane simply because I was just lonely and desperate has caused me tremendous pain and guilt. And it's gonna be a while before it all fades. For. Most of my extended family lives in Virginia, spread out all over the place, deep in the literal middle of nowhere. As a matter of fact, the first time I had visited my aunt's house, apparently I cried because of how long the dirt road was. My mom will never be able to find me out here, I said. My granny always tells me that story whenever I visit, and she gets a crack out of us city folk. This particular incident happened in Farmville. Yes, you read that right. It's not just a Facebook game. It's an actual place right in between Tobaccosville and Mechanicsville. Rednecks are creative, to say the least. I had surprised my family for Christmas by flying up to see them. Side note, it was the first and only time all six of my granny's grandchildren were in the same room at the same time. Cue the feels. My aunt and I stayed up late watching old reruns of Mr. Bean. At about 2am we were going to bed, except Sadie, her pit bull, needed to go to the bathroom. Of course, because it's only 12 degrees outside. I had left my jacket in the car, which was parked in the garage, so I went outside real quick to grab it. The garage is an addition to the house. On the other side, there's a back door that overlooks the backyard and lots and lots of trees. My cousin had accidentally driven into and subsequently broken the garage door, so it had to be taken down. We're out in the middle of backwoods country land and there's only a very dim light at the end of the driveway and a small light on the ceiling. Basically, it's Almost pitch black. As I'm opening the door to the car, I can't help but feel as if I'm being watched and I glance over my shoulder to the door overlooking the yard and I see a man. It was dark and I couldn't see his face, but he was wearing a hat and hoodie zipped up to his chest. His hands were in his pockets and he seemed like he was almost peering down. I got a lump in my throat. Already freezing, my goosebumps just intensified. I reached into the car, grabbing my jacket but keeping a visual, slammed the car door and just ran. When I ran back to the door to the house, it must have accidentally locked me out. I turned around and I see he standing on the opposite end of where the garage door would have been. At this point, all that's standing between me and this person is a car, truck and a couple of bikes. I start screaming bloody murder. At first my voice wouldn't work. It was clogged by that lump that welled up in my throat when I first saw him. I banged and banged on the door. I hit the door so hard I actually ended up busting the door in. My aunt freaked out. She was still sitting in the living room and it only truly hurt me when I broke the door. Sadie started to growl and had her hair stood up. My aunt woke up her boyfriend. He ran outside in his boxers with a baseball bat. He did a couple of circles all around the house, cursing to high heavens. The hooded man was nowhere to be found. Still, to this day, I get anxious when visiting my family. There's lots of woods and nothingness for someone to get lost in. It's creepy. This happened sometime during my high school years. The exact year and time escaped me. At this point, I found myself in a nearby town on a date, attempting to impress a girl who I'd been secretly crushing on for quite some time. We'll call her Anna. Anna and I had just had a really nice evening and we were winding down, getting ready to go home. This takes place in rural southeast Oklahoma, so we had about another hour or so of travel time together in order for me to get her to her house, and I was quite looking forward to the conversation and anything else that might transpire on the way home. The night ended with our hearts racing and us struggling to catch our breath, but not in a way that you might expect from two hormonal teenagers on a Friday night. After our dinner in the movie, basically all there was to do in this small town, I had stopped at a local love's gas station to fill up my truck with gas. I didn't have a credit card at the time, so I pulled up to the pump, left Anna in the truck and then went inside to pay for my gas. On the way inside, I had noticed this old beaten up Ford F250 with two, dare I say, rednecks staring right at me. The beaten up Ford wasn't an uncommon sight in rural Oklahoma, but the constant staring made me uneasy. When I returned to my truck and filled up, Anna informed me that they had been staring at her too and they were giving her the creeps. I told her they were probably just bored and messing with us and we didn't think much of it. I pulled out into the street, pulled my truck into the turn lane and began to turn on Highway 3, which would take me all the way to Anna's house. The light was red and taking ages to turn. Everything in small town Oklahoma seems to move slower than a snail in molasses. And as we're waiting, we had noticed a truck pull up next to us. At first we had paid the truck no mind, but something was off. Out of the corner of my eye I see something off putting. We turn and look and to our dismay we see the same beaten up Ford F250 with now two, three people in the cab all intently looking at us. Of course, us being the zealous teenagers that we were, had decided to show these guys what we're made of. And as the light turned green, we rolled down our window and flashed a big smile across our faces. And we gave them the biggest middle fingers that we could to show them what we thought of their mindless staring. We then hit the gas and continued on our way home. A few moments passed by with Anna and I laughing at what we just did to those creepy idiots. But eventually the moment fades and we just begin talking about something else. We got