A (0:05)

The story happened in 2018 and lasted until 2021. In 2017, I had moved to Charleston, West Virginia to be with someone. I worked a few different jobs, but landed myself in a position with the pizzeria in 2018 as a shift manager. About a month after I started working there, a new guy named Andrew had started working at the place as a delivery driver. We were overall friendly with each other, but I thought it was really shitty the way the general manager threw me onto my first official shift by myself on one of the busiest nights of the week. The delivery driver had stopped to help me when no one else would, which I had greatly appreciated. But at the same time, he had a tendency to lose his shit over the smallest things, some of which I had to report to our general manager. At the beginning of 2019, the boyfriend that I had moved all the way to West Virginia for broke up with me. After being single for about a month. I had noticed that Andrew started to take an interest in me, so we went ahead and started talking more. At this time, my job didn't have any formal policies on employees and shift managers dating. They just had to keep things professional while at work. So one night as I was closing, Andrew texted me and he told me that he forgot to do something as we were both working at closing shift and he had left. And I would lock up the store and do the final count of the safe and ensure that the store was completely clean before I left for the night. Well, I had let him back in the store and he kissed me. Pretty soon after that, we had started a relationship and everything was going good until I had lost my housing. After my ex and I broke up. I had moved in with my friend and there was an issue with the landlord and the landlord didn't want me staying there, so I had to move. I had vented to Andrew about this and he took that as me trying to pressure him to let me move in with him. He ended up ghosting me, but then came back and apologized and I accepted the apology. It was at that point where I'd finally found a place to live and I was gonna be moving in. He convinced me not to move in with the person I was going to be living with, and instead he would get me a car and I would move into his place. Well, I moved in and things were great for about a month or two. He started to tell me that I was lazy, even though I was working full time and it wasn't enough. So I ended up getting a second job. He kept getting increasingly angry and scared the daylights out of me sometimes with blind rage that he would really get. He also used to smoke synthetic marijuana. I hated being around it because it would give me migraines. And it got increasingly worse the longer we were together. I think I had made a comment one morning about how he wouldn't be so tired if he hadn't stayed up all night getting high. And, well, this sent him into a rage. I was in the bathroom getting ready for work when he came barreling up the stairs. He slammed me into the wall in the bathroom and my neck on the towel bar. I had bruises on my arms and on the back of my neck. When I came home from work, he had left me roses and jewelry. He apologized and we left it at that. I thought that was the end of it until his next episode. I got home from work and I was sitting on the bed watching TV when out of the blue, he took a chair and started smashing the TV with it in a rage. Completely unprovoked this time because I hadn't even said anything to him. Then he looked at me and said, look what you made me do. Then he cleaned up the broken tv, apologized to me, and then bought a brand new TV the next day. One night I mentioned how it'd be nice to add a spout to the bathtub because it was just an exposed nipple at that point, so you really couldn't even take a bath. Well, he flipped out on me again, acting as if it was unreasonable for me to want to take a bath after being on my feet all day at two different jobs. I told him I was gonna sleep in the bedroom because I felt like he needed some space. Well, apparently that was the wrong thing to say. And I went down to the downstairs bedroom. About 20 minutes later, I hear him coming down the stairs. He had lost his shit on me, telling me that I needed to get out of his house. So I started grabbing my stuff and he kicked me. I then fell, smacking my face on the bed frame. Not enough to cause any bruising or marks, but my face hurt. Apparently I wasn't going fast enough for him, so he decided that it was a good idea for him to call the police. He said that he told me to leave and that I really need to. That I've been living there for three months and he didn't want me at his house anymore. He was very drunk at this time, by the way. Well, the police came and they separated us. The officer pulled me outside to talk to me while the other officer was talking to him. I explained what was going on and how he went off the deep end, and he had been drinking a lot. The police officer had asked me if he had physically put his hands on me or done anything. And I was really scared at that point. So I had told the police what happened. Well, here's what the police officer said, which I really regret not listening then and there. Look, I know how these things end. I don't want to be called to the house because we need to take you out in a bag. Please leave and don't come back. It's for your own safety. When I went back into the house so I could grab some of my stuff, because I was going to stay at the hotel for the night to get away from him and make sure that I was safe, he was becoming belligerent with the other police officer. And the police officer looked at him and said, she's a legal resident of this house. She has been living here for three months. She receives mail here. Her ID has this address on it, and you can't have her trespassed. She has every right to be here, and you'll have to go to court if you don't want her here through the legal eviction process. She's gonna go somewhere else for the night just so you can calm down. But you're not allowed to restrict her access to the place. So I do just that. I got a hotel. And the next day, he called me up and seemed very remorseful. I told him that I wouldn't be coming back unless he promised that he would stop smoking synthetic marijuana and to also try and get control of his drinking. He promised that he would go to an outpatient clinic for his alcoholism and that he wouldn't smoke the synthetic marijuana anymore. So I came back. Things were fine for about five months. During the time he had ghosted me at the beginning of our relationship, he had changed his phone number to avoid me. So this is very important to note. Well, the pandemic hit, and I had to quit the job at the pizzeria because managing two jobs was just way too much stress for me at that point. So I was just working one job doing mobile phone sales. He had been let go because his driver's license got suspended. He went to the DMV to try and straighten out the issue, and I brought him. Since the DMV was just right across the street from where I work, I didn't hear from him most of the day. Soon I was off work and I headed home. Well, when I got home, he had been drinking Heavily. He had actually started blaming me for the reason why his driver's license got suspended. His license was suspended because he had a DUI and he had changed his number so his lawyer couldn't get a hold of him about it, which was somehow my fault. It was also my fault that he had lost his job as a result of his license being suspended. I told him I was once again going to go stay in a hotel because of how erratic he was acting. He told me I needed to just stay away and get the money to move out. I told him this was my final stay and then he lost his shit. He told me that he knew that I was already planning on leaving to go back home because my mom was pending a cancer diagnosis. I don't know how he knew that though. I'm guessing he went through my phone, but I had already been increasingly concerned after being locked down with him for several months at his erratic and crazy behavior. So I was trying to get out. He proceeded to go outside and then when he came back in, he came back inside with a loaded gun. He held me at gunpoint and I just grabbed what I could and then ran out the door. He chased me to my car at gunpoint and I got into my car and drove. I ended up getting a hotel and once my friend found out I was staying at a hotel, she actually told me to come over and I had started living with her. Her place was a little too crowded, so I ended up moving in with some coworkers. Over the span of about 6 months. I ignored his messages as well as his messages for me to come back home. And I was holding my ground on not continuing the relationship. I went completely no contact. It was February 2021 when the massive snowstorm hit the US hard. My roommate and his husband were two hours away and I was by myself. They sent us home early because of how bad the snow started to get. At this point, I had already packed most of my stuff so that I could finally move back home. I had already given a notice to my supervisor that I wanted to transfer my job and they were working out the details. I got home at around 6pm I went upstairs and watched some TV in the upstairs bedroom that I had. My roommate's bedroom was on the first floor of the townhouse we lived in. We had a ring camera in the front of the house but not the back of the house. It was around 9 or 10pm and I realized that I hadn't ate all day. So I got up and something had told me that I needed to take my phone with me. So I went down the stairs. I didn't turn on the lights because at this point, I was well aware of the layout of the house. To explain the layout, the front door is in the living room, and you have to walk through the small dining room into the kitchen from the living room in order to get to the kitchen. And in the back of the house, there is a door that exits into the backyard that leads right into the kitchen. Well, the lights were off as I entered the kitchen. I froze in place as I saw that he was standing in the kitchen. He looked at me and I looked back at him. He was right near the back door, and the knife block was right near where he was. So I had to contemplate if I was going to try and run past him and impossibly grabbing a knife and stabbing me to death, or if I was going to run through the dining room into the living room and then out the front door. As I was turning to run back the direction I'd came from, I fell. I had tripped over a broom. And he then grabbed me by my hair. I felt stinging pain coming from my scalp. He punched me in my face twice. I held down the button on the side of my phone and I called the cops. I told them what had happened, and the police sent someone out immediately. The dispatch told me to stay on the phone with her. He was yelling in the background that the police weren't going to come and arrest him, that they were going to arrest me. And I was trying to get past him, but he was blocking my way. The only thing I could think to do at that point was to reach up and then punch him in the face. So I did just that. He then stepped backwards as I punched him in the face because he wasn't expecting it. And I then pushed past him and ran outside. At that point, the street was all lit up with flashing blue lights. My face was swelling and I had blood coming from my mouth. So the police had me step into the ambulance as they tried to get him out of the house. Well, he then shut off all of the lights in the house and then locked himself in. The police said that they weren't going to go in after him because they didn't feel safe doing so with all the lights off, not knowing if he was armed or not. This really enraged me, as he had no business there. And they told me I would have to go somewhere else for the night. They wanted to send me to a women's shelter for the night, mind you, In a Completely involuntary response. I had peed my pants because I was so scared that I was going to die that night. So I was in pee soaked pants and had no change of clothes. I did manage to grab my car keys before I got out of the door along with my purse. Those were at the front door. I then called the friend that I'd stayed with before and told her what happened. The police brought me to her house. She met me outside the house and then immediately hugged me. She didn't even care if she got urine on her because she knew that I needed her in that moment. Her brother was also staying at the house. He ended up coming down the stairs because they were icy and he wanted to help me up the stairs. They had a towel and clean clothes waiting for me. After I showered, I just sat there bawling out my eyes in complete disbelief of everything that happened. And I thought this was truly the end of it. Well, the next morning I woke up to an alert on my phone. My car had a tracker that would let me know if someone bumped into my car or anything happened to my car. And it alerted me that my car was being towed. He had tried to junk my car. Well, luckily, the person who picked up my car phoned the police. He thought that this was very suspicious because the car was well kept and my iPad was also inside the car. And he knew that something was really wrong with the situation. So he had called to let them know where he left my car. I ended up having to get a tow truck to pick it up and then bring it to my friends. I eventually got a restraining order on Andrew and my work expedited my transfer out of state. For my safety. They gave me as much time off as I needed before returning to work because I knew that I wouldn't be in any position to work anytime soon given the circumstances of everything that just happened to me. I'm now back in my home state and occasionally Andrew will try and call me. Now that the restraining order has expired, I block his number anytime he tries. I've now moved on with my life and I'm in a much better place than I was when this happened. I actually reconnected with someone from my past and. And I'm in love again. He knows my trauma. We've talked through everything that's happened to me and he does everything he can to show me that he isn't like my ex. So if you ever find yourself in a situation where the person you're with shows you any sort of violence, get out. The very first time. It happens. Don't wait. It will not get better. It'll only get worse. Your life is far more important and if you happen to come across this Andrew, fuck you. Fuck you for putting me through everything that you did. I wish the absolute worst for you. You don't deserve to have good things wished upon you. My instinct told me that I needed to bring my phone and had I not, the situation could have been very different. So always trust your instinct. It's there for a reason. I've been watching this channel for about three years now and I'm a huge fan. I have a story from my youth that my friends and I still can't believe happened to us. When I was 13, I lived with my grandparents out in the middle of nowhere. Well, to me it was pretty rural. There were two neighboring houses that you could see from our house, but the area was still isolated and far from gas and food. Well, my friends from school were really fascinated with this place because it was kind of lawless. There were no police on patrol obviously and barely any people around, so you could really do whatever you wanted within reason. One night my three friends were staying over, my mother was working the night shift and my grandparents had gone to bed pretty early. Us being the knuckleheads, we were made a plan to sneak out of the house come midnight to go gallivant. We successfully exited the house and were really contemplating on what to do next. Some of us wanted to build a Ouija board and try it out in the basement, but we eventually settled on a walk. Even though I was with my friends, the dark woods and the fields surrounding us looked creepy. It was a summer night and the crickets and cicadas were deafening. There was also a heat wave, so it was one of those nights that remained humid and in the 80s, typical Pennsylvania summer. My friends and I reached a fishing lake and sat and played on the road for a while. We wrote with chalk and laughed about things at school and our peers. That was never enough for us though. We were really obnoxious kids and we decided to start screaming as loud as we could into the wilderness at 3am we all took turns and did this for about three minutes straight. We got pretty bored of it quickly and we started walking. Back when we had started to hear things, you could hear a motorcycle starting up in the far distance. Then it was revving and we thought we could hear more. No way. That's cause of us, I remember one of us saying. We all laughed and imagined what would go down if it were coming for us. Meanwhile, we're walking back to the house and the motorcycle revving is getting louder and there are definitely more than one. We hear them all taking off and the sounds are getting closer and closer to us. We didn't know at the time as we were in a valley and trying to decipher if they were really getting closer or not. Right when we reached a patch of woods, we saw it. A pair of headlights crested the hill, followed by about three others. The motorcycles began descending toward us. We could not believe that they might be here because of us, but we all instinctively hid behind trees and bushes, but still close to the road. The motorcycles literally stop right in front of where we are and the lights are just shining into the forest. After about a minute, a man with a deep voice then says, hey, come out. We'll find you anyway. Nope, no one moved to here. They kept the lights on us a while before slowly backing up and then heading back the way they came. We waited until the lights crested the hill again and we began fast walking back toward my house Once again. We didn't get far before, unbelievably, we had heard the motorcycles again. There were more this time and they came back quickly. We barely had time to hide again, but we managed to crouch in a bush around the corner from where we hid the first time. The motorcycles parked at this spot and we heard them begin entering the woods. This was absolutely terrifying. They were looking for us. We got the attention of God knows how many country folks and they were looking for us. Now, just when it couldn't get any more intense, we then heard gunshots. I'm assuming it was a warning, but the fact that they were armed was daunting, and especially that they were so comfortable firing a shot. We stayed in this bush for what seemed like forever, but was really more like 20 minutes in reality. They finally left and we were able to run the rest of the way home. I remember just sitting in silence for a while. Once we reached the house. We made light of the situation and a lot of jokes subsequently about being chased by rednecks with guns, but I think of the implications as an adult. I understand that screaming is alarming, but their response was a bit extreme if you ask me. We were 13 year old kids. Do these folks normally band together and go out and follow threats like that? I don't know, but it taught us not to ever do that again. I just remember it being the most raw fear that I've ever felt, being hunted like that. My name is Lacey. I have a neighbor named Bob that My husband and I have known for about three years. Bob is in his 80s and he is always super friendly. He would always say hi to me and my husband and talk to us about his everyday life. He was like a grandpa to us. Well, my husband and I had just had a baby. Bob would always ask how the baby was and he even bought her an outfit, which was a big deal because Bob has no money. Bob is an overall friendly, nice guy. Well, yesterday I was sitting outside with my baby when Bob came walking over just talking to me about his day when a teenager walked by with his dog and stopped and took his headphones off and asked me if I was okay. Confused, I said yes and again he asked aggressively. Again. Bob and I just looked at each other. Then the teen continued to walk with his dog, then stopped again and asked if me and Bob were related. I said no, that he's just my neighbor. Then the teen told me that Bob was a sex offender. I looked at Bob and we kinda just thought the teen was crazy. Well, after that I didn't want to go outside anymore. So I told Bob that my baby and I are going in and said goodbye. I had an unsettling feeling, so I called my husband to tell him what had happened. Just thinking I came across a crazy teenager. Well, my husband looked Bob, our neighbor, up in the system and boy did my world get turned upside down. Bob is a level three sex offender and is a lifetime register. He went to jail for three years back in 2017 for nine different counts. I wanted to throw up upon finding out this information. I had this man around my newborn baby and my husband and I have always been friendly with him for years. We're now avoiding him at all costs. I would have never guessed that the sweet old man that has never said a bad word in front of us was a level three sex offender. It just really goes to show you that you can't trust anyone. When I was growing up, I lived in Rochester, New York. Most of my neighbors were kind, friendly people, except for the house that was too up from mine. That house held a family that was made up of a mother of three and her husband was the youngest child's father. The older two had different fathers. The oldest girl mostly tried to stay away from the house with another family. The middle boy, who was my age, unfortunately didn't have the same option of his older sister and instead tried to befriend the neighborhood kids to stay away from his house that way. The youngest was very little, three to five over the years, but wasn't watched well at all as she was found in random backyards and just around the street constantly. Most of the parents on that street actively kept as kids away from that family, as I found out when older that the parents were known drug addicts and that the father regularly beat everyone in the house. The parents would also throw crazy parties and lock the kids up in the basement while they did so. I remember one day he wasn't home and they had thrown a mattress that they were planning on throwing out into the backyard and so all his kids were jumping on it. Well, he came home and freaked out and chased us all out