← Southern Cannibal's Scary Stories
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- [00:00]
Geico Representative
Geico's motorcycle expertise gives me the coverage I need. Like 24.7claims, I'm on cloud nine.
- [00:07]
Cloud Expert
Clouds are wholly unable to support the weight of an adult human.
- [00:10]
Geico Representative
What's happening?
- [00:10]
Cloud Expert
Furthermore, clouds are not numbered. Even if you procured a jetpack and searched, you'd find no cloud numbered nine. However, at that altitude, you'd likely befriend a flock of migrating snow geese. Geese who'd encourage you to leave your 24.7geico motorcycle claims insurance behind, as they would take you in and even share their dinner of crickets and clovers with you. GEICO assumes no liability for any indigestion that may occur from a clover cricket dinner. GEICO expertise for your motorcycle geico's motorcycle.
- [00:31]
Geico Representative
Expertise means I'm covered by people who know bikes like I do. I'm happy as a clam.
- [00:37]
Cloud Expert
No conclusive scientific research has shown clams can experience happiness.
- [00:40]
Geico Representative
It just meant that I feel really good about my coverage.
- [00:42]
Cloud Expert
I mean, even if you took the clam out for the best day ever, visiting the zoo, taking a scenic ride, knowing you're insured by specialists, and sharing a strawberry ice cream cone together, the clam would not feel happy and your strawberry cone would taste sorta clammy.
- [00:51]
Geico Representative
Ew.
- [00:52]
Cloud Expert
Geico's motorcycle specialists who know bikes like you do assume no liability for clammy ice cream cones. GEICO expertise for your motorcycle.
- [01:05]
Narrator
It was a long time ago, before cell phones were prevalent, and I was a mom in my early 30s who had just driven our kids to the pediatrician. The Macon, Georgia doctor's office was an hour away from our home, and I was just taking the two youngest of my three, ages one and three years old, to our scheduled appointment. Because we lived so far away, their office always gave us the last two appointments of the day, and we were grateful. The doctor had just built a new building off a fresh spur of the highway, so the location was quite isolated in every direction, but a very nice facility compared to his old spot by the hospital there. His new building was also pretty far back on the new lot, and my car, a black Jeep Cherokee we had owned for two years, was one of only four or five cars in the parking lot. When arrived, I parked near the front door, removed the kids from their car seats, and for the next hour or so we waited, then saw the doctor, paid and finally exited. Back outside, mine was the only car left in the lot as I had loaded the children in their car seats for our trip home. But as the receptionist locked the front glass doors, my car somehow wouldn't start. When I turned the key, there was just an odd clicking noise gathering the children once again, I knocked on the door until someone allowed us back in and I asked to borrow their phone to call a nearby garage for service. I found one in the phone book and the man said that he would come but that it might be a bit so I told him my location. I left to go back out to the car, rolled down all the windows and loaded the children back into their seats once more as we waited. Soon we watched as all the lights turned out in the building again and everyone left their cars departing one by one from behind the building somewhere, leaving us now completely alone in the parking lot as it was still light. I spent a lot of that time trying to tend to the children, digging through our car for snacks and a bottle, making sure that they weren't getting too hot, etc. Although the service station attendant said that it was probably going to be quite a while, I was pleasantly surprised when a truck pulled into the empty parking lot pretty soon and then a man got out of his pickup, smiled and nodded to me and said he was going to raise the hood. He was middle aged and a bit scruffy, but quite frankly many gas station attendants sometimes looked that way, especially at the end of the day, and I was grateful when he began doing something under the hood almost immediately. I sat down again in the driver's seat with the door open, waiting for him to tell me to try the engine, but he seemed to be taking a long time checking the connections and I longed for him to just grab jumper cables, yet he never did without getting out of the car. I asked him what he thought was wrong and then he said oh, it's just a loose wire, not the battery, and continued doing whatever he was doing. I couldn't see his face at all from where I was sitting, but his hands were slightly visible through that horizontal slit between the windshield and the raised hood as we waited. More than once he said that it was merely a loose wire and if I would just come up here really quick he would show me which one it was so that it would never happen again. I remember kind of smiling and shaking my head saying that sadly there was no reason to show me anything as I really didn't know anything about cars. I just thanked him and continued to stay in the driver's seat again, just waiting