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Study and play come together on a Windows 11 PC and for a limited time, college students get the best of both worlds. Get the unreal college Deal everything you need to study and play with select Windows 11 PCs. Eligible students get a year of Microsoft 365 Premium and a year of Xbox Game Pass ultimate with a custom color Xbox wireless controller. Learn more@windows.com studentoffer while supplies last ends June 30th terms at aka mscollegepc Spring
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just slid into your DMs. Grab that boho. Look for that rooftop dinner, those sandals that can keep up with you, and hang some string lights to give your patio a glow up. Spring's calling. Ross. Work your magic.
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I still don't know if I narrowly avoided something really bad or if this guy was just deeply unstable, but it has stayed with me for years. A stranger walked past me while I was at work one day, stopped, and he asked me out on a date. I had never seen him before. It caught me off guard because he came across as confident and kind of old school, so I said yes. He asked if he could pick me up for a coffee date and I agreed. When he picked me up, he already had a McDonald's coffee for me. It was from right near my house. I took a sip and immediately realized I didn't like it because there was no sugar in it. I have a huge sweet tooth and always have sugar in my coffee. That tiny moment is what changed the entire night for me. Because I didn't like the coffee, I stopped properly drinking it and just pretended to sip it so I wouldn't seem rude. But from that point, my brain also started questioning everything. Why would he already buy me a random coffee when the whole point of the date was supposedly to go get coffee together? He didn't even know how I like it. Then things started feeling off. He drove straight past where we were meant to go. When I asked, he casually changed the destination to somewhere further away. During the drive, I also caught him in small lies. He said he worked at my local Woolworths, but I told him that couldn't be true because I'm there all the time and I definitely would have recognized him. He didn't really respond. He then started repeatedly asking if I had finished my drink. Not once or twice, around 10 times. By then we turned off the main road toward the new location. It was fully dark. At one point he turned down a road heading toward bushland. I stopped questioning him at that point because something in me just felt like I needed to stay calm and not Escalate anything. There was also something large and metal in the glovebox that kept moving around and banging, and he kept drawing attention to it. After that, his behavior changed completely. He started driving erratically, swerving from one side of the road to the other while using his elbows on the wheel. He then started yelling that he was Kanye west and I was his Kim Kardashian. Then he drove down a dirt road and then off the dirt road into the bush. We were now driving through trees in the dark. Eventually, he stopped the car right at the edge of a lake. Then he just sat there in silence for about 15 minutes. It felt like he was waiting for something. When he eventually got out of the car, it was pitch black outside. I couldn't see where he went or what he was doing. My heart was absolutely pounding. The second he got out, I grabbed my phone and texted my friend, telling her to call me and say we had training and to not ask questions. I also made sure to casually describe where I was in a way that really made sense. When he came back and got in the car, my phone rang. My friend followed exactly what I asked. After the call, he just kind of looked at me and then said, so you have to go now? I said yes. He then sat in silence for another few minutes before finally turning the car back on and driving me home without saying a single word. I never saw him again. To this day, I still wonder if not liking that coffee is what saved me. If he had added sugar and I had actually finished the drink. If he had added sugar and I had actually finished the drink, would my life had changed completely. That's something that I ask myself often. I visited my sister in law's home yesterday. She lives in an apartment. I was playing with my young nephew when I heard a knock on the door. I checked the peephole and I saw an old man. He was bald and he had a birthmark on the right side of his forehead. He was smiling and I could see that he had missing teeth. He stood completely still, but he didn't even blink. His hands were behind his back and he was leaning forward. I called out to my sister in law and told her about the man. She came over and checked the peephole. She almost screamed and then she told me that she's seen that old man before. When she was with her son at the playground earlier that evening. The old man was there. He was at a distance away. He was standing there and staring at her and her kid. At first she thought that he would eventually leave. But when he didn't. She got so uncomfortable that she just decided to go home. We called the police, but by the time they got there, of course he was already gone. So, yeah, pretty damn creepy. The story happened over 10 years ago when I was about 8 years old. To this day, I try to rationalize this experience, attempting to give the benefit of the doubt to the person involved, but I just can't. It was a muggy September night and I was at a home high school football game with my family. Back then, the parents let their children roam around unsupervised at these games, running around in the grassy areas, playing hide and seek under the bleachers and only appearing back at their parents seats to ask for money to buy a jumbo pickle or a soda. I was one of those kids, and on this night my mom was working in the concession stand. I didn't even need to bother going up to the bleachers to ask for anything.
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Score.