of the yard. When I was 8 years old, my mother and I were away visiting family for Christmas when my mother got the call from my dad who said the whole neighborhood was awoken in the middle of the night to gunshots. The parents had gotten into an argument and so the kids, like they normally did, locked themselves in a room and hid. Unfortunately, the father grabbed his gun and shot and killed the mother. He then shot himself in the jaw, effectively blowing half of it off. All while those poor children were hiding upstairs listening to their mother get murdered. Surprisingly, he only received 15, 20 years in prison, not even life. All three kids went to the family luckily, and I truly hope they're doing okay. In 2018, I moved into a small two story property in England with my then boyfriend. It was in a quiet cul de sac with houses crammed together all facing each other. I am very introverted and I don't typically make a habit of socializing much with neighbors. Still, we naturally ran into a few and exchanged pleasantries as you normally would. Right? One of our neighbors, Greg, was incredibly welcoming right off the bat. He was an older gentleman, the kind who'd stop you for a chat that would drag on and on until you made an excuse for why you really had to get going. He shared local stories, asked about and took note of our birthdays, and even invited us around for a garden party where any and all were welcome. His house was directly across the street from where I lived, with his windows in clear view of mine. A couple of years passed by and during this time my boyfriend and I split up. Although I never expressly shared this news with my neighbors, word must have gotten around. With his car missing from the driveway, he moved out and left the country. But we stayed in touch regularly as friends. Having the house to myself felt lonely, so I got a cat to keep me company. He quickly became, and still is, my world. Greg would often flag me down to talk whenever he caught me leaving or returning to my house. Annoying, but I could live with it. I would update my ex about the weird little interactions with Greg, which we both found amusing to gossip about on. One such incident was when Greg came to my door to hand me over two of my parcels, one of which was a large table that he had yet to retrieve from his house. I had been raiding in Elder Scrolls Online at the time, doing a deathless speedrun for an achievement. Given the time constraint in my game, I told him I'd leave the door unlocked so he could simply put it by my door. I sat back down on my desk, put my headset on and my group charged in. At the final boss I heard my front door opening followed by the sound of my large parcel being placed down. Then footsteps approached me from behind. I peered behind me to see Greg just standing there, eyes fixated on me, my fear of disappointing my raid group. I continued playing until we killed the boss, then took off my headset. Greg's face lit right up and he went on to tell me how amazing it was to watch me play. I got the impression that he'd never seen someone use a keyboard, let alone play games. He begged me to teach him and rambled on. He was clearly intoxicated so I just laughed it off and gave a non committal response. Despite repeated attempts to politely make him leave, he could not be persuaded. He seemed disappointed when I walked over to my door and opened it to clearly signal that it was time for him to go, but he actually left without further incident. Now in the UK, houses often have individual outdoor bins for trash which have to be rolled out to the street the night before collections take place. You're expected to bring the bins back to your property after collection. I noticed someone kept bringing my bins back in for me. Was I blocking someone's car by being too slow to do it? Around that same time I had also noticed someone had been using my bins. I brought it up to Greg one time he pulled me over to park and he said the same thing had been happening to him. Maybe it was petty of me, but I decided to tape an old phone with a surveillance app to my window overlooking the bins to try and figure out who it was. Lo and behold, it was Greg. I chalked it up to him having run out of bin space after the local council moved from weekly to bi weekly collections due to staffing issues. Although it bothered me, my desire to avoid confrontation won in the end. Christmas rolled around and the COVID 19 pandemic was in full swing. One late evening I had heard a knock at my door and I walked over to see who it was. I had no peephole, so I opened the door, not really knowing what to expect. Greg stood at my doorstep, which was not particularly unusual. I'd gotten all used to his antics. I immediately caught a strong smell of alcohol, but he spoke before I had time to process. He told me that he had a Christmas present for me, and he handed over a red gift bag with colored tissue paper covering the contents. I really want to give you a kiss on the cheek, but I can't, not with this pandemic going around, he said. That gave me the heebie jeebies, so I did all I could to politely end this interaction and then retreat back inside. He held me up by rambling on about God knows what. I firmly told him that I was busy and that I needed to go. That's when he laid a hand on my shoulder, leaned in and kissed my cheek. Then he walked off in the direction of his house. I closed the door and just simply stood there for a few moments, just in shock. The present was odd. Underneath the tissue paper were two bottles of Belgian beer, a can of half eaten Pringles, sour cream and onion, in case you're wondering, and a small plastic bag containing little chocolates. I recognized the latter item. A next door neighbor with young children had come around to put these plastic bags with chocolate in a handwritten note through everyone's mail slots just a few weeks prior. It was a really sweet gesture and probably something they came up with to keep the stir crazy kids busy. Upon inspecting the regifted chocolates, I noticed that he'd even forgotten to remove the note from the neighbor. The kiss and gift gave me bad vibes and I regretted accepting it. I decided that I was done being Ms. Polite and resolved to be firm in my future rejections. On the second day of the new year, I was really feeling lazy and I ordered food delivery. A mere five minutes after receiving my order, there was a knock at my door. Knowing the delivery driver hadn't forgotten anything, I concluded that this had to be Greg. And then it clicked for me. He'd often turn up immediately after anything was delivered to my door. He was constantly watching my house. Was he dumping trash in my bins as an excuse to hang around my house? He called out for me through the door. I felt too uncomfortable to answer and just retreated upstairs out of view of the windows. Later that night, he came back and kept knocking, but once again I ignored it. In hopes of him going away. The following day, I actually contacted the police to file a harassment report. I felt sheepish doing so. Was it really that bad? He was just a lonely old man and I guess I just hadn't been firm enough. Upon being asked whether I wanted the police to speak with them, I told them I'd do it myself. I just wanted the report on file in case anything else happened. I would later become grateful for filing that report. Greg turned up at my door a few days later, telling me how worried he was about me. I told him verbatim, I think it's best if we don't have any contact going forward. His response was eerie. I just wanted to be your friend. I held my ground, cut the conversation short, and then closed the door. Finally, it's over, I thought. A year went by without incident. Everything seemed fine with no knocks on the door or unwanted conversations while I was outside. One night in winter, I was leaving my house to get groceries. It was completely dark outside, save for a lamppost casting some sparse light into the street. My driveway was at the side of my house where the bins were stored. This driveway was blocked in by a tall panel fence to add some privacy, seeing as the kitchen window was directly next to it. You could see right into my kitchen and living room through this window. As I was outside locking the door, I saw a figure in the dark slinking out of my driveway and behind the fence. I immediately unlocked the door and went back inside. I mean, it was dark. I could have imagined it, but my gut told me otherwise. Was there someone waiting for me behind the fence? Ultimately, I trusted my instincts and decided to forgo the groceries for the night. I bought and mounted a motion sensor light to illuminate my driveway. The memory of the shadowy figure quickly faded in my mind, and the new light really gave me some comfort that I'd at least be alerted if someone was lurking outside my window. A couple of months after the incident, I was in my kitchen getting some food for my beloved cat. The window was directly to my left, around 3ft away from where I stood. As I dumped the cat food into a bowl, I suddenly became aware of my motion sensor light being on. I scanned the outside, not seeing anything until my eye landed on something in the bottom corner of the window. I squinted, trying to make out what I was looking at. It somehow wasn't properly illuminated. I kept staring. For what must have been 30 seconds, the light outside remained on. Suddenly, Greg pops into view directly outside. He'd been crouched down, peering in from the corner of the window. I'm normally someone who's cool as a cucumber. I never raise my voice or yell, but I truly lost it at that moment, screaming, what the hell are you doing? He just stood there, then nonchalantly asked, are you alright? I just kept screaming, but now it was, dude, why are you here? He walked off into the dark and I immediately called the police. Typically, the police in England leave something to be desired, but I have to give them credit for how they really handled the situation. They took my statement over the phone and gave me a reference number. I received a couple of phone calls with updates and I was told they'd bring him to the station. I was also informed that he was known to the police for having previously followed young women. Sometime later he was arrested at his property in front of a wife that I didn't even know existed. They did this to scare him. According to the officer I spoke to, it was to make a point. Sadly, he received nothing more than a police caution which forbade him from being on my side of the cul de sac or contacting me. Still, it seemed to work. The window incident was the last real interaction that I ever had with Greg. I did see him staring at me in the shower from his window one time when I forgot to close the blinds, but nothing else. I have since moved far away. So Greg, you're really gross and now everyone in the neighborhood knows you're a creep. I'm a 28 year old female. For reference, please be kind. This is my first post on this subreddit. I may not be the best storyteller, but so please forgive me for the rambling and for the length. Anywho, this happened for a year and a half starting in November of 2011. I was living by myself in a two bedroom house that was at the end of the street close to an open secluded field. It wasn't in the safest area, but it wasn't in the ghetto either. Somewhere in between. I never really hung out with friends because of work, my schedule, errands, taking classes, etc. And all of my family lived out of state so I was basically always alone. Which is how I like to be though. I mean, I'm pretty independent and I live a very private life. Also, I couldn't afford a car at the time, so I just walked everywhere. I had to walk by my neighbor's house in order to get into the main road and towards the park where I did most of my jogging. My neighbor who lived four houses down from me took notice of this and took it upon himself to try and save me from my loneliness. I'm pretty predictable and my schedule is the same on an almost day to day basis. Wake up at 5:40am to go jogging, work at 6:30, lunch break at 11 for about an hour, go home at 4, art class at 5:30 and another jog at 7:30pm Then I'm home by 8:30. It's bad, I know, to do the same thing almost every day, but it's easier for me to remember what I have to do and it sets a sort of comfort to me. I get in the zone. I am however always aware of my surroundings and started to notice my neighbor just standing out on his front lawn at all the times that I was out and about. Whenever I would go home he would watch me until I reached my door, then turn around and start walking walking towards his house. After a few weeks of him giving me the stare down, he had started with small talk hey, how are you? In which I would just give him a polite nod and just a mumbled good and a goodbye wave. As stated before, I'm quite shy and I like to keep to myself. Each time he would say a little more hey, so you live alone in that house? Where do you work? How come you don't seem to get any visitors? I tried to stay polite but evasive in my responses and not give too much personal information away. I work in town. Oh I'm a very busy person. Nervous laughter, fumbling with my headphones as I give him another awkward wave. This went on for a few months now with him trying to prime me with more information and even trying to block me from jockeying around him. I noticed him becoming more aggressive and needing to know my whereabouts and once even caught him snooping through my mail before replacing my envelopes back in the box and then walking away. Once my best friend came by on my birthday to give me a present in my cake the next day creepy neighbor guy was drooling me as I was walking by. Who was that guy that stopped by yesterday? Was he your boyfriend? He stayed for like three hours, what were you doing, etc. I became very annoyed and just shrugged, saying that's none of your business. Cued the fake smile and turned my speed walking into a slow jog. At this point I had had about enough of this guy. I've been polite but very obviously clear that I wasn't interested in casual conversations or being constantly pressed to speak and interrogated about my personal business. I enjoy being on my own. I'm not much of a talker and I really hate feeling forced to. One day, while returning from one of my evening exercise routines, I was speed walking to my house. Out comes the said neighbor running towards me with a very angry expression on his face. He blocks my path and stands directly in front of me with his arms crossed against his chest. We need to talk now. He screamed. Being so surprised by his outburst, I took a few steps back. He was a big guy, husky and tall. I'm fairly small, 5'three 115 pounds. He towered over me about what I asked. He then says, every day I see you walking around and around for hours and hours all by yourself. I know all about you. This is my neighborhood and I know everyone and everything that goes on here. You don't have any friends or family and you're very lonely. I can save you. We can be great friends. I love you. I took several steps back with my arms out, afraid of what he may or may not do and because I was feeling incredibly uncomfortable. And then I felt my rage start to build up. First of all, I screamed, you don't even freaking know me. How the hell can you say you love me and know everything about me? I happen to like being on my own and I really enjoy living a private life. I've been polite to you thus far, but you obviously can't take a hint and leave me the hell alone. I've given you no indication whatsoever that I want to be your friend, and I've been quite obvious in letting you know that your constant snooping and barrage of questions not only annoys me, but makes me feel uncomfortable as well. So since you can take a subtle hint, I'll be clear. Leave me the hell alone. He chuckles, then he giggles. Like I said, the funniest joke of all time. Meanwhile, I'm standing there fuming because I'm not used to screaming and spending my energy in that way. I'm soft spoken and it really takes a lot for me to raise my voice. You have to push me to my limit. He stops laughing long enough to then say, I know you need saving and I'm your neighbor so that means I love you and I love you very much. I'm not a creepy guy. He then gets very serious again. I just know you like the back of my hand. I know that I can save you and make you happy. I know you don't like to be alone and I can't stand the fact that you walk everywhere and exercise all the time. You don't need to exercise every day. I Hate that you do that. You need to come over to my house instead and have a few beers with me. Have fun, live a little. Stop being so serious all the time. I replied with leave me alone again. You don't know crap about me. I enjoy exercising and who the hell are you to tell me what I can and can't do? I quickly noped the hell out and ran to my house, slamming the door behind me. I can hear him chuckling again. I called a friend and told them what happened. They suggested calling the cops, but for whatever reason I didn't. I started to become paranoid after that incident and if I saw him already standing on his front lawn, I just stayed inside. I also stopped walking down the street that led out to the main part of town. Instead, I detoured and walked through the secluded open field by my house. I opened up a gym membership so I can still exercise without him seeing me jog around the block and I pretty much just tried to avoid him as much as possible. But one rainy day my ninja skill slipped and he saw me cutting through the field. He started running full speed towards me, but I reached my house in time to lock the doors and then cower inside. A few moments later he was banging on my door saying my name. He knew from my mill that he spied on and he was saying open the door now. I waited until he left and cautiously opened the door and a small folded piece of paper fell. I picked it up and relocked the door. It said call me aj and then his phone number xoxoxo. I ripped it up, called the same friend as before and complained once again. They advised I called the cops. But at this point my lease was up and I was moving in less than a week. So I was just kind of like whatever about the whole thing. Fast forward to moving day. I'm with a few friends, some work colleagues, and we're packing up my stuff into several cars and cleaning everything up. As we're finally driving down the street one last time, out comes the creepy neighbor and then he says, why didn't you tell me you were moving? You're supposed to tell me everything. As I'm in the car, he's shouting this and my friend pulls down the window a bit and then says, I thought you knew everything, bud. We then laugh and drive away and I never see him again. Well, I hope you all enjoyed listening to this. It may not be super creepy, but it sure was a very uncomfortable situation for me. There were times where I really felt like a prisoner in my own home. I'm really glad it's over. Thanks again to all of you who listened. I wasn't initially going to share this, but why the hell not? At the time of this story, I worked at a popular grocery chain in Texas. Without saying the actual name of the store the founder's last name is. But anyway, the story also may not seem that scary to some people, and that's fine. I just wanted to share it as I haven't really talked about it. This was just another day for me. Summer was approaching quickly and I was sent outside to collect the shopping carts. Usually I would stick to the front of the parking lot when it was hot so that the trip was easier. Though seeing that we had absolutely no carts. I was in the back of the parking lot where the corrals were full of them. Also where we have no cameras and where you can be seen from inside the store. Everything was normal until about 10 minutes into cart duty and I saw a man walking towards me. Now, I do struggle with some cognitive disabilities and will be the first to admit that my processing speed is not the best. So although he was walking my way and had eyes on me, I wasn't sure what to think at the time. Maybe he just needed a cart. It happened all the time, even if it could be annoying. I kind of thought I was being dramatic and kept gathering the carts. I was also in the portion of the corral for the small carts that you kind of have to duck out of, and I was already in the back of it getting carts, so it was hard to exit with cars around me as well. The man was short, dressed in black from what I remember, with baggy shorts and had a pedal bike. He continued to walk towards me and ride to the entrance of the corral where you push your carts into. At this point I got really nervous. He started moving quickly and he was definitely glaring at me. Now he was also blocking my main exit and what kind of creep approaches a girl in a parking lot alone like that? I started to back away and just then he began to speak. Hey there is all I heard. Next thing you know we're surrounded by cops. They started yelling at the man and some even had large guns pointed at him. But since it was right in front of me, I'm also now staring at the end of a gun. I could really only sit with my mouth open and my hands up. Although I was clearly in the store uniform. I'm gonna go ahead and mention that I'm black and I tend to be weary of cops in the South Due to past experiences of my own, as much as I wanted to run, that was no longer an option. The man was ordered to stop and drop everything, but he didn't give a damn. He scoffed, then turned like he was trying to walk away from me and the cops. He even began telling them off and cursing them out, demanding that they just leave him alone. It wasn't until they threatened to shoot him with their guns trained on him that he actually hesitated and eventually he just stopped altogether. It was at this point that the cops told me to move and you can best believe that I hauled ass as I walked away and met up with a co worker as well as a random person who witnessed the whole event from the other aisles of the parking lot. I then finally got the full story. Apparently prior to this situation, the other person that wasn't my co worker had an encounter with this man across the street. He had come to their car and pointed a gun at them and then at their mom through the window. He had apparently demanded something