for the inevitable signal to try to start the ignition that was most surely coming at any moment. At one point I remember thinking that he was definitely flirting as he spoke, but I was trying above all to be polite and kind, as he was indeed helping us. We were hot and tired and just miserable, and truthfully, I was distracted with the kids. Oddly enough, he was starting to sound a little frustrated with me because I wouldn't come up and look at the engine. I remember thinking that I certainly didn't want to make him mad where he left us there all alone, you know, with the sun sinking so quickly. And then the strangest thing happened. Another truck suddenly pulled into that desolate parking lot, and as it did, this nice guy working underneath my hood suddenly slammed it shut, ran to his truck, started it, and then drove away very quickly without even saying a word of goodbye. I was both confused and a little anxious when he did this because I didn't know who was now arriving. I even remember feeling a little frightened that he had suddenly left me there all alone with two little ones, defenseless. Why wouldn't he at least stay and speak to whoever was parking next to me now? It certainly seemed like the southerly gentleman thing to do. I looked around and I was very aware once again that there were no visible cars on the road, no homes or businesses nearby, and the sun was continuing to set rather quickly as this new, also unmarked pickup pulled in next to me. I got out of the car once again, this time more apprehensively. Upon exiting though, he immediately introduced himself and his name and voice seemed to match who I had spoken to on the phone much earlier. He then actually called me by my name, apologized for being so late, and then finally smiled and stared towards the road, pointing and asking who the man was that had just left. So suddenly relieved and unfazed, I just smiled back in surprise and told him, well, I really don't know. I thought all this time he was you. And we both just laughed silently as he then grabbed jumper cables, walked to the front of my car, raised the hood and actually started to work. I immediately sat back in the driver's seat once more, suddenly grateful that with luck that air conditioner would be blowing full blast shortly and once again checking on the children, all while listening to the familiar words. Try it. I had my bag completely turned when he surprised me by suddenly coming to the driver's side door. In the strangest voice he said, um, ma'am, is this yours? And when I looked into his hands, he was holding a long thin dagger like looking device that was about a foot and a half long in length. It appeared to be very old and covered with reddish rusty, yet on one end it had tiny circular small finger holes, as if it was a mix of a long thin sword and scissors oddly combined. I remember being amazed but not exactly frightened and I asked him where he found them. It was under the hood, ma'am, he replied. I said just matter of factly that I had never seen them before in my life, but how weird was it that those things had somehow been stuck and undiscovered in my car for all those years and just shook my head in surprise. He continued to stand there and stare at them unbelievingly, and he looked oddly pale too, like he just couldn't find the words to speak for a bit, just continuing to stare at the unusual object. Honestly, I didn't care one bit about it. All I could think of was getting the car going, letting me pay him and then leaving. He didn't say anything else, just quickly set them on the curb, started his truck and then signaled for me to start the jeep and when it immediately caught, my 3 year old cheered. Grateful, I quickly turned on the air conditioner full blast, rolled up the windows, aimed the air vents back towards the backseat and reached for my purse to pay him. I stood up and took a few steps to meet him so I could hear the amount now owed. With both our vehicles running, he came back around to my driver's side but instead of handing me the bill, irritated me a bit by walking right past me and picking up that weird object once more. Ma'am, he said slowly, I want you to look at these one more time and he held them out for closer inspection. This time I moved a bit closer and I actually really looked in his hands. The item still appeared incredibly large, possessing an almost bayonet looking quality except for the strangely small tin loops on one end. I had never seen anything like it and I told him so as he held it. He spoke quietly and slowly to me, as if trying to desperately make me understand something that was somehow still going over my head. These weren't hidden somewhere in the engine, ma'am. They hadn't been there very long at all because they were sitting right on top. They must have just been put there. I shook my head no and then half smiled as I then said but they're obviously very old and rusty. To which he responded more closely and then replied yeah, but see how sharp they are. These look like they've just been sharpened. And when I looked down he was right. The long skinny dagger like shape was unusual, but by far the oddest quality was just how sharp it appeared to be. The edges at the