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On this particular night, I was sitting against the fence in a more hidden grassy area we kids like to play in, waiting for any of my friends to show up down there. The field house was almost closed in this little field from the rest of the area, so it was a favorite place for the kids to play and feel like we had our own private kingdom. Then a woman rounded the corner of the field house and came straight to me. I remember she had thin, stringy hair and an almost wild look in her eye. I felt immediately nervous and a bit frightened. She smiled at me and said, hey sweetie, could you come help me with something real quick? I, being the polite young girl, said that I could and I asked what she needed. The woman, smiling bigger, pointed to the space between the field house and the fence. My daughter dropped her cheerleading glove back there. Could you please go get it for her? She said. I guess you could see my immediate hesitation and nervousness because she went on saying, you want to be a cheerleader when you grow up, huh? I like your little uniform you have on. I bet my daughter would love to take a picture with you after the game if you helped us out. At this point, her words were having the opposite of their intended effect. I was becoming truly terrified. This woman was almost frantic for me to go behind this building all the more. It was so shadowy in the space between the building and fence that you couldn't see if something or someone was in there. I took a step toward the gap, peering in to see if I could make out the outline of gloves on the ground, when I suddenly felt this overwhelming bad feeling. I'M not really sure how to describe it, but I knew that I was not going behind that building. I turned to the woman and said, sorry, I can't. My mom wouldn't like it. She immediately tried convincing me that everything was fine, even going so far as to ask me who my mom was, and then after I told her, saying that she knew my mom and was friends with her, thankfully, I started walking toward the more populated area of the stadium and then said, sorry. My mom tells me not to do things like that. She's working at the concession stand right now. She wants me to check in with her every few minutes. This, of course, was a lie. I never checked in. At this point, the woman's face changed from all smiles to exasperation and irritation. She plastered on one last smile to say, oh, you're such a good girl. I'm definitely going to tell your mom tonight how safe you are being. At that, I nodded and ran off to play near the concession stand for the rest of the night, trying to put the situation out of my mind. Only after the game had ended and my mom and I were on the way home, I remembered the scary woman and asked my mom if her friend had come to tell her how good I was. Now my mom, of course very confused, said that she had no clue what I was talking about and that no one had ever came tell her anything about me. When I told her the whole situation, she was rightfully very concerned and disturbed. That was the last time I was allowed to roam around at football games. I still don't know what to make of that whole situation. Did she really need my help to get her daughter's glove? Or was there some sinister motive? My mom fears that there was someone else waiting behind the building for me, but what do y' all think this
- [09:33]
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I was in my sophomore year at the university I was attending. I'm not saying which one for Privacy. I was 20 years old at the time. It was a Thursday and I got done with all of my classes for the day and I went back to my dorm room. Anyway. My roommate Justin came back about an hour after classes were done. Since he was in the library doing homework, we started hanging out and talking. Later that night we went to a party and did some drinking. We walked three blocks to get there since we weren't gonna drive anyway. We got back to our dorm at about midnight. We got changed and got into our beds on Friday, which was the next day at about 1am when we were in our beds, we were just about to drift off. Justin and I were startled by a loud high pitched sound coming from the hallway, followed by an announcement over the hallway's intercom saying there was a fire reported in the dormitory and that it wasn't a drill and that we needed to evacuate immediately. Justin and I got out of our beds, put on our shoes and jackets, and just as I was about to put on my pants, Jason shouted, dude, there's no time to put on your pants. There's a fire in the building. What's more important, your life or a pair of pants? We have to get the hell out of here now. He said he wasn't going to put pants on because he just wanted to get out of there. So I thought, screw it and I didn't put my pants on either. We put our jackets and shoes on and got out of our room with just our jackets, shoes and underwear on. Hard to believe, I know, but it's true. Anyway, when we got into the hallway, the intercom was still repeating the same announcement to evacuate. And the fire alarms were super loud. They sounded like one of those whistles a coach uses in a sport and had pounded against our eardrums. We, along with everyone else in our hallway, ran like hell down the end of the hallway and down two flights of stairs. We then went out one of the side exits of the building with everyone else from the building. We all ran into the parking lot and we had to wait out there in the freezing cold. It was pretty brutal for everyone, especially for Justin and I since we were the only two not wearing pants. After three hours, the fire department and the police left. Then the dean was telling all of us. Due to the event and the possibility of us being sleep deprived from the whole situation, he decided that all classes will be canceled and resume on Monday. Then we were finally able to go back in. When we got back in, we of course all went back to our dorm rooms. Justin and I couldn't believe what had happened. Justin apologized for sounding aggressive earlier. He said he just wanted to get the both of us out of there in time with everyone else and that he was worried about our safety. I told him it was fine and that it wasn't his fault and that I know that he was just looking out for me. But we couldn't get back to sleep. So we just turned on the TV and watched random shows for a couple of hours before turning it off and finally falling asleep at 7am we found out later that day that there was a fire in the basement of the dormitory. The fire was apparently started intentionally by a student who was caught on camera and he was expelled for that. He was also arrested and charged with arson. When he was being questioned by the police at the station, he said that he did it because apparently his voice in his head told him to do it. The dormitory basement was closed for the rest