from them, but they drove away before the situation got any worse. They had called the cops after and reported that they had seen him headed to our parking lot. What did the man want with me though? Hell if I know, but I'm really happy to not know. This experience led to me quitting too, but not for the reason you think. When I got through speaking to my coworker manager and the police, I went to report the situation to my managers. I was a bit surprised and tearing up after realizing he had a gun. So I was shaken up when I entered the store and very clearly crying when I reported the situation. My manager just totally blew me off and then just sent me back to the register. Now I'm not asking to have my hand held or anything like that at all, but he didn't even blink. I had actually already put in my two weeks notice the day before this, but I actually stopped showing up after this happened. When I called to explain that I would not be coming back at all, they hadn't even taken note of the incident. It was just all very crappy. Even though I did come out unharmed. It wouldn't have happened like that had the previous victims from across the street never reported reported him coming into the parking lot. I'm very grateful that a scare was all I got out of it. I'm a 37 year old male and I live in Lacey, Washington. It was 2023. I like to think I was living a pretty simple life. My wife worked nights at the Fred Meyer at the time and I worked 30 minutes north as a truck driver. Her and I were working opposite schedules, so when she would go on her break, I would drive down to see her at work, spend some time with her, and then I'd head home to get to bed. I was starting work pretty early in the morning. One night I was leaving the store and I was walking behind this family who was pushing a cart of groceries to their vehicle. And I of course was headed to my vehicle. The man in front of me looks back at me all frightened, turned to his wife and and then starts pointing towards me saying, that's the guy. That's the guy who's been following us. He then turns around and starts to yell at me, you stay the hell away from us, man. I swear to God. I was a bit clueless thinking, um, what? I've never seen this guy in my life, not until now. He then said to his wife, yeah, he was standing behind me as I was cashing my check and spying on me. I made a poor attempt to defend myself then saying, I think you got the wrong guy, man. I was just using the bathroom and buying coffee. I tried to be nice, considering everything so as not to further escalate the situation. His wife and kids seemed level headed and calm, yet his wife made no effort to bring him back to reality or stand up for me. I parked further down the sidewalk from where he was and just kept walking towards my car. They loaded up their groceries and their kids. He kept yelling at me, accusing me of things, a lot of stay the hell away from my family. Considering it was late and the side entrance to the store was closed, I stopped in my tracks and just felt it was best to go back in the store and let the security know. With my wife working there, I knew where to find an armed security guard or loss prevention if I had to. That meant that I had to walk past this guy's car again. He stops loading his groceries, completely blocks my path, and then yells, if you come this way, I'll kick your ass, man. I'll kill you. He even took a fighting stance. At this point, other customers who were in the parking lot noticed and started to stare. With my path being blocked, I was forced to turn around and just speed walk back to my vehicle and get out of there. At least to where he couldn't see me and called the cops. Since he didn't notice when I drove, I was now safe in my car. I could see from across the parking lot that he started circling the area looking for me. I was able to memorize his License plate. An officer contacted me later that evening and they told me that they couldn't contact the man since he and his family lived in a neighboring county and that I had handled the situation well by remaining calm and just leaving. They told me that it wasn't an attempted assault, just harassment. I was unsure of this because the man postured it up in me saying he wanted to kill me. I went to bed that night, went to work the next day and just went about my business. A week or so later, same story. I was visiting my wife right after work because she had first break. Guess who I saw? The same crazy men. Same car, same plate, same wife and family. I immediately got on the phone and contacted the city police. They told me that an officer would call me back later. I just remained in my car until the psycho left and then sent my wife a text explaining things. I just let them know that I was just trying to keep a paper trail of any encounter that I had with this crazy man. I mean, he did say that he wanted to kill me. If I do actually get murdered at the Fred Meyer, they need to know who did it. Moral of the Be aware of your surroundings. There are crazy people everywhere. Don't park too far from the entrance after hours. Have an escape route. I hope that I never encounter this man again. He really needs serious help. I don't really know if this story will be scary to some people, but it definitely was extremely unnerving to me at the time. I'm a female and this happened when I was 14 years old. This involves myself and my two cousins who will call Noah and James in this story for privacy reasons. We were all having a movie night at Noah and James house and we wanted some snacks to binge out on until we felt sick or fell asleep. So we begged Noah and James mom to take us to our local Dollar General. She eventually said yes and drove us the few minutes there. Noah and James big brother Mark was accompanying us to get some snacks of his own for his room. When we got there my aunt said she would just stay in the car and then wait for us to get the snacks. So we all went in and started wandering around for our snacks that we wanted to buy when all of a sudden I got this weird chill running up my spine that caused me to look around the aisle we were in. As I slowly turned my head to the right I saw this tall six foot man with messy gray hair and glasses. I was about to say something when Noah then whispered in my ear why is that guy staring at us? Do you think he's on something? I looked at Noah to see his face straight with no emotion, which was strange because he usually would have cracked a joke or laughed after saying something like that. I don't know, maybe, I replied. It was just me, Noah and James in the aisle. Since Mark was already checking out with his stuff, we slowly just turned and walked away to a different aisle. When we were done, we walked up to the cash register with a young woman who only looked like she was 17. She greeted us with a hello and was about to scan our snacks when that same man rushed up behind us with a whole wife and a kid. To say I was shocked was an understatement. Hey kids, I can see you are very nice, so can I pig you in line, he said with a wide, unsettling smile. I felt mad that he was trying to manipulate us into letting him go first, but I didn't have the energy to fight some random guy over a few candy bars, so we let him pass. The cashier started scanning his groceries when he suddenly yelled out, causing me and my cousins to scoot closer to each other. Stop. These are such nice kids. We'll let them go first. The cashier looked just as confused as we did. Did he not just ask to get in front of us? Now Noah, the most chill one of our group, walks around the guy and then puts his candy on the counter. James and I walk around this strange man too and just pretend like this was all normal when he suddenly shouts out again, wait. Such nice kids. I changed my mind. Can I go first? Well, we're all just completely confused at this point, just wanting to get out of this mess and go home already. But again, we let him go first and this time he lets the cashier get through, scanning most of his things when I look down to see his child, maybe four or five, opening a bag of Skittles and then dumping them on the floor. I didn't do or say anything, just minding my own business when the guy suddenly turns around and sees what his kid is doing. I have never seen a grown man make this facial expression before, but it made me take a step back in front of Noah and James. Hey, stop it. Good kids don't do that. He yelled. His voice felt like glass in my ears. No joke. The man suddenly sat on the floor and started crying. I was so uncomfortable I wanted to scream. I could tell that Noah and James were at a point too, where the candy just didn't matter this much. That man all of a sudden jumped up and grabbed Noah by the wrist and then looked him straight in the eyes. Are you a good kid? Because I'm a good kid. Noah ripped his wrist away from the man and then just glared at the man. This then made me and James ready to take this guy out if necessary. To my horror, he then turned to me, looked me up and down while licking his lips. Well, well, well boy. Is this your girlfriend? He said grabbing Noah by the shoulder. Um, no, she's my cousin now. Stop touching me. Noah said clenching his fist. The man then flung his hand up in a way to try and get a high five from all of us, but we just stood there glaring at him. He frowned and turned back to his wife. Go sit in the car. He demanded. His wife? I felt bad for this woman. She very clearly had been through a lot and didn't want to fight with him. The man then slowly started to lean closer to James without saying anything when a hand grabbed his shoulder. Hey sir, have we met before? Mark said firmly. Mark was no small guy. He stood at a whopping 6 foot 4 at 16 years old and he worked out regularly. He basically flipped the guy's balance off turning him around. These are my friends. I know them. The man said in a casual tone. No you don't. These are my little siblings and I haven't seen you once in my life so please don't touch them. Mark said. I was shocked at Mark's calm but intimidating manner. The man then ripped out of Mark's hand and stormed out of the store without any of his thanks. Okay, so you guys want to tell me who the hell that guy was? Mark said walking out with us. The three of us couldn't even make a sound. It was a miracle we could walk ourselves to the car. Once we got in it was like a bunch of circus monkeys started chatting. My aunt was completely confused on the way home, but when we finally got the whole story out, she was furious. She wanted to go and find that man herself, but he technically didn't really do anything wrong. It was just super strange to say the least. I haven't seen that guy since that night and hopefully it stays that way. At the time of this story I was a 17 year old girl. On this night at around 10:30pm My mom, myself and sister went to the store to buy a couple of things that we needed for the next day. All of a sudden a guy caught my attention because, well, he was freakishly tall, around 6 foot 7 and was dressed in a suit. On a Tuesday night. I had a really weird feeling in My gut. But I never really thought anything weird about it. A while after, my mom and sister went to another area of the store and I stood by the registers, I saw that really tall guy get out of line and then make his way towards me. He leaned down close to my ear and then whispered good day and then walked to a random aisle near me. After that, my feeling went from 10 to 100 really quickly. But for some reason I didn't tell my mom. My mom had sent me to the freezers to get the last thing on our list. And when I walked up to the doors, I actually saw him pretending to look at something in the aisle that was right in front of me. And once I walked away with my item, he had started walking towards me. Once I noticed this, I had walked away really fast. When I see my mom again, I tell her that we need to hurry up and check out and so does the man. Luckily we checked out fast. But to our luck, we had parked on the side of the store that was all the way in the back and in the dark. We hurried up and put our groceries in the car. And then we just sat in the car to see which car the guy got into. Once he came out, he had started looking around, but we knew he didn't see us. He got into his car and of course it was a typical serial killer looking car. And somehow he immediately drove right next to us and just parked right there. After a while, we had started driving away through a different exit than usual. And when we were right at the light, we thought we were finally good until we turned to our right and the car again is right there. As you can imagine, we all immediately freaked out at this and we got worried because the street we were about to be followed into was a dark street with no traffic. So before the light turned green, we ran the red light to turn left and we finally lost him. I really wish I could say that this was the last time that I saw him, but no. A couple of days after, we had went to another store really close to my house. And I got that same feeling again when someone is staring at you. And when we were checking out of the store, my mom then said to me, isn't that the guy that followed us? And again, we checked out fast and practically ran right out of the store. We waited to see if it really was the same car. And it was. He did the same thing as before. When he came out, he started looking around, but there were actually a lot of cars in the parking lot. This time we haven't seen the creepy guy since and I really hope it stays that way. So I moved to a new place. I'm Indian and as such I frequently go to the Indian grocery stores. I've been to this store a couple of times since I moved. I'm short and I did something really silly during checkout. I was helplessly trying to reach for the divider to separate the groceries on the checkout line. I look around hoping nobody noticed and this cashier guy is just smiling at the whole situation. I smile back and try to get done with checking out asap. From that day onwards I found this guy trying to grab my attention. He looks at least a decade older than me, quite tall and I find him staring at me quite a lot, walking through the aisles while I'm shopping and just taking glances at me. This happened a few times and he starts walking up to me casually asking questions like hi, how are you doing? Anything I can help you with? But he doesn't seem to come up to me when I'm with my friend. It's only when I'm alone do I find him lingering around. One day he actually gave me a free snack. I said no but he just handed it over to me and left. Well, the next day he asked if I have a job and if I'm married. He gets kind of excited when I tell him that I'm a developer and single. He doesn't speak English so he proceeds to say something in Hindi which I'm not super good at. I try asking him what he said and he says something but I don't understand him. Also, there have been multiple instances where he would step out of the store and watch me while I'm sitting in the car until I finally leave. He just smirks and keeps looking at me. I'm a shy introvert and I'm bad at avoiding conversations. I always talk nice regardless of who it is. What should I even do now? Does this mean that this man is interested in me? How do I politely handle this? He knows who I usually shop with and I don't want to make it an awkward situation for my friends. I guess I'm just wondering if I'm overreacting. And to clarify, I'm not interested in this person. I always smile and talk. Maybe that's sending him the wrong signals. This has given me a weird not so good feeling. I guess I could stop going to that store, but that doesn't seem right. The fact that I have to avoid a public space because of a man, well that makes me feel pathetic. But I guess I understand in terms of safety. Maybe I can just go with someone else there if I have to. Not sure if that's the right thing either. It is the only Indian grocery store around though. This situation is just a really inconvenience at this point. I hope anyone that's been going through something similar is in a better situation with peace. Definitely makes it awkward to get unwanted attention from random people. I'm going to avoid going to that store for as long as possible. If I do have to go, I'm just gonna take my friend with me. Going to the store by myself is giving him the opportunity to make advances or create situations where I cannot get away from him easily. Yeah, I'm never going back to that store. I had to go today and get a few things for my friend. She had a surgery and she didn't want to come along, but I dragged her with me anyways. She hadn't noticed that man all these months. I've been going to the store alone for the past couple of weeks. So he was just openly, really flirty. Today he was outside the store when we reached there and he smiled at us when we went inside. He then stood at the entrance to get close up, leaned towards me and then said hi. I know it's just saying hi, but this guy is just really a creep. Obviously a lot of people noticed, including my friend. He just kept smiling at me and looking at me the whole time. After we got back home, I had told my friend that I'm never going back there and I meant it. I asked her if I was overreacting and she said no. She's the one who told me to ignore him while shopping there and to wear headphones. Today was pretty subtle because I was with her. He didn't really talk much, otherwise he'd be standing in front of me asking a ton of personal questions. My friend said that we don't have to go there for a while and we decided that we're only going to go there if we're in a group with about three or more guys from our friend circle. But if you ask me, I don't want to go back there at all. I'm just really sick of this creepy guy bothering me for the sake of this story. I don't really recall every word of my conversation. It was 15 years ago. But I will do my best to recreate them just to make the story flow based on what I do actually remember. I was about 19 when I was offered a job by my cousin to work for our uncle's glass business. They installed giant glass windows in tall buildings and skyscrapers. Not that it's too relevant to the story. The catch to the job was that I had to temporarily move to Destin, Florida from Tampa. My cousin lived in Russellville, Alabama and I wanted to go visit the family there and leave with them together to go back to Destin. This was my first long distance road trip and also my first trip away from my immediate family. Back then I was driving a pug green Mercury Sable, a car barely even capable of getting groceries back home. But in my invincible youth I didn't care about that. I was just so pumped to be spreading my wings and getting out into the real world world that the risks didn't even concern me. My mom and dad tried to get me to plan and pack better, knowing the trip could have its pitfalls. But it wasn't like the trip was going to take days. And I mean fast food does exist, so I wasn't stressing out about that. I mean, I'm not stupid. I packed for the trip and stayed for a few months in Destin, but they wanted me to bring food, water, emergency supplies, etc. I declined because it wasn't the 1930s and of course there are gas stations at every exit and I had a razor flip phone. My thinking was what could possibly happen on two busy interstates? I mean, it wasn't like I was going to some far off country with no cell service. Anyway, fast forward to the trip. I'm a Florida boy and I had no idea that Alabama could get so cold. And I had no idea that the heat was broken in my car. I had never used it at first. I'm really thankful because by the time I reached Alabama I'm tired as hell and I had made a lot more stops than I anticipated. I still had a few hours to go and the cold air was really keeping me awake. Finally I pulled off the interstate and started heading through these smaller numbered roads. The roads didn't have conventional names like in Florida, they were just numbered, which I found odd. After driving on those for a bit, I had started being sent down gravel roads. This was the days of MapQuest, so I didn't have a GPS guiding me through just paved roads or rerouting me around roadblocks. I was starting to get really hungry and thought back to my parents telling me to pack food. I should have listened. The sketchiest thing with MapQuest was that you just printed it out the directions. You didn't have an actual map to fall back on. So going out of your way to find fast food in an exit came with the potential of legitimately getting lost. So I had passed a few signs telling me to turn off for food because I was really tired and didn't want to chance it. Instead, I was looking for something off to the side of the road that I could easily pull in and pull back out with no fuss and more importantly, no risk of getting lost. My prayers were answered a little down the road when I saw a beat up old country grocery store on my right hand side. It didn't even have a name, it just said Grocery in big letters across the whole front of the white building. I pulled in because the light shining across the grocery sign was on, but I found it odd that most of the lights inside were off. This gave me the creeps a little, but it didn't stop me from going up to the door. I was starving and maybe this was a 24 hour place. I saw a shadow move across the back of the long aisles as I approached the glass door door and surprisingly opened it with ease. At this point I was half expecting them to be closed and had hoped an owner would take pity on a tired traveler and just let me grab some snacks. I called out hello. No one answered. I said something along the lines of hey, I saw you when I pulled up. I was hoping you're still open. Again, no answer. Now this was really naive of me, but I assumed that maybe the owner was older and just couldn't hear me. There was a constant buzzing sound coming from the back or maybe he was deaf. So I then went further back into the store. It honestly didn't smell that great inside and I hope that they at least had some chips or something. At least those are sealed. Suddenly a man emerged from the back. Hey there. I'm so sorry, we were just about to close. How can I help you? He asked with a smile. He nearly made me jump right out of my skin at first, but he seemed friendly enough. Not the old man I was