Narrator (11:21)
So just over 10 years ago I was fresh out of college and had moved back to my parents house for the free rent and food for months or so before I was leaving the state for graduate school. Now my parents are super chill and gave me my own space in the house. But being a 22 year old single guy and living at a house in the sticks is certainly not ideal. But I didn't have any other options so I started looking for some work, more to pass the time than to save up some money. Also, as a side note, my parents had just recently moved about 40 miles south of a major midwest city. Anyway, so summer turned to winter and I still hadn't found anything solid. But by then I desperately needed to spend some more time out of my parents house. So I took a part time gig doing some light bookkeeping for a small business owner guy that my dad knew. I didn't really want to do it since it didn't pay that much, was short term and wasn't even a real office setup. But again, since my parents lived in the middle of nowhere midwest thank acres and acres of farms, I knew that I had limited opportunities to make some cash and this guy was going to pay me under the table as well. About that same time a friend of mine in the city said that if I just paid him $200 a month and helped him clean up, he'd basically let me crash in his living room until I was ready to move out of state. That was all I needed to hear. I took the job. Some of my dad's friend's family had a construction type business. They helped out with building stuff a little, but it was ultimately more focused on renting out a few bobcats and large augers that they owned also other various drills and then odds and ends like generators and other low level construction or farming equipment that someone in that area couldn't afford to purchase but needed to use from time to time. This was a small mom and pop type thing where everyone knew everyone and the office only opened on days that when someone was coming by and was just generally a mutually beneficial situation for the business owners and the locals. Since I mitered in a business adjacent area and my dad recommended me, they trusted me to go there for about 1520 hours a week and check and file the rental forms, make sure nobody missed the payment date, if there was a payment plan in place, answer an email or two discussing prices and availability, etc. Super easy gig. The old building where I worked was about 90 years old and at the top of this little hill the downstairs used to be an old country bar until the 1970s when this family bought it cheap, cleared out the bar and fenced in the property to use as a parking lot area to store all their rental equipment and gear. I could generally come and go as I pleased, work any hours I wanted as long as the work got done. So if things were slow and there weren't any rentals for a couple of days, I usually just go in after 7 and stay in until around midnight or one since I knew I'd be alone and could listen to music really loud and take my time and all that. The office where I worked was on the second floor of the building above the old bar and looked out into the long driveway. From my seat I could easily see out the window and once or twice saw a family of deer or a raccoon scamper by and I always glanced out when I saw movement since it was very noticeable. It was incredibly remote, very still and quiet, so if something unusual occurred or if something felt off, I definitely noticed it. One night during winter it had snowed a few inches and my dad told me to stay in because the roads were bad, but I had an old SUV and more than that just really wanted to get out of the house. So I went into work at about 8pm and I was going to stay until just after 1. I always left the gate open at the bottom of the hill since believe me when I say that nobody ever showed up at night. Since we were literally in the middle of nowhere, I think the nearest occupied house was about two miles down the road and even to turn into our short road you had to only be coming to our specific building and probably know it was there beforehand. It really was a Locals only type thing and very small since the family had inherited a lot of money and kind of did this rental thing on the side. Basically someone would never get just lost and end up at our building. So anyways, I'm jamming away to some Fall Out Boy and having some coffee and I kept glancing at the snow outside here and there since our one orangish street light reflected on the ground at the gate and was causing the light to shine off the snow in a really cool kind of way. At one point around midnight, I went downstairs to the big bathroom to do my bathroom business and then came back upstairs and got settled back into my work. I probably did about five minutes of work when I glanced outside and saw a huge imprint of something in the fresh snow just below the light. It seemed like it must have just been a huge dog or substantial animal that had just rolled around on the ground there on its back or something. Since I didn't notice it just 15 minutes before. It had to have happened while I was in the bathroom or maybe when my back was turned, since I would have seen that type of movement for sure I shook it off and assumed it was a dog or maybe even a farm animal had gotten loose and maybe it was attracted to the light or something as this was common as it was that kind of area, who knows. At around two in the morning I was leaving and as always got out of my car to lock up the gate. And to be honest, I had pretty much forgotten about the imprint in the snow. But when I looked down, I was shocked to see that it wasn't just some disturbed snow, but it was undeniably the imprint of a human made snow angel. If you don't know what a snow angel is, it's when kids lie on their back in the snow