of my sophomore year for repairs. Since the fire was really bad. That student was given a court issued restraining order and he was told to not go within 50ft of the campus. The following story is very dark and disturbing. It mentions the death of an animal and the details are very graphic. You have been warned. I'll start with this particular story because it haunts me to this day over 20 years after it happened. I was about 21 or 22 when this happened. I was in the military at Fort Sill and didn't know it, but Desert Storm was right around the corner. At the time. I lived in south central Oklahoma on the outskirts of a small town called Duncan. I was helping a friend round up some cattle that got out because someone had run across a T section and went through their fence. It tore two posts down and left a 30 foot section open for the cattle to get out. We'd already found most of the cattle and were missing another three or four. So we were out at 1am on dirt bikes trying to find them before someone hit one of them and sued his father. My friend and I went east and the other guys went north and south. One thing you need to know about Oklahoma is that most of it farmed either cattle or crops. It is also divided into 1 mile sections for the most part. In other words, the roads all run north and south or east and west and intersect at 1 mile intervals. If you ask directions for something out in the country, you are more than likely not to get instructions that go 3 mile sections north and then 2 mile sections west. The area at this time was sparse and there weren't many homes. We didn't know how long the hole had been in the fence. My friend's father only checked the fence because he was missing livestock. They owned the entire mile section and a good portion of the adjoining mile section. The hole in the fence was on the east side of their land at the furthest distance from their house. They checked the fence for such holes on a weekly basis, so the hole could not have been more than two days old. James and I were riding on these dusty old dirt roads with battery powered spotlights to both show the way and to search for cattle. We'd stop at any of the million wood and small bridges and look to see if there were any cows down by the water. Our plan was to get out 10 miles and then go over a mile section and drive back 10 miles until we'd got a total of 10 miles out and 10 miles over. Then we were to do it all again, but on the north south roads instead of the east west roads. If you were to plot it on a map, it would be a 10x10 grid. We had been at it since before 9pm just as it was getting dark and we'd already gone 10 miles out and about three miles over. I need to mention at this point that there are some mile sections that are not divided by roads and you have to turn one way or another at a T intersection. If that happens, we always take the road that goes on our general direction of travel. If we were traveling east and came to a T and we'd already checked the road north of us, then we'd head to the south a mile and then east again. Occasionally an old farmer would pass away and leave his land to relatives who had no interest in farming and the land would be put up for sale or just left alone for years. When this happens and the roads aren't used as much, nature reclaims them and you're usually left with a dirt road with weeds and grass growing on it, or you're left with a little more than an improved trail, usually two ruts with overgrown weeds and Johnson grass and occasionally a tree. We were on one of the rutted roads headed south to the next intersection where we'd turn east again. The land here was too hilly for cultivation and had been left alone. For at least the last 30 years. We were both familiar with it and we hunted and fished there. This mile section and the next two were basically wild. At the end of this mile section, the road was a dead end, but we had to check it and double back. We'd just made the turn back to the east when we saw something burning over the next rise. Grass fires are extremely dangerous and can get out of control in minutes. As we topped the rise, we saw that the fire was actually in the middle of the dirt road. When we got to it, we found out that it was a recliner that was burning, a blue Lazy Boy recliner. We stopped and threw some dirt on it and finally got it extinguished. James and I were wondering what kind of an idiot would do this and how strange it was to be in the middle of the road just burning. Satisfied that the fire was out, we got back on our bikes and idled past the recliner toward the end of the mile section, still a quarter of a mile in the distance, we found one of their cows at the bottom of the rise, about a hundred feet down the road. It was laying half in and half out of the road. Its throat had been cut and it was laying there with its eyes opened and its tongue hanging out. There was blood everywhere. As we were looking at it and trying to figure out what happened, James said, hey, look at this, and showed me where the blood had dripped from the cow to about 10ft away from it. There were shoe prints of blood in the road. It was only part of a shoe print, but you could tell that it was a shoe print. Nonetheless, we found two more. When we looked more diligently at this point, the hairs on the back of my neck were standing up and it was suddenly a very cool evening. I looked at James and his eyes were as big as saucers. He thought something spooky was happening, too. We talked about going back, but we knew that we'd be shamed if we didn't see if there was anything else. We finally decided to walk the bikes the rest of the way to the dead end, just in case there was someone there. We didn't want them to hear the engines. We began walking the last quarter mile or so to the dead end. It was at the base of the last hill and we'd just started heading up on the other side. My heart was going about 200 miles an hour and I had cottonmouth so bad that it was almost impossible to swallow. Then I noticed that someone had stuck paper plates to the barbs of the wire of the fence. We looked and there were plates stuck to the top strand of wire on both sides of the road. It started about 50ft behind us and just continued up and over the hill. They were evenly spaced about 5ft apart. As our gaze followed the row of paper plates up the top of the hill, James suddenly said, there's another fire. And it was at that moment that I could smell it. But what I smelled wasn't that normal smoky smell. It was as though someone had added incense to it. I asked James if he could smell that, and he could. I told him that I didn't like this at all. I was okay with losing face in front of our friends and his dad and brothers. I was ready to go. He agreed with me, but said that we had to see what was burning. We were both whispering and we were both shaking so much that our voices quivered. We started up the hill