picturing, but actually a younger guy, maybe in his 30s. Yeah man, I just came up from Florida. It's been a really long drive. I was hoping you guys had something for me to eat for the trip. Oh, we have plenty. What are you looking for exactly? He said without taking his eyes off of me. The guy had a weird unblinking stare that had put me on edge, but what made me the most uncomfortable was his smile. He smiled big but his eyes never moved. As in, the only way you could tell he was conveying an emotion was by looking at his mouth, the rest of his face stayed the same. Most people, you could tell they're smiling even if their mouth was covered because you smile with your whole face. Not this guy, just some chips, maybe a Coke. Do you have any Doritos? Of course we do. He said walking past me. He locked the door behind me before turning and smiling. I don't want anyone else walking in. He chuckled and locking the door was creepy, but I shrugged it off because the reasoning was sound, even though it did feel off. Follow me. The guy said as he walked towards the back of the store. I was young but I should have been smart enough to know that the store owners generally don't give their customers a tour of the store, but I lived a pretty sheltered life. I could really feel that something was off with this situation, but I didn't want to offend him by asking questions like what's that smell? We get to the back of the store to where those plastic flaps hang to separate the customer side in the back end when the man sticks his hand through parting the plastic and then says right this way. Now alarm bells are starting to go off in my head, especially as he starts looking around and past me like someone who's selling drugs and watching out for the police. Uh, back there? I ask and start to back up a little. That's when I notice chips beside me on the aisle. The guy noticed me looking at the chips and then said yeah, back here we got our good stuff in the back. You can come take your pick. By this time I find the source of the buzzing. Flies are flying over the meat section and the dim light reflecting off the packaging lets me know that it's been sitting there for a good while. Yeah, I'll just take this if that's alright. I say nervously as I grab a bag off the shelf next to me and then start backing up towards the door. Trust me, those are no good. I have way better stuff back here. He smiles, gesturing for me to head back. I fake pad in my pockets then say, oh man, I think I forgot my wallet in my car. I'll be right back. As soon as the words left my lips I spun around and did a light jog to the front, increasing with speed as I approached the door. I may get to the door and twist the lock a couple of times until I hear the click. I push open the door and turn back to look at where the man is, but he's gone. I just jumped into my car and sped out of that parking lot and I didn't stop Again until I reached my cousin's house. Yeah, that was an absolute terrifying experience. Two years ago I was working at my old job as a cashier at a grocery store. I was really friendly to all my customers and most of them loved me. Well, one night I was working late at around 8 or 9, but the store was still decently packed. I had a big line of customers and was smiling and just being nice to all of them when this man appeared next in line. He was roughly 5:10, with shoulder length black greasy hair that was under a cap, a long green jacket and an old black backpack slung over one shoulder. His face was extremely pale and he had big black glasses that kept sliding down as soon as he came up to ring up his items. Something just felt wrong. However, me being the silly person I am, I just smiled at him and was polite. Big mistake. He responded to nothing I said. He just gave me this creepy dead eye stare and would take his eyes off me even while paying for his food with his card. I was totally creeped out, but I just kept smiling and told him to have a nice night. After he left I felt a lot better and the people after him were actually very sweet and non creepy. Fast forward an hour and I look up and see him. He was standing by the exit of the store, just staring at me, not moving. I stopped what I'm doing for a brief second and just stare back in shock. I don't say anything to my supervisor or my bagger, I just freeze and stare back. However, my customer snaps me out of it by asking me a question and I look away to help them out and when I look back, he's gone. I'm a little unnerved at this point, but I just shrug it off and go back to work. Fast forward another 30 minutes. It's almost time to leave and I'm looking forward to going home and rolling, relaxing. When I feel like someone besides my customers is watching me. I look around and I see nothing. But I still feel like someone's watching me. So I looked behind me and there he is standing in the second exit right behind me, just staring. I tell my beggar who just shrugs it off and when I look back, he's gone again. Now at this point I'm definitely creeped out, so I tell my supervisor since I'm leaving in about 30 minutes and she tells me that one of the guys will walk me back to my car. Fast forward another 30 minutes, it's time to go and I'm walking out with one of the cart guys. I start telling him about the creepy guy I saw and then he goes, oh yeah, that guy. I looked at him in confusion and he tells me that this guy has been hanging out in the parking lot for the last hour and a half, just watching the store and not moving. He said that he thought he was weird, but he didn't really think too much about it. And. And the guy suddenly got up and then ran away five, ten minutes ago. The whole ride home, I just kept checking my rearview mirror just to see if anyone was following me, but nothing. And luckily I never saw that guy again. Hey guys. I've been following this subreddit for a few weeks now, and I've decided to submit my own Creepy Encounter. This is my first post on Reddit and I'm not a great writer, so please bear with me. I went to a university in a small town with less than 5,000 people. The majority of the population is made up of students, but of course there are also locals. I never had a problem with any of the locals before, but they could be a tad strange. So anyways, about seven months ago, I was at the grocery store around. Around 6pm buying food for dinner. I was in the dairy aisle looking for cottage cheese. We were making lasagna this night when from behind, this man asked me why I was buying cottage cheese. Weird, right? Well, I turned around and there's a man standing there, probably in his late 40s or early 50s, with long greasy hair and dirty clothes. Something about him made me uncomfortable. However, I'm very polite and some would even say a little too nice. Some. So I engaged in the conversation with him. Uh, yeah, I'm making lasagna tonight and the recipe calls for cottage cheese. I'm a professional chef, let me tell you that. You should not be using cottage cheese. You should be using ricotta, the creepy man said. So I just said thanks for the advice and picked up the ricotta. I was about to walk away when he continued the conversation. He was going on about really weird, weird things like how he used to have a white tiger as a pet and how he makes homemade hot sauce out of his home. Yeah, he was a bit delusional at this point. I had already been standing there listening to him for about 20 minutes. Do you like hot sauce too? The man asked me. Yeah, sure, sometimes. You should come to my place and make some hot sauce with me. I just live up the mountain. Uh, no thank you. That's okay, I replied. The man then starts getting really pushy and trying to persuade me to go to his house. Finally, this woman, who was overhearing our weird conversation and could also see that I was getting very unnerved, said it was time for him to be on his way. The man then proceeded to give me his business card, which I may add was clearly homemade, on regular printer paper and actually cut with scissors. He tells me to call him whenever I want to make hot sauce or to have a drink. He then went to the cash register to pay for his stuff and I watched just to make sure he left before going to pay for my things. When I walked out of the grocery store, he was standing outside waiting for me. Now at this point I'm really freaked out and I have a good 15 minute walk ahead of me. He asked me how I was getting home and I didn't want to say I was walking, so I just told him I was going to catch a cab. How about we share a cab? He asked me. No, that's okay. Come on, just share a cab with me. The man demanded. He was starting to get angry so I flagged down a cab and then jumped in. He tries to get in the back and I tell the cab driver that I don't even know this man and I don't want to be sharing a cab with him, so he tells him to get lost. As we're driving away, I can actually hear him insulting me with profanative language. I'm pretty shaken up at this point. The cab driver drops me off at my house and when I get out I see a car with the creepy man from the grocery store in it parked two houses down. He not only followed me to my house, but also had a car of his own. There was no reason for him to want to take a taxi with me now. At this point I was super scared and hurried inside. Thank God my two other roommates were both home. I told them everything that happened. One of my roommate's boyfriend was on his way over so we decided to wait for him to get there before we did anything else. But he just stayed there in his car watching our house for a good 15 minutes. When he saw my friend's boyfriend show up, he drove away and I haven't seen him since. I then remembered that he gave me his business card and I wanted to look him up online. First of all, the business card was for some photoshopping company, not a chef. I typed the name and business into Google but nothing came up. His name didn't exist and the company didn't exist either. I reported this incident to the police, but they said that there wasn't much they could do since he didn't technically do anything. I'm not sure if this is related or not, but I have a gut feeling this was so Less than a week later my roommates had a class at 8:30am and I was still sleeping since I didn't have a class myself until noon. I guess whoever last left forgot to lock the door. About an hour after they left I woke up to the front door being closed thinking it was one of my roommates. I just stayed in bed. I thought that the door would have been locked so whoever it was would have needed a key. I heard someone go into my roommate's room right next to mine thinking it was her. Then a few moments later I had heard someone try to open my door. Then I heard a knock. I always lock it when I sleep at night, but I was so tired and I didn't want to get up and open it so I just pretended to be asleep. Well thank God for that because none of my roommates were home and it actually was an intruder. I heard whoever it was leave through the back door, which I thought was weird. So I got up and got dressed and when I went out no one was there. But it turns out whoever it was stole my roommate laptop and also a picture that we have in our living room of us four girls. Totally creepy. I once again reported all of this to the police but never really heard anything back about it. I had lots of trouble sleeping and feeling safe in my own house after this incident. To this day this experience still creeps me out and I don't even want to imagine what would have happened if I had opened my bedroom door to whoever it was that was knocking. I still have no idea if the first guy at the grocery store is related to this same event, but I guess I'll never know. A few days ago this 30ish year old man was wearing Heelys and I immediately smiled the biggest, most genuine smile at him just due to the fact that he was a 30 year old man scooting around on Heelys in a grocery store. Then things got a bit weird. Note I'm only a 15 year old girl. I was with my older sister and she didn't even seem to notice him. But he began to roll past us down almost each aisle and the first few times I found it funny, almost as if he was just showing off his cool Heelys. But my sister likes to go down every aisle so I began to get a bit freaked out by him because his smile just kept getting bigger and bigger every time he passed by. He didn't even seem to be looking for any groceries. We had been in there for a long time and he hadn't picked up one single thing off any of the shelves. My sister started to get freaked out so we went to pay for our stuff and he still followed us. This creepy dude picked a magazine off from the little rack and then paid for it after us. And while the lady was making the transaction, he kept doing little impatient jumps and kept looking back at us with the most absolute, absolute creepiest smile I've ever seen. We asked one of the male workers if he would help us load the groceries into our car and I made a secret gesture to the man who was coming towards us again with his magazine in hand. I'm so thankful. To my sister's quick thinking, the worker could tell we were obviously startled and then he nodded his head in understanding. We then hurried to my sister's car and we had some time to get away because the Healey dude had to wait for a car to pass. Finally he skated towards us, but as soon as he saw the worker guy from the grocery store with us, he then mumbled to himself damn it. Before rolling away. I don't really think the man was going to do anything crazy to us, but he was definitely a major creep and I'm glad whatever he had planned didn't actually work out. After finding this subreddit and reading a lot of the stories that other people have posted, I came to thinking about the times in my life that I may have met someone that fits in the category of the let's not meet again creeper. That's when the light bulb went off in my head. The one glaring example of the exact sort of person you'd hope to never have to meet. It all started in a grocery store aisle with an encounter between 13 year old me and an older man that looked to be in his mid-50s or early 60s. My father decided that he needed to get some groceries in order to make dinner for myself and my siblings that night. So there we were at the local supermarket, walking down one aisle after the other. A tidbit about me that's integral to this story. I'm the sort of person that will see something in a store and immediately just stop in my tracks to examine it or to wander over to what's caught my eye without so much as a word to the people or person I'm with. Well, I just so happened to do this very thing on that day, but it was normal to my father because I always did this at the grocery store and we were in a small enough place that he didn't mind if I went off to look at magazines or ran off to grab a particular snack that I really wanted. I can't remember for the life of me what I had gone off in search of on this particular day, but I do remember standing in an empty aisle looking at the food on the top shelf. All of a sudden I had felt a presence to my right, so I looked up and noticed an older man standing a little too close to me for comfort. I didn't really say anything because my own personal bubble is fairly huge and I tend to try and block out people I don't know due to social anxiety. So I took a couple of steps to the left. At this point, my get the hell out of here voice is screaming at me because the moment I took those steps, the man moved in the same direction as well. There was just something about his presence that made child me want to run and hide somewhere. The problem is, I was always raised to respect our elders and following the rules always trumped my own insecurities. I stayed put, hoping to just come to a conclusion on what I wanted soon and then grab it so I could walk away respectfully. Meanwhile, I'm just thinking please don't let him talk to me. It was repeating in my head over and over again. But he did end up speaking to me. I may not remember why I was in that aisle, but but I won't ever forget the words that he said to me. I don't know if he realized that I felt uncomfortable or if he had just been mulling over what he wanted to say, but he then chuckled a bit and said, hey now, don't get upset. There's plenty of room here for the two of us. I fake laughed because it was the only thing I could think of to do or say in response. At this point, he took it upon himself to turn towards me and then point up at the top shelf. You need me to get that down for you? He asked. I nodded because it was the easiest way to get this guy to leave me alone. He grabbed whatever snack and food it was on the top shelf and then handed it to me, but when my hand made contact with the container, he didn't let go. I then pulled it in my direction, thinking that maybe he just forgot to let it go, but he still didn't lose his grip and basically every alarm bell in the world is going off at this point. I tried thinking of every way that I could exit the situation that wouldn't get me into trouble, but none of them seemed plausible so I just froze. He started to comment on how he loved my style, my nail polish, and how unique I was. I could feel the tears welling up in my eyes because I knew that everything in me that knew what he was doing was wrong. But he was an older adult and I can only imagine how long I would have been grounded if this guy had told my father that I was rude to him. The guy started to smile and also started to comment on how pretty I was, sort of leaning towards me like he was going to touch my face. And an almost instant later I had heard my father yell louder than I've ever heard in my life before that or after. As soon as that guy heard the yelp of a parrot he then shrunk into himself like a sun baked prune. I can't even tell you how long we stood there as my father tore this guy a new one, but the man must have seen his entire disgusting life flash before his eyes. I could have sworn that he was a dead man, but I was then grabbed by the arm and dragged out of the store without the groceries we came there for. When we got out of the store. My father then turned his rage towards me, screaming that I should never talk to strangers and that I knew better than that. He kept asking why I let him get so close to me and what the hell I was thinking. I was so upset and ashamed that the only thing I thought to do was to defend my own actions by saying that I didn't realize what he was doing, that it was bad, but that was probably just a child's attempt to get out of trouble. I've never talked to my father about what happened that day since. He doesn't even know what happened to me before he found me in that aisle and I don't think I'll ever tell him. So yeah, to that creepy man that could have abducted me in the grocery store. Lets hope that you're six feet under by now and that you also never hurt anyone else's kid before or after that day. For reference, I'm an 18 year old female and I work in a department store in the business district of my city which is notorious for having crackheads working there. I've encountered all kinds of people and I have a lot of different stories to tell you. People smashing mirrors in our store, threatening to bash me up, and much more. I'd like to say that I'm used to it, but for some reason today in particular. It just really freaked me out. I was on break from work and it was around 7:30pm since it was a Friday night, the city was busier than normal, especially with the food markets that were on week weekly. This meant that there were also a lot more dodgy people than usual. I was chilling on a bench outside my workplace on my phone when I heard a man talking in my ear. I jumped and swiveled around and I saw this scruffy, disheveled man leaning in uncomfortably close to me. He absolutely reeked of alcohol and he was mumbling stuff under his breath and he was asking if he could sing to me. Totally shocked, I said nothing and he started loudly singing and talking about Jimmy Dean, still standing way too close to me. I made eye contact with this group of people and I saw them take notice of me, but they just walked past, not knowing what to do to get out of the situation. Since I was scared he'd follow me back to work or become angry at me, I just stayed still, leaning away. Like I said, I like to think that in potentially dangerous situations I know how to react from listening to so many scary stories, but in reality I just froze. Thankfully, after what felt like ages of this man singing to me. But in reality, what was a minute, a younger man around my age came up and then greeted the man, then pretended that we were friends and headed out to grab dinner together. The disheveled man leaned in to touch the man who was helping me, almost looking like he was trying to give him a hug. The man pushed him off and then took me away and thankfully the creep didn't follow when we walked away. He then led me over to his group of friends who I had recognized as the ones who I saw earlier. They stated that they had seen my eyes and knew that I was totally freaked out. I thanked them profusely and then spent the rest of my break in the store's stockrooms. So to that creep, I hope I don't see you around my work again. And to that guy and his friends who got me out of that situation, I have nothing but appreciation for you. Have a blessed life and thank you so much. Just for a little background. This happened back in 2018 when I was 19 years old. I'm a female and I lived in Michigan at the time. I just got kicked out of college due to me failing one class, but anyway, I had moved back to my hometown and eventually got a job in my own apartment. I wasn't really making a lot of money, so sometimes at the end of the month I had to make meals last as long as possible. One night when I was waiting for my check to clear, I was sitting in my living room deciding whether I should get some food from the store or not. I was really hungry, but by the time I got the money, it was already 12am and against my better judgment, I decided to go to the store anyway. Unfortunately, I didn't have a car and it was the beginning of winter, so I had to walk to the store to get at least a pack of noodles to hold me over for the night. The store was a 10 minute walk at best, so I got dressed and began to walk out. I'm thinking to myself what could possibly happen? And if anything