and push their arms and legs back and forth so when they get up it looks like the outline of an angel. I used to do this when I was a kid, so I 100% knew for sure that's what it was. And it was deliberately made underneath the light post. But it wasn't from a kid. It was from a very large person, or at the very least a normal sized adult wearing tons of layers of big winter clothing. I looked up and I saw what I already knew, that whoever made this snow angel could easily look up and have seen me through that window. So they must have waited for me to head downstairs to make this angel. Now I definitely would have seen or heard if someone drove up to our building, even if I was in the bathroom. So I knew someone had to have walked deep into the freezing and cold snow for a few miles, stopped in front of our building, and then to a snow angel. In the small amount of time I wasn't sitting in the front of my desk window, I glanced around for tracks in the snow and saw that there was one set that led to the nearby woods to the right of the building. So it was clear the person didn't use the road, but instead came from the opposite side, which made me feel instantly uneasy since that side was just trees and darkness for miles and miles. I was definitely a little freaked out now since I realized that someone had just been this close to me secretly in the middle of the woods, and I looked around but didn't see anything amiss at all. And now I just wanted to get the hell out of there. When I got back on my car and drove a few feet, I realized that my boss would be there in like four hours and might see that same snow angel and then assume I did it. Since he probably assumed I kept the gate locked when I was there. It wouldn't have been that big of a deal at all, but I was young and I felt like I might be made fun of by him. If nothing else, they were all very manly men. I liked books, so I opened the gate back up real quick, ran over, then kicked the snow around so it hid the angel, then locked it up again and went back to my car. Also, I should note this is really what happened at this moment, but I almost lied here and said something else since it seems fake, since I assumed the average person wouldn't actually get back out of their SUV and not just flee in their car because they're embarrassed about a snow angel. But at the same time I was insecure and cared a lot about what others thought. So unfortunately, this is what I did. Also, I wasn't exactly fully terrified at this point, even though it was certainly unsettling. I just thought it was really weird and could have been an illegal hunter, even though hunting at night in the cold didn't really make much sense either way. The imprint was made two hours earlier and I assumed they were long gone at this point. But that's when I heard it when I was getting into my suv. There was the loudest high pitched laughing coming from the woods. It almost sounded like a fake laugh, like the witch in wizard of Oz or something. Like someone was doing it fake on purpose to show how they weren't scared of me or how I'd react at all once I knew they were Laughing at me on our property. It was close enough that I knew they could probably see me, but I couldn't see them at all, since other than the streetlight I was under, there was no illumination. After a few seconds of laughing, they stopped. And then it was just silence everywhere except for my heart beating through my ears. Then the laughing started up again, though louder this time, more like screaming and laughing combined. I sort of froze for just like five seconds, listening in panic. Now, I spend a lot of time in that area and I know what coyotes and foxes sound like at night with their high pitched screeches during mating season. So I can't completely logically rule that out. But to me, it honestly felt like it was an adult man trying to emulate a woman laughing like someone was deliberately trying to make a fake scary shriek laugh in order to scare someone. Well, it worked. After those five seconds, I immediately filled with adrenaline, got in my car and drove the hell away from there as fast as I could without sliding off the road. Back at home, I was up all night trying to figure it out and I even told my parents the story when they woke up. After talking it out, we all decided it was one of two things. It was either my brain somehow convinced itself that the snow formation was angel shaped when it was really just caused by some animal, and then the snow tracks and laughing was just a coyote or red fox, though I don't think that's what it was. What I truly believe the second thing, which is that some local was walking around for some reason and decided to mess with me. I didn't have any close friends left in that area that would do this, and if they did, they would have certainly brought it up to make fun of me for speeding away in terror. I found out later that the nearest house was a super old couple, so I highly doubt that it was one of them. Which means that whoever went out in the woods at night in the freezing cold did it just to mess with a stranger. I don't have any mental issues or a family history of them. I didn't do drugs and I drank socially at that time, but certainly didn't that night. I also don't believe in the paranormal, so I never once gave that a thought. In my heart I know someone was out there. I worked there another six weeks or so and never had a single issue, though I knew where my boss kept his gun and I always made sure it was there when I started my shift. I certainly always locked the gate from then on. Thinking about this experience that night, the part that freaked me out the most was that he had to have waited around for me to leave for about two hours just to do that laugh. He didn't know me. I could have been crazy and the type of