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I'm a 25 year old female and I got my first apartment about a year ago. When I moved in. I was nervous but excited about the opportunity. A few weeks after moving in, I bought a puppy so that I wouldn't feel so lonely. My key broke in my door so I had to call maintenance to come fix it and let me into my apartment. The maintenance guy was instantly obsessed with my dog, but my dog was immediately afraid of him. I passed it off as nothing since she was a puppy and I figured she might just act that way around everyone new. A few weeks later, my dishwasher broke so I called maintenance to come out again. I was working on crate training my dog, so I stated it was fine for them to come while I was at work since she would be in her crate and and at most just might annoy them with mild barking. Upon arriving home from work, I found several places on my carpet where my dog had an accident. I thought that I must have missed it. Before I left for work, I took her outside to go for a walk and the maintenance guy stopped me and informed me that he let my dog out while working on my dishwasher. He informed me that I was starving her by keeping her locked up all day and that I wasn't a good pet owner. He then stated he could take better care of her. I was way too shocked to say anything. I talked to my dog's vet and the vet confirmed I was doing everything right for crate training my puppy. For several weeks after this, the maintenance guy would stop to attempt to pet my dog whenever he saw us. I started taking different routes for walks and began driving to a nearby park to avoid it. This was when I realized my dog didn't react to any other stranger the way she reacted to him, hiding behind me and aggressively barking. He also began making comments about my appearance. I mentioned the occurrences to my parents whenever they visited. My mom thought that I might just be overreacting to living alone for the first time. She walked my dog with me around the complex. The maintenance guy stopped again and proceeded to make a joke about stealing my dog. We got back from the walk and my mom then stated we were going to go out to buy video cameras for the apartment. After that, things seemed to calm down. Whenever I had maintenance issues, a different guy would come out. My dog would still be uneasy but wouldn't react aggressively. Today I had a maintenance issue again and the original maintenance guy came out. My dog once again reacted aggressively. I held her to help calm her down and she began to relax. But still remained on alert. The maintenance guy mentioned that he noticed my family had recently visited and he then proceeded to ask if they had left. He then started asking me if I was in school or working. I responded by saying I was working. He then asked me how much money I make. I began feeling very uncomfortable and I laughed off his question by stating that I didn't remember. He wouldn't accept this answer though and it kept pestering me. I then responded by saying that I'm bad with numbers. He then kept pestering me about how many hours I work. My dog then began barking aggressively at him until he finally left. I honestly feel so creeped out right now. My lease is almost up so I'm not really sure if I should complain and risk them retaliating by withholding my security deposit. I'm also nervous about filing a complaint and then living here for a few more weeks. This happened last night. For reference, I'm a 22 year old female and my husband is 25 years old. Last night my husband woke me up at around 11:50 to tell me that someone's been knocking on our door and ringing our apartment doorbell for about 10 minutes on and off. It woke me up so I could possibly ID the person. Once I looked out our upstairs apartment window, I saw the man walking to his car in our apartment parking lot which was across the street from our unit. He was wearing blue jeans and a gray T shirt. He was a medium build, possibly a 30 year old blond man. He wasn't covering his face or anything, but the thing is, he was carrying what looked like resistance bands or rope. He sat in his car for around three minutes while I was on the phone with dispatch. Then he came back to our door and knocked hard for another few minutes. Dispatch advised me that the police were on their way and they hung up. I started videoing the vehicle. I read out the tag number and make and model and just watched as he put his car in park and reversed over and over again out of seemingly nowhere. He backed out of the parking lot and started rushing away, but not before the officer arrived and pulled him over. My downstairs neighbor knocked on my door and told me that he had been peering into her little children's windows and was pounding on her door as well. She said that her husband had only left one minute before he started knocking at her door. She said that he saw her children through the window and that's why he continued knocking. Our doors are right next to one another, so he probably didn't know what door he wanted opened. He was Watching us as well through our upstairs windows. So I turned all of the lights out and shut the blinds while I called dispatch. The police never contacted us for a statement. I've reached out to dispatch about an update and I'm waiting to see if any action was actually taken. We're keeping our eyes peeled to see if he's been following, following us. I'm replacing my porch light bulbs with motion detectors and putting bars on our window and door tracks. My neighbors and our families are panicked to say the least. He was outside for about 25, 30 minutes. To the knocking man who had bad intentions, Please don't come back. Ok, so I have an update. I'm trained in fighting firearm usage and I now live in a state where I can open KIRI and the background check is really quick. We're going this weekend to get a firearm. My husband will be taking some classes as he came from somewhere where owning a gun is illegal, so he's never handled one. I'm still waiting on a call from the responding officer. I have his badge number and name, so if they don't reach out to me today or tonight, I'm gonna call the substation. If they didn't do anything, I'm gonna go ahead and make a suspicious person's case for the paper trail. We had no odd encounters last night. However, while I was looking at the video I took, I remembered that car. I was walking my dog at 8pm about a week ago from DP and this car was driving really slow through the parking lot and parked a few spots down from where I was letting my dog sniff. They just sat there with the car running. When I tell you, my ears started ringing and I got an awful feeling. I'm not joking. I turned around and went home. Didn't give my dog the chance to pee and shut every door and window. I think this man has been stocking out our apartment building along with me and my neighbors. I think he wanted to get in where those children are. I'll update Moore when I have new information. Update 2. It's been a week since the incident. I called dispatch today because I never received a follow up from the responding officer. A sergeant from the police department called me back to give me more information. He said that they pulled over, the man, ran him to make sure there were no warrants and asked him what he was doing. He told the officer that he was meeting up with an acquaintance. The officer let him go with no further questions. Not only that, the responding officer is also a sergeant. I about lost my mind. With this. The sergeant I spoke to today stated that he should have looked into it more, but that it was obviously an attempt at burglary. Sexually motivated and or with intent to commit a felony. The responding officer is supposed to call me tonight when he gets on duty. I'm honestly livid at all this. Zero due diligence for this case. But there's not even a case. No case number, Just a documented police contact. I'll give more info when I have it. Ok, so here's the final update. The officer finally called me. Here's how the conversation. Hello? I answered groggily. It was well past midnight. Hello, Miss. I was told you to have some questions about an incident a few nights ago. Yes, about Thursday. I want to know what that man told you he was doing. You know he was looking in the windows and carrying potential restraints. I'm not sure if that was related to you. I stopped him, ran his tags and he told me that he was meeting about with a guy from a dating app. He seemed forthcoming and open with his motive for being there. Meeting up with. Wait, you're telling me he was meeting up with someone by looking in windows and knocking on two different doors for 20 minutes? I was shocked and still not fully awake. Like I said, he seemed forthcoming and honest with me. So was Jeffrey Dahmer was the first thing that came to my mind with resistant bands. Like workout bands. Ma'am, he had a lot of belongings in his car, so he probably just had them in there. Right, but bringing them to a hookup, knocking on multiple doors. He saw the little girls through the window. He waited until my neighbor's husband left until knocking. That's on tape, Officer. I checked in with the apartment management after the incident. Well, I'm familiar with this individual and I've been doing long drives throughout your complex just to make sure he doesn't come back. I haven't seen anything suspicious. If you don't have any more questions, I'll let you go. Ma'am, this just doesn't make any sense to me. But thank you and goodbye. I hung up. I don't have much to say. I just feel so icky about that conversation. Nothing new has come of the situation. I haven't seen that man or the car. My mind is blown at the lack of follow up or due diligence. I live in a suburb. It's not a busy one either. The police department has a small jurisdiction. I guess I'll just have to protect myself. I've lived in the beautiful, beautiful city of Los Angeles for about eight years now. My family in the Midwest always asks me, isn't there so much crime there? I don't know how you deal with it, but other than getting my car battery stolen a few times and the terrifying incident I'm about to share with y'all, I haven't really encountered much. This occurred in an apartment complex in Hollywood where I was living with three rooms roommates about a year before the pandemic hit. For those who haven't been to Hollywood, let me set the scene. Most of it is the complete opposite of the glamorous celebrity filled mecca that were shown in the movies and pop culture. Maybe it really was glamorous at one point and those remnants can be felt in some places, but now it seems to be a magnet for the sketchiest people you can imagine. It's extremely dirty and and sometimes it feels unsafe to walk the streets by yourself during the day, let alone at night. I'm a woman for context. You truly never know who you'll run into, and I don't mean that in a good way. Now for the apartment complex itself. As mentioned, this is a sketchy area, but for whatever reason, my complex didn't have any security on site. Ever. I've lived in far less sketchy apartments in LA that had security patrolling the building at all times, so not having any just seemed a bit insane. To make things worse, the complex would renounce certain apartment units to Airbnb guests, meaning that randos were entering and leaving the building 24 7. Both of these elements contributed to what happened on the night in question, which also happened to be the day I moved in. So on this day I was almost done moving all of my stuff in. It was around 9pm that night and all that was left to carry inside from my car was a suitcase full of clothes and a stack of records. I walked into the lobby of the complex carrying the stuff and waited for one of the two elevators to come. As I was waiting, a group of about 34 people entered the lobby who were clearly here for the Airbnb judging by their luggage and wide eyed sense of wonderment as this group came in the lobby doors, which were entirely made of see through glass by the way, I noticed a man lingering directly behind them. My first glance at this man filled me with a feeling of dread. You could just tell that this was someone off the street who did not need to be entering this building. He was tall with wild hair, wearing a filled filthy wife beater that I'm assuming was white. At one point he had A dangerous, dead eyed quality that communicated to me that he was out of it. On drugs, drunk or something else, not sure. But I knew that I did not want this man in my building. The group of tourists continued chatting to each other, completely oblivious to this man trailing them. To my dismay, they allowed him to stagger into the lobby right, right behind them. Now myself, the tourists and the men are all standing at the front of the elevators. The tourists still seemingly oblivious to how unhinged and potentially dangerous this man seemed. As both of the elevator doors opened at the same time, I scurried into one and the tourist shuffled into the other. To my absolute horror, the man jumped into my elevator at the last second. And as the doors closed, I. I realized I was trapped in there alone with him. Now I'm already a paranoid person who's way too addicted to horror and true crime. So I was freaking out at that point. I was standing as close to the front of the elevator as possible while the man stayed toward the back. It became more and more apparent that this was a man who was on something and incoherent as he began muttering things I couldn't understand behind me. I had no idea if it was directed toward me himself, or an unknown entity that only he could see. But I didn't turn around or look his way out of fear of encouraging it. His mutterings grew louder as I continued standing toward the front of the elevator, praying that he wouldn't try anything. The man then gruffly snarled hey. I shot him a look out of pure reflex to see him within undone zipper touching his junk through his disgusting tighty whities and staring at me with those dazed, unwell eyes. This entire sequence felt like an eternity, but was probably only a minute or so as we finally reached my door and the doors opened. I walked out of the elevator as quickly but as calmly as possible, not wanting to provoke him further. I lived at the end of the hallway, a straight shot from the elevator elevator. I was about halfway down the hallway, thinking that I was possibly in the clear as he didn't seem to be following me. But I could still hear the man making incoherent noises from the elevator. I glanced behind me to see the man exit the elevator. He yelled at me and that was it. I was not about to make it this far to get attacked now. I started running, running, still dragging my suitcase and holding my records. And in my panic he started running after me. My stuff crashed to the ground as I dropped it and ran as fast as I could to my door, which was unlocked, thank God, due to my other roommates being home. As I slammed the door shut and locked it, the man reached our door muttering and growling. I honestly don't even think he knew where he was or what he was doing. He seriously seemed so messed up. Maybe he only started running because I started running. Who knows. But thankfully I had made it to my door before him, thanks to his paws before coming after me. After I had gotten inside my apartment, I was shaking and crying from the shock of it all and sitting with my back against the door. My roommates had heard me scream as I was running down the hallway, which I wasn't even aware of doing, and they came to ask me what happened. I explained the story to them, but I was too scared to look outside of the peephole. At that point, my roommates did it for me and they said that the man was just wandering around our hallway looking lost for a few minutes before going back down the elevator. Surprisingly, that was the only crazy thing that really happened in that apartment. There was one time that the glass doors in the hall lobby got completely shattered by someone and we were literally without doors for a while, leaving us exposed to anyone who wanted to wander in and do whatever they wanted. Oh well, I'm glad I made it out of that place alive. First off, I feel incredibly stupid saying this, but my front door was mistakenly left unlock locked. Both myself and my boyfriend thought the other person locked it when we came inside. I almost always double check before bed just to make sure it's locked, but I was running on three hours of sleep and it very unfortunately slipped my mind. That being said, to make things clear, my boyfriend works night, so he's almost always awake during the night and sleeps during the day. I work days so my sleep schedule is nearly opposite. Every Saturday morning I load up our two baskets of laundry into my car and wash it at my mom's house since she lives close to where I work and our apartment complex doesn't have a washer or dryer. I specifically do it every Saturday because it's the only day of the week that I get out of work in the morning and have time to do it so it works out well. I have Sundays off, but I like to stay home that day and since my mom's house is nearby work, it's not an issue. I called my boyfriend on my way home and chatted with him during my drive and ended up getting the two of us Taco Bell for dinner. He came outside when I arrived home at about 6pm to help me carry everything inside. Like I mentioned, we were both distracted by food and carrying everything that we both just forgot to lock the door upon coming back inside. Often times I carry everything inside alone since he's usually still sleeping. We both ate dinner and then went to our bedroom to lay down. He fell right back asleep, but I was awake for a couple of hours playing my switch at about 8pm I got up and put my switch away and passed out very soon after in bed with him. My boyfriend got out of bed approximately an hour or two after I fell asleep and then went into our computer room so he could play some games himself. I have no idea how I slept through all of this, but it's so horrifying to think about. He said he heard a small knock on our door and then immediately a man walked into our front door and living room. The computer room where my boyfriend was sitting is directly down the hallway from the living room, so he stood up out of his chair and started walking toward the man and then loudly said hey man, what the hell are you doing? Who the hell are you? Meanwhile, I'm asleep in the bedroom right off that same hallway that he was walking down to get into the living room and front door area. I very vaguely remember hearing him say what the hell are you doing? But I thought he was just talking to our cat, so I passed right back out. My boyfriend said the guy was wearing a face mask that was pulled down and he was stumbling over his words and said something along the lines of I'm supposed to be here. They said just knock and come in and my boyfriend told him to get the hell out and that he had the wrong place and the guy then backed off into the hallway out of our apartment complex. The guy said something like they told me room number 350 or something like that, but I couldn't find it. They wouldn't give me an exact address. My boyfriend then threatened to call the police if he didn't leave and thank God he actually left. Personally, I think he should have called the police anyways, but I'm not really sure what good it would have done at this point. I know I'm probably being completely paranoid, but I keep thinking about what if this man thought I was home alone since my boyfriend used to work every Saturday night until recently, our curtains in the bedroom were cracked and he could have seen me sleeping in bed and thought I was alone. The way he was stumbling over his words trying to come up with a reason that he walked into our apartment does not sit right with me at All. Especially since he said they wouldn't give him an exact address. Then why would he have gone directly to our door? My boyfriend didn't hear him trying random doors or jiggling our neighbors handles to see if they were unlocked. So it seems as if he went directly to our door. What if he knows my routine? I know he could have been genuinely telling the truth and was supposed to meet up with someone, but the whole thing has me so freaked out. How am I not gonna overthink this in today's world as a woman? What if he didn't even knock but my boyfriend just thought he did and it matched his story? I just keep thinking about what if my boyfriend boyfriend wasn't home? I would have slept right through this man opening our door. Who knows what he could have done. I like to think I'm normally very cautious, but I'm definitely going to only load up my laundry in my car when it's light outside, even if that means loading it up the day before. I feel so unsafe and I'll be talking to my landlord about this. I know there's nothing he can do about it, but I would really feel wrong not making him at least aware of the situation in case it happens to someone else. Does anyone have any advice or precautions that I should take? I just want to know if there's any red flags someone else might think of that I haven't. Of course now I'll be checking 10 times per day if my damn door is locked and I'll likely not be able to sleep without a weapon near me. Earlier today, about a minute after I just locked the door from bringing in groceries, I heard a very faint knock on our front door. For a few seconds I approached it to see who the hell was there and I heard the bottom lock unlock itself and the knob twist. But the deadlock kept the door in place. I had my hand on my concealed pistol. While my heart was racing really fast, I looked outside and he just stood there, backed away and then relocked the door and walked off. The person I saw was the same maintenance man who's been coming to our place the past month to do work. But every time he showed up it would be uninvited and he would never stop knocking as well as stand outside the apartment for up to 15 minutes once until confronted. And when I told him that he couldn't just show up uninvited with zero notes notice, he smirked. Yesterday my mom caught him staring at her for an uncomfortable length of time while she was doing some car Cleaning. Just freaking. Why? This guy has been giving me massive creep vibes from day one and now, unsurprisingly, he's trying to break in uninvited. A little while ago I was living in an apartment complex and Toms River, New Jersey. I lived in a complex where there were doors facing the street and when you went through the doors there was a set of stairs going up to the top apartment and to the side of the stairs was a small hall leading to the bottom apartment. I live in the top apartment and my downstairs neighbor was a woman probably 1012 years older than me. We had a very neighborly relationship, saying hi when passing, chatting for a bit when we bumped into each other, etc. After I had been living there for three months, I could tell she had a crush on me because it seemed she would go out of her way to be outside her apartment whenever I was and she would get flirty with me. It got to a point where I knew if I left my apartment I'd bump into her and I'd have to do mental preparation for these encounters and come up with a plan to be able to move on quickly because she would want to talk for long periods of time. Anyway, I was dating someone at the time and I made sure to mention this to my neighbor since I thought it would make her back off. But it didn't. My then girlfriend and I had only started dating shortly after I moved into this complex. So three months into our relationship, we decided to finally take our relationship to the next level and start being intimate for the first time. So we made plans for her to come over and she would plan to spend the night. Now I'm really cheesy and I try to do romantic things. So she was coming over at 10pm that night and I was vacuuming and cleaning at like 8pm all of a sudden there's a knock at my door. I see through the peephole that it's my neighbor. I thought maybe she was going to tell me I was being too loud with my cleaning, but I'm a pretty considerate neighbor and I didn't think I was being too loud. So I open the door and she has a smile on her face and she just starts making small talk with me. Things like, so I hear you're cleaning up here. You expecting company tonight? Is it your girlfriend? Are you guys gonna have sex? Like it felt like she was interrogating me and asking me things that she didn't need to know. I told her that I was having company over and that we would keep it down and that she didn't need to know who was coming over. She responded by saying that she felt that she should know who was coming over because the noise could impact her. I don't remember how I got her to leave, but I finally did. My girlfriend came over and we did indeed have sex. Like I said, though, I'm a considerate neighbor. I keep things down. But there are some things you can't exactly prevent, like the sound of the bed moving as you're doing the deed. Anyway, the next morning my girlfriend had work, so she got ready and I walked her down to her car. I had the day off, so I was going to get some gaming in and reflect on the incredible evening that I had previously. When I got back to my apartment, there was my neighbor waiting at my door. She told me that she had heard everything last night and it had sounded incredible. She did not hold back, telling me what she was doing to herself while she was listening to me and my girlfriend. She