again, and I was thinking with every step that we were going to be seriously killed or worse. As we got to the top of the hill, one of the paper plates blew off the fence and skittered behind us, making both of us jump. And it was all I could do to not scream. After we saw what it was, I started to laugh it off, but James shushed me and told me to listen. We could hear voices as we topped the hill and were able to see the bottom where the road stopped. We saw a group of about 10 people all standing around another recliner that was burning. They had their backs to us and they were passing around a big picture. From our vantage point, we actually couldn't see what was in the picture, but the slit throat of the cow haunted my thoughts. They would each take a mouthful and then spit into the fire. This went on until the pitcher was fully empty. The entire time they were all saying something in unison. We could only understand an occasional word. They changed their tones in a rhythmic manner with an emphasis on the last word. I can remember hearing here and there and beseeching Father. James and I stood there on the top of that hill like a couple of idiots. Our mouths were hanging wide open and actually scared stiff. After a minute or two, they would repeat whatever it was, all the while passing that pitcher and spitting into the fire. There was a small camp table set up on the side and a little behind them, after the last of the liquid was gone, a man turned and set the pitcher on the table and picked up what looks like a large loaf of bread. Just as he was turning back to the fire, he evidently saw us. I'm sure that we made a Nice silhouette sitting there at the top of the hill. He then screamed and then dropped the loaf of bread and started running in our direction. The others turned and immediately followed him. That was all the encouragement that we needed. It was time to go. We turned our bikes around. James got his bike started on the first kick, but I somehow managed to get myself off balance and when I kicked, the bike fell on its side with me. By this time I was in near panic and was breathing in raspy, short breaths. I picked the bike up again and tried to start it, but it didn't start. I thought about running, but we were out in the middle of nowhere. I finally started pushing the motorcycle down on the other side of the hill and jumped on it. It seemed like it took forever to get enough speed, but I popped the clutch and it started. James was waiting at the corner of the intersection to make sure that I was coming and we headed for his house, going way too fast for safety, especially in the dark. When we finally got back to his house, we told his dad what we'd seen. His dad called a couple of friends and they all loaded up their trucks with enough weapons to start a small war. James and I sat with his dad and told him where to turn. His dad kept asking us questions on the way. What were they doing? Why was there a chair on fire? They cut the cow's throat. How many were there? What did they look like? What were they driving? That last question stumped us. We hadn't seen any cars or trucks. The road was the only way in or out. And there was a creek that ran on the backside of the end of that particular road, so they couldn't have gone that direction. How had they gotten there with two recliners? When we got to that last stretch of the road, the headlights found the spot where the recliner had been sitting. It was gone. We could all see where the road and surrounding grass was burned. But the recliner was not there. As we got closer, James noticed that the cow was gone too. I hate to admit it, but I was getting scared all over again. I was afraid that his dad would tell us that it was all our imagination and not believe us. When we got closer to the burnt spot in the road, Buster James dad noticed the cheer off in the ditch on the left side of the road. Then I noticed the cow on the other side. It was also in the ditch. The paper plates were all gone. Buster got out to look at the cow with the other men. They stood there talking and shaking their heads for what seemed like 10 minutes. Before getting back into the trucks, we continued toward the hill. The ruts made by spinning motorcycle tires were easily seen, but there was no fire on the other side of the hill. We all went down to where the other recliner had been burning, but it and the camp table were gone. You could see where someone had walked around the charred area and covered it with dirt. After we left, James saw a paper plate about 50ft on the other side of the fence. Buster called the county sheriff when we got home and by that time it was daylight and we went out again with the sheriff and a deputy. When we got back to the road, the first recliner and the cow were gone. But you could still see where something had been on fire and there was still blood on the road and in the grass. James showed them the shoe prints we'd seen at the bottom of the hill. You could still see the charred area where the second recliner had been burning. And the deputy found little scuff marks where the table had been sitting at. At the end of the road you could see where the top strand of the fence had been tugged down and wrapped around the lower strand so someone could crawl over it. You could also see where the grass and weeds had been trampled, providing a fairly easy trail to follow. We found a woman's tennis shoe on the other side of the creek. You could see where someone had climbed up the bank on the far side of the creek. We followed the trail all the way across the field up to the next dirt road Again, the top wire was wrapped around the next lower wire and there was a piece of red bandana looking material caught in it. There were marks on the road where two or three different cars had spun their tires when they left. Buster also found a large piece of glass that had blood on it. Buster filed a report for the missing cow. They found four more cows in the opposite direction from where me and James had gone. They never found the recliners or the missing cow. The sheriff called a few days later and told Buster that the blood on the glass was human. It was his guess that the pitcher broke and someone cut their hand while carrying it back to their vehicles. Two weeks after that, there was actually a huge scare in our community about some cold that had promised the area at large that were going to sacrifice a blonde haired virgin, girl and boy. Buster always said that it was just someone running their mouth. After hearing about our incident, it was all anyone talked about that summer. Buster also said he'd sure like to know what happened to that cow. I'm sorry this was so long. I got chill bumps while remembering all of this. This happened in 1988-89 and I still think about it. So good, so good, so good.
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Your call has been forwarded to voicemail.