person to get mad and try and find and attack him. Yet he didn't seem scared or to care while he tried to mess with me. For some random dude, this is probably a story that he tells from his point of view to make all his friends giggle hysterically. But for me, that dude, the one I call angel in the Snow guy, the one with the laugh that I'll never forget. Well, hopefully I never encounter him or anything like this again. This is my first ever post, but reading other stories inspired me to share my own. I was around six or seven years old when this happened. I grew up in a small town where everyone knew everyone as well as all of their business. It was historic and beautiful. Nothing bad ever seemed to happen except for the rare death or murder. There were two that stand out in my memory, but that's for another post. My family lived on a main road running through town across the street from our local kindergarten to eighth grade school. It was in a farmhouse with no farm and 4 acres. I loved it. However, this day is one that I've never been able to shake from my memory. The area that I lived in is known for its very long, very snowy winters. Forecast predicted a heavy snowstorm to roll through in the late afternoon and evening time. Due to the time of the forecast, most of the schools in our area decided to close for the day of and the day after. My mom, who hated the snow, demanded that my father call out of work to help with myself, my younger brother, and my older sister, but more so help with the snow. We already had a good foot and a half on the ground outside from previous storms, so my dad was happy to oblige. To keep it from building up before the storm began, I made a quick trip to a popular chain bookstore with my mom. I can't remember why or what she needed there, but I do remember leaving the store with a new stuffed llama to add to my growing collection of stuffed animals. I was thrilled. Anyway, we went home with my mom's book and my animal and we were ready to call it a day. Shortly after our return, the first flakes began rolling out of the sky. My brother, who is only a year younger than me, began begging my parents to bundle him up so we could go out and play in the store. They agreed, but I had to go out with them and we had to stay in the driveway where they could see us. I got all dressed in my snow gear and even found a doll sweater to put on my new llama. My brother took an extra 20 minutes to get dressed because my mom had to help him. Picture the brother in A Christmas story. And that was him. Once bundled, we stopped outside in our boots and stiff jackets and began throwing ourselves in the snow. Time flew by. We had built a snowman, a fort, and even had a snowball fight, and before long I was too cold and wanted to go back in. But my brother did not. While I was trying to coax him inside with the promise of hot cocoa in a movie, a small maroon sedan pulled into our driveway. Weird, I thought. Who would be out driving in this? Then it occurred to me that it looked just like my Aunt Penny's car. I quickly ran inside to tell my parents that she was at the house, leaving my brother outside all by himself. Aunt Penny's here. I shouted. My dad quickly stormed past me to the window and my mom followed. I wondered why that looked so concerned for a visit from a family member. So I ran back outside to the car to greet her. When I got outside, I noticed the car had pulled forward into our driveway and next to where my mostly immobile brother was standing. Mostly immobile due to his snow gear, by the way. I waddled up next to him and smiled, ready to greet our aunt, who lived almost an hour away. Instead, however, I was greeted by an older, thin man with dark circles around his eyes and wispy gray hair. He kept his empty eyes on my brother. They looked hungry, like he was feasting on the kid with his eyes. My stomach sank and I went straight into stranger danger mode, pulling my brother back a foot with me. Hey, kids, are your parents home or are you alone? He asked. I stemmed back another foot and shyly answered that they were home. They were inside. My mom always told me to answer with this, whether she was home or not, in hopes of scaring anyone away with bad intentions. The man's entire demeanor changed. The hunger in his eyes vanished. He looked panicked and frustrated. Then he quickly began trying to back out of our weirdly shaped driveway, but his tires were sliding on the fresh snow. Before I knew it, my dad was there. Hey, can I help you? He asked the man, then looked at him and started searching in his car. I stepped closer and inside all I could see were lumpy trash bags and filth in the backseat. Yeah, I'm looking for Smith Road, the man answered. My dad pulled my brother and I close to him. You know what town you're in, right? There's no road by that name, he said. The man fumbled over a few more words, uttering a sorry, and then quickly left our driveway. My dad took down his plate number and called our local police department to let them know what happened. They said to just spend the day inside and thanked him for letting them know I never played with that stuffed llama again. It went into my old toy storage bin and never came out until we moved years later only to be sold at our yard sale. I always had a bad feeling about that day and what could have happened if my dad hadn't come outside and I wanted to get rid of anything that reminded me of it. The fact that it shook my parents made me uneasy as well as they didn't scare easily. I don't know who the man was or why he wanted to know if our parents were home, but my gut feeling at the time and today over 10 years later, was that he was looking for something more than the non existent Smith road I'm a 21 year old female and this story took place when I was around 11. I remember