would go as far as to say things like, at about 11, I heard this noise. I can only imagine she was doing this to you or you were doing this to her. And I was very creeped out. I told her that she needed to stop or else I would have to tell management that she was invading my privacy. Needless to say, my girlfriend and I never did it at my place again unless I knew that my neighbor was out of town. I told my girlfriend all about it and she was furious. Understandably. She even confronted my neighbor and told her that it was not okay that she did that, nor was talking to me so much. So, since we never did it in my apartment again during the year I lived there, I just had to put up with running into my neighbor and her insisting on having long conversations. I was very happy when I moved to another town. This is probably one of the scariest encounters I've ever had and I was never able to find out who it was. A few years years ago, I moved into a new apartment building closer to my family. There were only six units, three on each side stacked on top of each other, with the main door to the building set in the very middle and the interior staircase splitting each set of apartments. The second and third floor apartments each had their own little balcony with the second floor as apartments, balconies being close enough to the ground that you could probably jump off without hurting yourself as a forgetful and clumsy person. As soon as I noticed this, I thought to myself, awesome. If I ever accidentally lock the sliding glass door behind me, I can easily hop down and go pick my second set of keys from my mom. I say all of this because I lived in one of those second floor apartments and I should have been more concerned about how easy it would be for someone to climb up rather than how easy I I could potentially get down. My first few months went great. I like my neighbors and my landlord is super chill too. I started dating a guy who lives in the same neighborhood and soon enough he starts spending the night frequently. At this point it's October and the weather's finally cooling off. I turn off my AC and open all my windows and blinds. I'm on the second floor floor and no one could possibly see in right. Just like it goes in the honeymoon stage. My new boyfriend and I are very intimate. We've done it in just about every room in my apartment more than once. We were both kind of loud at times, but the walls in this complex are thick and we never hear my neighbors, not even them walking or vacuuming, so we never bother to try to quiet down. During the third week of October, we're cooking dinner in the kitchen, which was next to the living room where the front door was, when we heard a knock on the front door. No one was supposed to be coming over and the apartment across the hall from me constantly had people in and out who occasionally knocked on my door by mistake, so we just assume that's what's happening and make no move to go check. We pause and wait for another knock. Nothing comes. A few minutes go by with no other knocking, so we continue to cook. I faintly hear what sounds like metal hitting metal. I hush my boyfriend and we both pause, listening intently. Softly the doorknob rattles like someone's trying to open. Rattles again and then I hear that metal on metal scratching sound yet again. I look at my boyfriend and his eyes are wide. He then says, someone's trying to pick your lock. Me being young, impulsive and somewhat naive at the time, I instantly think, nah, no way. This is definitely someone trying to get into the wrong apartment. Without a second thought, I start crossing the room to open the door and give whoever this poor person is directions to whoever they're trying to get to. My boyfriend runs after me, grabs my arm a second before I unlock the door and then yells what the hell are you doing? I'm about to yell back at him for not being neighborly when the next thing I hear is heavy footsteps flying down the hallway stairs and the front door bar latch slamming open. Uh oh. I'm thinking at this point Maybe he was right. We open the door a few moments later and no one is there. My boyfriend inspects my door only to find imprints of what looked like the flat edge of a screwdriver in the wood of my door. We decided whoever was here tried to use a screwdriver to jimmy the lock but couldn't. And then they ran when they heard my boyfriend yell. At this point, I'm more irritated and indignant than scared. I call my landlord and I ask if there are cameras in the hallway. He says no, there's not. I tell him what happened and he says that he's sure it was just someone else's guest trying to get into the wrong apartment and to not worry. He even says that he's pretty sure those marks on my door were there before I moved in. Now I feel stupid and irrational, so I thank him and decide to just try and forget about it. I still felt a bit paranoid, though. So instead of leaving, leaving my balcony door open with just the screen in, like I usually did at night whenever I was home, I started keeping it shut and locked. About a week later, my boyfriend and I are laying in bed together at night while we watch a movie. The windows in my bedroom are open to let in the night air and we're both starting to nod off. Suddenly, I hear what sounds like a moan right outside my window, which was pretty bizarre, are seeing as I'm on the second floor and the only thing below my window were mere trees and overgrown weeds on a steep hillside. I brush it off, thinking it must have just been a weird noise carried on in the wind. Soon after, I very clearly hear my boyfriend then say, oh, damn. But as I look over at him, he's sleeping. I quickly wake him up and then whisper for him to listen, his eyes slowly unclazed from sleep, and I see it in his face as he comes to the same realization that I did. Someone is playing a very loud, very long recording of us having sex outside my window. We both walk over to try and look outside, but we can't see anything in the pitch black darkness. My boyfriend gets pissed and starts yelling at the window, hey, screw you, you little punk. Come here, you sick freak. I'll beat the hell out of you. Suddenly, the recording stops and is instead replaced with the most creepiest, most evil male laugh I've ever heard in my life. It was the kind of sadistic laugh that instantly makes your stomach drop like you're on a rollercoaster and your anxiety creep up and sit on the back of your Neck. My boyfriend wanted to go outside to try to confront whoever this guy was, but. But I begged him to just stay inside with me. I had a gut feeling that whoever was out there would take just as much, if not more pleasure from hurting one of us than he did from recording us when we didn't know. I was so freaked out. I moved out shortly after. Thankfully. As I said at the start, my landlord was super cool and he didn't even charge me for breaking my lease when I gave him the sanitized version of what had happened. After I handed him the keys, he then thanked me for being an almost model tenant. This surprised me because to my knowledge, I had never done anything that would make him upset or bother my neighbors. So I asked him what he meant. He then laughed and said, well, you were always so quiet and respectful. It was your one friend I couldn't stand. The building manager had to yell at him twice for going in through the balcony rather than the front door. For reference, the building manager lived in the apartment directly below mine on the first floor. My blood instantly ran cold. I had never ever had anyone in my apartment by climbing up my damn balcony. I pressed further and he didn't have too much more information, just that some guy had been trying to enter my apartment by climbing up the balcony and going through the slides sliding door and then, when questioned, had laughed it off and said I invited him over and that I told him to come in. That way our building was secure, so the front door automatically locked and couldn't be opened without a key. The only explanation I have is that this guy was watching us and had tried breaking in more than once. Who knows how many times he had stood below my open windows and recorded the sounds of us having sex. My only consolation was that my windows were high enough that he couldn't have videotaped us without using a ladder. And I'm hoping we would have noticed that at least. I did report it to the police, but they said without video footage or an identity, there really wasn't much they could do unless it happened again, at which time I should call 911. Thankfully, I never experienced anything similar since, and I hope I never will. I'm a single female in my twenties living alone in a large apartment complex. It's been a great place to live. I've had no complaints. However, I've noticed a pattern that a few friends of mine think adds up to a red flag to set the scene. My apartment is on the far end of the floor in a little enclave area with two Other apartments. One apartment is adjacent to me and the second one is opposite me. I had neighbors in the apartment adjacent to me who had moved out last fall. In the apartment opposite to me, I've only run into a woman coming out of it one time. She was moving out a bunch of clothes and boxes. We had never met or run into each other. I never saw her again, so I assumed that she moved out as well. I believe this was around last fall as well. About a month or two ago, I had first noticed the cleaning crew cleaning this apartment opposite me as if preparing for someone to move in. I also saw around that time a bunch of large boxes out front of this apartment and movers coming and going. One time I saw a couple leaving the apartment talking about going to dinner, but I never saw them again. Ever since then, I've never seen anyone coming and going from that apartment, with the exception of seeing the cleaning crew going in and out at least once a week. But at night between 9:11pm, I'll routinely hear the door open and someone coming and going. When I leave my apartment. I'll also routinely hear some very muffled voices or shuffling. The other day, as I was headed towards my apartment, I passed two really young looking guys. They were coming from the direction of my apartment, not far from it. They looked to be early 20s. They both made eye contact with me and looked sheepish is the only way I know to describe it. They struck me as out of place because of their age and demeanor. Nearly everyone else here is in like their 40s or 50s. The night before, while waiting for the elevator elevator on my floor, I suddenly heard a man dramatically panting. And then I saw him running from the direction of my apartment to the other side of the floor. And I heard an apartment door shut pretty loudly. It seemed so weird for a tenant to run so dramatically from one apartment to another on the opposite side of the floor. I had just come from that very same direction as well, so it startled me. And the floor is normally very quiet. Quiet. Should I be concerned about this? As a single female living alone, it just seems like a weird, potentially disconcerting overall experience when reflecting on this pattern of observations. So one apartment is occupied by a guy. I have never met him, but it puts me more at ease that there's a tenant there who probably has friends coming and going. The other apartment across from me is vacant. The apartment manager used to live there. The concierge said that they repainted the apartment. So maybe the men that I've been hearing and seeing through the people Going in are painters or other workers. Perhaps they've just been working later at night for whatever reason, and spreading out the work over a long period of time. Also, I don't do guns. For anyone who wants to recommend that I don't want a gun in my apartment. Recently, I moved out of my apartment. I simply had to because I just didn't feel safe with my landlords. I lived in this really nice Dumbo apartment in Brooklyn for a few months with my roommate who paid most of the rent since her parents were super rich. Our landlords were actually this seemingly really sweet couple who lived a few floors above with their kids. The first few weeks were somewhat normal, except for the fact that every time I saw their kids in the elevator, they would scream at me before they got off and then just ran away. I thought it was funny and cute at first, but then their eldest son came to visit and started doing the same thing, and he looked about my age. I didn't really think much of it since maybe he was just playing with his younger siblings. Things got really weird when I bumped into all of them together and then we talked for a bit out of nowhere. While we were having a pleasant conversation, the dad apologized to me, saying that his son might act strange because he's the R word for autism. Yeah, he actually used that word on his son. I was pretty shocked with him just saying that out of the blue. I paused for a bit and I can't really remember what I said, but I remember just wanting to get the hell out of this conversation immediately. A few days later, I bumped into the dad again on the elevator. I was pretty standoffish and he was just talking about how great my apartment is and how much of a generous guy he is for giving us such a low rate. Then he asked if I could babysit his kids as he and his wife and his eldest son son would be at a dinner. I said no at first, but he then counteroffered, saying he'd pay $150 an hour. And being the greedy idiot that I am, I agreed. And this is where I messed up. When I get to his place, I was speechless. His apartment wrapped around the entire floor of the building. It was the nicest apartment I'll ever see, that's for sure. About an hour in, everything was normal. I was playing some fighting game with his kids when we suddenly heard the front door slam. I told them to stay there as I peeked to see what was going on and I saw the dad falling all over the place, clearly drunk. He started walking toward me and at the last minute fell face first onto his couch. I must have popped a blood vessel trying to hold in my laughter. I asked if he was okay and walked over to assist him. He then turned around, looked at me, and then said my wife will let us please. When I tried asking what, his wife walked up to me, thanked me, paid me and told me to come back. Another time I just kinda went back to my apartment in shock, wondering what the hell just happened and I definitely wasn't going back. I told my roommate and she told me that she also bumped into the dad and he apparently told her my wife is cool, just so you know, with no explanation and just left. At this point we knew for sure that we were not going to be renewing our lease. We didn't see our landlords again until our final month. We kinda joked to our friends about how our landlords were creepy cucks. The next time I saw them was actually with my boyfriend who was well aware of what they were trying to do. It was an intensely awkward elevator ride as when they saw us in there, they just went quiet and smiled and nodded at us repeatedly. As we step out the elevator, the dad shouts hey. To us and then winks at me as the door is closed. After that, I had asked my boyfriend to stay with us for the remainder of our lease because at this point my roommate and I were really freaked the hell out. Our final and creepiest encounter was a few days before moving out. My roommate walked out of the apartment and both the landlords were sitting in front of the elevators waiting for us. She said they started sobbing when they saw her and then begged us to stay. They apparently apologized for making us uncomfortable and they said that they thought we were the pretty young girls that were waiting for. She didn't say a word to them, just got on the elevator and then called me to warn me that they were outside and then they started to knock. My boyfriend answered and said when the guy saw him he asked if I was here. Of course my boyfriend said no but they tried walking in anyway. I walk out of my room saying I'll call the police if they don't leave and they then begged me to not run out of the apartment. A few days ago we got a text from a random number saying we could live there six months free if we just gave them a few nights. Of course, blocked and deleted. The whole thing was such an uncomfortable experience living there all those months, especially knowing that they had keys to our apartment. In this story I'll be referring to Myself as Katie. The story was extremely embarrassing for me for the longest time, but I finally feel the courage to share it with you. All this happened in June of last year. In 2023, I came into my part time job at the local salon. Being a senior in high school, I needed to save up some money for college and working at the salon was the perfect opportunity. As I entered the salon, I clocked in and greeted my co workers with a smile and I made my way to the front desk to check my schedule for the day. Just then the door chimed and an older man walked in. He was tall and he had a neatly trimmed beard, but what caught my attention was his piercing blue eyes. They seemed to look right through me. Good morning, how can I help you? I asked with a smile. I'm here for a grooming session, he replied, flashing me a charming smile. Of course. Let me check our schedule, I said trying to maintain a professional demeanor. May I have your name please? It's Max, he said extending his hand for a handshake. Nice to meet you Max. I'm Katie, I said shaking his hand briefly before checking the schedule. So it looks like we have an opening in about 30 minutes. Would you like to come back then? That would be perfect, he said. I quickly made the appointment and went back to my work at the front desk. Despite his charming demeanor, there was something about Max that made me feel uneasy, but I just pushed those thoughts aside and went on with my day. As the time for Max's appointment approached, I saw him waiting outside the salon. He smiled at me as I opened the door for him and followed me back to the grooming area. My co worker, who I'll refer to as Lisa, greeted him and started the grooming process while I went back to my duties at the front desk. But I couldn't seem to shake off the feeling that Max was watching me. I tried to focus on my work but his gaze made me uncomfortable. I decided to ignore it and just went about my tasks hoping that he would leave soon. But to my dismay, he didn't. As his grooming session ended, Max unexpectedly came up to the front desk and he asked me for my number. I was taken aback by this and I politely declined. I barely knew this guy and I was already feeling uneasy around him, but he wouldn't take no for an answer. He started to make crude comments about my appearance appearance since I am what most would consider to be physically attractive. I was taken aback and I didn't know what to do. Before I could say anything, this guy grabbed my hand and pulled me towards it saying he would give me a large tip if I went out with him. In a panic, I shouted for my manager and Lisa to come help me, but Max didn't seem to care. He continued to hold onto my hand and started to pull me towards the back the salon. I knew that I had to do something to get out of his grip. In a panic state, I felt a rumbling in my stomach and I began feeling extremely nauseated at that moment. I then released a loud fart. Now this may sound humorous to you, but this was a terrifying situation for me and I didn't have a whole lot of options since I was at work and I didn't really know any good self defense tactics. I had always been known for my loud and embarrassing farts because I suffer from a condition called IBS or irritable bowel syndrome. However, I had never thought I could use this to my advantage. I took a deep breath and let out a loud and forceful fart right on Max's face. He was taken aback and immediately let go of my hand. In that moment, I ran towards the door, my heart beating like a drum. I could hear Max shouting behind me, but I didn't turn back. I ran out to the front of the store, not even caring that people were staring at me. I didn't stop until I reached a safe distance. Max was nowhere in sight and I just let out a sigh of relief. I had never been more grateful for my embarrassing trait. It had really saved me from a potentially dangerous situation. I went back to the front desk and my manager had Max leave and then banned him from the establishment. I looked around the store for Max, but he was already long gone. As I recounted the whole incident to my co workers, I couldn't help but feel proud of myself, but also a bit embarrassed. I had stood up to Max and escaped from his clutches using my own unique way. It taught me to trust my instincts and and to not be afraid to use my strengths. But to me it was a reminder that no matter how embarrassing or unusual our traits may seem, they're always a part of us and can even save us in unexpected situations. To Max, I really hope that I never see you again. I thank my condition for saving me from whatever you had planned for me that day. When I was in college, I used to work the front desk at a local gym. It was typically a very routine job. After about 7pm it would get quiet. My usual shift was the closing shift which was 5pm to 10pm Beginning at 9, I would begin the process of shutting down the gym. As usually by 9, the gym would start emptying. On Fridays from 7pm to 10pm was teen gym night. This meant that teenagers 13, 17 could have access to the basketball courts. On this night, about 15 to 20 teenagers were playing in the gym. The strange event started at about 9.30pm I was counting down the cash in the register and filling out forms when I saw two older teenagers enter the gym. On my initial glance, I thought nothing of it as it was team gym night. I figured that maybe these two teen boys had forgotten something in the gym and were headed back to get it. But on a second glance I had noticed the two whispering to each other and they kept looking back at me as they were whispering to each other. They were also wearing jeans which made me think that they probably were not in the gym before. The two also did not present a key tag to scan in and they walked right past me. I immediately got the feeling that something was off. One of the trainers was coming down the stairs as the two had passed me and he had also noticed the same odd behavior. The two began to head towards the back of the gym. They didn't use any of the equipment. They just went to the back and just continued to whisper to each other. The trainer started following them. A few minutes later, the boys in the trainer started walking back towards my desk. The boys once again were whispering and looking at me. Then the two exited the gym. The trainer then came up to me and was like, those two were pretty off, don't you think? I felt relieved when he said this now, knowing that it wasn't just me overthinking it. I told him that I thought so too. He then explained explained that he followed them and pretended to shut stuff down so they would think he was just doing his job, when in reality he was keeping an eye on them. A few minutes after 10, we walked out of the gym and then locked the doors. We noticed a small blue car parked in the parking lot and sure enough, it was those same two teenagers. So the trainer and I waited by the front door until the two drove away. Ultimately, nothing actually happened. I often wonder what the trainer and I may have prevented from happening that night and what those two were actually up to and what they were planning. This happened a few weeks ago, but it still sticks with me and makes me double check all of the logs. On September 2, 2024, I was working an overnight security gig. I've been a guard for about 15 years and other than getting into brawls and nightclubs, I've had a pretty easy career minus some contractor crap that I did in Central America. The night started the same way they always do. I had gotten off my first gig and went to relieve the normal night guard who we'll refer to as D from here on out. I arrive and D looks frazzled. He's an old martial arts guy that works the apartment job for the same reason I do half off the rent. I walk in and I ask him what's up. He says he encountered a guy by the gate and I gave him the heebie jeebies. He asked if I would go back to my apartment and grab my Kiri firearm. I hesitantly agreed because having worked in this industry long enough, guns rarely lead to good outcomes. But D is scared green, so I agree. I go back and grab not only the gun but my dog, 120 pound Anatolian Shepherd. I suit her up in her harness and grab her QD muzzle on the off chance that something goes down. I'd rather have the dog ready to go. I arrive and Dee is elated to get the hell out of Dodge, gives the dog her standard good girl chicken trip and takes off back to his apartment. I attach my dog's leash to my waist and we go on patrol. I live in Texas and our apartments are sealed by gates that you have to have the code for. I go to check the first gate and immediately come into contact with the same person that D was so worried about. It's 93 degrees out, but this dude is wearing a damn trench coat with a hood and before we even get getting near him the dog starts going ballistic hackles up in between my legs, snarling like some sort of feral monstrosity. I give her the command to chill and she does, but what bothers me is that the dude doesn't even flinch. Most people see a dog that big barking and snarling and insist upon being