tip where the rust had been removed were gleaming silver. As I paid him, his final words to me were, ma'am, I don't know what was about to happen here, but I'm really glad I pulled up. When I did, he quietly thanked me when taking the payment, and he told me that I probably needed to call the police when I get home, then asked me where I wanted the item. I didn't want to touch it, I didn't want to take it at all, but I released the back window so he could place it inside. We then both left the lot together, him turning one way, me turning the other towards the small winding highway that would lead me home, still an hour away. I indeed contacted the Macon police the moment that we arrived home, and I got the children inside safely, but although they listened politely, they declined when I offered to bring the scissor like thing to them later. The officer I spoke to said they sounded as if they were specialized surgical shears for my description and measurements on the phone, which I found quite disturbing, as you can imagine. I remember wondering how he would even know that, why he would say that I had tried so carefully not to touch any of the surfaces, hoping that they might be able to lift prints or test it for blood if they wanted. But the story seemed to bore him a bit, and he didn't seem too interested. His attitude insinuated that as there was no longer an emergency, it was really of no importance now, at the very end of the call, as if to wind things up, he did say that it sounded as if I was very lucky and that I might want to keep the shears for a few days, just in case someone from his office got back with me later. But that was all. I wrapped them carefully in a newspaper and placed them in the brick storage unit behind our house, and there they remained for several more years, untouched, until we moved away and I finally, not wanting to bring them across several states, reluctantly threw them in the trash. Around that time, though, if you look through old news reports, women were going missing all over Georgia. Some bodies were eventually found, but others remain missing to this very day. I have often wondered what would have happened if the service station attendant hadn't arrived when he did. If my children would still have a mother, if I would still have my son and daughter, if I would have missed all those years with them. I guess I'll never know. But I learned something very important about myself that day. I had always felt that I was pretty aware of my surroundings, pretty good at reading people and staying safe. But because I was exhausted and tired and hot and stranded in a different city. My common sense and intelligence simply left me for a bit and wasn't working that well at the time. And many of my friends and family still think that our car trouble that day and my lack of awareness could easily have cost us our lives. I'm so glad that didn't happen.
- [12:45]
Geico Representative
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- [13:34]
Narrator
In 2002, I was 14 years old. Starting freshman year, I was an awkward, nerdy girl that didn't know how to handle attention from boys, so you could say I made things worse for my situation. I had a knack for making friends with weird people no one liked, but I tried to be friendly with everyone I met so it wasn't a big deal to me. Unfortunately, that was also my downfall. Clubs were a big deal and they actually had an anime club. So of course I was all about that first club meeting. I sat next to a couple of friends and soaked it all up. I thought I was finally with my people. Then here comes stalkerkid. I would use his real name but to this day I have no clue what it is. He sat in front of me and being that person, I said hi. I could tell he was uncomfortable and didn't know anyone so I was just being nice. And boy did this guy cling to me for that one word. At first he would just find me during lunch and just stand there mumbling things to me. He had such a soft voice, high pitched, mousy little guy that you just felt unnerved when he spoke to you. The way he would look at you as he spoke. I could never look him in the eyes. After a while it became more asking about my personal life and what I was into. Me being dumb and naive, I tried to be friendly and chat while feeling incredibly uncomfortable. After a while my friends and I would move to different tables, benches and Even hallways to avoid him. But he always found me. After about a year of this, my best friend finally told me that if I didn't tell him to screw off, he would. I really didn't want him around anymore. So sure, go ahead. So one day during lunch, here comes stalker kid with his signature greeting, barely above a whisper. Hey there, how's it going? My buddy just goes, dude, she's not interested. Screw off. Looking hurt, he shuffles away. I was like, man, you didn't have to be so hard on him. But yeah, thanks. I didn't see him much around school after that, except for club days where he would just sit across the room and stare at me while my best friend glared at him. Cut to me being 16 and driving now, minus the awkward club days, I didn't really notice anything from him. That is, until an old gray beat up car had started