this day clearly because it was the first time I was ever allowed to walk to school and back by myself. Up until the age of 14 I lived in what we thought was a safe place in Chautauqua County, New York. Everyone knew everyone. If you thought you would get away with something then be prepared to have your ear abused by the time you got home. There was this one day though. It was a cold winter day and school unfortunately was still open so all the neighborhood kids had to walk through knee high inches of snow just to get to school. It took me a little longer to leave the house as I was used to walking with my older sister to school since she knew the routes better than I did. I always used to make fun of her for being so paranoid and taking a different route every day from school, but after that day I learned that was what actually saved my life. As I was waiting by the door to leave, my mom came up to me and told me that I should ride with her to drop me off because my sister was too sick to go today. Being a brat, I made a big deal about walking by myself because I was almost 12 years old and all my friends parents let them walk alone. She looked at me for a long while then told me just to make sure that I pay attention to cars. I actually got hit by a car and almost died when I was 9 years old so the worry that showed on her face was well warranted. I hurriedly nodded and headed out the door to go to school. My sister didn't like to dilly dally, so she was always in a rush to get to school early. But seeing as it was just me now, I thought it would be a good idea to take my time. I would play in the brown slush that was left on the side of the road and even make funny looking snowballs to see how far I can throw them. Well, anyways, halfway to school, I had noticed the typical creepy white van following behind me. Being the playful child I was, if I hadn't been bending down to make another snowball, I wouldn't have even noticed it slowly creeping up the street. I told myself I was just being stupid, being paranoid, but continued more hurriedly to school. Once I got to school, I took a quick glance over my shoulder and I saw the same van just a few feet behind me. It wasn't until I was on school grounds that it drove away fast, right by me. I thought that would be the end of it, but throughout the day when I would stare out the window, the van would still be there. I assumed that it never really left, just parked. Many adults would try to convince me years later that maybe it wasn't the same one, but I knew deep down that it was. The van in question had a bright yellow smile emoji sticker on it. I couldn't see who was in the van, but through the tinted glass I knew they could see me. Well, it was now the end of the day and I really wasn't ready to go home. It was also too late to call my mom because she was at work and my sister was still at home sick. I had to just suck it up and start walking home. I tried to blend in with a group of kids, but most of them were car riders and the others didn't even live near me. Remembering what my sister had told me, I took another route home. I didn't memorize this route clearly, but I decided anything was better than being spotted by that van. I made it to my main street, but realized my mistake was too late. The route I took led back to the main street where I walked to school. Hidden behind a row of cars was the white van with the smiley emoji sticker. I tried to stay calm and walked past, but once I heard the van door silently click open, I ran. I could hear the rush of two heavy pairs of footfalls behind me. They were getting closer, so I did what any normal kid would do. I cut corners. I cut into someone's backyard until I was directly in front of my house and forced myself into thick snow to make it to the door. My heart was racing, not because I was running, but because I could still hear them behind me. I made it to the door and banged with all of my might until someone came to the door. My sister looked confused, but one look in my face and she pulled me inside and locked the doors. The van was still outside. Truthfully, it stayed out there until my brother got home. My sister and I don't talk about it, but we both knew how close it was to me going missing. I hadn't thought about this incident in years, but one of my hometown friends showed me an article that came out in 2013. Apparently some men had kidnapped and assaulted a girl my own age. It wouldn't have scared me if it hadn't mentioned the white van. Whoever you are that attempted to kidnap me and do God knows what else, I'm just so very glad that you didn't succeed. Some info before I start. I'm from Texas so I don't have many shoes with treads on them. The ones I had had gotten too worn and eventually tore and needed to buy some new ones soon. Also, I'm a chubby 5 foot 4 inch girl and this was around 8 o'clock at night. This also happened on a very popular and busy street. I live in Chicago for school and I needed to get some things before the polar vortex. The school I go to is near State street and I decided to go to Walgreens. That was near the Chicago Theater. I had to stop by Target and then at Walgreens as I purchased everything I needed and made sure I had packed in everything. I headed out to the doors. As I walked toward the exit I had noticed a tall man was headed in the same direction at the same time so I decided to let him go first but he just stood there staring at me. He didn't make any gestures but I still thought oh maybe he wants to be nice and be a gentleman. So I went ahead first and he followed. I noticed that it had started slushing and I knew I was going to start sliding everywhere because of the boots I had on had very thin treading on it so I had to slow down on my walking or I'd fall on my butt. I started walking and it's at this