down the road a few miles and I noticed a set of headlights coming from behind us. The road wasn't super busy, but we had just come from a larger town so there wasn't anything off putting about the lights at this point. At least not yet. However, after a few more moments pass, we realize that something is really wrong. The headlights begin flashing and blinding us. The car begins swerving and eventually pulls over to the left lane to try and get beside us. We quickly realized exactly who this was. I'm by no means a car guy, but I recognize the shape of the hood of the truck. This was the Same beaten up F250 that we had just flipped off a few miles back and now they were pissed and coming for us. At this point in my life, I was about 5 foot 8 and weighed about 115 pounds soaking wet. I was a little guy and I knew that I stood no chance against three larger guys. I was going to get pummeled into oblivion or worse. And we had no idea what they were going to do with Anna. I slammed on the gas and began traveling as fast as I could down the winding back roads of southeast Oklahoma, trying to come up with an idea to get us out of this mess. As we sped down the highway, I began to look for common landmarks that I knew on Highway 3. I didn't see them. I knew that we had been traveling for quite some time down this road, but it didn't seem the same. We slowly realized that we weren't on the right road. We had taken the wrong turn. Blinded by our hubris, we turned on a narrow country road that was certain to lead us to our death. We didn't know what to do. Of course, when I told this to my parents, they just said things like, you should have called 911 or you should have driven to the nearest police station. However, we didn't think to call 911 and we didn't know where the police station was because we were lost. So we took matters into our own hands and continued traveling as fast as we could down the small winding back road. We had a few near misses with the truck as they were attempting to rear end us, or at least make us believe they were. But finally, after what seemed like a lifetime, we saw our shining beacon of light. I can't remember the specifics, but somehow we got far enough ahead of them that we began to think we might lose them. Out of the corner of my eye, we spotted a small local church. Anna checked behind us and couldn't see their headlights. So I slammed on the brakes, killed the lights in my truck, and in the pitch darkness, drove off the road, through the lawn of the church and behind the building. We sat there panicking and wondering if they'd seen us. It was a risky move. For all we know, we could be stuck and if they saw us, we might not have a chance to escape. We sat and watched as the beat up truck passed down the road at incredible speed. They hadn't seen us. We breathed a sigh of relief as we waited to see if they turned around. After a few moments passed, we pulled out of the parking lot, kicked it into high gear and got back to town as quickly as we could. We both learned a lesson in flipping off shady rednecks that night and to my knowledge we haven't done so since. Ok, so I should start off by giving a bit of background so that you understand the situation a bit better. I, a 4 foot 916 year old female at the time, had two dogs who were brothers from the same litter. Now, being boxers, they were relatively big and quite protective when need be. Vince was longer and much taller than his brother and is usually the kind to sleep through a hurricane if we had one. His brother Maury was shorter but more muscled and much stronger. Usually these two were with me 24 7. As my mother used to work a lot and I was usually alone most of the day, sometimes even until after dark, this never really bothered me. I'd been left alone at home like this since I was 11. It never struck me that I had a reason to be worried. One day that my mom was working. Later I was doing some household chores, feeding the dogs, doing dishes, stuff like that. I continued doing what I always a routine of tidying the house that I had done every day for years. As I went to take the trash out of the bin, I had started walking towards the door when Maury stepped in front of me. I tried moving around him, telling him to get out of my way and such, but he refused to budge. This was certainly odd and looking back on it now a few years later, I realized he was probably trying to stop me from walking outside. We continued like this for a few moments, me trying to get past him and him of course, never moving from his spot. He was quite heavy as a big dog, it was difficult to lift him and even harder to get him away from something. Now, in the time that we had been going back and forth with this interaction, Vince stayed happily asleep on his dog bed. I should note that from my kitchen you can see the living room and bathroom. Usually we used the side door from the kitchen to enter and exit the house since it was attached to the carport. After a couple more minutes I heard something that I hadn't expected. When I made one last desperate attempt to move Maury from his spot, he growled, which wasn't unusual as he had growled plenty in his life. What was unusual was that he had growled at me. He had never done that before, not once. But for that reason and that reason alone, I had decided not to take the trash out that night. I simply tossed it in another room and left it be. A short time passed, maybe half an hour or so. I had gotten settled into my chair to watch some movies. Movie While I had waited for my mom to come home while I was watching the movie, I suddenly heard a quiet knock at the side door. As I mentioned earlier, you can clearly see the living room from the kitchen, so I heard the knock pretty well. It was already after dark, so I figured it was just my mother and she had