parking next to me, extremely close. One day after school, he was waiting for me in that car. They started asking me how I've been, what about prom, all that stuff. I was trying to rack my brain on how he knew that was my car unless he had been watching me before. And after school I started getting there later and leaving later to avoid him because he was like clockwork. Finally, a boy I used to be friends with in elementary school was walking out with me and made a comment about how that guy is always next to my car and he asked if he was my boyfriend. I immediately said no and he's always following me around and I hated was really starting to freak me out. Bless this guy because he walked right up to him and scared him off, threatening if he ever parked near me again, he would beat him up. I figured that maybe that was enough to keep him away. So again, there was a small space where I would hear nothing of him except for my friends who had classes with him telling me how creepy he was. One friend had art class with him and said that he would draw naked women constantly in his books. All big busted, sexy pose women. Yeah, real classy guy. Junior year is wrapping up and I had started taking my BFF fill to and from school. He was on my way, so I figured why not? At some point Phil had started noticing that little gray car was always heading the same way after school and made a joke thinking that what if stalker kid lived next to him? I kinda laughed a little. Small world, right? I could only be so lucky. One day, as per usual, that little gray car was following us. So we took a detour. Sure enough, he was with us every step of the way and it was no longer a joke. We both started freaking out. I pushed that gas pedal as hard as my foot could push it and nope, the hell out of sight. I went right home and told my mom everything because at this point I just knew this wasn't normal. She shoved it aside saying I was probably just seeing things, blah blah blah, disregarding the whole thing. Well, it came time for our end of the year club party. Of course, Stalkerkid was a senior so I would never have to see him again for whatever stupid reason I had offered to host the party. Thinking that he hasn't gone to one yet. Let's celebrate this moment. I was terrified when my dad let him in the door. I don't remember giving him an invitation to the party, so someone must have given it to him. Instead he spent the whole party talking to me, my dad and being all buddy buddy with him, asking me where my room was. I just wanted to cry and hide. It was all downhill after that. I remember there were three days where I would hear a car pull up outside my front door and my room having a window that saw the front. I would call my buddy Phil and peek to see if it was him. Three times in one month I just hid under my desk and cried on the phone with Phil. Other events from school would be him asking a girl that I played softball with to promote only to dump her and then follow me all night. This includes to the after prom too where I never saw him in person. Our high school had a radio and TV channel for the kids to run and during prom they would record us going up the stairs and playing around in the gym at the after prom for the parents to see their kids having fun. Took one of my friends to point it out button it showed me playing DDR for a while against my friend Phil and stalker kid was standing right behind me watching for a good five minutes. Never knew. And the one that still creeps me out to this day is graduation for his class. Our classes were so big they had a day and night ceremony where all the students had to attend the daytime one. I was scanning the crowd to see my friends who were graduating when I saw a hand wave as I passed by. I looked back and of course it was stalker kid waving at me. How he picked me out of a crowd out of thousands I will never know. 2006 senior year was great. No signs of creepy kid to the point where I can kinda forget about him. I graduate and I choose a college town and I get a job at a local retail store and move on. Life was finally beginning to be normal. I work in the gaming department, so you get the weird randos every once in a while. One that I saw a lot was this little Mexican guy with glasses who never purchased anything but would just walk around the store from time to time. Then stalkerkid comes strolling in the doors and walks into gaming and just talks. I ask how he knew that I worked here. He says his friend saw me and he knew we were friends. I tried to radio for help over and over for just someone to come and get him out. Finally, a big guy from computers walks by and he asks for my help in the back. Once he pulls me to safety, I tell him everything from that point on. Security is aware and told to watch for this guy. Of course, he wasn't doing anything physical, so all they could do for me is to just watch out for him. So every time he came in, they would walkie me and I would dip back to the warehouse. I started seeing his friend, who we called ninja friend constantly, and all he ever did was walk around on his phone. I began to suspect that he was texting stalkerkid to tell him I was at work because sure enough, 10 minutes