no part of whatever it is the dog is protecting. In this case, me. At this point I step forward and initiate contact. Hey buddy, how are we doing tonight? You alright? The man turns to face me and at this point I see that he's horribly disfigured. One eye missing but sealed up from surgery, the other a brilliant blue and a horrible scarring on the side of the face missing the eye. Yeah, I'm fine. He responds rather quietly, sort of in the way a child who's trying to fix something on their own might respond. So, do you live here? I haven't seen you around. My name is H. You new in town? Or has anybody ever told you that you have incredible eyes. This simple statement made my blood run ice cold. At this point, I tap the QD on the muzzle and it swings out of the way. I'd like to think my mother used to tell me that, but I can't say. It's something I hear often. Listen man, you gotta get moving. If you don't live here, I can't have you standing out here. At this point, he sort of goes rigid and reaches in his pocket, but I don't give him the chance to do much more as I draw my weapon. At this point. Hey man, you gotta leave. I'm not telling you again. I don't know where the hell you're from, but it ain't from around here. Last chance. Screw off. At this point, he sort of slowly removes his hand from his pocket and he's holding this little 35mm disposable. He lifts it, snaps a photo, then says, have a good evening. Your eyes truly are beautiful. And then off he goes. About five minutes later, I'm still shaking up when the cops arrived. It turns out one of the apartments close to the gate heard the dog going nuts and heard me raise my voice to our oddball friend and they called the cops. They tell me they'll upp the patrols, but that they hadn't gotten any other calls about the dude. This event happened in 2018. I worked at Sea Tac Airport, which I still think is probably the smallest international airport I have ever seen. The airport was so small that your workstation almost forces you to work alongside with other jobs. In this case, I worked in sales and we were stationed next to the wheelchair lane, which usually had one wheelchair pusher in the lane. Now keep in mind, I was only 19 when this incident happened. I would say I'm a sweet person who goes out of my way to start conversations with people that look bored. Since I worked the night shift at the airport, there was practically nobody flying and there would be more workers than passengers. Therefore, we meet Mike around the age of 2023. Mike was one of the wheelchair pushers who looked completely out of it, zoned out, and didn't seem non talkative. Me and Mike worked side by side in lanes. He would usually come to give the person in the wheelchair lane a lunch break and then proceeded to go back to pushing people in the wheelchairs throughout the airport. The 30 minutes we saw each other every day was was completely awkward and quiet until one day he overheard me and my co workers talking about depression. He prompted up his chair and goes, yeah, I agree with you, depression sucks. That's when I realize, oh man, the kid doesn't just look depressed, he probably is now. I didn't know how that small interaction changed our perspective on Mike. He would join our conversation and even went out of his way to say hello and give us a hug when he finds us throughout the airport. One day Mylene suggested that me and Mike should go out for tacos since we both kept complaining how nothing opens late at night and how we're always hungry now. We've known Mike for almost a month at this point and his depressed filled body started filling with joy every time we would find out we were stationed next to each other. At this rate, we laughed it off saying no way. It would be too weird if we went alone together. I was currently single and was no way attracted or interested in Mike like that. He then looked at me saying I actually know this amazing Mexican spot that's nearby. If you're actually really hungry, they serve the best fish tacos. Now the fatty I am. I didn't decline. I loved eating late at night and Mike never gave me me stranger danger vibes. I agree because I didn't really see the harm going out to get tacos before I sleep. We exchanged our numbers and I headed home before him since I clocked out an hour before he did. Now when I arrived home I was getting dressed to go out to eat and the plan was to just meet up at the spot. Since the Mexican spot ended up only being five minutes away from my house. I got a text from Mike saying he wanted to pick me up. I kept refusing because I just finally got my driver's license and the place was only five minutes away from my home. After almost 40 minutes of us insisting how we're gonna get there, I finally gave in to have him pick me up which I would later regret. Now I was a big girl. Like I was in the 200 zone compared to Mike who was very thin and short so I wasn't really worried if he attempted anything with me. I told him to pick me up along a street down because I didn't really want him to know where I exactly live just yet. His beat up trashy Toyota pulls up and we head to the Mexican spot. We get our food and it was so amazing that we went for seconds and we had a really good talk watching the soap opera on the tv. After we were done we get back into his car where he was supposed to draw me me off back at home but he stopped. He then looks at me and says can we Talk in private. I know a spot. I kindly refused and I told him that it's already 2am and that we should really get back home. And he says, I know it's late, but I just have a lot going on in my life and you're the only person that's really hung out with me like this. The kind of idiot I am. Him. I said sure already. Seeing him drive down the road, I noticed so many red flags. As the street lights start disappearing more, his mood and tone starts to change. A complete difference in the atmosphere around Mike emerges. He starts telling me, I sure do hate the society about women nowadays. They all have this stupid standard, I hate them, I hate them them. And I'm just like, did I just find a woman hater? Mike never rubbed me off as a gay guy. He's starting to state how every time he attempts to talk to women they blatantly reject him. And I, a woman, is now a dummy that he's projecting all his female hate talk to. I was actually too stunned to speak because he became a whole different person during the drive. We arrive at an abandoned skate park in the middle of God knows where and he tells me to get out. I listened and here we are at 2am sitting on cold concrete and freezing temperatures. He goes on to tell me how he hates women and how he would lie to his passengers that he takes on wheelchairs and tell him he's from the UK and speaks in a British accent. I was so overwhelmed, like what the hell was happening right now? He then talks to me, a British accent from there on, saying how he would give his life up for God and how God was the only thing keeping him chained down. He looks me dead in the eyes and then says, God would want me to castrate myself since he doesn't want me touching or near a female creature for my safety. I was completely quiet the whole time, really confused, questioning myself how much of a fool I was to each even think that I thought this guy liked me. I was completely wrong. After 30 minutes I was getting cold. Since this female creature I was was anemic. I told him I would like to go home now. And he then says no. And he proceeds to talk in a British accent about how God is coming to rescue him. I felt like I was in a movie because I just can't believe what was even happening. After a new noticed that I started shaking my leg. He then says, I guess we can proceed back to the car. We go back to his car and a miracle happens. My Asian mother calls me I was expecting her to scream at me, asking me where I was and to come home like she usually does, but this time she just says in a calm voice, where are you? In Vietnamese. I tell her I'm out getting food with a coworker and she just says okay, have fun. Then hangs up again in disbelief that she didn't even care where I was at almost 3am and for the first time I then lie and say, what? Oh, you want me to come home? Oh, okay, I'll start heading home soon. And I pretend to hang up the phone. I look at Mike and then say, sorry, but my mom wants me to come home now. He punches his wheels and sighs annoyingly loud, which gave me a bit of a jump scare for a moment, and he then starts his car and just sits there in silence, annoyed, grinning the whole time. He eventually starts driving, pulls out his phone and literally throws it at me. Open it, he says. Already exhausted and still not believing everything that was happening, my eyes grew fixated over the 100 notes on his phone. What is this? I asked. He says it's songs and poems that he wrote. He then looks at me and says, go ahead, pick one. I don't quite remember what the note said. The only keywords I saw were betrayal and woman that stood out to me. He goes, ah, that one. Would you like for me to sing it to you? I straight up said no and he continued to sing it for me. And the worst part is he sings it in a British accent the whole drive was him singing to me in a British accent how God's plan is to stray him from the human race so he can overcome himself. I was zoned out the whole car trip. It all didn't feel real. My sense of danger gets lower due to how exhausted I was and how I was listening to how this man wanted to eradicate the female species off the face of earth and how our judgment day was coming. He dropped me off on my street and had the audacity to say, I had such a lovely time with you darling. I just slammed his door shut and ran down my street before he had a chance to start up his car. After that incident, I ignored his messages which he texted me two pages long. Long on how he's sorry and how he believes God was here to put us together. How my Asian ness was the only thing holding him back to committing real love to me. I stood in the back of my station to avoid talking to him. He would follow me back to my break room and thankfully my manager was there and yelled at him to piss off before he called security. He later got the hint that I was not interested, but he would continue to stare me down every second second that he had the same station with me. Thankfully, during that time I had found a second job and my whole schedule was changed and I never had to see him at work again. I saw him at Target once, but quickly ran back to my car before he had the chance to walk up to me. I later found out that Mike was living with one of my lesbian co workers. He was sleeping on her couch. I told her everything he said and did and she was completely shocked. She never saw Mike like that. He was just very quiet and would just crack a joke here and there. I advise her she should keep a close eye on him. She thanked me for relaying all the information and eventually he was forced to move out later in the month. This event took place in 2015, just a few months after my 21st birthday. For context, I'm a female. I was working at a bank and it was my last shift before my vacation that I was so excited for. I was only scheduled for a four hour shift and I was eager to leave and get my nails done and pack. I worked as a bank teller. For context, there's an area where the bank tellers were work that is surrounded by bulletproof glass and there are desks out in the open where people open accounts, etc. I was at my desk when a man completely covered in a burqa approached my station. My co worker immediately sensed that something was off and then walked away to an area where you can't be seen. I have no idea why she walked away and greeted the customer and asked how I could help him. He then slid me a note. Note. Without saying a word. I reached for the note and my heart felt like it stopped. It read, you have 10 seconds to give me $30,000. I have a bomb strapped in my chest and I will kill us all. Time stopped at that moment. I knew at that moment there was a chance I was going to die. I had to listen because my co workers were right there out in the open. He could take them hostage and there was no chance. I was risking my life over some money. I signaled him one moment as I frantically opened my drawer and threw whatever I could at him and prayed that he would leave. I knew it was a he because I could tell by his tall and skinny structure. He was wearing these black glasses and all you could see were his lifeless eyes. I frantically gave him everything in my drawer and I was panicking because I had nowhere near 30k in my drawer. So I was convinced my life would end. Thank goodness he walked away and left the building. As soon as he left, I lost it. I cried like a baby. I ran into my manager's arms and she used the panic button which alerts the police to come to the bank. I was a mess. My life flashed before my eyes. All I could think of was my family, my husband, everything. I waited for the cops to come and I had to give a statement. They assured me that he probably didn't have a bomb, but that didn't make things any better. After the statement, we had to wait for a crisis team to come talk to us. I just wanted to leave. I wanted to go home. I would have already been home if it wasn't for this. My co workers joked that I should take along with the crisis team because we can close for the rest of the day. How selfish are you? I'm a mess and you're thinking about not working. Anyway, they came and I spoke with someone. I finally could leave and go home. I went on vacation a few days later and I didn't realize that my life changed forever. I became paranoid. I was scared to do anything. I didn't want to go on rides anymore. I was scared of driving. I thought about death a lot and developed a panic disorder. I was convinced that everything was a threat and it ultimately really took a toll on my life and relationships. For years I suffered because of ptsd. I was terrified of banks and sadly of people in burkas, which. Which is really awful because it's not their fault. I felt like a bad person. I had panic attacks to the point that I thought I was dying. Heart palpitations all the time. Impending do. I eventually got help in therapy and I'm on medications now. I am doing better overall, but I'll carry this mental disorder for the rest of my life. Not to mention I was already diagnosed diagnosed with OCD before all of this. I have an amazing support system for my family, friends and husband. They never caught the guy. And right after that, the bank took security way more seriously. They hired a guard and installed way more cameras. A few weeks later I quit and I found a new job in the medical field. Now I'm a cma. This experience made not seem too bad, but for me it was absolutely terrifying and life changing for the man who robbed the bank that day. I really hope you're happy with the $6,000 that you got from the bank that day. I hope it was worth it for Ruining my life forever. Screw you. So I work at a local pharmacy on the rougher end of my small hometown. About a week ago I was at work filling prescriptions per usual. All of a sudden, five undercover cops pull a vehicle over in our drive through. When the individuals inside the vehicle stepped out, we immediately knew it was a drug bust. There were three of them. One woman with two men and they were all deathly skinny with with sunken eyes and little to no teeth. Immediately the cops start patting them all down for drugs. We assume they caught them dropping off some drugs after a sale and then followed them until they could find a place to pull them over. The woman and one of the men are immediately excused after their first pat down and they wait patiently for their friend who had been driving. He was covered face to ankles and tattoos and who was wearing nothing but basketball shorts and shoes. Understandable I guess, as it was about 101 degrees in southeastern Tennessee when this happened. The cops keep saying that there's something in his shorts and asking him to remove them. The man became angry, then argued that it was all him and then shot a frenzy of homophobic slurs towards the officer. This goes on for about 30 minutes, all of my coworkers just watching. Eventually they end up clearing him and he goes to join his friends in the parking lot of the store right behind our drive thru. Eager to hear what happened, we went outside and offered bottles of water to the remaining officers just because it was so hot. They then apologized for backing up our drive thru and as I looked up I saw the tattooed man staring at my co worker and I. I have never seen a more evil look in another human being's eyes. I guess he thought we betrayed him by offering the officers water. Somehow, I don't know. He motioned his finger across his neck like the stereotypical movie style. It sent chills down my spine despite the 101 degree heat. That was a few weeks ago and I keep seeing him whenever I leave for work, just staring from afar. My boss is aware and carries and he always escorts me to my car. But I hope this druggie gives up soon and leaves me alone. To start out, I'm just gonna say that I'm an 18 year old female and this is from my 70 year old grandma's perspective. This happened a couple of years ago in a small town southwest of British Columbia. It has about 10,000 people and everyone knows each other. Now to the actual story. It was a pretty normal night. I was working the night shift at my job as a jail guard when A man approached me calmly. This wasn't anything out of the ordinary. We have our share of homeless people and such wandering out late at night, which gave me no red flags at the beginning. Then he asked I need help in a deep monotone voice. I looked at him and now began to see that he had blood all over his clothes. I immediately asked him, sir, sir, are you okay? Are you hurt? All he did was look at me with no soul in his eyes. Nothing. Like he felt no pain medicine. Maybe it was shock. I just need help. Get an officer, please. I need to tell them something, he said. I was at this point just very confused, but I thought that I'd better listen to him. Who knows who this man even is and what he's capable of. I rush to get a fellow officer and he brings the man into a room where they can privately talk. And I go back to my job now realizing that the man had parked a dark red old Ford across the street. Fast forward to my shift being almost over when one of my co workers tells me the full story. Apparently the man had a saw hammering, kitchen knife covered in blood in his truck and he had confessed to decapitating his uncle and only getting halfway through his aunts when he finally gave up and confessed. I am so thankful that my grandma was okay because if she didn't listen or he got angry, who knows what would have happened to her or someone else. Always be aware of your surroundings and never trust a stranger. I'm a female and at the time of this story I was 22 years old. I was working unhappily at a dental surgery and I was in the process of applying for different jobs. I have never known what I wanted to do for my career, so my career search was a bit random. At the dental practice I would work late nights on reception on a Wednesday. One Wednesday night I had just seen the last male patient out and I began to shut down the practice by closing the shutters and locking the patient entrance. One I had already shut shut down the practice and locked the door. I had heard a knock on the staff entrance door and a man's voice then said hello, I can see you. Can you open the door? I tried to look through the shutters but I couldn't see anyone. I assumed it was the same man whom I just let out of the surgery. Maybe he had forgotten his card or needed to use the bathroom or something. So I went to the staff entrance which was also at the front of the building. I opened the door ajar and saw a middle aged Creepy looking man staring at me through the gap of the door. I had never seen this man before in my life. Before I could even say anything. He then said, oh, hello, can I come in? I then replied with, no, we're closed now. Can I help you? Although I was feeling unnerved, I tried to stay professional in case he was looking to join the practice as a new patient. He said, I've been driving past the dental surgery for a while. I always look in and see you. I think you're beautiful and I would love to take you out. My heart started racing. Although I was 22, I'm always told that I look very young for my age. The man was very clearly a lot older than me me and at this point I started to feel really anxious and uncomfortable. I replied by saying, I'm sorry, I wouldn't be allowed to accept that offer. Thank you anyway. He seemed upset by this and began to move closer to the door. Then saying, what's your name? I didn't think fast enough to use a fake name and I gave him my real name. He then said, that's a nice name. I'm J. Nice to meet you and I'll be seeing you very soon. And then he walked away. Luckily, I wasn't alone in the practice and my colleagues were in the surgery office cleaning up for the day. I rushed and told them about the situation because I was really shaken up by it. It almost felt like a threat. My boss has CCTV and he checked it over and saw his registration plate, then sent it to me so I could keep a note of it. My other colleague walked me to my car every day for about a week as I was so scared of seeing this man again. A week passed and I had not seen this man again. I had been going to a couple of job interviews and I had another one which I applied for a few weeks ago on the following Monday. It was for a receptionist position. Local again. My mom dropped me off as I was unsure of the parking situation. When we arrived, I really felt uneasy as the office just looked like a house and was secluded and quiet. I walked up to the address and rang the doorbell. I heard someone coming down the stairs approaching the door and to my horror it was Jay, the same man who had turned up to my work the previous week. He said, see, I told you I'd be seeing you again. It's fate. Before I even entered the building. I quickly turned back and called my mom to come get me straight away. Luckily he wasn't following me. I told my mom and she said that he would have all my details due to them being on my cv. I realized that he would have been able to see my current place of employment employment when I applied. That's how he knew where I worked and turned up there. Luckily I didn't have my address on my cv, but I did have my number and email. Just about 30 minutes from leaving the building, I had two missed calls and an email from him offering me the job. Although I hadn't even had an interview or even entered the house at all. I blocked his email and his number straight away. I even change my phone number too. As the emails didn't stop. They kept on saying that I don't want to miss the opportunity and how I'd be on fantastic money. I reported the job position and let the authorities know. I do not like to think what would have happened if I entered the office. And I still get anxious now. Even as I work at the same place, I still get my colleagues to walk me to my car. I've never seen a man again and I never want to stay safe out there. People When I was fresh out of high school, I was working at a nursing home. I had the early shift so I had to leave my house at about 4 in the morning. Every morning there was a red car following me after I pulled out of my driveway. But I didn't think think anything of it at first. Then I realized it was following me home every afternoon as well. After the second week I started to get paranoid and I mentioned something to my best friend at the time. She assured me that I shouldn't be worried. When I got a job at a daycare, I figured the following would stop. I was wrong. My shift was 3pm to 12am I had one little girl after 6 and I was in charge of cleaning the building. After everyone left, I noticed that the car still followed me to work every day but not home. One of the kids in my class had a dad that would pick him up sometimes and he was always kinda flirty. I never thought anything until I saw him get into a little red car. Then I got weirded out. I carried on with my my daily routine. One night my boss and her husband came in and they asked if someone was waiting for me. I was confused and said no. They explained they were driving by on their way home and that they saw a man sitting on the trunk of my car. They waited until I was finished cleaning and the little girl was gone and walked me to my car. The man was gone. The following finally stopped after that I was happy until I got a piece of paper in my mailbox. No postage or anything. It said that I owed child support and needed to meet my lawyer at an address. I've never had any kids. To this day, I still don't understand who the person was or what the heck was going on. But yeah, it was a really weird time in my life. I usually get over creepy encounters fairly quick, but this one was quite different from the rest. I go by the rule, be nice to everyone because you never know who could be a secret serial killer. And that has worked out well for me majority of the time. Although this time it was probably what got me into that situation. When I was 18, I worked as a lifeguard by a small pool. Nothing fancy. I was basically just a babysitter to all ages. When adults got bored looking after their kids, they sometimes sought me out for some reason to have a free therapy session, I guess. Mothers and fathers talking about their hardships. I