doesn't seem right, I could just book it all the way home. But then again, there's at least a few inches of snow on the ground at this point. But still, I was really hungry, so I just said screw it and headed out. Five minutes into my walk, everything was going fine. But then just up ahead, I could see a guy in a long trench coat. The hairs on my neck stood up at the moment I saw him, but in my mind I believed that maybe I could just be overreacting. I didn't completely ignore my intuition though, so I just crossed the street for good measure. I also decided to take the long way around to the store rather than just walk past him. That was my first mistake. I saw this man walk the opposite direction of me, so I thought I was safe. Two minutes later I turned around and I saw the same man with the trench coat, but this time his face was covered. Every alert in my mind then went off. How did he sneak up on me? Why didn't I hear him? The moment I turned around and made eye contact, he then instantly called out to me, hey, come here. Hey, I'm trying to talk to you. I just want to talk. At this moment, I'm freaking out in my head, but had gathered the courage to then yell back, hey man, leave me alone. I have a weapon, which I did actually have. I had a knife, but I feared that he may have had a gun. And he started to run toward me, but he wasn't moving fast enough because of the snow. Thank God the snow was so thick that night. At that moment I realized the only thing I could do was run no matter what, because he was moving faster by the second. I looked around and the streets were clear with no sign of life. There were apartments all around, but everyone's lights were out and their blinds were closed. I then yelled out Go away so loud so that someone can hear me. And then ran as fast as I could while running in the snow. It was so difficult to run in my boots, so I literally kicked them off and the adrenaline kicked me in the ass all the way until I saw the bright light of a car and I thought to myself, just how fucking lucky I am it was actually a cop. But the moment I turned around, he was no longer there. I'm very happy that nothing worse happened that night and that I learned my lesson on going out alone late at night. I'd rather starve. To this day I still wonder if that could have been my last night alive and where he is now. When I was a sophomore in college and 19, I had started talking to this guy that was a co worker of my best friend, let's call him Francis. I was never in love with the guy, but we were just trying to have fun. After a couple of weeks I realized there was something that Francis wasn't telling me, but I wasn't too worried about it since we weren't serious anyway. After a while he became dodgy. He wouldn't answer my texts for days and when I'd see him around campus he'd always have some sort of excuse like my phone is broken or I just haven't been around my phone lately or something with his classes. All of which I knew were lies since he seemed glued to his phone normally. But I let it go because I didn't want to stress out over someone that I again wasn't that serious with. Anytime he would see me as well, he would ask for a ride somewhere or some money to go buy cigarettes. I was already extremely low on funds given I was a brogue college student, and he also made unnecessarily rude remarks and showed no sense of boundaries. After another week of this, I decided that I wasn't going to really reach out to him anymore because he was just constantly on edge anytime I would see him around and I just didn't like where things were going. Francis didn't like this. I mentioned earlier that it seemed Frances was hiding something from me during the time we were fooling around. My best friend at the time was working with him and whenever I asked her about it, she said that she knew, but promised him that she wouldn't say anything to me. I told her that if it's something important that would get me caught up in drama, I needed to know. She had decided to tell me that he had an ex girlfriend that had been visiting him at his dorm and that she caught him with the ex multiple times. I was a little shocked by this, considering that he told me he hated her whenever he'd talk about his past relationship. But I realized that dodging my calls and texts for days was a red flag in itself. That was when I really just didn't want anything to do with him. Well, Francis heard that I didn't want to talk to him anymore, and he started blowing up my phone repeatedly, asking me to talk. I woke up to three missed calls one morning, all at around 3am, but something in my gut told me not to meet him the next day. I caved in and I asked my roommate at the time to be around when he came by to talk, since he made me a little uneasy. He told me that his ex came by his dorm the night before and they got into a huge argument that resulted in her swallowing all of his bipolar medication and then hiding in the bathroom. He had to break into his own bathroom to get a hold of her, and he said that he shoved his fingers down her throat to make her vomit, but that she had pushed him off and took a PVC pipe and then slammed it against his head, which caused him to get a concussion. They both had to go to the ER for this, and that was around the time that he had called me at 3am the night before. I was mortified hearing this because clearly both he and his ex had serious issues. After all this, he had asked me if our relationship was technically cheating if he had tried to break up with her in the past. I just said, dude, what the fuck? Tried to break up with her this whole time. I wouldn't have even talked to you had I known there was an ex girlfriend actually in the picture. He got upset at this and called me a bitch. At that point, I changed my tone to a kind and understanding one because I realized he was capable of a lot and that he wasn't in a good headspace. I was trying my best to make him leave, but without upsetting him more. Eventually, he left and my roommate came downstairs stating that I was oddly nice with him. But I told her I was terrified of him and just wanted him gone in the calmest way I could. A couple of days later, I met my old best friend's dorm. He somehow still got an invite, and when I didn't hug him back, he had called me a cunt and then screamed at everyone else for defending me and then left. After that, I had to start walking around with a taser keychain alarm and a knife at night. One of my guy friends thankfully told me if Francis ever tried to get near me to call him and then he'd be there in front five minutes. I was extremely grateful for him. If I'd met Frances that night when he called me at 3am, who knows what situation I could have been dragged into. Frances ended up dropping out of college that same semester. Fast forward a few years. I heard from my best friend that Frances ended up proposing to his psycho ex girlfriend because she got pregnant. He calls me after I've met my current husband and left me a long voicemail about how I was the only girl who'd ever been kind to him and that he really misses me and that he doesn't know if that kid is even his since his ex cheated on him and they're no longer together. I want to mention that I also found a picture of his son on Facebook and he's a literal carbon copy of Frances. All I know is I dodged a bullet. Be wary of shady people who seem to be hiding something from you because your gut is usually right. Frank Francis, if you ever hear this story and realize it's you, please go get some help. Stay safe out there college ladies. It may not seem like a big deal, but who you invite into your life is extremely important. So this actually happened about two hours ago. I, a 26 year old female and my boyfriend who is a 36 year old male descent, decided to go out to the store to get oil. We have to go out 45 minutes just to get this in a bad part of the city. But it's the only European store that has the actual stuff that I grew up with eating. My family and I are from the Ukraine but live in the US and it's really difficult finding authentic places that have exactly what we had and this is the only place I found that has it down to the exact brand. As we're driving we're on a three lane road which we need to get into one of those mid section U turn type of lanes. We get into our left turn lane and a black car goes by from the far right lane through the middle lane to cut us off at the left lane which my boyfriend and I are just like what the hell? And then they stop at a green light for the U turn. My boyfriend gently honks twice in a nice way in case they were on their phone to go. Since it's our turn they go forward and we go to the parking lot directly on our ride to the store that we need to go to the car in front of us which is now on the far left lane, goes through another two lanes and drives into the sidewalk to go into the parking lot where we were going to. And it rides nearly on our bumper, pressing the horn the entire time we drove. My boyfriend eventually decided to stop a few feet further than the store instead of parking at it. And at that point I realized that his dash cam and backup camera was off. I tap it since it usually starts recording when it feels motion. It didn't turn on. And we realize that it somehow disconnected to his car as he's trying to get the cameras plugged back into his car. The blind car then pulls up and I see three guys in there. They look to be between the ages of 18, 20. They roll their window down and the driver then reaches for something about to take it out. And I'm now just screaming at my boyfriend, just drive. Go. Just go. My boyfriend suddenly began doing donuts in the parking lot to get their car to back off while I'm now just screaming, oh God, the police. Call the police. I need to call the police. And I managed to dial 911 as he was doing his last donut and then suddenly began driving out of the parking lot. The black car was still chasing us out as I then finally got an answer. And when the police asked where we were, I blanked out and stuttered in a panic that we were currently being chased. And my boyfriend yelled out what road we were passing. He used to do Uber for seven years and he pretty much knows every street name by heart. The guys kept coming after us until we were about three, four blocks away from the police station and we just stayed on the line. They probably realized where we were going because they then swerved to a random road on our left. At some point we got disconnected, but the officer called me right back and stayed with us as we pulled into the station. We explained what happened and the officer was nice. He offered to escort us back to the store, following our car just in case the guys were still there. We decided to cut our day short, thanked the officer, and then went home. My boyfriend said he was amazed at how quickly I made all the right decisions. And he was surprised I even called the police because he's aware I have a history of being sexually assaulted by two on duty officers four years ago and how I've been terrified to call or speak to officers ever since. But I was so terrified of getting shot and I didn't want something awful to happen to my boyfriend. I. I was so terrified that my chest hurt and I'm So happy that we're now safe. That was one of the most terrifying experiences I've ever had. I'm a 16 year old male and about a year ago In December of 2023, my female friend Izzy and I would constantly sneak out together. She's also 16 by the way. I suppose it was a way to escape from our shitty lives. Two years prior I came home from school and I found my dad laying dead on the floor from a heart attack and it left me pretty messed up mentally. Izzy, on the other hand, had lost her mom about a year or so later in a similar way with us both performing cpr. This kind of trauma bonded us together in a way and we became inseparable. We were each other's shadows that did everything together. Izzy had a rough relationship with her dad at the time and would stay at my house for days on end, meaning we would constantly sneak out together, steal my mom's car and just cause mischief. The story happened on a Saturday night. It was just past 1am and we were both pretty drunk and with nothing to do, we decided to go sneak out while like usual. Now my dad bought me this electric bike with a seat on the back, sort of like a little moped in a way, which allowed us to go pretty far together and search for things to do. We got on the bike and decided to head to town just a short ten minute ride away. Now I could tell I was pretty drunk and so I didn't want to ride on the road in case something happened. So I decided to go through the forest. Now for a little context. I lived in a small village just outside of the main town and around us was a ton of woodland and footpaths to use, all leading their own way. Thankfully, although wobbly and falling off twice, we made it to the town at around 1.40am this was around the time where all of the bars and nightclubs had closed, meaning there was a huge amount of people staggering around looking to get food and taxis. Being 16 at the time, we were never able to actually get into any of the bars and so sneaking out on a Saturday would become a regular occurrence for us as we would just sit with random strangers and talk to them. Boring, I know, but at the time it was thrilling. After about two hours of sitting around talking to people, we decided it was time to head back. Now keep in mind, it was now way past 3am, meaning the roads were deserted, there was absolutely nobody left except for us. Once again, I decided to go through the forest trails to get home. I turned into the trail and began riding down it when out of nowhere I had heard a scream come from the pitch black darkness to my right. We both nearly shit ourselves and I began to pedal incredibly hard for a while until we felt safe again. Reaching the end of the trail, I went to turn right into the final path when all of a sudden I had heard someone grunt behind me. We both turn around to see a guy dressed in all black laying down to the side of the path. It scared the shit out of me. When I saw him as being in all black, he completely blended into the darkness. I tried to pedal away but I was just completely frozen in place. My eyes locked onto him. The man slowly got up, twisting and moaning like something from a horror movie. When fully standing he looked to be over 6 foot 2 with like a weird sharp and narrow neck and a huge head. He just looked super terrifying. We were both just sitting there in pure terror. He slowly put his finger up to his lips and began trying to undo his pants. He just looked freaking terrifying to me. When he got it out, I suddenly just snapped back into reality and just started pedaling and pedaling, but in my drunken state I kept veering off the trail and into the bushes, eventually making both of us fall off. I looked behind me and I saw him full on sprinting at us. We both then darted in opposite directions and then ran into the forest. I remember that I kept tripping over the branches and sticks that were on the ground. I seriously thought I was going to die. I just kept on running in pure adrenaline filled terror, my legs feeling hollow beneath me. Eventually I came to a stop and turned around, seeing nothing but pitch black trees around me. The forest was absolutely silent with the only sound being the wind rustling the trees. I hid behind a big rock and got on my phone to call Lizzie where she told me to meet her at the main road. I slowly crept out from behind the rock checking in all directions for the man, but he was nowhere. I just waited there for about a minute trying to listen out for any sounds, but there was nothing. About 30ft away I had heard a twig snap which just made me full on sprint again. I kept on running for about five minutes until I finally reached the main road where I then found Izzy waiting at a bus stop. It turns out the guy ended up just chasing her for a full five minutes until she then reached the main road. She said that she stopped and turned around, watching him walk backwards back into the forest with his fingers still on his lips. We decided to walk home along the main road after that finally reaching my house. We went back the next day to the woods during the daytime, and my bike was actually left untouched, still laying down in the bush. A couple of months later, my local town issued a news report of a flasher in the woods there who had apparently flashed three other dog walkers on that very same trail. Two years later and we're still the best of friends, but let's just say that we never snuck out like that again. And to anyone listening to this, never ever put yourself in a vulnerable position, especially when drunk. I'll have some links to news articles to verify my story in the description. The story happened to my father in the early 90s. My family and I live in the northern part of Sweden, so excuse my English, as it isn't my native language. The story took place when my dad was young and lived briefly in America. Without further ado, here's the story. It was late at night when my dad was driving. I forget the reason, but it was quite a long drive on a deserted interstate surrounded by deep forests and the fog behind him. Suddenly he could make out a car that was following him. At first he brushed it off, but then he realized that the car had its lights turned off. Why would someone drive in this foggy night without the lights on, he thought. He lowered his speed, waiting for the car to pass him, but it never did. It just slowed down and kept creeping behind him. My dad upped his speed again, and so did the car behind him. This was when he was sure that he was being followed. He kept going like this for another 10 minutes, getting more and more worried, when suddenly the car stood with their lights off, floored it past him and into the distance. My dad could barely make out the plates, but he saw that it was a black car with Russian plates. A little while later, my dad saw a man standing in the middle of the road. And as he approached the man, he saw that the black car was now parked a bit further into a forest, up a small dirt path. My dad slowed down and cranked down his window just a little bit. The man then approached the window. He was dressed almost entirely in black, had a bald head and was about medium height. He was probably in his late 30s, and he spoke in broken English. He said that his car broke down and he needed help, but this made no sense since his car wasn't at the side of the road but like 20ft into the forest. The man then repeated himself. My dad was too perplexed with the situation to answer, so he just said, sorry, I can't Help you sir. And then rolled up his window right after he did that. The man then screamed at him and started punching the glass. My dad then floored the hell out of there, but when he looked in the mirror, he then saw five more men running up from the ditches. But the most disturbing part was that the men from the ditches were all wearing the these creepy white masks with no facial features, just black holes for the eyes. My father drove for like five hours until he reached a fairly nice motel that he then checked into in the middle of the night. He was woken up by scratching at his door like someone was dragging their nails across it. My dad was way too scared to move, but after a few minutes it stopped. The next morning he went out to his car just to find that one of the masks the men had been wearing was laying on the hood of the car. He never saw any of them again, but to this day he still hates to drive at night. This situation happened around 2011 when I was around 31 years old. My job was with a finance company where we managed customers accounts and also collected payments from time to time in person. That was a really annoying part of the job as they often put pressure on us to go outside of work hours unpaid to collect accounted payments in order to meet our monthly and quarterly targets. We never even saw the bonuses that we were promised we would get if we hit the targets. One day during work hours, I was assigned the task of collecting a payment which meant driving around an hour away. This area had terrible traffic both ways, so it would have ended up a four hour trip. I arrived at my destination but my client wasn't home. However, this was the time before I had a satellite gps. I was using manual maps and was driving away slowly when I noticed it was school in time. So there were the children as normal walking to their homes. I noticed one young girl walking alone and a car creeping behind her. Just enough distance away for her to not notice something felt off with me. She was happily walking along in her own world with her school uniform, a little skirt on and a colorful backpack. I decided to stay where I was for a moment and watch what was going on. The little girl appeared to be around 8, 10 years of age. I noticed the girl turned the corner so I crept up slowly, watching the car following her. I then realized the car had a lone male inside and he was intently watching this little girl. It really alarmed me at the time. Without thinking, I quickly pulled up alongside him with my phone right in his face. My car window was closed for my own personal safety. This will be relevant later. I showed the man my camera was on and I pointed to both him and the girl and then gestured that I was watching him and going to call the police. The car then quickly sped off. I pulled up to the girl and asked how close to home she was and to be careful and she quickly acknowledged me and continued off home. I watched until I saw her enter a garden on the same street, then satisfied she was home safe anyway. A day or so later I was sent back at night when darkness had fallen to the same place to try and collect the payment and once again the customer wasn't home. Feeling deflated, I began to examine the roadmap as I was struggling to figure out how to get out of this housing estate using the flashlight on my phone when I heard a tap on my window. I looked up and there was a man standing outside of my driver's side window and he then motioned for me to open the window. I nodded and put my key in the ignition to open the electric window. When I paused I looked back up and he was now pacing up and down outside my window and it looked like he was scoping out