later, he would come in too. So I tested this theory and started walking randomly throughout the store. At one point, a friend who worked register asked why I would do this, so I had her take a walk with me on her break. I told her this ninja friend would follow us everywhere, even just going down a random aisle. Sure enough, he did, and she began freaking out. A few minutes later, I told her my stalker would soon walk through those doors again. Sure enough. So I'm making my way to the warehouse and out steps ninja friend from an aisle and then says, she's right here. I just stared at him like, who the hell do you think you are? Stalker kid walks up behind me and asks why I'm always running away from him. Oh, and he lost my number and he asked if I can give it to him again. I say, knowing dang good and well that I never gave it to him. Sure, I go to the warehouse, right? This is where I work. Don't ever come here again. And then hand it to him, glare at his friend, walk his security about him, and then sit in the warehouse and totally break down. Security tells me later that he had also cried while they took him out. Later that day, as I'm leaving work, security offers to walk me to my car. This of course isn't the rules, but friends caring about friends. So I say sure. Stalkerkid is out by my car waiting for me. So this is where security says screw it and calls the police, which we are conveniently next to their headquarters. He books it when he sees the car. A few years go by. Nothing comes up. I buy a fancy car and don't see him much. I'm thinking that did the trick and that I'm finally free. 2012 My buddies and I are leaving work ready to hit a night at the bar. Per usual Thursday deal, we're all walking out the door where we all have to stand and wait to hear the alarm sound to verify it's armed. As we're walking out, I hear it. That awful sound. Hey, it's him. I cringe, grab my friend's arm and turn. There he is, leaning on his car, waiting. My friend recognizes him and asks what he wants. Guy says he just wants to talk to me. He didn't ever see my car so he didn't think I worked here anymore. His other friend is sitting in the backseat of his car just staring at me blankly. I start to think the worst. If my friend leaves me here, my gut tells me I'm not coming into work the next day. That or ever. I'm terrified that he's had years of time to think about our last encounter where I wrote my number down and made him cry. I grab my friend's arm even tighter. My friend goes off, pretends to be my boyfriend and rips into him. My friend is about 2ft taller and much bigger. They get into it and I'm just standing in the parking lot and I'm a terrible person for this, but I'm sure you can understand at this point. But I'm thinking do it. Beat this dude up. He spooks stalker kid so bad that I'm pretty sure he pissed himself before getting in his car and booking it. Ever since, if he comes into the store, my friend just stares him down from his office and he leaves. Never has he bought anything in all these years. Years later I've moved on and gotten married and I moved out of town. Recently we've moved back to start a business and to this day I still feel myself looking behind me at stores just in case I randomly bump into him. It caused me to have anxiety, mental and emotional pain, fear and trust issues for a decade. Even after moving on, I still feel the effects today and I never even knew his name. Alright, I wrote this last night while laying in bed on my phone so there weren't a lot of specific details. To those who think I was playing the damsel in distress. No, I did not just roll over and let my friends do it all for me. These instances were just the big ones that I had friends to help me out. Yes, the way I handled him was terrible, but you have to understand that as soon as I heard him, my brain just froze and I wanted the experience to last as short as it possibly could and for a teenager that stuff is terrifying. As I got older, I didn't tolerate his crap as much because I thought after high school I was safe. After it started affecting me at work, I didn't just rely on my friends to help me. There are plenty of times that I encountered him that I hadn't written here because they weren't anything more than usual crap from him. Like are you seeing anyone? How's work? I would make it short and be like, yep, uh huh. I'm at work man. Can you like not bother me here? So once it got to the point that his little friend had started following me around and he was waiting for me, that's when my friend stood up for me. Also, a lot of people have asked me why I haven't just looked up his name in a yearbook. I never really cared to put a name to the face because I honestly wanted as little to do with him as possible. But after this post I've reached out to my old high school buddies and asked if any of them have a yearbook I can borrow to find his name. So stay posted. Update 2 I have finally gotten my hands on a yearbook and while I've taken a picture for my husband to finally see him, I'm not going to show it here. I can tell you that I have a name which I'll only share the first name just in case this magically gets around for him to see. It's Christopher dinner time.