know I worked as a lifeguard, but I can't save that kind of life. One day a 50 year old man with his two kids came to the pool. As many other people did, he went up to me and we started talking. It started with some small talk, like how he didn't let his children eat ketchup because it has the properties to remove even rust from metals. But as the hours went by, he started talking badly about one of his kids. How she was overweight, had anger issues and was worried about boys when no one would even look at her. I'm not gonna lie, that last statement made me go quiet and I tried to somewhat reason with him to not speak like that about his daughter. He seemed to listen to what I had to say, so I was happy that I could possibly help this kid in some kind of way. Having a parent like that would have given anyone a hard time. The next day he came back extremely happy. Tell telling me that I was so good with kids because my talk apparently helped him. He then began the day by trash talking his ex wife to oblivion. Like how she had the most custody over their kids and that the kids only ate fast food at her house. I didn't say much because I felt like it wasn't my place to speak and I didn't want to create unnecessary drama in my workplace. But what set the first red flag in motion was when the conversation suddenly shifted into him wanting a young wife. It was as if he had tried to trash talk his ex wife to get me to understand that he was single and interested in a relationship with Me. The days went by and he continued to visit the pool every day. To some extent, I had the feeling that he now came every day just to see me. I was fairly creeped out by this thought, so I tried to ignore it and just do my work. As the days passed, he had started asking more and more personal questions like where do you usually go grocery shopping? Is there a cafe close to where you live? As I was fairly sure that he was trying to figure out where I lived, I kindly deflected all of his questions with something very obscure. During my last work week I had an afternoon shift. I asked my colleague who had the morning shift if anything had happened that day that I should be aware of. He told me that they had to ban a man from entering the pool area because he had reached behind the counter at the small pool shop where the workers keep their personal belongings. Apparently he had been denied by my coworker to get a look at our word calendar, so he had tried to get a glance at it in a more illegal manner. That last week I saw him twice at the end of my shift standing near the pole entrance. The second time I saw him there, I reported him to the pole security guards and after that I never saw him again. I was 19 years old and the only female working at a shop specializing in automotive batteries and things of that nature. I had been working there long enough to realize that most of the clientele was male and oftentimes really made for some awkward situations. For instance, I would get talked down to and patronized quite a bit, or flirted with to the point where I would be somewhat uncomfortable. I have really thick skin though, so either way I typically wasn't that bothered. One day during a particularly busy rush, a very tall and well built man man who was Maybe in his mid-30s came through my line. I consider myself to be pretty good at reading people and this guy had some very, very strange energy. He seemed a little off. However, it was my job to be professional and assist whoever came through my line. I brushed aside the uneasy feelings. I just wanted to ring this guy out and get through the rest of the line that was now trailing out the front door. I greeted him and talked to him as I would any other customer while I was processing his transaction. Things were going fine until he realized I was almost done. He started stalling, making up weird excuses as to why he couldn't use certain credit cards, how he needed me to put his battery on hold and he would be back, etc. I told him I would hold it for him and that he could come back whenever he found the tie. I figured he would leave at that point, but he just stood there and stared at me. Now that I think about it, he was staring more through me than at me. I was a bit uneasy, but kept my polite, professional demeanor. Sir, if you're not purchasing anything at the moment, may I ask that you step aside so I can assist the other customers? I said. He completely disregarded my question and in a low, raspy voice then asked, so what's your name? I didn't wear a name tag specifically for reasons like this. I've had customers find me on Facebook before and it was really unsettling, so thinking quickly, I threw out my nickname. It's Rhea. Rhea. He said as he kept staring. I just smiled awkwardly and then said, yep, that's me. By this point my manager had realized what was going on and he proceeded to ask the man to step aside as well. After hearing it from my manager, the man then walked to a corner of the store by some shelving and continued to stare while I was ringing the rest of the customers out. A bit of time went by and the line had cleared up, but he was still standing there staring and he was now smiling with the most sickening smile I think I've ever seen. It made my skin crawl. Of course my manager and coworker saw this too and my coworker grabbed my arm and then said, come on dude, let's go out back. As we were walking to the stock room, my manager asked the man if there was anything else he needed. The man muttered that there wasn't and then left. I really wish that was the end of it, but of course he had to come back in to purchase the battery. When he came back the next day, we again had a lie. He let people go ahead of him and waited until I was free before coming up to the counter to make his purchase. I greeted him again and tried to remain professional, but it was hard considering how creeped out I was. I was again met with the same stare and the same freaky smile. I can't really remember the entire conversation, but it was point. The questions he was asking became personal, weird and inappropriate enough for my co worker to then cut in. He looked at the guy and then at me, then said, rhea, go take your break before he basically pushed me out of the way of the computer and rang the guy out. I stayed in the back until my manager came and got me, then telling me that it was safe to come out now. We were all pretty creeped out. And I really thought that was the end of it. A few days went by and we had almost forgotten all about this creepy dude until he freaking walked in again. This time though, he didn't look through the store, didn't approach the counter, didn't say a word to anyone. He just stood there, jacket, hood pulled over his head in the corner of the store, just staring and smiling. The smile had become even wider and more sinister looking, and at this point I had started to freak the hell out. I started shaking and feeling sick to my stomach. Then my manager cut the horrible tension by pretty much screaming at the guy, hey man, I'm sick of you coming into my store and pulling this crap. The creep paid no mind to him and just kept on staring. This pissed my manager off and he walked out from around the corner and then told the dude, look man, if you don't quit coming in here and staring at her, I will not hesitate to call the cops. What you're doing is harassment, so you need to get the hell out of my store. At the mention of the police, this dude's smile totally dropped and he then slowly ran out of the store. We never saw him again, but I was immediately taken off closing shifts due to the fear that the man would come back and try to catch me when I was alone. I definitely dealt with my fair share of creeps at that job, but this guy was by far the most disturbing. I was working in a large assisted living facility for a few years. I absolutely loved my job. I worked with the elderly mostly, but I had become a highly requested assistant and got moved around to the dementia ward, the short term rehab ward, the stroke ward. You get the point. I was all over the place. Being a people person, I loved it. I liked going the extra mile in my job and getting to know my patients and their families. On a more personal level, I felt like it made me a better cna. It wasn't uncommon for me to be assigned to the more difficult patients because I could typically handle them no problem. It was a regular day. My charge nurse had mentioned that we would be getting a few you knew admits and I didn't think much of it. Everything went routinely and we got them all settled into their rooms and stuff. One patient in particular was already a handful and tried to escape a few times, so we needed to move him to the secured unit. I could hear him yelling and cussing out everyone, telling them they were idiots and that it was unnecessary to be doing all this. A few of the nurses suggested that I try to go Calm him down. So of course I said yes. I put on my most charming smile and waltzed over to him asking what was wrong. He immediately took a liking to me and calmed down. He told me that nobody there knew how to do their job and he wanted some damn food already. I told him the dinner would be served soon and I'd make sure to bring his tray to him. He cooperated with everyone as long as I was around, and he took as many beds, took a shower, settled into bed, no problem. Once my shift was over, though, he had started acting up again, and he ended up needing one on one supervision. Different staff members would take turns monitoring him, and eventually I had too. It was an easy day's work. Get him an ice cream here and there, watch some tv. I didn't mind it at all. He told me about his life and he asked about mine mostly. If I liked what I do and how come I never worked in the secured unit. I told him that I usually had my own group of patients in the front that I had to look after, but I'd make an effort to drop in and see him when I could. At first the rest of the staff thought it was great. They would call for me if he started acting out and everything was fine. But then he started getting a little too attached. He started saying that he wouldn't do anything unless I was there at all times, which of course I couldn't do since I was needed elsewhere. While I floated to different wards, the secured unit was one of the ones that I spent the least amount of time in. He started getting mad at me, saying that I needed to make more of an effort to see him and that I wasn't trying hard enough. I explained to him that technically he wasn't my patient and I couldn't spend my entire work shift just hanging out with him. That's when things started getting really bad. He started lashing out more, yelling and screaming at everyone. He was becoming violent with not only the staff, but other patients. He was a liability. I had to drop something off in the secured unit one day, and one of the other CNAs told me he was asking for me. So I popped my head in and he started saying things like, there's my girl. I felt uneasy, but I remained calm on the outside. If he was in a good mood, then I didn't want to be the one to ruin it for everyone else. He gave me a huge hug and kissed me on the cheek, immediately making me feel queasy. I kind of laughed it off and I got myself out of there as quickly as possible. After that, I avoided the secured unit at all costs. He started telling the nurses he he only wanted me to take care of him. And when they said that was impossible because that wasn't my ward, they started going to my bosses and the heads of the facility saying that he only wanted me to look after him. Luckily my bosses had my back and they told him that there was no way I could be assigned back there due to my high demand in the other wards. I was already running all over the place and the secured unit was completely out of my way. He didn't like hearing that. That and he started threatening everyone saying they would be sorry and that this wasn't the end of that and so on. My bosses called me into the office as soon as I walked into work the very next day and explained that I wasn't allowed anywhere near that wing and to avoid any contact with him. I had no problem with this and just went about my day. He would start banging on the doors to the secured unit demanding to be let out and sat that he needed to see me. My anxiety was through the roof and I had even called out a few times because I didn't want to see him. The facility was working fast to get him out of there because they had reason to believe that I could possibly be in danger with his violent behavior. On top of all that, it didn't help that some of the other staff members were whispering behind my back saying that I had let this all happen and that I was always flirting with him and a bunch of other ugly things. Eventually that got him discharged and I felt a huge weight lifted off of my shoulders. Other than people still talking about me behind my back, I felt like I could get back to doing my job properly. I didn't let the negative and disgusting comments change the way I treated my patients. With open arms and an open heart. Things finally started to go back to normal. Or so I thought. I'm one of my days off, I got a call from my co worker. She told me that he had called the facility asking for me. She told him that I wasn't in for work that day and he had started to ask for my schedule. I've dealt with someone stalking me before, so I immediately started to shut down. She told me that she had already informed our boss and that I should go to the heads of the facility when I came back to work the next day. So I did. I expressed my feelings and I told them that it made me nervous that he called for me and the Head of the facility's face just fell. She told me that it wasn't just the one time that he had called. They were receiving phone calls non stop from him asking when I would be in and that if they didn't tell him my schedule, he was going to go over there himself to find out. We had to make a plan of action in case he did show up and they even suggested changing me to a different shift time because he knew that I worked mid afternoon and evenings. I wasn't allowed to go anywhere by myself and I had to be picked up and dropped off at work while I waited for my ride. I had to wait inside the building and have someone escort me in and out. The calls continued and finally they had to threaten legal action and had a huge meeting with the entire staff of the facility. I felt humiliated and small, knowing all the whispers and snide comments would come flooding back, but luckily I had more support than hate. The calls eventually started to slow down and my true friends at work stood up for me when I wasn't there to defend myself to the people who didn't believe me. I started to get back into my normal routine once again and started feeling like my old perky self. One of my bosses called me into the office one day with a big smile on her face and told me, it won't be bothering you anymore. He's in jail for violating parole. I was over the moon from hearing this. I felt like I could breathe again. My nightmare was finally coming to an end a month or so later. Ish. This was a while ago, so I can't remember exactly how long, but I was at work getting people ready for bed and so suddenly everyone started talking and whispering like crazy. My phone was ringing off the hook, so I finally took a call from one of my charge nurses. She told me that he had been murdered in jail and to check out the article she sent me. I learned he had an incredibly violent history, including child abuse and neglect and other unspeakable things such as domestic abuse, robbery and a few other things. My bosses asked me how I was feeling and I told him that I couldn't say, that I was the least bit sad, and that I really wasn't surprised that his temper and mouth finally got him into some real trouble. I've left that facility since then and moved on to bigger things and I sleep soundly at night knowing someone like that can never bother me again. I'm not sure if him getting killed in prison was the karma he deserved, but it's what he Got in the end, my mom and her friends spent the day at the beach in Florida. The friend they drove had to go to work, but they stayed and said that they would walk home. Instead, they were walking back and it was burning hot in the high 90s. A white pickup truck drove past them, then slowed down and made a U turn. They stopped to talk to them. I should preface this with the fact that my mom and her friend were both drop dead gorgeous and wearing bikinis and shorts. They said the truck that stopped was driven by a young man that was very handsome and probably in his late 20s. He offered them a ride. My mom, who was always wary of strange men even back then, said no. But her friend started to whine and then said, come on, it's hot and we have another mile to go. It will just take a few minutes. My mom still didn't want her to, but her friend climbed in the truck and my mom didn't want to leave her alone. So she then reluctantly climbed in the front seat with her friend in between her and the man. Her friend was a Chatty Cathy and she talked away to this guy without paying attention to anything around her. My mom had a bad feeling and she noticed the man still had and turned his truck around and was heading out to the dunes where there was nothing but deserted beaches for miles. She looked over and she realized he had pulled all of his junk out of his pants and was masturbating. My mom instantly became angry and grabbed the door handle and opened the door. She then said, you need to stop this truck right now and let us out, you sick bastard. At the same time, her friend snapped out of it and saw what was going on. She flipped out and according to my mother, dove straight over her and out of the moving truck. As she jumped out, the man tried to grab her and only got a hold of her bikini top. So it came off. She said. She watched as her friend hit the ground and it was like slow motion. The man then began to speed up. My mom was looking at how fast the ground was moving and he says, you can stay in here with me or you can jump out. You're gonna die either way. And that was enough for my mom. She jumped out and skidded across the road. Her entire left side was road rash from head to toe. She laid on the ground dazed and wondering if she was going to die. Her now topless friend ran over to her screaming, get up. He's coming. He's coming back. My mom rolled over and looked just in time. Time to see him doing a U turn and speeding back to finish what he started. Her friend helped her back up and they ran towards the beach. They just happened to jump out right where the lifeguard station was. They were then greeted by lifeguards, many of them their friends who administered first aid. My mom went through months of healing and had a sprained ankle. Her friend was unharmed. Unfortunately, the man was never caught from the fall of 1973 through the spring of 1977, I attended the School of the Museum of Fine Arts here in Boston, Massachusetts. Although I took classes from 9:00am to 5:00pm every day, I'd often stay after school until 10 or 11:00 at night to do extra work. One Evening at around 6:30pm I went into a small room on the upper floor to do my Transcendental meditation session. I was sitting there with my eyes closed, meditating, when a guy I'd never seen before crept up behind me, put his hand over my mouth and said in a nasty, threatening tone of voice, don't say a word. Do you understand? I instinctively screamed at the top of my voice, what the hell are you doing? The guy then fled immediately. Wow, that was a close call. Moreover, it was still light out when it happened. Had I just kept quiet as a mouse, it would have been a really really bad trip for me, if one gets the drift. Especially since school was located in a pretty rough area. Anyways, that's my story and it really scared the hell out of me. On a dark cold night in the late 70s, my dad's truck broke down about an hour away from home. He started walking out and put his thumb out hitchhiking for a ride and he was soon picked up by a middle aged man in a brown sedan. My dad gets in the car. Thanks man, I appreciate the lift. The driver doesn't respond. I'm trying to get further north. Where are you headed? Driver again doesn't respond and begins to drive without even a look. The driver locks the doors and puts his hand on my dad's upper thigh and squeezes. My dad was around 24, 25 years old. He worked in construction, specifically drywall. It wasn't a tall man, but he was barrel chested and stocky. My dad turns to face him. I'm not into that. I just need a ride. Driver doesn't move his hand after 10 seconds of silence. Hey man, let me out of the car now. Driver still doesn't respond, doesn't even look at him. My dad grabs the hand and peels it off his thigh. Hey man, let me out of the car. I will kick your ass. Let me out now. My dad was ready to strike at any moment. Without a word, again without even looking at him, the driver pulls over, unlocks the doors and my dad jumps out. Driver pulls off. My dad eventually arrives home and tells everyone what happened. Family doesn't believe him. Well, if a few years later he's dating my mom. They're watching the news, which is covering the arrest of serial killer John Wayne Gacy. My mom said that my dad went pale. My dad jumped out of his chair, shaking violently and then started screaming and pointing at the tv. That's him. That's the guy who picked me up. My mom said that she believed him immediately. My dad wasn't much of a liar or prankster. He was blind. He was rather quiet and didn't particularly crave any attention. I was so intrigued by the incident that in the late 90s I had read a few books on Gacy, including the one written based on his interviews. Gacy picked up countless hitchhikers over a multi year period in the 70s. Sometimes he would pick up hitchhikers and take them wherever they wanted to go without incident. The timeline, details, geography and MO were all consistent. My theory is that Gacy picked up my dad thinking he was younger than he was. And then he tested out my dad's reaction. My dad was a bit older than Gacy's target age of 18, 20. When my dad fought back aggressively and immediately Gacy figured he wasn't worth the trouble and possibly also realized that my dad was not as young as he looked. A few years years ago, my husband and I were at an event and we'd started chit chatting with a couple seated at our table. For some unremembered reason I told this story. The female half of the couple turned white and stared at me, mouth agape. She said that her uncle has an almost identical Gacy encounter. I'm just so sad for those who were unable to escape. My mother at one time was in the military and dating some dude. They broke up over whatever, but this didn't sit well with him. Since my mom was away, I was being taken care of by my grandparents. The boyfriend somehow got me from school. This was in the late 70s to 80s by the way, so I don't know how lax or strict the rules for taking a child were. Long story short short, he took me to the airport. They found me there, but I unfortunately don't know if he left me or was arrested. My mom ended up leaving the military after that and to be Honest, she was never really the same after. I honestly believe if he had got me on that plane, I wouldn't be here today. The story takes place the late 70s, I assume, as this took place when credit cards were used to open locked doors. Mynni lived in South Richmond, Virginia, which was at the time the murder capital of the United States. She worked the night shift as a security guard at a hotel and lived in a new apartment complex in the inner city. She was fresh out of college and she didn't have the income to live anywhere else. She lived on the third floor of said apartment complex. It was unlit and rather dark, even at high noon. Not long after she had gotten home from work one night, she had heard shuffling outside of her door. Thinking it was the wind, she ignored it and sat down to eat dinner before going to sleep. The shuffling started off again, along with a thud on her door. She didn't pay a large amount of attention to this and just kept eating. It was then that she had heard a credit card being inserted in the space between her door and the door frame in an attempt to get into her apartment. She did not ignore this. Grabbing a baseball bat under her couch, she got up and shouted at the wannabe intruder that she was a security guard and she then warned that she was armed. She expected to hear footsteps heading in the opposite direction. Instead, she had heard a man say, you're going to open this door and I'm going to kill you. She froze, as I imagine anybody would, and was silent. The man then chuckled. She didn't open the door and he didn't try to jimmy the lock anymore, instead banging and scraping on the door until five in the morning. My Nini was terrified to leave her apartment and also terrified to return to it in case the the intruder would still be there. She later went to the manager of the apartment complex who deferred her to the Richmond police. They said that there had been multiple reports of similar incidents as well as murders in the area. The culprits were not caught then, but they were later discovered to be the Briley brothers. Though she only thought she experienced one culprit in her apartment. Linwood was known to kill women of his own as well as his own brother. This happened to me in the 70s when I was 11 years old. My two