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Hi, this is Zoe Deutsch and Nick Robinson.
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Our brand new movie Voicemails for Isabel is all about those little moments that feel like the universe is looking out, feeling homesick.
- [27:59]
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Then your sister calls, hearing that perfect
- [28:01]
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song exactly when you need it. Sometimes life rigs things in our favor, like learning about your new favorite rom com Voicemails for Isabel, now playing only on Netflix.
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In 2013, I was 21 years old and studying abroad in South America with my college roommate. I had more than one unsettling encounter while down there, but I'm an experienced traveler and generally have good instincts, so I can't say I have any other thrilling stories aside from narrowly dodging a few muggaches other than the general sense of unease that can come with being a solo female traveler. Well, pair of solo female travelers Our four month stay was relatively unexciting. Relatively at the end of our program we decided to stay for some extra time and do some more casual backpacking. We ended up deciding to hike the Inca Trail. Amazing for anyone considering it. For the unfamiliar, you start in one location which varies depending on which trek you choose, and then you end up in a small town near Machu Picchu called Aguas Calientes. Your return trip is covered by your hiking company unless you choose to stay, in which case you get a refund. Well, we were in a new town and our company left immediately after lunch and we wanted to spend the night and get the most out of being in that part of the country. The time came and we said farewell to 11 of our 12 hiking companions and were joined by one other of our new friends who is planning on starting an additional hike in the morning. Our guides gave us our refund and gave us very careful instructions on how to get back to Cuzco, the city we had originally departed from. When you're ready to leave, make your way to that train station right there. Don't go anywhere else. It's a very official and safe train. Once you get to the last stop, go to the official bus station and it will bring you back to Cusco. We understood, thanked them and parted ways. That night we went out drinking with the remaining members of our hiking party. He didn't drink because of his grueling hike the next day, but we had a blast and felt safer for having a meal with us. Overall, we made sure to keep our wits about us and it turns out to be a very fun night. Without incident, we make our way back to the hostel, wish him well on his travels and go to bed, ready to explore town the next day before catching the train home. We have our fun, then make our way to the train station. It's a very nice train, not unlike the ones I take in the US occasionally, maybe even nicer. It definitely felt very safe. The train pulls into the final station and we begin trying to locate the bus station. We ask a gentleman who clearly works at the stop to and he points and tells us to walk about a half a mile that direction and we wouldn't be able to miss it. We thank him and continue. I want to pause here to emphasize all of these conversations and the ones that follow are entirely in Spanish. This isn't too important, but it's good for you to understand that I was speaking a language I was extremely proficient in, but not fluent. It's not too difficult for native speakers to talk quickly and avoid being understood. We walk for what actually does not seem like enough time. Less than half a mile for sure, before coming across a bus station. I'm shocked to say the least, but I'm also reminding myself that I come from a much nicer part of the world and I need to put aside my preconceived notions. It has a sign labeling it the bus station and it says Tacuzco right on the sign. To be clear, it's not a fake sign. It's similar to a sign marking a gas station from a freeway. A big thick pole and the actual sign was probably about 50ft in the air. It could not have been a temporary trick, otherwise I would have been much more suspicious. Aside from that sign though, well, it was something alright. The buses were all the classic bad news. White van. You know the ones. Again, I check myself. How many people could possibly travel to Cuzco in a day here? It wouldn't make sense to have a giant 20 seater bus doing the Trek every day. There's a tiny wooden building, presumably an office, underneath the big sign, but we didn't need to go in there as There were two gentlemen standing outside near the vans. We ask them if these are the buses to Cuzco, though we can clearly read on the sign that they are, and the men confirm. We ask how much the tickets cost, and when they plan on departing. They give us the price and say 5, 10 minutes, then direct us to a van to sit and wait in. We both sit down, and I'll admit I was uneasy again. I'm an experienced traveler and I do know not to expect modern luxuries in the less developed parts of the world. And there's nothing outwardly sinister about this bus stop, but it just wasn't what I was expecting, even for the area. My roommate does not seem to be sharing any of my trepidation, however. She's a bit more sheltered and generally trusting, so that's fairly in character for her. I'm also an over worrier, so between us, we were probably both on the more extreme side of the appropriate emotion. Me silently freaking out and her a little too relaxed. We wait for over 10 minutes in this van, which we've left the door open due to the heat. We're just talking and swatting flies which are buzzing in and out of the open door. I'm not surprised we're not on schedule, as I know they're trying to avoid wasting a tank of gas on two passengers and are trying to wait for more people. But we have an hour's drive ahead of us and I want to get going, so I decide to ask. They tell us five more minutes. Sure. More time passes, and I can't shake the feeling we aren't at the right bus station, though nobody made mention of there being more than one in a tiny town, so I just kept telling myself I was being irrational. I decide to go see if anybody is in the office and just get more information. I open the door and walk in without much hesitation, given its proper positioning under the giant sign. Well, I walk into what is clearly a residence and like 15 sweaty