the area. He again moved forward and knocked on my window, gesturing for me to open the window. I at this point gestured back as to say what do you want? He shook his head and looked really irritated and angry at this point and he tried to open my car door but thankfully it was locked. Button he then punched really hard at my window which shocked me. I refused to let him think that I was afraid even though I was shaking and frightened, but I calmly turned the key in the ignition and then slowly drove off shaking my head at him. I can't be for sure, but I've always suspected that this was the same man that I confronted for following the young child as I had never had any run ins with customers. What if I was stupid enough to have opened my window or even forgotten to lock my car? I refused to travel alone at night so far away after this. Despite the pressure, the work continued to put on me. There are some really scary people out there and males have no qualms about assaulting and attacking a female. Please be careful at all times. This is a two for one as one led to the other. It's pretty long but I'll offer a brief backstory. I was 21 trying for a family with my ex. Button I found out that he was cheating on me after my first miscarriage. I tried to move on but we were living together until I had enough Saved up to move out. It was easier said than done because I paid for everything. I went on a date trying to get my mind off of my ex and I ended up being robbed. I met him on Facebook dating and we decided to hang out. After a few hours of talking, yes, only hours. I gave him an area to meet up and he showed up. I stupidly got in his car and we were driving to the beach when I then jokingly asked, you're not going to rob me, are you? He looked at me and smiled, assuring me that he wouldn't. Then he told me that he did have a gun though. I was just like, okay, weird thing to say after that type of joke, but whatever. I told him a bit about me and he told me some stuff about him, like that he was a felon, which makes it illegal for him to have a gun. This was news to me as it wasn't like he broadcasted that he was a felon. But I asked for a story. He lit his friend's car on fire because they had a fight. I was pretty much like, nah, this is where I call it. I texted my ex that I was in a car with a gun toting felon and that I didn't feel safe. He asked if I could get him to pull up to the gas station my ex was working at so he could get a car description in case it wasn't a joke. I asked the guy to pull into the gas station, saying I had to pee. And right before I got out, he asked me if I had remembered what I had asked him about him robbing me as a joke. I said, yeah. And he was like, well, I lied and he pulled his freaking gun on me. He demanded everything I had and I thought he was joking, so I laughed it off. Note to everyone out. If someone puts a gun in your face and tries to rob you and you don't have a bigger gun to draw, don't take it as a joke. I laughed it off until he snatched my phone from my hand, the dollar from my pocket, and he told me to get out or get shot. I got out, went inside and I cried. I called the cops and gave them a description and then got a ride home from a really nice officer. The police believe that he robbed me at the gas station because he had bigger plans on what he wanted to do to me and my decision to stop at the gas station may have saved my life. I asked why I thought that and the cop broke it down for me. Why else would this guy decide to rob me? At a lit up, very popular gas station. Why take that risk of being caught? Why take my busted up phone that was barely held together and leave me with the jewelry that I had on? The cop figured that the guy could have chosen a better target after meeting me if he just wanted money. And my choice to go to the gas station meant more people would see him with me. And if he had gone through with his plan to hurt me, it would be bigger news and a more serious crime. So he'd definitely be tracked down. A couple of days go by and I realize I'm pregnant and I have to tell my ex, who's been taking it really easy on me. As far as his angry outburst due to him feeling bad about me being robbed, My ex was not happy he put his hands on me for the first time in six years of knowing him. I knew then that I had to leave by any means necessary. But I had to buy a new phone and replace my inhaler that I left in the felon's car. I called up an old friend, Jay, to help me find a place to stay and to keep him up to date with what was happening. J Found a Facebook listing and got in touch with the landlady on my behalf. We'll refer to her as S. I met her, and J. And his family helped us come to an agreement on rent rules, expectations, and the like. I moved in the very next day, paid my first month's rent, and started settling in. For the first three days, everything was normal, but the cracks started to show when S. Made weird comments like how I'd be with her forever, how my baby would be her granddaughter, how she'd help me raise her, and then we'd be one big happy family. And yes, she decided it was a girl before we even knew the gender. Weird. But I let it go because she was in her late 80s and. And she had also outlived her entire family except for her second son, who had gone missing in New Orleans just a few years ago and hadn't been seen or heard from since. I met the older man that was also renting a room. And we got on well enough for a few more days. Things took some getting used to. S. Was very clunky and controlling, but it's her house and I didn't care as long as she gave me my space. Unfortunately, if you give someone an inch, they'll try to take a mile. She started coming up with a list of rules that I'd have to abide by to stay there. The rules included no eating past 5pm no coming home past 11pm no walking my dog alone. No walking anywhere alone or without her permission. No closing my bedroom door. No inviting people over. If I buy any food at all, it must all be shared with with her. I have to eat the dinner she cooks or not eat at all. I have to eat. I can't decide not to eat. I have to use the large bathroom. However, I couldn't use the large bathroom. I had to use the small bathroom in her room without entering her room, which was impossible. I chalked this up to the ramblings of an old lady and just agreed because it's just a month of this and I'll be gone. I called J and told him about the rules and he was not as ready to let it slide. He called her to tell her that it wasn't what we agreed on and that some of the rules were a bit confusing and stressful and that the point of me staying there was to limit my stress while I saved up money. She agreed and she took out the bathroom rule, but the rest still stood. She came in the next day to ask how me and the older man felt about moving two more people in. We disagreed as it was a three bedroom house and the two rooms were already occupied with hers being untouched as she slept in her husband's hospital bed in the living room. Her own room was a shrine to her deceased family. Their pictures were on the walls, shelves in bed and wherever else a frame could fit. It was like a horror movie. She told us that we made a good point and she would just tell them no. She brought up another house meeting to let me know that I was way too close to my dog and Jay and that there were obstacles in our relationship and bonding. She'd really like me to distance myself from them. I told J and we were like, um, weird. But only three more weeks to go. I came home one day to find my bed totally stripped and my stuff unpacked. The older man's room was also messed with. We confronted her and she gave her reasoning. Basically, I had to put my dog in the gated yard, but she didn't want him to mess up the grass by stepping on it. So she brought him inside for nine hours while I was gone and he had an accident on her hospital bed. She figured that he could have peed anywhere so she would have to go into our closed rooms to check and ensure that there were no hidden puddles. She said that my dog was a bad dog and that she wanted him gone. I was livid but I only had two and a half weeks left so I called J to arrange a time where he could come get my puppy and then watch him. His family loved my puppy anyway so it wasn't too much. While I was at work she had called J to come get my dog and I never got to say goodbye. Once again I was angry and I called J to tear him a new one, only for him to tell me that she said that I didn't want the dog anymore confronting her again. She told me that it's better this way because the dog was coming between us and that she wouldn't let that happen and that she also believed Jay was coming between us too. She then asked me to limit my contact with him as I was being a bad girl. Only 2 ish more weeks so I sucked it up while putting away my money. By the way, the worst is yet to come. The next day I was coming home from a 14 hour shift at the Dollar Store and I was ready to shower and then sleep for my turnabout shift. At 6am I open the door and run straight into a 6 foot tall 350 pound lady towering over me. She introduced herself as Amy and she told me that she had just moved in, definitely was an oversharer as she told me her entire life story and that she had stage four cancer. She said that she just needed a place until her at home nurse could get her into a care facility. I was tired, annoyed and riding through a wave of motion sickness. So I rushed my greeting, went to my room, got ready for my shower and then I ran into another stranger, an old man named Pee Wee that had also just moved in. I was really confused on where S was putting them, but I didn't care as long as I could sleep. Soon I was ready to slip into bed when the door opened and then Amy told me that she thought I was in her room. Weird because I could have sworn that I paid for this room. ES came in and asked me to pack up all my things and move into the Shrine room. I asked if I could do it the next day as I was really tired and was given a resounding no. I begrudgingly packed up all my things and moved to the Shrine room which came with a bunch of other no sleeping on her husband's side of the bed, no putting my stuff anywhere in the room, no touching anything in the room, no using the bathroom that was in the room, no closing the door, no using the lamps, no moving the two folded flags on the bed, no sleeping in or under the sham because it was too expensive. No putting my blankets over the sham because the sham was expensive. I had to sleep on and in some sheets that she graciously offered me. Just a couple more weeks was all I was chanting to myself. Unfortunately, the no using the bathroom rule did not apply to Amy who was able to come in every two hours to spill the foulest smelling secretions a human being could ever make. The smells were unlike anything that I'd ever experienced. I don't want to be rude, but it truly smelled like she had stomach cancer. My little sleeping space was two feet away from the World War three enactment taking place almost every two hours. I was vomiting constantly. Amy moving in came with more rules like not making any noise, not taking pictures in the house, no music and no knocking on any of the doors. Breaking these rules would cause a huge fit. She'd scream and throw things and accuse us of trying to make her cancer worse. The original man that was there before I moved in had enough of the circus taking place and he moved out. So the older man took over his room. Things got even worse when the older man confessed his love for me and desired to be the man by my side as I raised my child. Amy S and the older men were so clingy towards me. Amy considered me her sister who she'd be with forever. S called me her daughter and creepy man wanted to constantly touch and hover over me. I stuck it out until I was ready to move out and I quickly packed my things and left under the COVID of going to see my grandma. I never looked back and it's been two years since last I heard. Amy is still bouncing from place to place. S has dementia and the creepy guy is still not over the thought of me. I'm really not sure why I was completely distant and not sympathetic to his affections. I ended up losing the baby shortly after moving into an apartment, but he continues to try and reach out to me. I'm now 23, engaged to be wed and I have a four month old that the creepy guy somehow found out about. He's called, texted, sent friend requests, messages and voicemails and continues to attempt to contact me. I guess I'll forever play a part in his mental circus. Moral of the story Stay away from Facebook. I was part of a small hunting club that has 300 acres in the mountains in Livermore, California, about 17 miles down Mines Road. Anyone who knows that area knows that anything can happen there and not in a good way. No cell service, no electricity and and no running Water. On the property was an old beat up cabin with a handful of cots and a table. Nothing special, but it did the job if hunting for a night or more. I went there often, usually a couple of times a month. Hunting boar, turkey, rabbit. You get the point. The lightning complex fire decimated the area along with the cabin. I still went out there often and simply just pitched a tent. After the fire, I noticed a lot of Hispanics were showing up on our property and the surrounding properties as well. I met a few of them and they were really friendly, but something about them creeped me out. They had a story of just purchasing property from up the road. And because they were nice, I let it be with them coming and going. And I told them no hunting on our property. Our property has an easement that leads to two other properties a few miles down a dirt road. Then I started hearing weird chirping sounds at night and only at night, starting right when the sun went down. Finally, after so many times, I went looking for the chirping. Turns out the chirping was coming from numerous bushes. Once I got closer, it sounded more like a sonar or radar, like you hear on a submarine. Multiple beeping sounds that scared me. And I thought maybe it was fish and game because many pot farms and meth labs were discovered during and after the fires. So I stayed away from the chirping. The next trip, I made up there after finding out where the noises were coming from, a storm came in out of nowhere. It was late, raining hard and I was in my tent. And then shots rang out. Someone was firing a rifle. I then screamed, hey, I'm out here. Get off my property. More shots rang out and my tent was hit. I darted out of my tent and ran down a hill. It was dark and raining and I tripped and fell. I just laid there in pain. I even wet my pants. Finally, after a long wait, I made my way back up to my tent and car. I threw a few things into my car and then rushed out of there. My fiance was asleep when I got home after that. I don't really remember that much. When she got home from work the next day, she found me naked in an empty bathtub. And I was crying, saying that I can't move my hand. I don't remember any of this. She then took me to the hospital and I was admitted for head trauma. I had a bad concussion, tore the nerves in my right hand and I lost all function and movement. I had a herniated disc in my lower back and compressed a few discs in My neck. All from that fall running down that hill. So far, I've had one surgery on my back, one on my neck, and one on my hand and wrist. I went to the Alameda County Sheriff shortly after and I found out those Hispanics were drug cartel members. I handed over my membership and I never went back up there. That night was the scariest event of my life. I cannot think of anything else that has scared me that much. Being shot at and then running down a hill in the woods at night in the rain and falling. I was in so much pain and didn't know what to do except lay there, even pissing my pants. I have no idea how long I laid there. I might have lost consciousness. But laying there in the dark, soaked, raining in the freezing cold was an experience I never want to relive. People talk tough. Yeah, if that was me, I would have grabbed my gun and just started shooting back, saying crap like that. Now look, I'm ex military, 25th Infantry. I'm good with guns, love the outdoors, and I've done a lot of hunting. But until you're put in that situation yourself, you have no idea how you'll react. Maybe I did the best thing by running. Maybe if I grabbed a gun and ran out of the tent firing back, I would have been shot and killed. Especially knowing now who they were. You don't hear good things about Mexican cartel members and what they do to people they don't like. I think the only way to make it out alive in a gunfight is to have lots of training with gunfighting, urban warfare, which is something I don't have. Your fight or flight is there for a reason. I didn't hesitate or think. I did what my body told me to do. And I made it home alive. Banged up pretty badly. But I have one hell of a story to tell. So this story is about my ex boyfriend, let's call him Ian. It happened around the time when I was a senior in high school. I had plenty of boyfriends and girlfriends while I was in high school, but this one was a little different. So we met on Snapchat. I think he added me from the quick ADD feature. His name is Ian and he was on my Snapchat for a really long time. But I just ignored him usually because that's just what I did when it comes to people that I didn't really know that well on Snapchat. But one day he then responded to my story. I think it was just like a picture of me in like a stupid girly caption. And he then responded with pretty girl. And of course as a 17 year old girl, I responded back with oh my God, thanks with a kissy emoji. And then we just got to talking. I saw that his Snap maps were on and that he lived near me. So I kept talking to him for about three days. We were talking and we then finally planned on meeting up. He was a car guy, so he wanted to show me where he works and whatever. I didn't have a license at the time, so he had planned to pick me up. But he had to meet my mom first because I was 17 and my mom didn't want me to go out with some random weirdo. Ironic, kind of. So the day comes and he gets here to pick me up and my mom answers the door and tells him I'll be out in a second. She immediately runs to my room and tells me that she does not like his vibe. That something about him really creeped her out. I just thought that she was just worried about me, so I didn't really think too much about it. Anyway, we went out and he's telling me all of his childhood issues. And that shit was just really deep for the first date. So I was a little turned off by it. But he told me that he just overshares a lot, so I figured that was just his personality. A lot of weird red flags came up here and there, but I really thought he was normal. Fast forward to Thanksgiving. I had asked him his plans for Thanksgiving and he told me that he didn't have any. His parents weren't really around much for him. He was raised pretty much by his grandparents. But anyway, we were talking about plans and he said something that was a little off putting to me. He then said, you're gonna let me come to your dinner though, right? I've seen the way your uncle looks at you. I don't want him thinking he can have his way with you. He's never even met my uncle. My uncle was not a good person and he did some really bad things with minors, but nobody knew that except for me at the time. I never told Ian that. I responded, okay, yeah, I'm sure my family won't mind because how do you respond to something like that? Fast forward. After dinner, he spent the night at my place because he had just rebuilt his car and it was already snowing where I lived at the time. And his car didn't have snow tires on it yet. I don't know how he even made it to my house, to be honest. But later that night he told me he loved me, which was really weird because we had only been dating for like two weeks at that point. Of course, as a 17 year old girl, I set it back because it's a damn high school relationship. What else was I gonna do? For a while he was normal. About two months in, he started to just show up at my house without letting me know he was going to come over or ask him to come over. I lived with my best friend at the time because her family lived far away from the school we were going to and she didn't want to switch. So we just figured it was easier if she just lived with me for the rest of our senior year. But anyway, one day my best friend and I were taking a nap after school and I saw that there was a figure in my room. But I thought it was my brother because sometimes he uses my charger if he forgot his at school or something. So I didn't really wake up. I just closed my eyes and drifted off back to sleep. I hear some noise a little while after and I finally opened my eyes and saw Ian standing above me and my best friend while we were sleeping. I freaked the hell out and I asked him what he was doing and how he got in. He didn't say anything except I took a picture and then proceeded to show me a picture of me and my best friend sleeping. I just kept asking how he got in and he just kept dodging the question, so I let it go. He then told me he needed to shower, so I let him shower in my bathroom. While he was in the shower, my best friend started confiding in me about how uncomfortable he made her. I really should have listened to her. It was at that point that I realized he was really weird. But of course I didn't break up with him. Even though my best friend was really uncomfortable with his presence. Fast forward three months into our relationship. I had the flu and he was supposed to come over and take care of me and just hang out for a little while. We were just chilling on my bed watching a movie. He got up and he told me he was going home. I then asked if something was wrong or if he wasn't feeling good and he just said no, that he's going home. Then he went out to his car, then texted me that we should break up. No explanation or anything, just I think we should break up and I'm not the type to beg somebody to stay with me, so I just said okay. We hadn't blocked each other on anything so he could still text Me whenever. Which brings us to this. I was hanging out with my friend Sarah when I randomly got a text from Ian asking me