brothers and I have always had to walk to and from grade school each day for eight years since they didn't have a bus for our area. This was quite a distance away and there is no way in current times there wouldn't have been a bus for our grade school days. We were the last house on the right in a very small subdivision on a dead end street. Next to us was a ginormous cornfield with an old barn and house and had a lot of acres of fruit trees and woods. As a shortcut, I would take this deserted woods trail and follow it to what will lead me to my house. After about 15 minutes that particular day, I turned right into the woods and the trail as I had did every year here for six years. By then it was the end of winter and I still had my long blue winter coat on. I had walked about five minutes on the trail and for some reason just happened to look behind me quite a distance away. As I walked fast, I saw a man enter the woods and was on the same trail that I was on. No one else was around and for some reason I had started walking even faster, thinking I was just being silly. When I looked behind me, I saw the man also begin to pick up his pace. This scared me and I started walking really fast. I saw that he was too when I again glanced over my shoulder. I still don't know why, but that day I felt fear. So I began running and I noticed he was running too. I was really afraid then and no longer had the time to glint behind me. I broke into a full run as fast as I could until I came out on the road in front of my house. Normally I walk the trail a bit further and end up at our garage and back door. But that day I sprinted into where our little street on the dead end began and that brought me right in front of our house. I didn't want him to know I lived there, so at that point I stopped and was catching my breath. He was only maybe 10 to 15 seconds behind me and he caught up with me. But he didn't stop as he kept a much slower pace. Then he looked at me and then said, you're a fast runner. And then he kept going. I stayed where I was until I couldn't see him anymore. Then I turned into our driveway pretty much for months after that I would take a different way home and I didn't walk those same trails again for quite some time. Time. I don't know if I was just being paranoid or what, but why else would a young man begin running after me for a good 10 minutes like that? I also want to mention that he looked like he was around 18. So very young. He scared the crap out of me. It's a good thing that I was indeed a Very fast runner. Or who knows what might have occurred on that deserted woods trail. This is a story of a scary encounter that my dad and uncle had when they were young boys, about 10 and 13 years old in the mid-1970s. Growing up, they moved around a lot because of their dad's work. And in this case they had just moved to East Malvern, an old suburb with big old houses just outside of Melbourne. Nowadays, East Malvern has beautiful Oak Line streets and is home to the upper middle class and wealthy young families. But at the time it was just run down and plain. The two boys had been sent up to the shops to get some groceries for their mom. Bread, milk, etc. And the milk bar was just a few blocks away from their house. The two of them were returning at about 5pm and it was August, so it was winter back then, so it was starting to get dark. My uncle happened to look around behind him and he noticed that a little distance back there was a tall woman pushing a pram. Something about her was strange and it caught my uncle's attention. He turned around again and he noticed that the woman was wearing an old fashioned bonnet and shawl and the pram was an old fashioned perambulator style. She was also wearing and long white gloves. My uncle thought that maybe she was a poor single mom who had relied on St Vinny's donations to dress herself and supply the old brim. But she didn't look like the other single mothers he'd seen before. He turned again and was startled because suddenly the woman was much closer than before, as if she had been running up behind them. It was from that distance that he had noticed what was so strange about the woman. She was unusually tall, yes, but from a closer distance he saw the broad shoulders, big hands and arms and the hard jawline of a man. In 1970s Melbourne, any kind of cross dressing was considered shocking and bizarre to just about everyone. My dad and uncle were afraid. The man was now staring at the two of them with intensity and began speeding up his walking pace. The boys crossed the road and sped up their pace. The man sped up again and started to cross the road with them. At that point the boys just bolted. After reaching the corner, they had stopped running and looked behind them. The man with the pram was now gone. They stood frozen for a few minutes, staring back, catching their breath and terrified and unsure of what to do. Minutes later they continued walking. As they turned the last corner to their street, my dad screamed. He had seen a head with a bonnet peering out from between two parked Cars a little way in front of them, between them and their house. At this point, my dad and uncle ran up the driveway to the nearest house. The man started following them again. My uncle stood with his finger hovering over the doorbell, staring at the man who was now standing at the bottom of the driveway. At that point, my uncle, who was terrified, rang the bell, causing the man to immediately run away. The police got involved, but they never found anyone and luckily nothing ever happened again. The blocks in East Malvern are divided by small alleyways that run behind the houses into their garages on the block. And so the man had doubled back around through the alley behind their house and was waiting to ambush them. I'm really glad they managed to get away unscathed. This was a very long time ago, back in 1973. I know it was summer. I was six years old and we were living on Monica Lane in Madison, Wisconsin. The thing is, I sort of recalled it, but never put two and two together until a few months ago when I was talking to my mom, who went into great detail. I was a very gregarious child, outgoing, extroverted and friends with anyone. It was at the time a middle class neighborhood and three houses down from ours, on the same side of the street was a huge park. My mom was a nurse and my dad was a salesman, but my mom worked second shift and Meridor while my dad worked day. I rarely ever had a babysitter, only if they went out for dinner or a movie. But they did go out often and there were always older kids in the neighborhood to babysit. One sitter, who I really liked, lived a few blocks or so away and down the street a little bit. Her name was Vicky. Vicky had babysat a few times before that and it was pretty uneventful. She'd play games with me, do my hair, play dress up, you know, pretty basic stuff. So anyhow, one day I had gone with friends down to the park. I remember there was a ball field at the time and a sandlot next to the field. My friends wanted to play in the monkey bars, but I wanted to play in the sand. I looked at the sandbox and my babysitter Vicky was standing there. I told my friends I was going to go down to the sandbox and then ran off. We played in the sand, building a castle and then she asked me if I wanted to go get something cold to drink. Now it was stiflingly hot and I of course said yes. She takes my hand and we start walking to her place. She starts telling me about her puppies and asking if I want to play with them. Of course, I got giddy, and I couldn't wait to get to her house. This was where my memory memory had stopped. And after my mom told me what happened, the rest of it all flooded back. My mother just so happened to be talking to my sister and I about some of the places we lived at, and we got to Monica Lane. I told her that I remembered the park and how big it seemed, and she asked me if I remembered being kidnapped. I pretty much immediately thought she was kidding, and then the look on her face told me otherwise. She said it was around five in the afternoon and one of my friends had come to the door to ask me to come back outside, sure that I had gotten bored and walked back home. When my mom checked the house, she realized that I wasn't there and she was also seven months pregnant with my sister. She then sprinted to the park screaming my name after asking several kids if they'd seen me. With no clue, she went to the ball field and asked the older boys if they'd seen me. One of the boys she'd guessed around 14, said that he'd seen a younger woman playing with a girl that fit my description in the sand and walked off in a general direction, and that was all he knew. My mom ran across the street to one of the houses and had asked to use their phone, then called the police. By the time the police got there, my dad had come home and some of the neighbors were trying to help my mom. So there's now this search party out looking for me, screaming my name and knocking on doors. The police had gone back to the park to ask the boys if they knew who had been with me and if they knew who she was. Between the boys and the neighbors, they deduced who it was that had led me off. But I have no idea how, honestly. The police and the entourage go to her home. She lived with her parents, but they weren't home, and they knocked on the door. She came to the door and told them that she hadn't seen me and that she'd been home all day. The police asked to come in, and for some reason she said okay. They went through the house and then went to the basement, and that's when they found me. That's what my mom knew. And then I remembered it was literally like a floodgate had opened and I started crying. At six years old, you sort of just trust everyone. And she'd been in our home. I never got a bad feeling from her, and my parents didn't either. But when we walked into her house, I remember that cold holy crap feeling washing over me and getting very worried. I remember starting to cry and saying I wanted to go home. Over and over. She takes me into her kitchen and gets me a glass of water and a tissue. I hear dogs barking and next to the kitchen is an open stairway that goes down and where the barking was coming from. She starts trying to cajole me into going downstairs, telling me there's all sorts of toys and games. I reluctantly agree and she grabs my hand to head down the stairs. The dogs are going nuttier and I start screaming. At this point, Vicky's getting really bizarre. She then starts screaming at me, shut the hell up. If you don't shut up, I will throw you in the cage with the dogs and they'll eat you. Now shut up. Dragging me down the stairs and still screaming. I was scared out of my mind. I remember crying so hard I was hyperventilating and I'm screaming so hard that I'm not making sounds. Vicky then flips a switch and starts being syrupy sweet, trying to calm me down. She tells me that she was just playing a game and she tells me that she wants to play hide and seek with me. She must have been relatively skilled at calming me down because the next thing I know I hear knocking on the door upstairs. And I wasn't crying. The houses were all the same sort of tract houses the Sears used to sell. Not huge, but not small, but you could hear everything at any spot in the house. I keep hearing the knocking and she tells me that it's her friends. They're coming to play hide and seek too. She convinced me to let her put a piece of masking tape over my mouth so I wouldn't make a sound. And she then lifted me into this big wooden box next to the kennel. She then put a big pile of blankets over me and told me to be really quiet so they didn't find me. The whole time the dogs were going crazy, but when she calmed me down down, they calmed down too. They still looked incredibly mean, but they were no longer frothing at the mouth and only slightly growling now until the knocking started. I remember scrunching in there, confused, still scared and convinced that the dogs were going to get out and eat me. I was crying again and hyperventilating. I remember taking the tape off my mouth because I couldn't breathe. But I remembered that I needed to be quiet because I was afraid of what she'd do if I screamed. I laid in that smelly box next to a big bag of dog food, sweating to hell, tears rolling down my face. I sort of pushed the blanks to the side, but only enough so that I could pull them back over me when someone came. I recall thinking about my dad and wondering if he'd come to find me. All of a sudden I hear what sounds like adults yelling my name. They all come down the stairs and the dogs are going crazy again. Over and over men are yelling my name. And then I hear a man then say, if you don't shut those damn dogs up, I will. I was in a large storage box with tape hanging off my mouth. When they opened the lid, I remember a very nice man asking me my name and if I was okay. I don't remember remember answering him in anything other than screams and tears and grabbing his neck so hard my dad had to practically pry me off of him. I remember my parents taking me to the hospital to be checked out. And that's all I really remember. My mom said that Vicky was found guilty of attempted kidnapping and last she knew she was in prison but couldn't remember when the last time she heard anything about her. We moved from the area shortly thereafter and I haven't been back since. I do know that mom said that her parents were odd but they didn't know them. She had met Vicky from neighbors that had used her as a babysitter and had never heard of anything bad and that I always seemed happy with her. She lived in the general neighborhood, but it would have been two blocks over and one block down. My mom said that they never picked her up. She always walked over when they'd get home. They'd drive her home, but they never noticed anything out of the ordinary about her. My mom and dad had only met her parents when they came to the door to ask for forgiveness. That Vicky hadn't meant to do anything bad and she was a good girl. My mom said that my dad picked her dad up by the shirt and told him that if they ever come to our property again, he'd kill them. I remember her name and sort of what she looked like, but I would have no idea if she walked up to me who she is. So this isn't my story but my dad's. He only told me about it briefly, so apologies for the lack of immense detail. In 1975 my dad was 11 years old and living in Leeds with his mother and stepfather and for some pocket money he would do paper round every morning extremely early. He left the house in the Dark being October, and as usual went to collect the papers, setting off to take his usual route through some playing fields, essentially a public park, but not a very well kept one. Well, this morning in question was a particularly dark and gloomy one. And as he approached the cut through he usually took, there seemed to be something off about it, so much so that it genuinely freaked him out just to be there. He decided to take his time and go the long way around just to avoid the park and thought nothing of it for the rest of the morning. Well, when he got to school after his paper round, everyone was freaked out and in a quiet state. Well, upon asking his friends what was going on, they told him that a woman had been murdered with a hammer and stabbed in the neck earlier that morning in the same playing fields that he decided not to go through and on the same pathway too. It's probably just a major coincidence, but a very lucky one at that because the time he was on his round was the apparent time the crime was happening. This turned out to be the first of 13 gruesome murders committed by the notorious Peter Sutcliffe, aka the Yorkshire Ripper. This happened to my father in 1975 in a little country bumpkin town when he was seven years old and his sister was nine. I'll be typing this out as he recounts what happened. My father was a truck driver who had to be up at 2am every morning. That meant that we had a rule in our house that no matter what, you can't wake up dad when he goes to bed at 7pm My mother worked in an old folks home until about 10pm every night. So for a couple of hours it was just me and my sister in the house all by ourselves. It was our bedtime one night so my sister and I went to bed. In a couple of minutes I had heard something hitting the side of the house. Then it started hitting my window. It was really weird so I got my sister to come into my room. We looked out the window and saw a man bouncing one of my toys against the window and catching it. He put his hand to his mouth and motioned for us to be quiet. Then he motioned for us to go outside and play with him. We were frozen in fear. Then he started walking away and we couldn't see him out the window anymore. We ran to the kitchen and there he was motioning for us to open the sliding door. We knew that we couldn't wake up our dad, so we then ran and hid in the living room. The man then walked to our front door and started whispering something that we couldn't understand as well as making scratching noises. All we could do was cry and remain paralyzed. We saw car lights approaching the house. It was my mother returning home from work. We watched as the man ran off the porch and hid behind my father's truck. We watched the man smile and wait until our mother got out of the car. She got out, opened the trunk, got her belongings and walked up on the porch. I'm embarrassed to say that we were too scared to open the door and warn her. All we could do was watch as the man sneakily tiptoed behind her. She opened the front door and shut it behind her. She saw it was hiding and just as she was about to yell at us for being up so late. She then saw her fear stricken eyes glued to the glass in the front door. She turned around and saw his face pressed against the glass and him jiggling the doorknob. She screamed and put all of her weight against the door, locked the door, then called my grandfather who just lived a street over. The man then shouted profanities about how he was going to rape her children right in front of her. She then called the police and told them as well. The next thing we know, my grandfather is speeding up the driveway with his gun out the window, just firing it randomly. The cops pulled up just as the man took off into the woods they saw was back, but that was it. They chased through the woods with dogs and had the whole squad out searching. Other officers inspected the house and saw multiple scratch marks at our doors as well as the side of the house. Apparently he tried to break in and couldn't, so he tried to lure us into letting him in. They never found out who it was and that was the last time we ever saw of them. We were all pretty traumatized for a while, but it didn't bother our dad one bit. In fact, he didn't wake up the entire time. The story is about about an event that happened to my mother around 1972 when she was 8 years old. She's told me about it since I was young and she truly thinks about it and is still affected to this day. To set the scene, both of my grandparents ran a restaurant and gas station in our hometown. They have always ran a business of some type since the 50s. This meant that a lot of days my mom would have to take the school bus home and stay by herself. If my grandma had to stay and help run things, but usually no more than an hour or two, my uncle, her older brother, would usually come home on the bus with her. But he was a little older and sometimes he had football practice. So was the case on the day of the event. I'm getting to. So my mother arrived home on this day, let herself in the house and put away her things. She had just recently received a new puppy and knew the first thing she needed to do was take the pup out to the yard to use the restroom. She wrapped the dog in a white towel and walked him outside. As she had put down the dog, she shook its hair out of the blanket, flowing it about the wind. It was then she noticed the neighbor's son was staring at her from across the street. This guy was in his late 20s and he was known to be very strange and mentally ill. Though in the country, mental illness seems to not always be recognized. He would do psycho things like abusing animals. Really sick things that I don't want to get into the details. My mom said that he always creeped her and everyone else out. She said he would stare at her when she would play outside, and he made her feel generally uncomfortable. She said that he appeared out of nowhere in his yard that day, and as she shook out the blanket, he began grinning and waving. Feeling more than a little shock, she picked up her pup, went inside and locked the door. She began to do some homework, and after about five minutes of work, she heard a loud knock at the door. She slowly walked to the window to see who it was. She knew it wasn't my grandparents because of course, they had their keys. As she opened the blinds, her eyes locked with those of the creep from across the street, like he was already looking in the window. She jumped and she said she screamed a little as she shut the blinds. She then walked to the door and made sure it was locked. She said that he just continued with a slow, continuous thud on the door, almost in a rhythm. Then she really got terrified as he began to speak to her through the door. Hi, sweetie. I saw you with your doggie. Let me in to see him. She was in shock. Come on, let me in, sweetie, please. I want to see your puppy. In full freakout mode. My mom screamed, you need to leave now. You need to go back to your house. I don't know you. But he just kept knocking. I can really imagine the fear in my mom's eyes when she describes that part, and it gives my whole body chills. He then said, damn it, let me in. I saw you waving your flag of surrender. I kid you not. The guy thought my mom shaking her hair from the blanket was a flag of surrender and a sign for him to come over. My mom then screamed, I'm calling my dad and the police if you don't leave now. With this the knocking stopped. She tried to catch her breath and shake off her fear. She then got up from the door and ran to the basement level of the home. It was an old house so the kitchen and rec room was down there along with the only phone in the house. She made it to the phone and began to dial 911. All of a sudden she had heard a shatter from the next room. She looked over to see the crazed neighbor attempting to crawl through the kitchen window. He was ripping down the curtain as his upper body got through the window and my mother screamed what was happening to the police on the phone. All of a sudden he was bleeding from the abdomen where the window glass had cut him as his lower half couldn't squeeze through. Then my mom began hearing my grandmother scream what the hell are you doing? Then the guy yelled in pain and was squirming out of the window as she hit him from behind with some tool that was laying in her garden on the side of the house where the entrance to the window was. He managed to get out of the window and bolted to his house. The police came. My grandma called my grandfather and he arrived as well after shutting down the business. As soon as she told him they arrested the man for breaking and entering and something else. I believe that was unrelated. On the day of his court date he told them the white flag of surrender story, but this was the final nut on his crazy cake as they then put him in a mental institution that very day. He may have gotten out, but I know he eventually went back because my mother said that he later died in an institution outside the courthouse. The crazy Appalachian redneck family of the creep tried to blame my 8 year old mother and the man's father called my mother a harlot. Needless to say my army trained grandpa beat the guy's ass on the courthouse steps as the local cops turned a blind eye. That story has always stuck with me. My mom had to receive therapy for it so it haunts her a lot even to this day. We always can't help but wonder though, what would he have done to her if my grandma didn't come home at that moment? So I was telling my mom how I spend my work day reading a about creepy stranger encounters and whatnot and she told me that she had a pretty chilling one herself. So I figured it was creepy enough to share a little background. My parents both Lived in New York for the majority of their teenage and young adult lives. And they were pretty big into the disco scene in the mid-70s and would go to one almost every other night. Once they started dating, they also actually met at one. Now, this was around the time when the Son of Sam was prevalent in New York. For those that don't know who that is, he was a serial killer who had killed a few women and some couples. Anyway, one night they decided to walk home instead of taking a cab because they figured it was such a nice night out and the street still had a few clubbers walking around, so they'd rather not spend the extra money for. From what my mom says, they were aware of the killer going around, you know, killing people. But they were pretty young and dumb and just figured, well, this couldn't happen to us. So they thought nothing when a random guy started walking behind them. At first, they weren't creeped out or anything, thinking it was just someone who was headed home, too. He was walking pretty fast and seemed to be talking to himself and fumbling around with something in his hand. Still, they weren't alarmed because they figured he had come out of a club and was