- [27:09]
Geico Representative
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- [27:28]
Narrator
So this happened about a year ago. I'm a 20 year old female and my fiance, who's also 20 and I are in college and we lived in a student apartment building near campus. We lived on the second floor and the gym was on the first. There was a stairwell near our apartment that we typically used. This stairwell always freaked me out because it wasn't very well lit and it was open underneath the bottom stairs. So it would have been very easy for someone to hide there and there was a door right on the other side that opens out into a dark not busy road. My fiance, we'll call him A and I decided to go work out at around 10pm 1 Saturday night. The gym was not very busy and I think there was maybe one other guy there. But since it was Saturday night in a college town, there were a lot of people coming in and out of the building for parties. It's also important to note that the gym was in L shape with full length windows that showed the hallway. I spent most of my workout right in front of the glass near the door while A was over in a different section. This means that it wasn't obvious that we were together unless you saw us walk in together. So a bit into my workout I noticed two guys looking at me as they walk right behind me on the other side of the glass and into the stairwell. This is not unusual, so while I took note of it, I wasn't very concerned. A few minutes later they walk by again going the other way with more guys. This time they stare a bit again and while I'm more on guard now, I figured they were just letting their friends in since you needed a keycard to get into any door in the apartment and now they are going back to their apartment and that would be it. But no, this continues to happen where they walk by again and again with more guys every time reaching probably about eight guys in total. After a couple of rounds with them as a group, I start seeing them walk by individually and most of them are not even trying to conceal their staring at all. Even when I look at them. I go tell A what's happening so he can watch for it. Also, I was a little spooked out, but I wasn't too concerned since I wasn't alone. I finished my workout, put away the weights I used, and rolled up my yoga mat. During this I'm facing away from the hallway so I didn't see this, but Ace said he saw one of the guys go into the bathroom that's right between the door to the gym and the stairwell and the whole time I was putting away my stuff he kept peeking out and staring at me. I'll usually go back to the apartment when I'm done because A's workouts are a lot longer than mine. But I wasn't about to go to that creepy stairwell alone after that, so I go and sit next to A and wait for him to be done. The next time the guy looks out of the bathroom, he sees me with A and he then walks out of the bathroom and leaves. I also want to mention that A's a pretty large guy at 6'two nothing else happens and when A's done, we leave and we don't see any of the guys again. We think the guy in the bathroom was supposed to be watching for me to leave so that when I went to the stairwell some of the other guys would be there and would probably take me out onto the road into a vehicle, but when they saw that I was with A, they decided that it wasn't worth it. Now this is obviously just speculation and might not be what was actually happening, but I can't help but think that was their plan. From then on, I wouldn't walk to or from the gym by myself. We had moved not too long ago and I feel much safer at our new place. The story happened in December of 2024 when I was 15 years old. For reference, I'm a 16 year old female and I live in a relatively safe city. So it was really unsettling to me that this kind of thing could have occurred on a regular night in a place that I feel or felt very comfortable in. I'm an avid runner and I run for my school, but December is the peak of off season for any high school running sports. For this reason, during off season I usually go on runs during the evenings on weekdays to stay in shape for the upcoming season. So it was literally the Friday afternoon that kicked off winter break and Fauna's week had just ended. I was so tired from the constant studying and lack of sleep all week that when I got home I fell asleep almost immediately. When I woke up it was already pretty dark outside. I felt like foregoing my daily run, but I told myself I could have the whole weekend off if I did the short run tonight, and that motivated me to just get it done so I could relax for the rest of the weekend. By the time I was ready to go, it was past 8pm I had on black leggings and my earbuds as usual, and my parents weren't home so I told my older sister that I'd be back in a bit. I remember her saying, be safe, it's dark, which I thought was a little funny since she usually never said anything of the sort. And it's probably a little naive of me, but I never really felt like anything would happen