to come outside. I was confused as hell because why would he be outside my house? It's literally midnight at this point. I texted back saying, umm, is something wrong? To which he then responded with, I need to show you something. I was really confused and honestly kind of concerned so I went out to his car. He unlocked the door for me and as I sat in the passenger seat and closed the door, he then immediately locked it. I thought that was weird, but I lived in a kind of sketchy neighborhood so I brushed it off. We kind of just sat there in silence for a little until I then asked, hey, are you alright? As soon as I finished that sentence, he looked me right in the eye and then asked, are you talking to someone new now? I wanted to be honest with him and also once again I'd like to say I was 17 so I was a little bit of a hoe back then. Anyway, I then said, yeah, just a couple of people. After I said that, his whole demeanor then changed. He looked almost enraged at what I had just said. He then punches his dashboard and then yells, you can't do that. I was really confused and freaking scared now. I tried to unlock the door and just get out of the car because I didn't want to deal with a tantrum from a man who broke up with me, but I couldn't get the damn thing to unlock. He noticed me struggling with the door lock and grabbed my hand from the lock and started squeezing it really hard. I begged him to let go and just kept saying, you're hurting me, you're hurting me. But he wouldn't budge. This part is all kind of a blur now, but I'm going to try to explain the best I can. Once he realizes that I literally can't go anywhere because he's restraining me, he reaches under the seat. He maintained eye contact with me while he's moving his hand around under the seat like he was looking for something. He then said, I'm going to kill you. At that moment, he then grabbed what he was looking for. It was a knife. I then screamed at the top of my lungs and thank God I did because there was a late night jogger running past my driveway and he must have heard me yelling for help. I don't know how he heard me or even how he got there in time, but he started banging and pulling on the door yelling, let her out. Finally, Ian unlocked the car and I ran inside so damn fast. I told my mom and my friend and they called the police, but obviously he booked it the hell out of there so the police never caught him. Moral of the story do not date people that you meet off Snapchat. The story takes place in the rural farmland of the southeast eastern United States. For those from around the area, you'll know that there isn't much around except for old farmhouses, fields, and the occasional subdivision. When I was around 17 or 18, I was dating a girl who went to the same high school as me. Being teenagers, we needed a place to be alone and what better than the front seat of my F150? Often it was hard to find a place to park that was away from the road and was also far away enough from everyone else. One evening as the sun was getting ready to set, I had remembered an abandoned house with a long driveway and a tobacco barn. It was off some old back road with no other houses. I had been there before and explored the property. The house's roof had been abandoned long ago and currently had been used to store lumber. The house had no doors or windows left and the rest of the property was clearly in disrepair and it didn't appear to be used at all. I figured this long forgotten property would make a good spot, so I drove my truck up into the driveway far away from prying eyes. I put my truck in park, lifted up my center console and put on the radio. As my girlfriend and I were talking, she suddenly stops with her eyes glued to the rearview mirror and then says, um, I think someone is here. I initially blew her off as I was fairly confident no one was around for miles. But as I glanced in my rear view I had then seen a very beat up looking Ford truck that pulled directly behind mine and the door flew wide open. Out jumped a tall, dirty looking man holding what appeared to be a 30.06 with a weathered wooden stock. As I put down my window, the man advances, yelling all types of obscenities from the side of my truck. As he walks up, I heard the distinct sound of the safety clicking off of an older rifle. I froze as the world stopped all around me. I had never been held at gunpoint before. As soon as the shock wore off, I threw my hands up and saw the man had his sights aimed on me through the rear window of my truck. I looked over to my girlfriend who was frozen in shock and somewhat cowered into the passenger door. I remember feeling helpless and reaching for my pistol that I usually had between the seats which I quickly realized I'd left at home. This was probably a blessing in disguise as the strange man was clearly belligerent and under the influence of something. I'm sure him seeing my pistol would have just sent him more over the edge. As my hands are now up and my girlfriend shaking in fear, I eventually mutter out, what's going on, sir? The man threw rotten and missing teeth, then shouts, you sons of bitches came out here tearing up my field and ruining my crops. He had clearly mistaken me for some of the ATV riders around the area who would often wander into private property and tear up the land. Looking at the man, he didn't look like any of the farmers that I'd known around the area. Having lived here 15 years at this point, I was fairly familiar with the local farmers. Well, the supposed farmer looked maybe in his early 30s and he looked to me more like the junkies that I would see downtown. I replied to the man that I'd never been here before, nor that I was responsible for destroying his crops. Trying desperately to defuse the situation, he wanted to hear none of it and continued to mutter while still holding me at gunpoint. I waited for a break in his incoherent babbling to apologize profusely and then say, sir, if I had seen a no trespassing sign, I wouldn't have dared step foot on the property. The man advanced from behind my truck to my open window to then yell, didn't see no fucking sign. Yeah right. He didn't believe me. As I studied him, he continued to grip the rifle even tighter and mumbled to himself. I apologized some more and offered to leave when I noticed that he has me completely blocked in. There was nowhere to go. As soon as I mentioned leaving, he perked up and dropped the rifle ever so slightly then putting us out of immediate danger. My fight or flight briefly chose fight, but I knew there was no way to jump out of the truck and then get to him before he could shoot us. Time seemed slow and I felt like the silence that ensued lasted for hours. He had started to yell obscenities yet again, but I started to watch walk back to his truck. As he passed my rear bumper, my girlfriend and I exchanged glances. I had never seen a fear like that in someone's eyes before, let alone someone that I loved. I knew that I had to do whatever I could to get away from this unhinged stranger. I fired up my truck and I put it in reverse as he does the same. The beat up Ford backed into the road and stopped, waiting for me to exit. I backed into the road as well, my eyes never leaving the rearview mirror. As soon as there was enough space, I threw the truck into drive and stomped the gas pedal down as far as it could go. My tires squealed and the truck roared as it ran through the gears. I was familiar with the roads and I was confident I could outrun him if need be as this truck looked like it was on its last leg. As the speedometer flew past 60, I could now see the man following us, but enough distance from my truck would be hard to put a hole in my tailgate. My girlfriend is calming down at this point and is trying to rationalize what just happened to us. I drove and drove for several miles, constantly looking behind us to see if he was following. I remember doing over 100 miles an hour. At some point the mood in the cab changed to utter disbelief as we then talked about how crazy the supposed farmer looked and awkwardly laughing off our near deaths. I never saw that man again after and I never returned to that abandoned house except for the next day to leave him some ruts in the front yard of the run down property. Looking back, I haven't the slightest idea as to how the man knew that we were there as we weren't visible from the road nor were we followed. I personally think that he was just some tweaker as I knew most of the farmers in the area and being in a small town, you know everybody, I had never seen this man before this experience, nor have I seen him since. Now I certainly was in the wrong being on private property and I had heard horror stories of people running from crazed farmers as bullets flew over their heads. However, a couple of kids parked up in what was clearly a forgotten property several hundred yards from the nearest field really shouldn't have warranted a firearm pointed at me and my girlfriend who were just sitting in a clean truck that obviously hadn't been tearing up any fields. Coming from a farming family myself, and being close with all the farmers in the area, the last thing you would catch me doing is tearing up someone's livelihood. Regardless, though, I put my girlfriends and my life at stake just to go park up somewhere and fool around. I never made that mistake again. The story happened back in 2011 when I was 11 years old. My sister, who has autism and is non verbal, was 9 years old at the time. We lived in a gated community and there's a vending machine right near the manager's office. I was able to save up some quarters and I had asked my mom if my sister and I could walk to the vending machine to go get some snacks. My mom said yes and I had helped my sister put on her shoes. She knew that we were going to get snacks and she had the biggest smile on her face. As we started walking towards the main street that leads to the manager's office, I suddenly stopped walking. Once we reached the end of our street, I noticed a van was about to leave. So in order to feel safe when crossing the street, I wanted the van to pass first. As the van was passing us, very slowly I might add, since the speed limit is 5, I was able to see the man who was driving the van. This man, since the moment he saw my sister and I had his eyes glued to us. I didn't notice this until I had immediately grabbed my sister's wrist as he was driving. Instead of looking at the road, he kept his eyes right on us. And instead of continuing down the street to leave the community, he suddenly made a left turn and drove into the street that's next to ours. From where I was standing, I was actually able to see between the houses that the man who was driving stopped his van and another man who was in the passenger seat got off. I didn't even notice there was another man. As the man who got off was walking towards the main street, which I'm sure was going to walk where my sister and I were standing at, the man who was driving had started to reverse. At this point, since I was already holding my sister's wrist, I had turned around and started running. I don't know what was louder. The sound of our cheap dollar store flip flops hitting the ground as we ran. The sound of my heart beating so loud because I thought the man would grab us any second. Or the sound of my sister laughing her heart out because in her mind we were playing a game. We made it back to our house and thankfully I hadn't locked the door before I left. I made sure my sister went inside as I hid behind my mom's car and looked to see if the man would pass by. He did, and a couple seconds later the the man who was driving the van also passed by. After a couple of minutes, I had walked out to see that they were gone. And I stood there realizing just how innocent my younger sister's mind was. In her mind there was no danger. There's no bad or evil. But in my mind I am 100% sure that those two men were going to take. If not both, at least one of us. I know some of you may think, what if they just wanted to ask me something. But the way the man was looking at us didn't seem friendly at all. It was like we were their prey. I'm glad that even though I was young, I knew that something was wrong about that situation. I never saw that van again. But because of this, I sometimes have nightmares where I'm running. It feels like no matter how fast I'm running, there's always this shadow right behind me. As I'm running up the stairs, trying to grab the doorknob, I'm suddenly yanked down by my shoulders. As for my sister, she's now 20 years old, and whenever we go out, my parents always make sure one of them is holding her hand. Everyone out there with children or younger siblings, please make sure that they're always safe. Even if you know your neighborhood is a nice area, you just never know if there's someone lurking around. This happened back when I was about 17. And for reference, I'm a female. My story isn't as scary as some, but I'm writing as a cautionary tale. I was on my way home from school, and I normally walked 95% of the way home with two of my friends. They turned off one block right before I got to my house. But this day I was alone because they had both missed school. I'd like to state that I was taught to always be aware of my surroundings. My parents were always on me about being safe, especially my mom. So I didn't walk around with my headphones in or anything like that. My neighborhood wasn't bad or anything, but being female, you know that you can never be too careful. On most days, I was alone when I got home, and then I walked across the street to get to my little brother from school when he got out. But that day, my dad was home because his car was in the shop and my mom was at work, so there was no car in the driveway when I came home. I came in like always, and I had tossed my book bag on the floor. I didn't even bother to lock the front door. Front door. I just walked into the kitchen like always. I remembered that my dad was home, so I had opened the back door and yelled out to him that I'm home. I don't even recall him answering back. I just went back in, like, whatever. I guess I was half paying attention. Anyway, my dad walked in just as the phone rang. It was the neighbor from across the street. I'll refer to her as Patty. She was a nice lady that we had known for years. Her whole family Lived in the two houses across from us. All really solid people. We always looked out for each other, helped out one another when we could. The way it should be but rarely is nowadays. She told my dad that it was Patty and asked him if I was ok. He just responded with, um, yeah. Why? Well, Patty told him that she noticed two men follow me into the yard as I came in from school. She couldn't see them when I went up to the door, but she said they were behind me a few feet, but hurried out of the yard about a minute or so later. I'm guessing that was when I went into the kitchen and told my dad that I was home. My dad then asked if she saw which way they went. Patty said that they walked around the corner and made a right. My dad thanked her and hung up. He told me someone followed me home and he grabbed his keys. I was so confused. It took me a minute to understand what was happening. My dad told me to lock the doors and he then took off. I was so scared. I didn't want my dad to get in trouble if he caught those guys. Cause God only knows what he would have done to them. But even more so, I didn't want him getting hurt. By some chance they had weapons or something. He came back a short time later. He told me that he drove around the neighborhood a bit and even stopped at Patty's to ask what they looked like. But nothing came of it. I'm telling this story because I want to remind people to be cautious, especially the females out there. I really thought I was being careful, but apparently I wasn't. Make sure you glance around while you walk. If you pass someone, make it a point to look them in the eyes. Let them know that you see them. Please be safe everyone. I know that I was lucky that day. On any other day it might not have been the case. So when I was in middle school, I'm not ashamed to admit that I was quite naive. In hindsight, I should have been more honest with my parents about what was going on. When I was about 13 15, I had the same bus driver for about three years. I was very shy, antisocial, and didn't really like people much. I usually sat at the front of the bus considering I had 0 of my friends riding the same bus due to our route differences. One particular day my bus driver asked me how my day was and had tried to strike up a conversation when he saw that I didn't really talk much. Every day it became a routine for me to sit in the front and Chat with my bus driver about my days. One day, the bus driver brought me a snack after telling him that I didn't like the school's lunches. I probably shouldn't have taken food from a stranger, but in my adolescent mind, I felt like he was trustworthy. He began asking me more personal questions, getting to know me in a way that a friend would, but I'd always answer vaguely. His gifts began becoming frequent as he began saying that I was his favorite on numerous occasions. It got to the point where the other kids on the bus grew jealous of the gifts and food that he would only bring me. And every day for about a year and a half, my bus driver spoiled me in food. But when other children asked if they could have something, he'd always say no, or that it was only for me. That should have been the first red flag, that I was the only one that he was spoiling. It became apparent to me that the other kids were taking notice and regrettably began bragging about how loved I was by the bus driver. All jokes aside, it began becoming creepy. He would start complimenting me. Just small compliments here and there before they became just as frequent as the food gifts he brought me. It started by him commenting on my new shoes to complimenting my glasses, and then how beautifully blonde I was. It all came to a halt when he showed me a picture of his wife and then told me, and I quote, you know, the reason you're my favorite is because you remind me so much of my wife. Like what? Kinda. Stunned and left feeling uneasy and awkward, I happened to glance at one of the fellow boys on the bus. This kid was 15, but he was already 5 foot 10 and beefy the kid, we'll call him Nick glared at the bus driver when he began showing me picture after picture of his wife. And yes, if I had been 20 years older, I'd probably look exactly like a spitting image of his wife. Nick began watching me, more so that his stop had been two before mine. And yet he only got off when I did. And if I didn't, Nick didn't either. For the next few months, I caught the bus driver staring at me through that large rearview mirror. On several occasions during one bus ride, it became unnerving how much he had been staring. He was always polite to me, but whenever Nick was around me, it seemed that he would get visibly upset by this. One day we walk into the bus and the bus driver makes an announcement. Listen up everyone. If your listed bus stop is what's listed from the school that is where you'll get off, all the while looking directly at Nick. Nick was now forced to get off at his own stop, and when pretty much 75% of the kids got off at his stop, the bus was quite empty to say the least. By the time my own stop came around, only six of us were still on the bus, but his eyes would always be on me. Things got worse when he tried his best to make me the very last off the bus, but I always avoided being the last person off the bus for obvious reasons. It came to a point where he had even offered to drop me off directly in front of my house so I didn't have to walk all that distance from the bus stop. This was by no means allowed, especially since his bus was not labeled as a special case bus. And at my school there were certain buses assigned for special pickup and drop offs for those with crutches, broken bones, injuries, etc. I always declined his offers, which he seemed upset about, but not enough to draw attention. There was one occasion where he had dropped me off at the bus stop and instead of going straight, he turned down my road where my house was and I caught him looking at me through the door. That unnerved me the most because why the fuck is he trying to see what house I got into? I told my friends about it, but they just casually brushed it off as the creepy old guy that everybody's experienced. I laughed about it with my friends, but I had told my friend to ride home with me from now on and I'd walk her home once he left. Well, she did. And he'd only be creepy on days that I didn't have my best friend present as a barrier between us. I was really creeped out one day when it was ending the semester and we had fall break. He had an entire box of snacks he had gotten me. But what sent a shiver up my spine was when I first got on the bus, he then told me to be the very last one off. What the fuck, right? Well, I told Nick and dispute the rule of getting off at the wrong stop and he stayed so I didn't have to be the last one off. When timing came to get off, Nick and I waited to be the last ones off as Nick would get off after me. Our bus driver was not pleased with this and he told Nick to get off before me. He flat out said no, that I was getting off before him. Suddenly my bus driver got super agitated, but agreed before huffing and falling back down in his seat. When I got off, he practically threw the box of snacks at me and sped off, barely allowing Nick the time to have both feet planted on the ground. I immediately threw the box away and then went home as Nick had walked me. Shortly after my bus route changed and he was no longer my bus driver. But Nick still told me how he'd occasionally catch our old bus driver giving him a nasty look when driving past. Looking back at it now, that entire situation could have ended very, very badly. To Nick, I want to thank you for stepping up and protecting me when you noticed something was off. And to the bus driver, I really hope you haven't tried to groom any other girls since me, and if you have, I pray God sees what you do behind your wife and daughters backs because it's absolutely despicable. This happened to me in 2020 around Thanksgiving during the COVID pandemic. I'm a 5 foot 10 female and I'm pretty curvy, meaning