probably just drunk or high on something. That is, until he got a little closer and they were able to make out what he had been saying to himself, I need to shoot someone. I just want to shoot someone. At this point, my parents were on high alert and started walking faster, just trying to make it home, but the guy was following them the entire time. They then realized what he had in his hand. You guessed it, a gun. They kept on power walking because he was clearly unstable, and they were afraid that if they started running or made any sudden movements, he would start shooting. Since he was still following them, they decided to cross the street and turn back into another club where there would be security and a shitload of people, you know, instead of just letting him follow them to my mom's house, the minute they got close to the club, he then turned into an alley and disappeared. They told security who checked out the alley and the surrounding area, but he was long gone by that point. After getting home, my mom was convinced that it was Son of Sam who was following them. But when he was then caught, like a year later, she said that it wasn't him. So, yeah, it was just some crazy guy walking around with a gun, wanting to shoot someone. This happened to my mom, but it really creeps me out to think about it happened back in the 70s when my mom was about 20. One night, my mom was at a gas station with a friend, visiting her friend's brother Mike, who worked there. They stayed and hung out for a little bit before my mom decided to leave. So she got in her car and headed home for the night. Not soon after she pulled out though, she had noticed a car following pretty closely behind her. At first she thought nothing of it and she just kept going. But as she kept driving, the car continued to follow her. There weren't very many other cars on the road that night, and my mom literally in a semi rural area with a ton of neighborhoods or houses nearby. So it started to seem a little weird that this one car would be following so closely behind her for that long of a time. Something felt off. Finally she turned down her street, which was pretty secluded and only had a handful of other houses on it. The car turned as well. Something definitely wasn't right. She lived in an old house at the end of a long driveway with a lot of trees, so the area was nearly pitch black at night. There was no way she could get out of her car and into her house with the car still behind her. The only thing she could think to do was turn around and drive back to the gas station where she had just come from, where she knew Mike would still be. The car followed her all the way back. When she turned into the gas station, though, only then did she see the car drive away. She then ran inside and told Mike what had happened. She stayed there until the end of his shift and he drove her home. What makes this even more unsettling though, is that about a year later, a man was arrested for murdering five young women right around the area where my mom lived. To this day, she can't help but think that it was him following her that night. And she wonders what could have happened had she tried to get out of her car and got into her house. One of the creepiest events in my own experience that I can recall happened when I was about 9 years old, late 1978 or early 1979 if I'm not mistaken, which would have put me in the fourth grade at the time. Just a bit of background information on my school here. It was a newer school for my district at the time, and I guess as an experiment in innovative architecture, the school had no square angles in the walls at all. Rather, for simplicity's sake, imagine a U shape where the opening of the U faces into the parking lot, but where there were hexagons attached to the outer edge of the U. Each of those hexagons was called A pod. And each pod was divided into six classrooms and one central area for the podium pod, from which a person could see into any one of the six classrooms at one time. The playground was the entire area outside the U shaped collection of pots, first being blacktop and then further out grassy field. Critically, this meant that if you were very close to the pots, it was possible for someone else, also close to the pots, to be within 20ft of you and still be hidden around the bend of the wall. So on this day in 1978 or 79, my school had an open house and parent teacher conferences. This was when parents were welcome to come to the school and talk with one another and especially with their children's teachers, and to see how their child or children were performing in school. My mom never missed one of these, and this day was no exception. We went to the school and saw all the teachers and kids and parents gathered in the cafeteria. After whatever general address the principal had to make, everyone went their separate ways to meet one on one. My mom had teachers to meet for two children, for me and my older brother, who was one year ahead of me. When we met my teacher, Ms. H. My mom brought my brother and I into the classroom. She apparently had good things to say about me and we were done quickly. But when we met my older brother's teacher, Mr. C, for some reason, my mom told me to go out on the playground and play. My brother remained in the classroom with my mom and his teacher. It was still light outside, so it all seemed okay. However, by this time, an hour or more had promptly passed since the principal's speech had ended. Any parents who had only attended for that, or who only wanted to meet a single teacher briefly, had done so by now and left. The playground area was devoid of people. The naive little boy that I was, I just walked around the pods like I was in my own house. And I stayed close to the outer wall of the pods for no real reason. All of a sudden, without hearing or seeing anything to prepare me for what was about to happen, I was pinched across the back of my neck, very hard. The hand that held me seemed too strong for me to break away. And I didn't even have time to try before a voice whispered in my ear to stay still, still and did not turn around. I nodded as best as I could. Then the voice told me to walk, and it led me around the pod to within the sight of the parking lot where a few cars remained. The voice asked me if I saw the green car, the station wagon with the wood paneling on it. I did and indicated so. The voice then told me, walk to that car. Get inside and wait there. Do not turn around. I'll be right behind you, and if you turn around, I'll know you did it. Do you understand me? All the while the owner of the hand and of the harsh whisper squeezed my neck harder at intervals to add emphasis to certain points. The person then sent me walking to that car. I think I know how the condemned dead man walking must feel. I was a naive boy, but not so naive as to believe getting in that car was a good idea. On the other hand, I felt sure that turning around meant certain death if the owner of that voice was really still there. I had gotten halfway to the car when I wound up freezing, unsure of what to do. I stood there crying, which was already an improvement over the extremity of fear that preceded it. I don't know if I stood there seconds or minutes, but eventually I turned around. Nobody was there. I figured they were back around the pond, peeking and waiting, but my mom was that direction also, so I swung way out into the playfield area and walked carefully back around. Somewhere near where I was originally pinched were two boys a year ahead of me, my older brother's age, playing marbles, Roger and another boy whose name I never knew. I avoided them, feeling sure they were prompted, probably the ones who had pinched me, but I'm sure at some point they noticed me passing them at a distance. They did not react at all. In fact, my brother talked about Roger much later, by chance, in terms that he caused me to believe he was a nice guy. Probably as importantly, later reflection led me to consider the whispered voice in the powerful hand most likely to have belonged to an adult male, not a fellow child. But why did that fool want me in Mr. C's car? Mr. C was in a conference room with my mom, so it was not his doing. My only other guess was my third grade teacher, Mr. S, who had once grabbed me violently when I got up from my chair in class without permission while he was in a bad mood. That dude was actually eventually arrested in 1980 on suspicion of having molested four boys earlier the same year. John, just a year after my traumatic experience on the playground. I'll never know for sure, though, but I will always wonder who it was. My mother recently told me how she was almost raped and possibly murdered by Mike the mall passer, Debarba Laban. He was a serial rapist, murderer and counterfeit money passer and sexual sadistic. She told me recently that in 1979, while she was in college in North Carolina, she noticed someone following her in a big car as she walked home one night from class. She tried to ignore it at first, but when it was obvious that she was being stalked, she got scared. She saw a cop car parked at a gas station and ran to it, and the car that had been following her peeled off. Once she thought she was was safe, she continued her walk home. Everything was okay until she had to cross the little footbridge that was on her way home. Once she was over it, the same car ripped around the corner and stopped her, and a man rolled down his window and started small talk, and he asked her if he could give her a ride. She said no and started to run, at which point he grabbed her and tried to pull her into the car. She said that she jerked away and immediately, immediately ran to a house that was across the street and he sped away. Two weeks later, she awoke to the sound of her roommate screaming. Mom and three other girls all shared a two bedroom apartment, so it was two to her room. When she gained her vision, she saw the same guy standing in the middle of her room looking at her. She said that the look on his face was calculating. The roommate screamed, who are you and what the hell are you doing here? And he turned and replied, uh, I forgot my guitar. And then grabbed a guitar that was leaning on the wall. The roommate then shouted, that's my guitar. And he threw it on the ground and then ran out. After reporting this event to the apartment manager, the manager told my mom that some guy had come by a few days earlier stating that he was a family friend of the pretty girl with long dark hair that lives upstairs and how he wanted to surprise her. So the apartment manager gave him pretty much every detail about my mom, where she works, goes to school, basic weekly routines. Of course, my mom flipped out on her, as anyone would. That was the last time she ever saw or heard of him until several years later. She was reading a book about notorious serial killers in America, and she read the story of Mike DeBarbalabin, who was all over the country raping and apparently killing some of his victims. When she flipped the page and saw his picture, she gasped, it was him. They also showed a picture of the car and it was the same one that followed her that night. Once she told me, I started to research. I found this page that showed that he was in the North Carolina area at the same time my mom was attending college there. Also, the victimology shows that he targeted women around the age of 18 and 19, my mom's age at the time. I seriously got the creeps. He died in 2011. I wouldn't be here today if he had done what he was planning to do. I'm really glad he dropped his pursuit, but I wonder more often than I should why I can only assumed that his initial plan failed and it would have been too easy to tie him to any crime committed against my mother at that point, so it was just easier to move on. His next victim was Lori Jensen. She survived, but not before going through major hell. Who knows where she is now, but for some reason I just can't get her out of my head. Let me just tell you, this is a long one. It has to be since I've been dealing with this guy for over four years now. It all started my last year of high school. I had gotten really into the hardcore scene from my city and attended a bunch of small gigs with my best friend. One day I received a Facebook friend request from a guy named Allen. Looking at his profile and the stuff that he posted, I noticed that he was just three years older than me, from the same city, and he liked many of the same bands that I did. So 17 year old me added him. We soon started talking mostly about bands in school. He was in the middle of getting his college degree and I was just about to choose mine. From time to time he would tell me how pretty I was and ask if I had a boyfriend. I did find him attractive too, so I flirted back. However, I very quickly lost interest. Within a few minutes after flirting, he would tell me that he actually had a girlfriend but they were having some trouble. I didn't want to take part in any cheating kind of stuff or such, so I just told him he should think what was best for him and his girlfriend and do the right thing. From then on, I limited my chats with him to music and school once more and he too stopped following flirting with me. Anyway, a month or so passed without texting when suddenly I got a message from him. We talked like we used to and just before I had to say bye, he told me that he had broken up with his girlfriend and felt so much better. He thanked me for always listening to him without judging and said that my advice had really helped him. I felt happy for him. I honestly don't know if this girl was really mean or not, but he seemed happy to be out of the relationship and I wanted to be a good friend so I was happy for him too. Now at this point I don't know what came to me. Maybe it was because I did find him attractive or because it was very late and I wasn't making the best decisions. But I told him my best friend's birthday was in a couple of days and that he should come to the party too. He agreed within a second and I told him to meet me at the station close to her house. So I finally got to meet him at the station after almost half a year of talking online. I know what you're thinking and know he wasn't a 50 year old sexual predator. Although I must admit I should have been more careful since he could have been someone interested in taking my liver. Nevertheless, we met. It was a bit awkward at first since neither of us knew what to say, so we just walked away to my friend's house making small talked. I guess we were both very nervous when we got there, things got better and we actually had a good time. Although he pretty much only talked to me for the next month, we kept going out for the basic dates until he officially asked me to go steady and we became a couple. From here and on, the actual creepy stuff would start. It hadn't been more than three weeks and I was starting to feel anxious. It's a weird feeling that I used to have when I was little and I knew I was going to be punished for either getting bad grades or doing something bad in general. It was stupid though, because I wasn't a child anymore and I wasn't even doing anything wrong. I just had this feeling whenever he was around me. What made it even more complicated is the fact that I didn't really feel that he had changed. He wasn't rude or anything, he was just unsettling. He would want to see me 24 7. We never went to his house and whenever we were at my house, he would refuse to be anywhere else but my room and he would spend hours just staring at me. And believe me, I know you could take all of this with romantic intentions. But the way he made me feel was not warm and fuzzy, but instead shivery and anxious. I must admit I took the first chance he gave me and broke up with him. He meant to text his ex some lyrics to a breakup and love song and then texted them to me by accident. He apologized and he explained it was just a letter down for good. I had none of it. I told him that we may have jumped into the relationship thing way too soon and that I thought it was better if we just went back to being friends that night. He called me 37 times the next morning I had school and throughout the day I got a text that immediately got me nervous. What time will you be at home? I'm coming over to talk. He wrote. I really didn't want to see him, so I told him I wasn't sure and that he shouldn't go, he should just leave it. Plus, we had only been dating for like four or five weeks, so why make a big deal out of it? Just let it die. I did in fact get home late that night and oh, surprise, can guess who was standing in front of my door. He had a blank stare and when I was passing by to park the car in the garage, he followed me with expressionless eyes. I went inside and left my stuff in my room shaking. My brother came to me asking what the hell was going on. He said Allen had been standing outside for over four hours now. I told him I would handle it since he's my little brother, so I didn't want to worry him. I took took a deep breath and went outside. We argued for around an hour in which he would tell me he loved me and that he knew that we were meant to be together. I told him I wasn't feeling comfortable and that I just wanted to go back to being friends. He then told me to move in with him for a few minutes. I was speechless. He used this time to explain how he would get a job and keep studying so I could finish high school and then get a job too. Of course, according to him, we would then start a business together and have our first child. By the time I was 21, he had our whole life planned out and I had no saying in it. I managed to catch a moment to speak and tell him straight up that he was out of his mind. I was only 17 and nowhere close to thinking about living with him, much less having a child. Alan then made this weird face like he wanted to cry, but not actually. I swear. It was like a cheap acting trick and it just creeped me out even more. I cut him off and told him we were over and ran inside. From here on he got worse and worse. He would text my friends even when they had no idea who he was, and then told them to tell me that I needed to be with him, which is where I belonged. I then blocked him from all social media since he would send me nonstop messages and and post weird poems that had a hint of scary with things like I stand in the dark so you can't see me, but you're the light so I'll always see you. He called my house If I pick up, he yells I need you non stop. Over and over. If anyone else picks up, he just hangs up. Now, this kept happening for almost half a year and I know what you're thinking. Why didn't I call the police? Police? Well, I think I failed to mention I'm from Mexico City and I can promise you no officer is going to take any action against a few dozen phone calls. I don't even think they'd know what to do. Little by little the phone call stopped, but he was still texting me and dedicating me songs in an online radio station that most people from the hardcore scene listen to. This one particular time he dedicated your Betrayal to me, which was another song. I think that's pretty self explanatory. Alan became unstable. He would go from dedicating me love poems to insulting me saying that I was ruining his life. I honestly lost count of how many crazy and scary things he's done in these past years. But I think the worst of them all was this one time a year ago when I went to a concert with my best friend. I was kind of flirting with one of the musicians auditions that opened for the band and my friend was playing wingman. He went to get us some beers and just as he stood up, I turned to chat with my friend and I saw two figures take the empty chairs in front of us. It was Alan and a girl that he introduced as his sister. The very moment my friend and I saw them, we froze. A mixture of being uncomfortable and scared got to me and I just looked away. You cut your hair. He broke the silence. Reaching for my bags, I instinctively pulled back. It looks great on you. Everything does. He spoke in a soft but numb voice. I nodded and told him I was with someone so he should leave the chair. I looked to his sister to encourage her too, but she was absent minded playing with her phone. Do you want a paper flower? He asked, completely ignorant. Ignoring what I said before. The guy I had been flirting with was now making his way back, but since he saw two other people now in his place, he just drifted away. Dude, you seriously need to get going. I was losing my patience, but I didn't want to make a scene since the concert hadn't even started and I wasn't getting kicked out. Once again he ignored me and started making a rose out of a napkin. Let's just go over there, my friend suggested and I took her on the offer. Or so I intended. Allen's sister, who suddenly lost interest in her phone, was now grabbing me by the arm really tight, keeping me from walking away, not saying a word, just grabbing me. I tried to loosen myself, but before I could, Alan took one of my hands and put the paper flower right in it. Then his sister let go. Now, for what happened after this, I must say two things. One, I'm known for being maybe a little too aggressive, but when it comes to people who I cared for at any point in my life, I have a soft spot. And two, Alan had been beyond creepy, given that it had now been around three years and he wouldn't leave me alone. But he had never been violent. Both rules were broken that night. I snapped. I took the flower he just gave me, looking him straight in the eyes, and I slammed it against the table so it would lose any shape it had. You're not a good guy. You're a creeper who won't leave me alone and thinks I owe him a relationship, I said, right up in his face with anger I don't think I've ever felt. My friend and I pushed through and made our way outside for a smoke and had to clear my head. We were chatting, I was shaking and she was just trying to calm me down as asking me if I was feeling better and telling me that if I wanted to leave, it was okay. Then we heard the screaming. At first it was just some bottles falling and a couple of screams, so we thought someone messed up and they were mocking them. But it didn't stop there. The yelling continued and we saw the bouncers at the entrance then rush inside. I quickly put out my cigarette and then headed towards the commotion with my friend. In all honesty, honesty, I was hoping to just see another bar fight, but it was much worse than that. There were two tables knocked over and I don't know how many broken beer bottles on the floor. A bunch of personal articles from a backpack were being poured into the ground and the one responsible for all of this was no other than Alan. Quickly enough, one of the bouncers restrained him as the other one searched him for any potential weapon that he might have had. His sister on the other side of the small venue screamed at Allen and the bouncers. Some stuff that I really couldn't make out since there was a lot of noise as they literally dragged him out. I was pushed outside by the crowd and stepped to the side, speechless, just watching Allen curse and kick. I had never seen him this violent. In fact, I had never seen him violent at all. Then he saw me. He yelled at me, but since a small crowded form stormed around, people thought he was just on drugs, yelling nonsense, you ruined my life. My eyes started to fill with tears. Maybe it was because I was scared or because I still couldn't fully understand what was going on around me. What could I have possibly done to him in order to make him like this? Thankfully, my friend found me along the crowd and without even asking, she dragged me to the subway and back home. I cried all the way. I haven't seen him ever since, but I know he's still around. How so? Well, I now live in Japan and I've been living here for a year or so. It was my birthday just a few months ago and I got a big bouquet of roses with a card that read I shouldn't have given you paper when you deserved the real ones. Happy Birthday my love. Signed Alan. I live in a middle low class neighborhood in the Caribbean. It's a quiet place where nothing happens. The type of place that people go and retire to and sip pina coladas all day long. However, a few houses next to mine lived a family that was not like the rest. They had the biggest house on the street and lived luxurious. Curiously, their kids would play with me, especially the smallest girl we all nicknamed Tiny. Tiny was about 5 when I was 11 and she was always at my house. I knew my mom and the neighbors were concerned about a five year old being outside all day and not arriving at her house until midnight on school days, but it was a quiet place where nothing happened so no one got worried. When Tiny turned 6, her parents threw a giant birthday party for her and all the neighborhood kids were invited. I wanted to go. They had bouncy houses, water slides and everything a kid would want to play with, but my parents didn't allow me to go. I never knew why. I suppose it was because my mom didn't know her mom. I remember feeling very sad because everyone was there and I was just playing alone in my house. After the birthday things went back to normal and one day we were all playing and talking about what our parents did for work. We asked Tiny and her siblings but none of them knew what they did except that he traveled a lot and that he was always at meetings. I didn't pay much attention and we all just continued on with our day. One night we were playing on