to me while I was out. My town was safe and I ran so much that if someone wanted to kidnap me, it would probably have already been done. Weird logic, I know, but I guess I just felt invincible, which I know now is a pretty dangerous thought to have as a girl. So anyway, I'd gotten in the habit of taking a particular route when it was later at night since it was a decently well lit path around a typically populated street. As I started the run, I noticed that not many cars were out though. About a mile in, I turned off into a small side neighborhood that was a bit darker, but I still felt safe because the amount of times I've ran through it and its relative proximity to my house. The neighborhood had one main street that ended at a dead end with a couple of side streets attached to the main street that branched out to create cul de sacs with only five or six houses occupying them. To get my full mileage, I usually just ran down the short cul de sac side streets away because it didn't take long and they added to the run. So I had just gone down the main street of the neighborhood and had turned around at its dead end. As I was heading back, I noticed a gray sedan car ahead of me, slowly creeping down the road right toward me. It just looked like an average car if a little beaten up, and I got a bit of a strange vibe, but I told myself I was being overdramatic. I reasoned that the car was probably just looking at the Christmas lights in the neighborhood because it was less than a week until Christmas or maybe trying to find a specific house to drop something off at. I ran past the car and gave a polite wave, trying to glance through the window to see who was in it. I noticed there was a man driving who looked to be about middle aged, but I didn't see anyone in the passenger seat and the back windows were tinted. I couldn't make out any facial features, just as relative age range. The man didn't wave back, just kind of watched me, but I brushed it off. Once I got past the car, I turned in one of the side streets that ended in a cul de sac, refocused on completing this run so I could go home and go back to sleep. Out of instinct I guess. I turned and glanced at the gray sedan car again, but it was at the end of the dead end street and turning around back towards my direction. I brushed it off again and reasoned that they probably just made a wrong turn into this neighborhood and were leaving after the realization. At this point though, I was admitting to myself that it was a little creepy and I was really hoping that they wouldn't drive by at the same time that I was running out of the side street because I didn't want to be seen by that car again. With my luck, though, that's not what happened. And when I turned around at the cul de sac on the side street, I noticed that same gray sedan slowly creeping up towards the entrance of the side street I was on. And when I say slowly, I mean like the car was moving just enough to classify it as moving. It was really creepy, and I fleetingly lied to myself that they might just be looking for a specific house to drop something off. While my pounding heart was telling me the truth. This was definitely out of the ordinary. I only started to seriously freak out when the gray sedan slowly turned onto the side street I was on. I turned the volume on my music all the way down. Suddenly feeling really scared and trapped, the car inched its way into the middle of the street towards me instead of staying on its right. Suddenly, it stopped completely and alarm bells were ringing in my head. Without thinking, I sprinted through the grass, across the lawns of the houses in the street, keeping one eye on the car and one in front of me. That's when I noticed there were people in the backseat, which I couldn't see before because of the tent. But the car was illuminated a bit under one of the streetlights, and at this angle, I could tell that more than one person was in the backseat and they were close to the window. I fought to look calm, but I sprinted as fast as possible through the lawns of the houses and turned out of the side street, knowing I couldn't make it far. Running against a car. I opted to hide instead, hoping this wasn't a stupid idea. Thank God there was a huge pickup truck parked in the driveway of a house right in front of me, and I hid my body behind the wheel of the truck so that they couldn't see me. At that point, I realized I was stupidly wearing a bright pink jacket in the darkness, making me an obvious target. So I quickly took it off and threw it in the truck bed so it couldn't be seen. I peeked out from around the truck bed, making sure to stay behind the wheel, and felt my heart stop. The gray sedan had pulled around the cul de sac and was completely stopped at the entrance of the side street, ready to turn out into the main street. But the car was completely still, and I could see the man in the driver's seat looking down the street that I'd just run down and turning his head to glance at the sides of the street for