point that I noticed him walking at the same pace as me. I thought I was in his way, but I also thought that the sidewalk was extremely big and he could just easily walk around me. I still stepped to the side to see if he would go around or something, but his shadow followed right behind me. I tried walking a little faster now, but I could already feel myself slipping and losing balance. He ended up walking a little faster to catch up to me and soon he was right next to me, matching my walking pace. I asked if he needed anything, but he didn't say anything. He just stared at me. When I was in front of the theater. He ended up going in front of me and just stopped me in my tracks. I tried to go to the left of him, but then he steps in front of me to cut off my path. I tried to the right and he did the same thing. I paced a little faster and he ended up just circling around me. He ends up blocking my path again and gets a cigarette and just gets right up in my face and tried to light it but couldn't because of the slush and wind. I took that chance to slide away from him, but he just kept trying to get in front of me while lighting the cigarette. I made it to the CTA stop to go downstairs, but because he was super tall, he used his massive body to block the stairs in front of me. He was staring me down and I wasn't sure what to do at that point. To my luck though, an older woman was coming through and he let her through. I dashed through the small opening he made for her and asked if I could stick with her because of my situation. She was super understanding and said of course. I wanted to tell the CTA personnel, but of course there was no one in the booth. We took out our cards at the same time and went through the turnstiles at the same time. He saw that I partnered up with her and tried to dash to us, but he ran out of money or something because he didn't go through until a few minutes later. My new friend and I had started to make small talk to calm me down a little and asked what train I was going on and what my stop was. To our surprise, we were headed the same direction with the exact same stop. He followed us down and was still smoking a cigarette, but that's when the CTA noticed and was walking towards him. He turned around so that he could smoke a cigarette fast, which meant that he looked away from us. At that point, my train arrived and we both got on. He saw us and tried to get on, but he missed it by a few seconds. We both thought that was a close call. We continued to talk even after we got off at our stop. And to my surprise, she basically dropped me off at home because she lived a block further up ahead of me. Small world. This encounter is real and happened to me six years ago when I was 16. For context, I'm female. I live in New England, a northeastern region of the United States where the winters are very snowy with long, cold dark nights and short days. One such night in February, I was alone in my parents house, which is in a safe, quiet suburban neighborhood where the houses are within about 100ft of each other. My parents had divorced years before but were still on good terms, so when my mom decided to sell the childhood home, my dad bought it so I could continue living there while in the process of moving. Neither of my parents stayed at the house for a couple of nights and only my room upstairs had furniture. The rest of the house was mostly empty with boxes just scattered about and the Internet had not yet been switched over, so I often sat at the far end of the living room and mooched off our neighbor's wifi. It was fun not having my parents there for a couple of nights, so I stayed up late with my new laptop and surfed the web into the early hours of the morning. During my second night of being alone, it snowed late into the evening and I sat in the dark living room on a folding chair with only my laptop screen for light. With snow falling quietly outside, the neighborhood was silent as cars don't usually drive past 10 at night and neighbors stay inside to keep warm. At 2:30am I decided to head to bed and was wrapping up my Internet activities for the night when I heard three very slow quiet knocks on the front door just a few feet away. I immediately closed my laptop, knowing that the bright screen made me visible to the person outside since the windows weren't covered. I got off my chair and walked very quietly over to the door and knelt down below a window to listen. Outside, frozen with fear, I waited for what was probably about two full minutes when I heard three more identical knocks. They were very slow and would have been too quiet to wake anyone up who had been sleeping. I gathered the courage to look outside through the window and I saw a dark figure standing very close to the front door, dressed in a black winter coat and black pants. A hood pulled over his head obscured his hair and face and he stood still with his arms to his sides. I contemplated calling the police, but ultimately decided to continue waiting. I moved back behind the door away from the window and after about two more minutes passed I could see the man walking down the walkway past the front of the house, leaving. Suddenly he stopped, turned around, and looked directly at the window through which I watched him. About 15 seconds passed as we stared at each other, but I couldn't see his face under the darkness of his hood. Finally, he turned around and walked down the driveway and down the street. He didn't stop at any other houses, just continued down the street in the falling snow, and I watched him for about 10 minutes until he totally faded into the darkness. As far as I know, this hasn't happened since. I still live in that house and occasionally have nightmares in which the scene replays itself, except that in the dreams I open up the door for him.