the street when we started hearing loud pops coming from Tiny's house. I will never forget that day. The neighbors, including my own mom came out rushing us inside yelling it was gunshots. Some of us even got in my house and we stayed there. As my next door neighbor who was a Cop ran towards Tiny's house. All we saw after the gunshots were a black van rushing down the street and almost killing a dog. Some men then entered the house. Tiny and her siblings wanted to check out what was going on, but everyone forbade them to go. All I remember was a bunch of cops and ambulances a few minutes later, and then in a day. I never saw Tiny or her siblings again. For a couple of months, the house sat empty, but black vans and strange men kept coming into the neighborhood door to door, asking for any information about the man and his children. No one in the neighborhood spoke about it. I know the cops asked me about Tiny and the kids and if they ever said anything weird about her mom and dad. But I was only 11, and I was much more concerned about playing Mario Kart WII than about what happened that night. Years passed and the story faded away. Now that I'm grown up, I asked my neighbor who was the cop, what actually went down that night. As there were rumors the guy died. He said that night the man had a gun emptied in his skull and that his wife was gravely wounded because he was a drug lord that was trying to make a deal with the police to turn in his rival gangs and some other people to the cops. The men in the van that were going door to door wanted to know where his kids and wife were to also shut them up. As to the kids, his oldest son was found dead a few hours away in a neighboring town, his car set ablaze. His other children are now living in other countries under witness pro protection programs. I just hope wherever Tahni is, she's doing okay and that her family got the help they needed. The wife was shot in the leg and it caused her massive blood loss, but overall, she survived. This was the first major news in my town besides another massacre that happened in the 70s when a prominent woman was hatched to death alongside her adult daughter by the daughter's husband. When I was about nine or 10, I was invited to a classmate's birthday party at some swimming baths. All of us are the same age. It was a small class of about 20 kids, and I'm pretty sure everyone was invited. Just to clarify, I'm a boy. Anyway, I kind of got separated from everyone and it was just me and this girl all alone. I wasn't particularly close with her, but I did know her as she was in my class. To describe the location we were in, it was in a tunnel that connected the main wave pool to a lazy river. There wasn't really anybody else there, just Me and her. When she suddenly lunged at me without warning, she grabbed my head and held it underwater. I was a pretty skinny kid kid and she was bigger than me and a bit of a tomboy. About 20 seconds went by as I then furiously tried to free myself, but she wasn't letting go, fight or flight and massive panic took over and I eventually fought my way free. I was coughing and splitting water as I emerged. I remember looking at her and just being in shock. I think I began to ask why she did that. When she lunged at me again. She again held my head underwater for what felt like a lifetime before I fought my way free. Both times I genuinely thought I was going to drown and she didn't let me up. I had to fight my way free. I couldn't swim at this time, but the water in the lazy river and tunnel was just maybe chest high. I began to backpedal away from her. She was giggling as if it was funny and had this kind of crazed look and grin on her face. I couldn't just climb out to escape as it was a tunnel, so I had to try and get out of there. As I was backpedaling, she was following me and I made sure to keep distance so she couldn't lunge again, but she was gaining on me. I actually managed to reason with her as I was so scared of her I was babbling at her. I tried to distract her by suggesting we go down a water slide together. It worked as I could see her thinking about it and she stomped chasing facing me. I managed to exit the tunnel in water and she slowly followed me but seemed a bit unsure. I immediately felt more safe as I was now out of the water and I could see other people as we headed towards the slides. I kept talking all the way up about how fun the slides were, but she didn't really speak at all and had a really strange look on her face the whole time. Anyway, after we went down the slide slides, I caught up with my friends and just stuck with them for the rest of the time as I was still a bit shook up. I never told them about it as it was a bit embarrassing to admit that a girl tried to drown me and I was worried I'd get teased. Anyway, fast forward to adulthood. This girl turned out to be a lesbian. Not that there's anything wrong with that, but she got with her partner who had two or three kids from her previous relationship with the guy. Turns out they would torture the kids and eventually killed one of them. She's currently serving a life sentence in prison. I told my friends about the swimming pool incident after hearing about her crimes and I'm pretty sure they think I'm just bullshitting as none of them took me seriously. Maybe as I kind of lightheartedly said that I was almost victim one. However, nonetheless, it's a bit crazy to think back as she was obviously a genuine psychopath and if I never fought her off me to escape and then convinced her to go down that slide, I genuinely believe she could have killed me. This is a real story that's happening now, but this all really started on my birthday. I did speak with the authority about these instances, but I'm also open to hearing your takes as well. It's been pretty frightening. I'm a 27 year old female living with a female roommate and her boyfriend. Her name is Julia. About a year ago Julia and I started going to a hangout spot and we met a woman working there around our age. Her name is Sam. Julia and I stopped going after a while, but I still stayed friends with Sam. Not super close, but seeing her once every couple of weeks. She supported my business, brought me small gifts and invited me places. Over the course of the year, I enjoyed being friends with her. On my birthday, Sam posted my photo on social media. That's when I get a message from an account I don't know asking me to message them back and discuss a film film opportunity. Half curious, I replied. They say a bunch to finally come out and then say that they're casting adult film stars. They then quote me a large amount of money. He says it's very private porn sold overseas. No one will ever see it. I declined politely. I honestly chuckled. By the way, they're not googleable. There's nothing on their social media pages, age or anything about their production company online. The person messaging insists that I text their female reference. Curiosity gets the best of me because I do. That female reference weirds me out. She's normal at first, but seems too excited about the actual job. She's encouraging me to do my casting with the person I've messaged and saying I'm very lucky he's even offered. He's only offered that to a few few girls. I'm thinking no woman in porn really feels this excited and happy and satisfied with it all. I'm weirded out and she's blocked. He messaged me to ask if we talked. I say yes but decline again and he's blocked now too. I'm embarrassed I even considered. But then a couple of days later my roommate shows me A weird text to her personal number. It's the same people with a similar offer. They say, though we found you on a list, you must have signed up. I'm pretty sure my roommate did no such thing. I'll say here, not many people know both me and my roommate. I tell my roommate what happened to me and we're both really confused. For the next four months or so I get text messages. I answer some of them nice and I answer some of them than me and I ignore others completely. They never asked for photos, info or anything really, except to consider the offer and maybe come for a drink to discuss it in person. That was it until yesterday. Sam sends me a message on social media. It's a group chat with a profile I've never seen. Plus Sam in my business profile I do creative team building work. Sam. Sam wants to introduce me to her friend Dave. Dave needs to hire a team builder at a fancy hotel about an hour away from me. Sam makes the introductions and I say thank you and then Sam leaves the group chat. Dave's profile is empty. She messages me privately and basically says, I used to casually see this guy, he's really good for the job, he's pretty wealthy and I know that he owns like multiple, multiple businesses. He used to be in adult film productions, but I think he's been done with that and this would be for a different business he has. Other than that he's a normal dude. I message the man back and ask what's the company and can I have a website or any pages, any more info? He then says that he'll launch the website at the event I'm being hired for and that he just bought the company and it's being branded. But Sam is messaging me too. She says he's selling the company and this two day hotel event is for their farewell party. She suggests that I bring my boyfriend since it would be an all expenses paid stay. Also, she mentioned that she's going to visit this old friend tonight to catch up. Over drinks. She said that she hasn't seen him in a long time. Alright, this is weird as hell. This guy is messaging me along the lines of sorry, I know this is weird, feel free to bring your boyfriend. What? And he also mentions how he was seeing my friend. Deny. I leave him on read until the morning. I send him the original Weird Adult film account and I ask, is this you? They say, nope. And I'm just thinking, yeah, okay. They respond, thumbs up and leave the chat. I had mentioned to Sam months ago about the weird, weird offering Text messages I got. She too said she got bizarre messages in the past. They only stopped when she said she would call the police. She didn't offer any more details, so I didn't push it. So now I message Sam and I say straight up, Sam, I think this is the person that's been harassing me from different numbers. She acts weirded out and surprised. She asked about the original account that messaged me. Eventually she closes the convo and goes to bed. I left her on read. I don't answer her call the next day and she texts me, um, that was really weird last night. Call me if you want to chat because I'm confused. I don't respond. Today she texted me, um, okay. And I wrote her back basically saying, listen, you know, I've been weirded out about this and I've been wondering if someone's trying to abduct me. And now I'm wondering if you're involved either innocently or not. It's too much for me. She wrote me back saying more or less that she understands that it was a very scary experience, but she thinks that I'm way overreacting and basically she seems offended that I could even think such a thing. She also said that she wouldn't ever want to speak with someone again who would think that about her. She left it with that. She lives her life on a straight path and she can't let someone try and drag her down into something like that. I don't know if you guys know this, but you can use a free website online to insert photos of someone and it will generate pages on the Internet that match based on facial recognition. When I began having this fear of her involvement, I searched her and I found what I'm 99% of the time was thumbnails of her in an adult film, either her or her splitting image as it also pulled known photos of her. I didn't say this to her of course, but that last statement she gave me is extra weird knowing all that. So that's my story. Hopefully they don't get me. I'm not the one to be played with. I'm a female and I turned a 18 recently. For that reason I was finally able to convince my mom to allow me to stay out all night since in my state 18 year olds don't have a curfew. Basically, the story starts with my boyfriend Tristan and I going to our mutual friend Chris's birthday party. He was turning 18 and he had convinced his parents to allow him to have the house to himself and Throw a party. He promised his parents that he wouldn't have any drugs or alcohol, but naturally he got his older brother to buy the alcohol after his parents left. And other people brought their own drugs, mainly just marijuana. Chris lives less than a minute drive away from my house and only about a nine minute walk. Maya and Chris neighborhood was built in the 80s, so for that reason our houses aren't very big. So I could understand why Chris didn't want a lot of people there. For that reason, he made a rule that no strangers were allowed to come. The only way you could invite a plus one was if you were dating them and ask Chris if you could bring them or if Chris knew the person you wanted to invite personally. As I mentioned previously, my boyfriend and I helped Chris plan the party and send out the invites. So for that reason, my boyfriend and I decided to get there early to help Chris set up the party. Between me, Tristan and Chris, we all probably each sent out 15 invites from the people off the list, plus whoever Chris's brother decided to invite. When people finally started showing up, it wasn't long after Chris started bringing out the alcohol. I'd say probably about 50, 60 people showed up, which is way more than Chris originally wanted. But a lot of people wanted to bring plus 1s. However, between me, Chris and Tristan, nobody was really a stranger. In fact, I recognized everyone there. Even if I didn't know the person's name. I at least recognized everyone's face. After all, everyone who was invited was either one of Chris's brother's friends or someone from our school, or he used to go to our school and there were a crab ton of mutual friends there too. There was only one person I didn't recognize there, and that was this one guy who showed up at least little later in the night when everyone was drunk and Chris's brother was no longer checking the door to see if the people who were coming in were on the list of invited people or not. This guy was wearing a baseball cap, had a beard that kind of looked like he glued pubic hair to his face, and he was wearing a Tennessee Titans T shirt and khaki shorts. And I think he had vans on. In all honesty, he looked only slightly older than everyone there, but he did fit in. And I probably wouldn't have ever noticed the guy if it wasn't for the fact that halfway in the night I bumped into him by accident after drunkenly tripping over my own feet after getting another drink. Unfortunately, my drink splashed out of my cup onto the guy and I felt really bad even in my drunken stupor. I remember overly apologizing and guiding the guy to the kitchen so I could grab some napkins. I grabbed the napkins and then handed them to him. He seemed cool about the whole thing and he just kept telling me it was no problem. We actually engaged in small talk as I was wearing a slip knot T shirt and he pointed out asking about my favorite album. I should mention that I'm pretty alternative. Sometimes I even dress pretty goth. Today was one of those days that I was feeling more goth than usual. So I was wearing a slip knot T shirt, a black skin skater shirt, and fishnet stockings with platform boots. I even had a chain gothic, gaudy jewelry, graphic eyeliner, everything. Whenever I tend to dress like this, it's not usual that I'll have guys hit on me, you know, except for the emo guys or the occasional stoner dude, neither of which is my type. I'm more attracted to the stockier, flannel wearing, nerdy guys like my boyfriend Tristan. This being that being said, I didn't think engaging in small talk with this random guy was weird, or that he was trying to flirt with me or anything, especially since he was really only asking me about my favorite band. But then the conversation kinda took a turn to more personal questions. He started asking me things like, do you live in the area? Did you come with anybody? How old are you? What's your name? How much have you had to drink tonight? Do you have a boyfriend? Questions like that. In my drunken stupor, I remember thinking his questions were a little personal, but I didn't think too much into it. I tried to answer the questions without giving away too many details, but honestly, I can't really say if I managed to do that or not, since I was drunk after all. Then out of nowhere, the guy asked me if I was a virgin, which was an insane, insanely personal question. And I immediately started to get weirded out. Especially since this guy seemed to be 100% sober. It suddenly dawned on me that I never even caught the guy's name. Trying to redirect his question and change the subject, I asked the guy what his name was, and he then told me that his name was Charlie. I didn't even know a Charlie, nor did I ever send an invite to anyone named Charlie. So I figured the guy was one of Chris's brother's friends. He then asked me again, so are you a virgin? I remember in my drunken state, awkwardly laughing. I really didn't want to answer this Charlie guy's question, I suddenly didn't want to be talking to this guy anymore at all. I desperately wanted a way out of this conversation. That came when another one of mine and my boyfriend's mutual friends, Tanner, came over to reflect fill his drink. He saw me, yelled my name and dabbed me up, then proceeded to tell me that my boyfriend was looking for me. I then quickly excused myself from this guy Charlie, and as I did, he gave Tanner a slightly dirty look as if to say, you just interrupted us. Tanner didn't even acknowledge the guy as he then proceeded to tell me where Tristan was. Once I found Tristan, the knife seemed to go pretty normal. After that, my boyfriend and I now tipsy, busting down to the music for a bit as well as taking more shots all throughout the night. That was until I started to realize every room I went into, that Charlie guy was there too. And he was always looking at me or glancing in my general direction and I hadn't seen him take any shots or drink anything even once. I tried to just ignore it, thinking it was just a coincidence that he always happened to be in the same room room as me. But now that I think about it, that was stupid. If it seems like someone's following you, they probably are. Anyway, later into the night, when a lot of people had begun to go home and most were passed out, my boyfriend and I drunkenly decided to sneak off to the guest bedroom. Thinking we had locked the door, we began to undress, and if you hadn't guessed by now, yes, we had sex. After we finished doing the deed, I collapsed on top of my boyfriend. I then turned my head to rest it under the crook of his neck. By doing that, my head was facing the direction of the door. And that's when I noticed the door was slightly cracked. Even though we were both drunk, I swore one of us had shut the door. Squinting my eyes to focus, that's when, to my horror, I realized someone was peeking into the room through the crack in the door door. I then screamed, what the hell? And I rushed to cover myself and boyfriend with the covers. Then whoever had been peeking through the crack in the door opened the door all the way and then apologized. It was Charlie. He said that he was sorry it wasn't what it looked like and that he had just been looking for the bathroom. Even drunk, I knew that this was a lie. My boyfriend, however, who doesn't like confrontation patient, then awkwardly replied, um, yeah, that's okay, man, the bathroom is the next door to your left. Charlie then thanked Tristan and closed the door Tristan's response kinda made me mad and I wanted him to at least yell at the guy. I got up from the bed and began putting my clothes back on. At that point the party was basically over and I just wanted to go home. Now I felt violated and exposed. God knows how much action Charlie managed to see and I really didn't believe his bathroom excuse. My boyfriend asked me what was wrong and I proceeded to tell him how that guy had been asking me personal and creepy questions earlier in the night and how it also seemed like he had been following me all throughout the party. Tristan agreed that that seemed really weird and he agreed to take me home. It was probably like 1am at this point. My mom thought I was going to spend the night with a friend who was going to be at the party and we had cameras all over my house. While she agreed to let me stay out all night and let me go to the party, she made it very clear that she didn't want me drinking. So if I stumbled home drunk in the middle of the night, she might not let me go to another party for the rest of my senior year. So we decided to just spend the night at Tristan's house first, having to call his dad to make sure it was okay. His dad didn't pick up, but in our drunk state, we decided it would just be fine and we'd just sneak in and lock Tristan's door. If his dad decided to come into his room in the morning for whatever reason, we might have been drunk, but we were still pretty responsible, agreeing the best way to get home would be to walk. Now, like I mentioned previously, it was a nine minute walk from Chris's house to mine, but it was about a 20 minute walk from Chris's house to Tristan's. So we then said bye to Chris and some of our friends who were still there as we were walking out. I never saw that Charlie guy anywhere, so I figured he left soon after he got caught peeking in on us as we started the walk to Tristan's house. The whole time I felt on edge. I felt like we were being followed and on multiple occasions I looked behind us only to see nothing. Now, the majority of the walk to Tristan's house we were walking on the edge of the road. Because the neighborhood where Chris lives is situated on a main road. The road in front of Chris's house isn't as busy as mine, but this meant there were no sidewalks. That's not really important to the story other than that I couldn't look behind me for too long because I had to keep looking ahead just in case a car was coming. Once we got closer to the neighborhood Tristan lived in, the road got less busy and ultimately way quieter. That's when it sounded like there were footsteps on the leaves in one of the yards behind us. As I looked behind me, I thought I saw someone duck behind a tree in a yard that we had just passed by. I told Tristan what I witnessed and that I thought we were being followed. Tristan then told me then it was most likely just a deer. I mean, that's totally plausible. The town that I live in is completely, completely overrun by deer. So this seemed like a logical explanation that it really was most likely just a deer. Eventually, we made it to Tristan's house. Going through the back gate and the back door. I changed into some of Tristan's PJs and we lay down in his bed and locked the door. I maybe laid down just for a bit until I realized I had to pee. So I went to the bathroom and then decided to get a glass of water from the kitchen. Now, I should mention that Tristan's kitchen is right across from his living room. And he has a giant bay window in his living room with no curtains and all the lights were off. And thanks to the street lights outside, I could see perfectly through the window into Tristan's front yard. And that's when I saw it. A person peeking from behind the giant tree in Tristan's front yard. I wanted to scream, but I didn't want to wake up Tristan's his dad and risk getting caught. It would be an awkward situation to explain, especially since we were there without permission. I didn't know if whoever was hiding behind the tree could see me, but I grabbed my phone off the table and took a picture, making sure my flash was off. I checked Tristan's back door to make sure neither of us had forgotten to lock it. After we came inside, I then ran back to Tristan's room as quietly as possible, woke him up, and then showed him the picture. Now, I had a deep feeling it was the Charlie guy from the party. My boyfriend started to get pissed off. He said that maybe it was one of their friends trying to scare us. At that time, I was still kinda drunk, so as much as I knew that wasn't true, I just settled on that being the case. Tristan does have a friend who is at the party that was only a five minute walk from his house. So maybe that guy followed us to scare us. But now that I think about it, that made no sense. Because the only way they could even successfully scare us by hiding behind a tree in his front yard would be if they knew we were going to be in the living room. And there's just no way they would have known which room we would be in. So it was obviously someone hiding and stalking the house. I could tell that Tristan was on edge, and I saw doubt in his eyes. I could also tell that he didn't even believe his own explanation. I suggested that maybe he should tell his dad, but he said no because then his dad would know that we snuck over and he might tell my mom and he'd get in trouble. And I know that that sounds like a stupid reason, but I and Tristan's dad haven't gotten along well in the past. And my mom is really scary sometimes. Plus, she'd probably never let me go to another party again. Again. Or hang out with Tristan for a long while if she found out that I snuck over to his house to sleep over. Tristan held me and told me we were safe and that he doubted whoever it was would try to break in and that it was probably just a friend trying to scare