Peruvians cooking beans, looking just as shocked to see me as I am to see them. I stammer out, uh, is this the bus station? They look confused and then go, oh, the bus. Yes, the bus. Go outside, talk to the men, bus to Cusco. I back out and apologize for intruding. I go back to the van and report the experience to my roommate. Right as another girl walks up and says, bus Tacuzco. She is clearly a native Spanish speaker and not a foreign tourist. The men immediately say yes and place her in a different van, which makes no sense if they're trying to fill one van to take us to the same place. This skeeves me out more than anything else that's happened yet. I pop my head in the van and tell my roommate to keep hanging tight. I walk over to the girl in the other van where she's also waiting alone, and ask her if she's going to Cusco. She confirms this to be the case and I explain we're going there as well, and I'm not sure why we would be in separate vans. She says she doesn't know, but looks generally unconcerned. I go back to our van and sit down. I go back and sit in the van, which my roommate has not left, and we've been there for probably near 30, 40 minutes. At this point. I start expressing my concerns to her, but she's being somewhat dismissive, which I can't blame her for, as I'm a generally anxious person and she's more used to that than anyone. We get pretty quiet and resign ourselves to waiting, still swatting flies and dabbing our brows with our shirts. I'm now sitting quietly with my mind going wild with possibilities and extremely suspicious something is wrong, but also conceding that there's nothing too concrete justifying my level of concern at this point. I'm now picturing some ploy to abduct foreigners or being generally murdered. It's not a good feeling. The flies are driving me absolutely mad at this point, and now I've decided they are probably hovering around the car because somebody was murdered in there and the blood wasn't cleaned well enough to fool the fly. Flies. At this point I'm just torturing myself. The train of thought continues and I look up. Hundreds of flies are swarmed and crawling on the roof of the van. I realized we hadn't noticed because only a few would be flying around at a time, and the van was rather spacious and my roommate and I were closer to the front while the mass grouping of them was closer to the back. I'm frozen in fear at this point, unsure if this is confirming my theory that somebody was murdered in the car or if I'm really letting my imagination run wild and there are less remarkable things than flies in a South American van. I'm basically hyperventilating. I wish I could emphasize how many flies were in there. I gesture upwards to my roommate, who looks up and then appears shocked. At this point I can assume I'm shaking my head and muttering, right as this happens, the other van with the native girl begins to pull away, I made a snap second decision. I launch myself out of our van and start sprinting and slam my hand on her van to bring it to a stop. She opens the door in shock and I grab the door to hold it open and say more forcefully than I thought I had in me, we're coming with you. I look back at my roommate who is just staring and I yell, grab our bags and run. Now. She knows better than to mess with me when I'm in crisis mode and comes sprinting out of the other van with both backpacks in hand. While I keep my hand on the door, the two men come running after her saying don't go. We leave now. We leave for Cuzco now. All as I shove my friend into the car and scream, sorry, we're riding with our friend here. And then slam the door closed. The native girl, looking unsettled, just tells the driver we're friends in the drive. At this point, I don't know that this driver isn't in on whatever I was afraid of, or if he was, but they didn't plan on messing with the local. Either way, I just saw her as our best bet. We pull out into the road and drive for a few minutes when I see, you guessed it, the bus station. A very official, legitimate looking bus station with actual buses, which was probably about half a mile from the train. I have no doubt this is where we were supposed to go and feel the blood drain from my face, I thought about jumping out of the van and running, but in a split second I questioned if it wasn't for official tour groups or anything else I may not be considering. And my worst fear is ending up back at the first place without our new local friend. As we drive, I'm looking for street signs, landmarks or anything to indicate we're actually headed to Cuzco. All I see is wide open desert plains and nothing else. I sat the rest of the drive frozen in fear, collecting a pile of makeshift weapons from what I could find in the back of the van. This included a sharp piece of car, likely from previous collision, and a smallish fire extinguisher. I told myself if anybody tried to hurt us, I would kill them first and then figure out how to avoid a Peruvian prison second. I spent the entire car ride telling myself that I had it in me to kill someone if they tried to harm me. I gripped my weapons until my knuckles turned white when suddenly the van came to a stop very much in the middle of nowhere. The driver accepts a phone call, which I can't understand. He then gets off the phone and then slowly tells us he just remembered he can't take us all the way to Cuzco. The native girl looks concerned, which makes me even more paranoid and he proceeds to point to a large but desolate building and tells us to go in there to find a ride for the rest of the way. Looking back, I'm not sure how I avoided throwing up from all of the anxiety and fear. The three of us journey in there, my weapons abandoned as I couldn't sneak them out of the van and people just keep pointing us farther and farther back until we come to a back opening leading us outside. I wanted to run, to somehow undo this entire journey, but we really had no choice other than to stick with the native girl. We had no alternative methods of transportation. There's no civilization in sight and honestly I'm not even sure what part of the country we're in. All I know is we're 60, 90 minutes away from wherever the train stopped, hopefully in the direction of Cusco. We get to another van, this time with the opposite problem. They're insisting we fit 10 people into a seven seater van. They try to take my backpack, saying it needs to go on the roof. That backpack had my passport and every resource I would most