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Storyteller (0:50)
When I was 18, I was desperate to find a place to stay for universidy. There's a massive housing shortage where I live so I went on Facebook to find a room. Eventually a man from Egypt dmed me saying that he has a private room available. He told me that he had moved to Egypt due to being ill and decided to rent out his three bedroom house. He had no profile picture or any info on his profile other than his name. He gave me the address to get a house tour with the current tenants that are moving out. His son was the one that let me have a house tour and Amanda gave me the keys later on via mail. This is a shared house with three students with the kitchen and bathroom being shared. I tour around and everything seems to be normal and clean in this house. So I asked the former tenants why they're leaving. They told me that the landlord is a weird guy but I think nothing of it and decide to sign the contract via email. I did not see a son after the house tour. After signing the contract, the landlord got my phone number on WhatsApp and messaged me saying that he wants to build a friendship with me. I say that I'm too busy right now with school. He would call me sometimes 10 times a day and ask why I'm not picking up. He called me because he said he was lonely and needed company. Most of the time I wouldn't respond and just move past it and pay the rent. About a month after I moved into the house, his messages became strangers. I notice you have a heater and an air fryer on your table. Could you please not use those? Why do you own two laptops? That's kind of strange he would say. If this man really claimed that he's living in Egypt and I've never seen him in person and my windows and my doors are fully shut and locked. How did he know that those items were sitting on my table? There were multiple messages like this commenting on the kind of objects in my room or how I organize my room. More importantly, he would attempt to charge €150 more on the rent for using my air fryer too much in my room. Again, how could he tell that I was using my air fryer and not my roommates since I'd never brought my air fryer outside of my private room? As for the roommates, they were pretty chill and also students not from Egypt. However, when I told them all about the messages I had received, they said that they hadn't gotten anything like that and heard nothing from the landlord. The roommates claim that they've never been in my room or contacted the landlord. I don't believe them, so I asked to see their WhatsApp and there have been no messages other than rent has been paid. I tested if the roommate's key could open my door and it could not. They were also gone for majority of the day, so I had started to test him. I would put specific objects onto my table in my private room and see if he says anything about it. Well, he noticed and that's when I freaked the hell out in the middle of a class lecture. Then two days later, after ignoring all the comments about the objects I placed, I got several calls from unknown phone numbers. I only answered twice. The voice vaguely sounded like the landlord and then says to come home. I came home and the trash that I threw out that day was all over the front door to my private room. Finally, after nearly a year of dealing with this, I finally found a safer place to stay and filed a restriction order against this Egyptian landlord. I still have absolutely no idea how he knew what objects I had in my private room or how that trash ended up in front of my door. One friend of mine believes there were hidden cameras, while another believes a roommate was spying on me. But again, I don't really know. I was in my 20s at the time, young and full of ambition. At the time I was a raging alcoholic and drug addict, so my memory is kinda hazy. So I do apologize if most of the details aren't there and major other events are left out. I'm also now sober almost a year. Anyways, I moved to Salt Lake City, Utah from Arizona and I had gotten a job as a service tech. One of these jobs I went on was adding devices for equipment on a string of gas stations starting from St. George to Salt Lake. Slowly working my way up the state to Salt Lake City, hitting every store that was needing devices. I cannot remember exactly where I was for the life of me. Somewhere between Richfield and another town. One of those small towns in between. I had finished my store late, about 10:11pm or so and wanted to get to the next town over so I can continue my work in the morning rather than drive two hours in the morning as I'm driving down the highway. The Google maps had told me to take this dirt road to get to the town I was working in. Next, hesitant on why this was around, I turned left into it. A long dirt road with nothing around me. Pitch black darkness other than my high beams. About 57 minutes into my drive, my truck takes a sputter. It was an old 2008 work truck, a real piece of crap. I cursed under my breath and put it in park. I lifted the hood and nothing seemed to be wrong. I have mild mechanical knowledge of course. I look down on my phone and see I have no cell service at all. I check my work phone and the same thing. My only option here was to pretty much either wait it out until daytime or find a spot where I can get a bar of service. So I took option two. Also, I usually carry firearms, but this trip I had forgotten to bring it with me. Wielding a 10 inch pipe wrench and a Milwaukee flashlight, I walked into the desert determined to be rescued from the dark abyss. I'd like to add that this road was barely paved. I mean you would not even take a truck on this unless you had to or it led to a specific point. I wouldn't even call it a road, more of a trail. Brush and trees lined up the trail like a natural wall. I'm not