I have huge hips and a tiny waist. I was weighing at the time £220. I never thought anyone could pick me up until it happened. I worked as a janitor cleaning bathrooms at a tower downtown of Corpus Christi from 12pm to 5pm and I'd pick up my night shift right after leading me to be there from 5pm to 9.30pm Let me give you a quick rundown of the building's layout. There's 12 floors and each floor has a freight elevator that's accessed through a wooden door in the hallways. You open the door and there's a landing and then this elevator leads to the garage of the building with two ports for deliveries. Mind you, these landings had no Cameras, only the 9th floor had a camera. It all started one day during my day shift when some tall man at about 6 foot 5 with glasses approached me. I'm gonna use his real name, Juan. He then approached me inquiring about a few rooms which he needed to get into since he was a carpet cleaner. It didn't bother me too much, but I had a strange feeling in my gut that something was off with him. The days went on and I would see him in the building and he would always stare at me and it made me so uncomfortable that I would leave the floor he was on and continue on. This happened for a few weeks until one day I didn't go to work and I'd received a message saying I miss you. I responded back with um, who is this? And it was him. He got my number. How? I'm not sure and I still have no clue to this day. That same Night, he had sent me an unsolicited dick pic with the caption, you like? Yeah. No, thank you. I didn't respond and went back to my night. But I was so freaked out about my work day the next day. Now, since I'm the only cleaning personnel in the building, I'd have to let him in rooms if his key wasn't working. And guess what? That day, his key wasn't working. So I had to go up and unlock an office for him on the ninth floor. While doing so, he was staring at me and he was breathing really hard. His hands were full, and he asked if I could hit the switch for him. I walked in and I realized that the office was unoccupied and I couldn't find the light switch anywhere. As I was rushing back towards the door, he stood in my way and then said, hey, where you going? I'm not gonna hurt you. Red flags and bells were now totally going off in my head, and I dashed around him and right out the door. I got to the freight elevator and I actually heard him coming after me. Remember, the ninth floor is the only floor with a camera. On the freight landing, I was standing there waiting for the elevator to come. And the guy opens the door slowly, and he looks at me and he then glances at the camera, then back at me, and he then gives me the scariest look I'd ever seen. Finally, the elevator door opened and he walked into the elevator. And as soon as I tried to escape, he grabbed my arm and then pulled me back and I shrieked. He then did the most terrifying thing. He picked me up over his shoulders as I kicked and screamed and then scratched him and he didn't let me go. We landed on the garage floor when I saw his van. And that's when I think that this is it. This is where it all ends for me. But by the grace of God, the security guard who was doing his rounds heard the commotion. Juan then saw the guy and dropped me to the floor. Then taking off in his van, the security guard came to my rescue just right at the right time. If he didn't come the moment he did, I really don't think I would be here today telling y'all about the time where I was almost abducted. But it didn't end there. He called me on Thanksgiving, and I about had a panic attack. I didn't answer. And my brother, knowing the situation, called him back and had told him to stay the fuck away from me and that he knows what he did was wrong. Then saying, oh, I didn't know, My bad. My brother then ended the call and blocked the number. I then changed my phone number after that incident. Please stay safe everyone. Because even in broad daylight, he was bold enough to attempt this. I got chills just writing this. It was in the 8th grade class retreat in May 2012. This trip was planned by our school as a reward for all the work we did on exams and they decided to give us a nice little trip to a ranch in Arkansas right before summer started. The place was huge and the main area was absolutely amazing. Much better than the other class trips we'd been to before. The cabins were equally nice. They were pretty much like just big houses. It was all looking really promising. I was even able to room with four very good friends. Our cabin was pretty far away from the rest. It was on top of a really big hill and off to the side of the other ones, which would make it less likely for people to check on us, which would mean we could stay up late and no one would know what should really fit into our big plan. Being middle schoolers, we were prepubescent boys, so naturally we were formulating a plan to hang out with the girls cabins late at night. We were idiots for thinking anything could happen, but we were horny little shits so we tried it anyway. On the second night, our idea was to become a ghost cabin where we'd be as quiet as possible and hopefully the teachers and counselors would forget we existed. We ended up finding the fuse box to even turn off the outside lights as that switch was taken out and they were left on always. This is where things started getting creepy. At first things were going pretty well. We were going to leave the cabin at about 1:30am to see if any of the girls were awake. I still hate myself for even thinking this would work. But then we'd have our fun and go back. It was around 1240 when the first weird thing had happened. Our friend, who we'll call Billy, was not at all a fan of this plan. And all the lights just buzzed on as he found the fuse box and he then came upstairs to yell at us for being idiots. As he was telling us off, the power just goes off. We check the fuse box and sure enough the switches are on and it was just a power surge. We call off the plan because of the initial lights turning on and we just try to get some sleep. Even though there's no power after this point, I don't know what time it was because I don't see any clocks and my phone was dead. I Kept hearing pacing and mumbling from Billy's room. I assumed that was because he was still mess mad at us, but after a while, I had wanted him to shut the hell up and sleep. I go downstairs to his room to do that, but when I open the door, he's dead fucking asleep. And I would have known if he was faking. This sent an actual shiver down my entire body. I didn't tell my other friends about this. We heard the power come back on and the AC fires back up, so I tried to get some sleep again. I actually doze off, but were then woken by the sounds of dogs barking by the horse stable near our cabin. Me and my other friends on the upper level see them running around from around the window, but at the same time, the lights outside the stable were shut off, which they were normally on all night. We didn't know much, but we knew those dogs were pissed off at something. We think it might be a bear. But then once again, our power goes out. We pretty much instantly get scared, but this time we hear knocking on the door, and we think it's a counselor, so we dash to our beds, but the knocking doesn't stop. We keep waiting, it doesn't stop. The knocking then turns to banging and we all start freaking out. Now the banging doesn't stop, and this is where it gets really freaky. We hear screaming coming from Billy's room, so we go to it, and we can normally see someone at the door because there's windows near it, but we don't even see a shadow, just the sound of the door banging. Billy's room is pretty quiet, so it's likely he just didn't hear any of this. We can hear the screaming all until we open up Billy's door. Then it stops, and Billy's right there, dead asleep, just like last time. We decide to wake him up because we just knew that there was something wrong with that room. We're all on the upper level, huddled up in the corner, because we honestly think we're gonna die that night. The banging stops. We're relieved. But then we hear banging on the wall of our floor. Then on the same door. It felt like there was banging on every wall of the house at this point. And then just as quickly as it started, it stopped. Nothing was broken, out of place or anything. The power comes back, and of course, we don't get an ounce of sleep that night. The next morning, everyone is there, and from what I can gather, this didn't happen to anyone else. The counselors also didn't Check on our rooms last night. We didn't see any footprints on the porch. Billy was perfectly fine in that room and while nothing happened on that last night, we were there. We didn't sleep until about 4 in the morning. We passed the fuck out on the bus though. So I had been on this dating app for a while and everyone I tried to meet up with had bailed up until today. I was scrolling pretty late at night because I couldn't get to sleep, so when I got a message from someone close by, I decided to just go for it. He was able to host so I was going to meet him. My first sign not to go was that he was really pushy once I started to try and get out of the house but that I couldn't find my keys. But I did eventually find them and I left for his place. I was only given a road though. Once I got to the road I had decided to stay in the corner of the main road because it was well lit and I just felt safer. The next red flag was when he asked me to send my location through the app before giving me the full address. I tried using the excuse of my phone not working properly, but he kept insisting and I stupidly did it. He finally gave me the address and I started walking there, but once I got there I didn't see anyone. Apparently, despite me reading the number properly, I had the wrong house and it was actually a few doors down Red flag three. I tell him I'm here and he tells me to come in but I hesitate because I don't see him. I was standing as far away from the property as possible because I got more and more uneasy. He claimed to be in front of me and as I type that I don't see him. I then see a phone waving from behind the back of the wall of the property. I'm definitely not feeling safe at this point, but I still hold faith and I tell him to walk over to me. The phone disappears and I get a text just saying by then and I'm immediately blocked. I run as fast as possible from there back to the main road, constantly looking behind me, scared that I'm being followed. All the way home I was pretty much terrified. Looking around frantically because it's late at night, there's all sorts of crickets and owls rustling. Suddenly a rabbit hops out frantically and genuinely makes my heart skip a beat. I get home and immediately lock the door behind me, including my bedroom door, fearing I was followed. I realize that I should have noticed the red flag of him not Having a profile picture or information and only one picture of himself. So the lesson is as soon as anything phishing comes up on dating apps, block them immediately and stop contact. Which is definitely what I'm going to do moving forward. For context, I'm a woman who's now 35. The story takes place when I was 22, 23 years old. This still shakes me to the core. I was a single mom to a 2 year old and a 3 month old. I decided to put myself out there and try online dating. I joined Plenty of Fish and I went out on a few dates, but hadn't really met anyone special. I was hurting for money, having just had a baby and I didn't have a functioning cell phone. Around October 2011, I got a message from a guy on Plenty of Fish. He was weird and I didn't really like the vibe pretty much immediately, so I didn't respond. He kept messaging me though. I told him I wasn't interested and I had asked him to leave me alone. He kept messaging, so I blocked him. I thought this was the end of it, but he had started creating new accounts to try and reach out to me. Every time I blocked one, a new one just popped up. I got fed up and I ended up shutting down my whole profile. In November 2011, I had gotten a job at Walmart in apparel. This had allowed me to finally get a phone. I gave my number to a few friends, but I was very careful who I gave my number to. Well, one night I got home from work and I was spending some quality time with my babies and I had gotten a text message from a number that I didn't recognize. I read the message and I just about had a panic attack. The message said, I watched you at work in the fitting rooms. You look so sexy tonight. I asked who was texting me and it was the weirdo from Plenty of Fish. I asked him how he got my number, but he refused to tell me. I changed my number immediately. I carried on with my wife and soon my 23rd birthday had just come and gone. I got a text from a random number telling me Happy Birthday and they had a surprise for me. I asked who it was and they then sent a dick pic. And then it said, I'm gonna give this to you when you least expect it. I'm gonna punish you for changing numbers. So once again, I immediately got a new number. This didn't deter him from contacting me. He became increasingly intrusive, even telling me the names of my own children. I was sick at this point and I was at my breaking point. I immediately reached out to the police. They were immediately responsive and they assigned a detective to my case. I sent screenshots of all the messages from the multiple numbers. The detective asked if I had a picture of this man and I had sent him the picture that I had of him. The detective called and had told the man that I was not interested in him and that at this point in his consistent and persistent communication, which I had made very clear, was not wanted, was considered stalking, and that he was not to reach out to me through text or any other means and if he continues, charges would be filed. This was finally what it took to get him to leave me alone for good. I don't know what happened to him, but I often wonder if he ever put any other women through what he put me through, or if he finally just wised up and got help. I often fear when I visit my boyfriend I'll cross paths with him, but I really hope that doesn't happen. I live in a fairly sized city with a population of about 150,000 people. I live in an apartment and it had three floors. I was on the second floor and one of my neighbors upstairs was bad news. I was convinced he was a drug dealer. He just really gave me the creeps. I'm a female and it was a Friday night. I had been out with my friends, but I wasn't drunk and it was around 1:40am when I got home. When I entered the block into my stairwell, I had heard male laughter and I also heard odd stumbling. I assumed it was the drunk guys and began going up the steps. I don't know if they heard me or if they simply just couldn't react in time. But as I rounded the corner, one more set of stairs to go till I was at my door. I froze. My creepy neighbor from upstairs, who I'll call Bob, was there with two guys and a woman who was undoubtedly unconscious. Bob was holding her at the waist. One guy had her legs up and her dress was hiked up. Then the other guy was at the side. He darted away just as I saw them, so I don't exactly know what the hell he was doing. I suddenly had a seed of dread plant itself into my stomach. The men stared at each other, then at me. I stared back uncomfortably. I tried to sound braver than I felt, and I tried to sound tough. When I asked what they thought they were doing. Bob must have recognized me because we would see each other in passing. He was the one who answered as the other Two guys stared at me, then at each other in quick succession. He said that his girlfriend had drink too much and he was just getting his roommates to help them upstairs. Now I knew that Bob didn't have any roommates and I'd never seen these two guys before in my life. I also wasn't born yesterday and I knew what they were really up to. The woman was wearing a dark blue sparkly dress and like I said, it was hiked up and I knew it was deliberate. Her body looked heavy and limp and her head was rolled to the side and her eyes were closed. I didn't know what to do, but I knew that I couldn't let them hurt her. I was angry and I then told Bob, yeah, those guys aren't your roommates. His face remained blank, but his eyes were dark. There was tension in the air and then Bob responded with, go home, it's late. It felt like a thread due to the tone in his voice. There was no way I was walking away from this. I had my house keys in my coat pocket and my phone was in my hand. I have that safety feature activated when you can press a button to alert the police and trusted contacts when in danger. It sends photos from the back and front camera and it shares your location and sends selected contacts a message saying you're in a bad situation. On my phone, you could set it up to where it sounds an alarm or not. And I couldn't remember if I'd enabled the noise. I was nervous the noise would make things worse, but I felt like all I could do was press this button in case the worst happened. I felt like I couldn't take three guys on my own. It would be really easy for them to overpower me. I'm five foot five, but these guys were all in six foot territory and I wasn't very muscular and they all looked much better built compared to me. We all just stared at each other for what felt like hours before Bob repeated himself, telling me to turn around to go home. I told the men to let the woman go and Bob's face remained blank, but the other guys noticeably tensed up despite their quietness. Bob looked at the guy who wasn't holding the woman and he started to move towards me. I pressed the button rapidly on my phone and grabbed my house keys, ready to scratch his eyes out if I had to. The alarm was on and it started beeping like a fire alarm. Suddenly a light bulb went off in my head and I started to scream, fire. There's a fire. Over and over again. I remember always hearing, you should shout something out like that to get attention because everyone will want to get away from fire so they aren't going to ignore you out of fear or disinterest. One of the guys then shouted, oh, shit. And the next few moments are almost a blur. I held my keys out and the guy who was coming at me ran right past and down the steps. Suddenly, the other guy was running too, as well as Bob. I didn't even try to chase them. I rushed to the woman, still shouting that there was a fire. They dropped her on the stairs right in front of me, and I realized she was groaning a little. I then heard people coming out of their doors above me, and I began to shout for help. I sat on the steps and moved the woman so she was sitting beside me, and I held her so her head was forward in case she was sick or something. She began mumbling something, but I couldn't make out what she was saying. I just kept telling her she was safe and she was okay. Neighbors then started pouring into the stairwell. My block wasn't huge and I think a few people weren't home. I explained the situation and one of the neighbors went into his house and came back with a big glass of water. We tried to give it to this woman, but she wouldn't drink it. In hindsight, this might have been a bad move because it could have erased evidence or something. But I didn't realize that at the time the police arrived. Someone had phoned for an ambulance too, and they arrived as well. I told the police everything, and it was then that an officer told me that offering her water wasn't a good idea, but that they understood why I did it. I felt guilty, but they took the glass with them as evidence because her mouth had touched it. I was so shaken up from this. I lived alone and it was a long night. When I was done being interviewed, I had to phone my family and friends because they were freaking out, worrying about me. I didn't want to stay in my house in case Bob or those guys came back. So I went to go stay with my sister for about a week. Bob was found first, but he denied being up to anything sinister. The other two guys were caught shortly after. They'd all been on the run. I ended up finding out that the woman was in a club that night with her friends. Bob and his two goons were there too, and they got to chatting to her and her friends. She was drinking, but she wasn't drugged. Her friends ended up ditching her, and when Bob and his friends realized this. They saw an opportunity. She could barely walk and she was trying to get a cab home. And that's when Bob and his buddies then pounced on her. Her memory was hazy, but she said that they grabbed her and kept saying they'd take her home. She said she didn't want them to take her home, she had to go find her friends, etc. She said that she remembered stumbling and she remembered some people asking if she was alright. Bob would claim she was his girlfriend and the guys were his friends. Or they would all claim they were her brothers and were helping her get home safe. I was so horrified to find this out. It makes me so angry to think that people could see a woman who was barely conscious with three men dragging her along and no one stopped to think. It was weird. You can always tell when there's a bad vibe there. And it makes me angry to think that people ignored it or just didn't care to do anything. It would have been easy for me to take Bob's word, but I knew that he had no roommates. I'd been living near him for almost a year and I knew just something terrible was planned for that woman. Also, the laughter I heard when I entered my building was very unnerving. In hindsight, Bob ended up getting into some major trouble. But the other two guys got away with a slap on the wrist. Since they hadn't drugged her and it was argued that Bob manipulated them, they basically just got away with it. Bob actually ended up getting in more trouble for having cocaine in his house. He went to jail for drugs and it seems that ultimately they got away with trying to harm that woman. I moved out of my apartment a few months later. I was always afraid those two guys would find me and do something. I never saw that woman again. But I really hope she's okay now. I'm just glad the timing worked out how it did and I was able to catch them. I just know something awful would have happened to her if I hadn't caught them in the stairwell that night when I did. Thank God for that.