certainly want in an emergency and I'm thinking they can take it over my dead body. Which might very well be happening right as I see my roommate happily passing hers to the lady, I grab her arm angrily and ask what on earth is wrong with her survival instincts, but my face must have said it all because she backs up and uncertainly tells the lady, never mind, she'll be keeping her bag with her. The lady looks aggravated and says they won't fit in the car with all the people. The lady looks aggravated and says that they won't fit in the car with all the people and I tell her we are happy to hold them. As I climb in and demonstrate in a way that will require her to force either me or the bag out, she relents and my roommate crawls in. We sat in the back with our backpacks towering on our laps in front of us, my roommate looking somewhat inconvenienced. I've made her do this. Honestly, maybe I was overreacting, but better than underreacting. We drove for a long while and finally we entered the city borders of Cuzco. On the one hand, I'm relieved because I now know exactly where we are. On the other hand, the surrounding areas outside of the main square are extremely dangerous. Shanty towns and we are the only foreigners with giant backpacks on the bus. No sooner I'm thinking, well, at least we're close. One bus driver turns and says he doesn't want to drive further and we can figure out our own way from there. Even the native girl immediately goes on red alert and offers offers to pay more if he'll take us to the city square. He declines, kicks us out of the bus and drives away. We're looking at all of the people staring openly at us and she asks in a scared voice if we'll split a cab with her. We agreed immediately. Problem is, in this part of the world, a cab often is the first car to drive up and assure you they will take you where you're going. Not very official. This is exactly what happens. A Toyota Corolla From I'm sure 1993 pulls up and tells us to hop in. Our friend looks wary, but decides it's better than winging it out in the open. He drops us in the town square without incident, and at this point the native girl looks like she's aged five years since we first crossed paths with her hours ago. I'm sure I looked even worse. She meekly says, well, I'm glad we got here safely. I can barely talk, I'm so exhausted, and respond, me too. Thanks, and we part ways. I had a few incidents on this trip that made me a believer that no matter where you are, one traumatic experience makes wherever the last place you slept feel like home. Let me tell you, the hostile bed just felt like home. ETA this may seem like an obvious observation, but I'm embarrassed to say I hadn't made the connection until tonight. When we hiked to the Inca Trail, there were a lot of tourists. When we took the train, there were a lot of tourists. When we took the buses back to the most touristy city in the country, there were no tourists. I feel this confirms a lot of things about our experience.
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- [44:42]
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This happened around three years ago when I was about 14 years old. My parents have been separated for a long time and I used to live with my mom during the week and my dad on the weekends. My dad always made significantly less money than my mom. He lived alone in a house that was honestly too big for one person and he struggled a lot with paying rent. Then one day, one of his friends asked if he could move in. His friend John needed a place to stay and my dad needed money, so John offered to pay every week in exchange for one of the spare rooms. My dad agreed, obviously, and John moved in with us. Since I only stayed there on the weekends, I didn't see John that much. But whenever I did, I always really felt uncomfortable around him. He wasn't really scary or aggressive or anything. Honestly, he was usually pretty nice, but there was just something really off about him that I couldn't explain. I really don't mean this in a rude way toward people with mental illnesses, but even back then I could tell something about him just wasn't right mentally. At some point he had taken one of the drawers in our bathroom and one day I looked inside of it and I found tons of pills. Like a worrying amount. I had no idea what they were for, and I still don't, but it freaked me out a little. My dad also always had kind of questionable friends, so I already didn't love the idea of living with one of them. I was probably way too paranoid and way too obsessed with horror and stuff at the time, but I even remember hiding a kitchen knife under my mattress in case he ever came into my room while my dad wasn't home. At the time, it felt more like a comical and ridiculous gesture than a real self defense weapon, you know, since John had never really given me any real reason to be afraid of him. But for some reason, the knife reassured me. Even my dad didn't really like leaving me alone with him. Not because John had ever done anything weird to me, but because dad used to always say, yeah, he's a little weird. Still, he needed the money and John was his friend after all. So he stayed with us for around two months. The first month was normal. Nothing bad happened. John paid his part of the rent and sometimes even bought groceries for us. Eventually I got used to him being there. But during the second month, things started getting weird. I didn't know it at the time, but John had stopped taking his medication. My dad and I have a cat, and John started making disturbing comments about it. He'd say weird things about how my dad acted around the cat, implying disgusting stuff that wasn't true at all. At first, it just sounded more bizarre than dangerous. Like I said, he had always been kind of odd. But over time, the comments got more intense and more detached from reality. Eventually, my dad had started making sure John was either out of the house or in his room whenever I came over. Then one day I got to my dad's house and I noticed that John wasn't there. Like usual, I asked where he was. That was when my dad told me that he wasn't living with us anymore. Then he explained what happened. Apparently, John had been acting seriously unstable for the last few weeks. My dad told me about things John had been saying and doing when I wasn't there. Things he never told me not to alarm me. And about how a few days before I visited, they got into a huge argument. During it, John had