something. The people in the backseat were glancing around too and even though I couldn't make out specific facial features, I got really bad vibes. Keep in mind that I'm a 5 foot 2 female who weighs under 120 pounds. If a grown man tries to get to me, I have basically no chance. So I literally did not know what to do except hide and hope the car would go away. That was probably the scariest moment of my life. And it only lasted for maybe 20 seconds before another car finally came down the neighborhood street. At the sight of the other car, the gray sedan quickly sped out of the neighborhood, not bothering to drive down the other side streets of the neighborhood. That's when I knew that car was seriously not normal. If they were looking for a certain house, wouldn't they go down the other side streets too? Why just the one that I happened to be on? And why did they speed away? I put my jacket on, praying that the gray sedan wouldn't turn back into the neighborhood. I probably stayed behind that huge pickup truck for about 10 minutes until I felt a little bit safer, or at least safe enough to get home. By that time, I kind of felt dumb, like maybe I was being overdramatic the entire time and the people in the car had some valid excuse to act like that. I felt like I was maybe overblowing what was just an average experience. I wish I could say the story ended there, but it didn't. I ran back to my house pretty quickly, still freaked out a bit, but I thought that the scary part was over and I was in the process of calming down. So when I got to my house, I just told myself to finish the remaining half mile of my run, and then I could go home and tell my sister all about what had happened. But after a few minutes, as I was headed back to my house on an adjoining street to the one that I lived on, nearly completely finished with the stupid run, I saw the exact same gray sedan with the exact same male driver slowly creeping up to the stop sign on the street I lived on. About to turn onto the street that I was running up, I felt my heart basically stop. And I just couldn't believe this was real and happening to me, of all people. I slowed to a barely moving jog, contemplating what to do. The man in the car just stopped at the stop sign, and I could tell he was looking at me, waiting for what I was going to do. That unnerved me more than anything, knowing that he was just simply waiting. Well, that and the fact that there were other people in the backseat, possibly waiting to jump out and grab me if I ran past. I was only about eight houses down from mine and I was so terrified I could barely breathe. I just remember thinking, please let me be home for Christmas this year. Please don't let my family spend the holidays calling the police for finding my dead body. Please don't kidnap me when I'm this close to my house. Please don't let me die because of a freaking run. I faintly saw the people in the backseat of the sedan moving around, shuffling closer to the car doors. I told myself to think or else I would die. I knew that they'd already seen me, so no way I could hide. I remembered a shortcut through the driveway of a nearby house that led from the street I was on to the adjoining one my house was on for the second time that night. I turned around and sprinted as fast as I could across the lawn and through that house's driveway. When I emerged, I looked back once. I was past the gray sedan, which had its back door closest to me, propped open and only a couple houses down from my own. I couldn't even breathe. I was running so fast I didn't stop or look back again until I got to my driveway, hiding behind a large bush that shielded me from sight. Not 15 seconds later, that same gray sedan came slowly creeping down my street. I guess after having turned around, it stopped for only a few seconds, this time a couple of houses down from mine, and when a car came up behind it, the gray sedan sped out of my neighborhood. I ran inside my house in disbelief, but so happy to be home safely. I immediately locked the doors, praying that the people in the car didn't see where I lived. I should have gotten a picture of the license plate on that car, but I guess Hindsight is 20 20. I never run that late anymore though, and I run with a safety bracelet now when I'm alone. You can never be too careful. I don't run that route anymore either, unless it's in broad daylight, and I always switch up my running routine to be safe. The scariest part is that I always look for that car now when I'm running, since they know the neighborhoods that I live around and run in and can show up at any moment. Just a warning to any girls, especially the ones who run and or are out at night. Don't take the same routes all the time because routines create opportunity and this seems obvious, but just be vigilant of your surroundings because you really never know who's out there or what they're trying to do. I don't know for sure what those men were planning on doing. But I'm so grateful I never got the chance to find out.