somehow forgotten her keys or something. I got up and went into the kitchen and out of the corner of my eye I saw the hook near the door. I the keys weren't there. To some people that's not a big deal, but to me it meant that the person knocking on my door was in fact not my mother. My mom is a bit of a routine obsessed person, so if she had actually forgotten her keys, they would always be on the hook. I took a breath, preparing myself to just not answer the door or if they didn't leave, to just tell them I wasn't interested in whatever was happening and that they should leave. Thinking about it now, I really wish I hadn't even looked out the window on the door. I wish I had just sat back down, called my mom, and stayed out of sight. But of course I walked in front of the door and immediately came face to face with a figure on the other side of the window. Now it was really dark with just my neighbor's light shining from his porch, so I could only make out a couple of things on this guy. He was tall, me having to peer up at him through the window to look at his face. He had long hair that looked like a shadow over his shoulders in the dim light, but the only facial features I could see were his eyes. God, I wish I hadn't seen them. I could see the spark of interest flare in them as he perked up when he saw me. They were wide and staring down at me. He took a step towards my door, stepping on the first of two steps. I heard him say something along the lines of my car broke down nearby. Could I come in and use your phone? Immediately I thought of every bad thing that I'd ever heard of happening to a teenager home alone, and I tried to compose my nerves. I'm not sure what it was, but something just told me not to trust this man standing on the other side of my door. I shouted back with a quick no and an apology, hoping he was telling the truth and would just go to the next house over. But he didn't. Instead, he simply just said it again, quite a bit louder. I thought for a quick moment he hadn't heard me, but then again. I know now that he most likely had. So instead I became a bit more confident. I'm sorry I can't help you. Go to the next house. I shouted louder. For a moment he paused, as if contemplating what to do. Then he knocked again, louder than the first time I'd heard it. My heart rate increased as I stared at him. When I didn't react, he had started to loudly bang against the door. I took a step back, praying to God that he would either leave or my mom would be home early. I was usually a quiet girl, but my mom was a tough redneck with a raptor knife she could take him. He had started to bang on the glass after a moment, my mind racing. A thousand miles an hour. Should I hide? Should I run? My phone was in the other room and I was scared to take my eyes off the guy. I was sure he would break through the glass. The banging was vibrating my eardrums, and apparently it was vibrating Maury's, too. I saw him creeping up past the doorway, bending his head, teeth bared. He had started to bark, and loudly. The guy had stopped for a moment, trying to see into the window at the floor where Maury stood. When he stopped barking, the guy mistakenly had tried to jiggle the door handle. That's when Vince woke up. I swear to God, for a dog that was dead asleep five seconds prior, I've never seen him move that fast, ever. In only two seconds, Vince had his paws on the door, growling like a hellhound to the devil's side at this man outside my home. The guy jumped, fell back, and then he bolted it. I heard him say something as he had started to run, and I saw another shadow. My mom came home shortly after I had spurted across my carport to my neighbors. We had called the police after I explained what happened, and my neighbor had dragged his shotgun out before they even got there. He had insisted on looking for the guy. The police said someone had tried to pick the lock on my front door, but there was a lot of stuff in front of it and it was really old, so it didn't open anymore. I went to bed that night uneasy and so very thankful that I had two dogs who were not only shocked, strong and big, but one that was vigilant and one that could practically kill if you let him. A few weeks went by and we had never heard from the cops, so eventually I stopped trying to think about it. Another month went by, and although I was a bit scared of being home alone, nothing else seemed to happen. Then we got another visit from the cops. What they told me made my heart sink in my chest and it still gives me chills to this day. They had caught the guys and they realized they were stalking me. Yes, guys as in plural. There were two guys that had apparently been stalking me without my knowledge for months. They had several photos of me, words they had written over them. Awful words. The police had been fairly adamant that I change my locks since they caught the two guys, and apparently there was evidence of a third. We moved shortly after that. I still pass by that house sometimes whenever I go to visit friends or do stuff around that area. A chill runs down my spine every time I do. To think that they never caught one of the guys was scary enough. The fact that they tried to break into my house was worse, not to mention that I hadn't even known they were watching me. I still think about it now, even a few years later. I dread what would have happened if my dogs weren't there, and I dread even worse about what they had planned to do if I had opened the door or if they had successfully broken in. I suppose they weren't expecting my dog since our backyard is fenced and they mostly stayed indoors since it was so hot where I lived. I thanked the universe every day that I had them, especially now. My mom never worked until after dark again after that, which in all honesty was fine by me. It.