suddenly accused my dad of sexually abusing our cat, which obviously never happened. My dad told him to get out, but instead, John completely lost it. He started yelling about how my dad had apparently abused me too, how he knew what was going on, and a bunch of other insane stuff. The argument kept getting louder and more aggressive until it eventually turned physical. I'm gonna skip some details, but my dad finally managed to force him outside and then called the police when he refused to leave. When the cops showed up and saw the state he was in, they arrested him and took him away. After that, we never really heard from John again. But for the weeks after it happened, I was terrified. Every time I went to my dad's house, I kept imagining John showing up while I was home alone, angry at my dad, completely unstable. Every noise in the house freaked me out. But he never came back. Eventually, life moved on and we kind of stopped thinking about it. His mom came one day to collect his stuff, and after that, he completely disappeared from our lives. Until around three months later. One night, my dad sent me a news article. John was on the front page, and the content made my stomach drop. Like I said before, John had stopped taking his medication. And apparently, three months after getting kicked out of our house, he ended up going into some kind of psychotic episode. According to the article, he had walked into an apartment building. Carrying a hammer, he smashed the windows, destroying parts of the building and eventually he set it on fire. A woman was trapped inside her apartment and she died in the flames. He also violently attacked another person in the building with the hammer before the police finally arrested him. The creepiest part was that nobody in the building even knew him. He had absolutely no connection to any of these victims. They were complete strangers. I'm pretty sure he's locked up now, but even years later, my dad and I still think about it sometimes. What would have happened if he had stayed with us? It's really crazy to think that we lived with a man accused of first degree murder months before he snapped. So the few people that I've told this story always laugh it off or tease me. But I swear on my life that it's true. I've always loved yard sales. In the summer when I have a free day, I often just drive around all day looking for different yard sales and wasting my day away. About two years ago I was doing this, just driving around looking for yard sale signs, gradually going further out into the rural areas, rural country and just enjoying the scenery, having fun, getting lost on the backcountry roads. You can sometimes find great yard sales. While doing this, I saw a yard sale sign off of the road next to a big rock with something religious carved into it. Like churches usually have. I can't for the life of me remember what it said. God's Haven. Something religious that I just can't remember. Anyways, I figure it's probably got some good stuff if it's a church organization. So I decide to go. I turn my new jeep down the long narrow gravel driveway and the trees open to a clearing with a really beautiful white house. They have long tables spread out with folded clothes, kids, toys, etc. But nothing I was really interested in. There are probably about 30 people milling about on the property, but they are all wearing these gray jumpsuits. Um, okay. The only other person that seemed to be browsing through their wares was this old man whose truck was also parked there. But we were the only ones save for gray jumpsuits. The woman at the makeshift table with the money box on it begins talking to me as I'm preparing to leave. I stride over to her for a friendly chat and I notice that behind the house there are probably 10 or so small gray buildings that gray jumpsuits are going in and out of. After some casual chat, she notices me staring. Yes, we all live here. It's great. Hey, would you like to come in and learn more? She had this crazy light in her eyes and I attempted to mumble an excuse when she nodded at three guys who had been arranging stuff on the tables, moving the tables, etc. And they all came to stand around me. Really come inside. We preach peace in the word of God. You'll really like it. She took my hand and kind of started hugging me towards the house. All the while these guys are following and I'm making weak protests. Then the old man who's been browsing paperbacks seems to take notice and comes up. He looks at the woman and says I'm sorry ma' am, but we both really gotta get going. I don't think she's interested. The woman looks shocked but lets go and the guy stepped back. He's a scrawny old guy and I'm a petite woman, but that badass old man grabs my arm and hustles me over to my jeep as I'm thanking him and yelling back to the people to have good luck with their guard sale. He then mutters in a low voice, you really need to get out of here. My hands are shaking, all the gray jumpsuits are just turned and silently staring at us and I'm fumbling with my keys. The old man stands by my rolled down window and I fumble to start the car to try and back out of the narrow gravel driveway. I tried to do a three point turn but my car slides down in the gravel into a shallow ditch next to the driveway and now I'm panicking. Hey, just take it easy. Put it in four wheel drive. He coaxes. I don't know how, I whisper frantically. I'd only had that jeep for a couple of months at that point and I'd never had a car with a four wheel drive before. I figured I'd learn eventually. He calmly told me how to do it and stood there guiding me as I finally got the Jeep to stop sinking into the gravel and drove the hell out of there. I yelled a thank you to him and he nodded before getting into his truck. I told my family and a few friends who kinda just laughed and brushed it off saying yeah, we haven't really heard of any cults in this area. Probably just a church cell at one of the members houses. I've driven around that area a little bit after the event, but I haven't seen the rock sign thing again though. Honestly, that day I drove pretty deep into rural country and had no idea what road or where I was. I just knew the general direction to drive in to get back onto the main road and eventually find my way home I think I may have escaped a cult that is kind of off the radar, but I swear to God it happened and thank God that old man helped me get out of there.
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