anxious or get scared very easily. I grew up in Arizona so I was pretty used to the dark, quiet desert. Every step further from the truck made me feel more tense. I walked for about 10 minutes until I heard laughing. Kind of muffled laughing. Something you'd hear right out of a kid's show right behind me. I swung around quickly. Nothing. My boots are sinking into the mounds of sand as I quickly just keep pushing forward. My heart is beating out of my chest like a ticking time bomb. I hear it again, but closer, louder, like if it was 45ft from me. I'm fully sprinting into the desert, brush and sand now, eyes darting like lasers around for somewhere to hide. I do not believe in the paranormal or aliens or really anything like that. I just figured it was some deranged desert Hobo or something or some sort of drug addict. The adrenaline coursing through me. I hid behind a rock that was nearby, crouched down, my right knee hurting by all the rocks on the ground. But I didn't care. I needed to hide. The rocks were one of those three footish mound rocks. The moon was shining bright so I could see some things. As I am scanning the desert, I see silhouettes of two people running. I can barely make them out, but my eyes had adjusted to the dark abyss I forgot to mention. After a while of this running, I turned my flashlight off and I give away my location. I hear them talking but I'm far away enough to not be able to understand what they're saying. I literally sent out a message to my family and friends saying that I love them and that I'm sorry for anything I'd ever done wrong in my life. They didn't send because I didn't have any service. Just coping in a traumatic event. I'm not a small guy. I'm five'10, £230. But I was unarmed and outnumbered and God knows how many others were out there with them and what they were planning on doing when I was found and helpless. I waited. But they didn't leave the general location of where they were at. Scrambling around like mosquitoes, I had thought of the only thing I could do. I grabbed two smallish rocks. I'm not religious, but I prayed to God that night and threw them far in a direction away from the truck and the road. I heard them scurry away towards the noise, shouting at each other as they trucked through the desert. I slowly crouched and walked through the brush back to the truck. I forgot to mention this earlier, but I heard another set of stomping after the two had run. There were three people in the desert with me. As I got closer I could see the truck. I felt like I was in heaven. Every step was closer to salvation. My boots filled with sand. Every stop into the soft cold sand. Branches and bushes stabbed me in my cargo work pants. I hear them telling me for the love of God, I could not turn around. I don't even care to see who or what it was that was chasing me. I see the truck. The truck driver side door is completely open. I had left it closed. I checked the back seat and flung open the door some more. I flew into the driver's seat in the truck and did the most stupid thing ever. But the only thing I could think of. I started. Took a couple of tries to start it but cranked it let out a massive roar. I threw the gear shifter in drive and drove. As I was driving, hauling ass down the dirt road, I saw hooded people hiding along the sides of the road, ducking as I drove by, scattering into the darkness like roaches in a kitchen. I rolled down the window and chucked my pipe wrench as hard as I could right at one of them and then sped off. I watched it do flips right into where they were. I yelled as I sped off into the pitch dark desert night. Trails of dust followed the truck as I drove. Silence. Nothing but me and my heavy breathing trying to make sense of the whole situation. I drove until I saw the town lights. I was sweating, white knuckles on the steering wheel, gritting my teeth, going at least 75 miles per hour. I got into the small town at around 12am I threw myself into a local 711 looking terrified. The cashier asked me what was wrong and I asked her to just call the sheriff's office. The sheriff was just some old burly looking man. I'm covered in tattoos head to toe. So he treated me as a criminal, almost myself. Turns out some hose had bursted. Do not remember exactly what it was though. I got into town and called my boss who was upset at the late night call he was receiving. He was shocked at what I said and he said to call the sheriff's office and mechanic. Mechanic guy was super nice and didn't charge me for the repair. The cops were not really much help. They basically looked at me like I had been up too long and I was hallucinating. I was not. They asked if I had taken drugs or drank and barely wrote anything on the report. The mechanic was telling me that he had never heard of anything like that happening in the area. I stayed in the motel that night. I believe it was a Motel 6 but I can't remember. I swear I didn't get a lick of sleep that night after I showered the dirt off me. I ended up returning home early and quit this job later down the line for other reasons. I have since moved out of Utah to Florida. A photo I had taken on the service call had came and reminded me of the story. I had to write it down. I had to tell someone. Was this a robbery? Why were they trying to hurt me? Did they just see the work truck and say oh, expensive tools and copper? I have no idea. I'm just curious. Who do you think these people were and why were they hunting me like an animal? Has anyone out there had a similar experience? How close do you really think I was to being murdered in the desert. I forgot to mention that the truck was looted. I remember that all the wire pipe and some power tools were taken from it. We humans are not afraid of being alone in the dark, but finding someone else in the dark with us, that's a different story.