us. I don't know when, but eventually I fell asleep. And then I woke up later on not knowing what woke me up. I found it really weird since I'm a pretty deep sleeper. I even slept through a tornado once. So waking up in the middle of the night was pretty unheard of for me. I tried to wait and see if I could find out what woke me up. That's when I heard it. It sounded like a clanking sound coming from the living room. I looked at the clock and realized that I had only been asleep for maybe 20 minutes before that clanking sound had woke me up. I tried to rationalize it. It maybe it was Tristan's dog, Khaleesi, messing with her metal water bowl. But Khaleesi always sleeps in Tristan's dad's room, and she wasn't in the living room when I was out there earlier. Plus, there's no way she could have opened Tristan's dad's door by herself. That's when I remembered the person behind the tree and that Charlie guy. I woke up Tristan and asked him if he heard it. He said that maybe it was Khaleesi. When I told him that Khaleesi was in his dad's room, this I was sure of. He said that maybe it was the ice machine. But the ice machine wouldn't make the noise over and over again. Maybe a few times, but something was still making the clanking noise. I told him this and I reminded him of the person in his yard from earlier, so he agreed to check it out. I watched by the hallway as he turned on the kitchen light light and the noise stopped. My boyfriend looked out all the windows and he said he didn't see anyone. He turned off the light and said we should try to go back to sleep. But at that point, I was just way too paranoid. There was no way I could sleep after everything that had happened. Not even 10 minutes later, the clanking sound started up again and once again I encouraged my boyfriend to go check it out. So he did. But this time I told him not to turn on the light. He gave me a funny look but obliged. I watched him walk out into the kitchen again and again I watched him from the hallway. This time, however, he gasped. He just stood there staring at the back door for a sec and the clanking noise stopped again. I tried to get him to tell me what he was seeing, but he wouldn't tell me. So I was about to walk out of there when suddenly there was a knock at the back door. It wasn't a quiet knock. It was a harsh and aggressive knock. My boyfriend then told me to go back to his room and we both booked into his room and locked the door. I asked him what or who was there and he said he saw a guy with a crowbar trying to break off the door handle. Then the guy looked up to the window. My boyfriend then said that he didn't know if the guy could see him or if he was staring at him, but that the guy stopped hitting the door handle and then smiled at him. This really creepy smile. And that's when the guy started knocking on the door. I asked my boyfriend what the guy looked like. He said it was dark, but it looked like the guy had a beard and was wearing a baseball cap. I literally felt all the color drain out of my face as I told him. That sounds dry. Just like the description of the Charlie guy from the party. My boyfriend looked angry from this. Just then, the knocking on the back door became so loud and aggressive, I thought that he might actually break down the door. I then heard the sound of Tristan's dad's door now opening, following the sound of his footsteps and yelling. His dad then yelled, yo, if you don't get the hell out of here, I'm calling the police. Then his dad came and knocked on Tristan. Tristan's door. I quickly got up and hid in Tristan's closet. Then Tristan let his dad in. His dad asked him if he knew the guy at the back door. But Tristan just said that he was some guy at Chris's party who apparently followed him home. Tristan's dad then said, well, after I yelled at him, the guy ran off. He shouldn't come back, but if he does, let me know. Tristan's dad then said good night to him and walked back to his his room. When Tristan's dad opened his door, Khaleesi walked out and walked into Tristan's room. I walked out of the closet, and me and Tristan tried to go back to sleep with Khaleesi now laying on the foot of the bed. Tristan fell back asleep eventually, but I still couldn't sleep. It was maybe like 4 in the morning, and I finally felt myself begin to doze off when Khaleesi then began to growl. It was a low growl, but it was enough to get my attention. Now, Khaleesi was a Siberian husky, and huskies are known for being very vocal dogs. Well, not Khaleesi. She barely ever made any noise. In fact, for the year and a half Me and Tristan have been dating, I've only ever heard her bark once. I had never heard her growl before, though. She got up off the bed and walked up by the window on the far, far left wall. I watched as she showed her teeth and began to growl louder. Now I felt really uneasy. I woke up Tristan and brought his attention to what she was doing. Tristan agreed it was really out of character for her. Then there was a tap on the window. Me and Tristan just looked at each other in horror, and Khaleesi started to bark at the window. Tristan got up and drew the blinds to the window, and it was the same guy from the party peering into the window with the most creepiest smile I'd ever seen. With this, I actually screamed, and Tristan's dad came barging into the room, then ran out, ran into his room, grabbed his shotgun, and then ran out the back door. Then there was yelling coming from outside as we saw the guy at the window look behind him and then run away from the window. Eventually, Tristan's dad came back inside and then ran the guy off. He was definitely upset that I was there, especially since he knew my mom didn't give me permission to be here, nor did he. I told him all about that Charlie guy at the party, how creepy he was, and how that was the same guy and that he followed us here from the party. Tristan's dad explained that he was upset that I was here because if my mom found out, she could be pretty mad at him. But he said that he also knew that she'd probably be more pissed off if he sent me home after that creep had been outside the whole time, especially with him still out there somewhere. He said that he chased the guy with his gun until the guy ran into the woods across the street, and he then decided that he wasn't worth the chase and that he probably won't come back anyway. He asked if I wanted him to call the cops, but I told him no because I didn't want my mom finding out I was here. He said okay, told us good night, and then went back to bed. Finally I was able to get some sleep, and as far as I know, the guy never came back that night. But the story doesn't end there. That whole thing happened maybe two weeks ago, and the most recent experience occurred three nights ago when Tristan dropped me off from my house at 11pm after we had hung out at his house for a bit. I got ready for bed and I think I fell asleep around 1am I woke up at 3am with the need to pee. I was comfortable in bed and I didn't really want to get up, but then I heard the driveway alarm go off through the house, which wasn't alarming because we had a lot of deer that would sometimes set it off. After a few minutes I could no longer hold it and I got up to go to the bathroom. I was about to open my bedroom door to go to the bathroom when suddenly I had heard the garage door now open, which wasn't that weird or anything since my brother's room was in the basement and the basement was connected to the garage, so I figured it was just my brother coming to get a snack or something. I was gonna open the door, but when I put my hand on the door handle, I suddenly just felt like something was wrong and that something was telling me to not open that door. I can't tell you why. It was just a sudden deep gut feeling. As I pondered on whether or not I was just being paranoid, I heard footsteps coming down the hallway. I told myself it was just my brother and that he was probably just going to the bathroom, but the footsteps now got closer and they stopped right outside my door. After a few seconds of silence, there was a slight knock. Again, Trying not to think too much into it since my brothers knocked on my door late in the night before to ask me something random or just annoy me like brothers do, I then replied, yes, what is it? There was no reply. Grayson, is that you? I called out. Then there was a voice that was not my brother's, but I couldn't understand what he was saying. But I did recognize the voice. It was Charlie. My heart did a flip and dropped straight to my stom stomach. I then immediately locked my door. My door had a cursive pink S on it that stood for my name. So it's not that hard to guess that my room is a girl's room. I knew then that the Charlie guy had broken into my house. Then the guy started trying to open my door. Once he realized it was locked, he started pulling and twisting the door handle really hard and banging and knocking on the door in an attempt to break it down. I assume I screamed really loud. Now my parents have this really loud industrial fan in their room that they keep on because they both need the room to be really cold. And my mom can't sleep without the noise of a fan on. It's so loud I can hear it through the wall separating our rooms. So I was almost afraid that my parents wouldn't hear me. But I then heard mumbling and my stepdad burst out of their room. I then hear the Charlie guy run down the hallway and through the garage door, followed by my stepdad screaming and running after him. At this point, my mom came running out too, trying to open my door. Upon hearing her voice on the other side, I then quickly unlocked the door and let her in. She asked me what happened and I began to tell her all about the creepy Charlie guy at the party, only leaving out a few details. However, I didn't tell her about him following me and Tristan back to his house. House? I didn't want my mom to know that I slept over. I know that it was probably a stupid decision and I probably should have just told her, but I was really afraid that I'd get in trouble. My mom looked horrified and began to pray. So did I. My stepdad eventually came back into the house saying he lost the guy after he ran into the woods behind her house. Just like before. My mom and stepdad then began to ask me a ton of questions. Questions mainly wanting to know how the guy found out where we lived. I honestly had no idea unless he somehow stalked me the last two weeks since the party and found out where I lived. We called the cops and the cops asked me questions, but the information I had didn't help them much since I only had the guy's first name. For all I know, Charlie wasn't even this guy's name. I gave them a brief description. They said they'd look into it, but we never heard Anything back from them? Like I said, there wasn't really much they could do. Nothing was stolen as I'm pretty sure I was the guy's main target. I'm not really sure why the guy targeted me or what I did to cause him to have such an obsession with me, but I'm sure if it wasn't me, he would have targeted one of the other girls at the party that night too. Well, come to find out, the guy entered through the back door downstairs because my brother woke up having to use the bathroom, but he didn't want to go all the way upstairs so he went outside. But since he was half asleep, he forgot to relock the door so the guy just walked right inside. I'm just really glad my brother was safe. We asked literally everyone from the party and apparently nobody even knew that guy. Chris even said that he did any even know a Charlie and Chris Brother said that he did not invite that guy, but he remembered seeing him at the party and that he thought the guy was kind of sketchy but that he figured he was just someone's plus one. This was three days ago and I haven't seen or heard anything since. I don't think the police ever found out who the guy was, but nothing alarming has happened since. I just hope the guy doesn't come back. I didn't mention that the police did check the camera footage in my house to see if they could identify the guy, but he was wearing a face mask and a hoodie. It did show him walking down my driveway trying to get in through the front door and then going on through the back and everything else that happened from there. But the footage didn't help them identify him. Unfortunately, the fact that he walked to my house makes me afraid that he lives in the area. I'll be sure to update if anything else happens. This isn't something that I would normally share and I hope that I don't regret it somehow. I'm not sure if anyone will hear this, but I'm sharing it in hopes that it'll inspire someone to stay safe. Safer than I was. I'm not really sure if trigger warnings are needed or suggested here, but just out of consideration of others, I'd like to warn everyone that I'll be briefly mentioning sexual assault with as little details as possible. One year ago, around this time, I was bored and scrolling the web when I decided to go on Omegle. Nothing unusual for me. Omegle was a now shut down website that allowed you to talk to strangers via video or Text chat. It was around for a long time and I used it frequently when I was younger as a time waster. There were plenty of creeps on there, sure, but I've had an equal amount of pleasant interactions and conversations on that website. On Omegle you could type in tags basically the keywords that describe the type of conversation or person you're looking for and you can match with someone with the same same ones. I always used alt for alternative. I feel like it weeded out a lot of rude people and connected me to more people my age. For reference, I was 19 at the time. I connected with someone who called himself Kane and we started chatting via text. He said he was 23 and I said my age back. We exchanged some small talk and before I knew it we were talking all night. And I mean all night. We lived in the same time zone and I had stayed up until about 6am Chatting about philosophy and life and our interest just because he was entertaining and I was having fun. We were talking about our general areas that we live in and he said abruptly we should meet up sometime. I laughed, but it turned out he was serious and it turns out we only live three, four hours away from each other. So he was really considering this. I'm an anxiety ridden person, but for whatever reason I thought that he might be normal due to the fact that I just spent hours and hours talking to him and didn't pick up on any red flags. So I said sure, why the hell not? I know, I know this isn't an incredibly stupid mistake. I have a big heart though and I frequently make the mistake mistake of giving others the benefit of the doubt. So just like that, we had started planning a camping trip. He was set on doing it just days after that morning because that's when he was off work. Next. I agreed because I didn't have anything to do at the time. I asked for his number so we could talk somewhere else other than Omegle about the trip. He gave it to me, I texted it and I noted the messages showed green on my iPhone. This indicated that he was using a Samsung or Android. Teasingly, I said something along the lines of what's up with the Samsung? After a few minutes he texted back saying that he had two phones and that one was for work. That was the first red flag that went off in my head. Why would he need two phones for work at his age? I mean of course there's possible reasons, but it just set off that intuitive, intuitive feeling. One that I regret not listening to. I asked what his job was, and he said that he worked for the state. He added that he isn't allowed to share details about his job because he signed papers saying that he wouldn't and that he could get fired if he were to violate this agreement. I was still weary of this, but I just figured that he worked for a police station or the town council or something to do with law enforcement and that I was probably just overthinking. Days passed and the day for our camping trip approached quickly. He wanted to take me to someplace close to where he lives. Namham Mountain in New York. Don't worry, this isn't near my house at all and I don't give a damn about violating his fake privacy after what he took from me. Obviously I wanted to do at least a little research about where I was going, so I popped the name into Google. A bunch of results popped up about the soil on Nimham Mountain being contaminated with arsenic due to the old mines in the area. All of the government and state articles I read said that it was still safe to hike there and that you should wash your skin and shoes after hiking. I still had a feeling of unease about the whole thing though. I texted Kane and asked him why we were going to someplace that could potentially be dangerous. He assured me that nothing would happen happen and he said he chose the spot because it's somewhere he and his friends frequently camp. This slightly reassured me. He does know the area better than me after all. My parents are definitely over suspicious of everyone. Strict is also a safe word for good reason though. They're just protective. I told them that I was going to meet up with a friend that I met over a video game and that I already knew him for a month. I knew this would be less likely to freak them out than the truth. They were adamant that this was a horrible idea, but finally let me go off. When Kane pulled into my driveway. He didn't come inside and waited outside of his car for me. After a brief introduction, my mom rushed out to meet him and asked a few questions about the area we were headed off to. Then we were off. We pulled into a Starbucks by my house so he could get a coffee since he was really tired from the drive up. We sat in his car for about an hour and a half afterwards. During that time he had asked me to rate the playlist that he put on and he showed me how he writes down every song that he likes in a little notebook that he kept in his car. I thought it was weird, but kind of sweet. Like what guy These days writes down songs. After an hour or so so passed, I told him we should get going so we can get to the campsite before dark. He just kept saying five more minutes. After about 30 minutes of insisting we needed to leave to make it on time, he finally let us start on the road. While we drove the four hours up to our destination, Kane mostly talked about himself. He told me long stories about his friends and a girl that he used to date that he doesn't like. I thought that was strange. Who talks about another woman to a girl like this? After telling stories for about two hours, I tried to deviate to a brighter topic and I asked what kind of things he's into hobby wise. I already knew the stuff that he told me online, but I was trying not to suffer from awkward silence or any more of his weird ramblings. He said that he thinks that eating healthy is important and that that people who eat junk food are stupid. He also says that he only wears sustainable clothing that's made from cotton or wool. I don't have a problem with being sustainable, but he was saying it in a really obnoxious way. Then he turned to me and asked the first question about me since we got in the car. So what brought you to Omegle? I told him that I was bored and that I like meeting new and interesting people. And that was about it. He nodded slowly in thought and grinned, showing the most expression that I've seen on his face so far. He said that he likes to go on a mele and tell people that he's a soldier in Russia and that he was torturing people as he spoke to them. I kind of just sat there in silence and just stared at him, waiting for him to say that he was just kidding and that he just has some messed up sense of humor. But he didn't. He just laughed and said what? As we neared the campsite, I mentioned that I was getting kind of hungry. He said that we can stop at a Whole Foods before going to camp for the night. In my head I sighed about this, knowing he was probably going to judge me for whatever I picked out there. But it wasn't a problem for me and I was hungry, so I agreed. In Whole Foods, he made me pay for both of our meals wheels because his card wouldn't work there. He didn't even try. This annoyed me, but I was just eager to get to camp. So I paid and we sat down outside to eat. After about an hour, we were finally ready to get to camp. We drive up the mountain and he pulls into a small parking area with about three spots. Cars were parked there and older men were surrounding the cars smoking weed. Nothing they were doing doing was wrong, but it just made me uncomfortable that they were there so late at night before I could even mention it. Kane says that it's too cold for him to carry our supplies to the campsite and set up camp, which was only about a 10 minute walk. I was taken aback by this. I then said, uh, what do you mean? I'll help you. We didn't come up here for nothing. He insisted and he told me to get out of the car to feel how cold it was. He said it would take a while to pitch our tent and that it was too much for us. There was no way that I was getting out of the car and facing the men in the parking spot next to us. So I rolled down the window halfway and then stuck my hand out. It was freezing. He was right about that. That night it was in the 30s and the wind chill felt worse after being higher up. I was annoyed, but I agreed to sleeping in his car for the night. I was sad that our trip was basically wasted. He sat there in silence for a while, seemingly uncomfortable that I was annoyed and unsure how to comfort me. I slinked back into the passenger seat and started to scroll on social media, trying to pass the time. He grabbed my phone out of my hand and then said come here. And he patted his lap. I was already annoyed at the situation and also confused on what he thought he was doing. I then just said yeah, you're funny and reached for my phone which he had then tossed onto the floor of the car. Before I could get to it, he reached over and scooped me out of the seat and then tossed me onto the back seats. He then proceeded to rape me. I don't remember most of it. My eyes were squeezed sh shut and I was just praying for it to end. After he was done, he then pushed me back onto the seats and got dressed. He then smiled and said, well, how was it? I just stared back at him with tears in my eyes. I climbed back into the front seat and he propped his feet up on the wheel and went to sleep. I didn't know what to do. I sat there motionless in the back seat for about two hours trying. Trying to process what the hell just happened to me. I considered calling my mom, calling 911. I thought about it for what felt like hours. I already had been assaulted once in my life and it broke my parents hearts. I knew then learning of this would absolutely destroy them and I was also afraid of what would happen if I told them I didn't want my dad or brother to go to jail for life because they were angry and got revenge against the sky. So I just sat there all night watching the men outside stare into the car and smoke on their joints. I don't remember falling asleep, but I eventually woke up to wind hitting the car. I was in a fetal position, sitting upright, holding my legs with my arms. Kane noticed that I was awake and said that it was time to go. I was so scared of him it felt like my heart was leaping out of my throat. Adrenaline was pumping through my body and I started scanning the back seat in our overnight bags for something I could use as a weapon just in case they were to pursue me again. I ended up holding on to my full metal water bottle. It wasn't deadly by any means, but it could knock someone out and holding onto it made me feel safer. I stayed in the back and Kane started driving. I asked where we were going and he said said for us to get breakfast, almost as if that was obvious and it was silly for me to ask. After driving down the mountain back into the city, we pulled into a parking garage and he tells me to get out, that we're here. I get out of the car and cling close to it, not wanting to let him get behind me. I was thinking about making a run for it, but I didn't want to risk getting chased and overpowered by him. I followed him to a little Mexican spot on the corner and he told me to order pancakes so he could have some. This obviously made me even more pissed than I already was, but I didn't say anything because I was afraid there would be consequences if I showed any negative emotions. At this point. I ate a few bites of my food and he happily ate the rest off my plate. He paid quickly with cash and took me back to the car where he laid down in the backseat. He said he was going to take a nap because he didn't sleep well last night. I didn't want to argue with him so I let him sleep. How could he sleep so soundly after what he did to me? He slept for about three hours. The whole time I was watching YouTube videos, trying to calm myself down and keep a clear head. It was around 9am and around this time my mom was waking up and texted me saying saying that she wants me home. I told her that Kane was taking a nap and that I would be home soon. She didn't like the sound of that and insisted that I come home immediately. I was happy to have a reason to get the hell out of there, one that might be convincing to Kane. I woke him up and he became angry with me, saying don't wake me up next time. Play on your phone, watch TikTok or something. I was shaken but I managed to say that my mom wanted me home and that we needed to go. He said to let him sleep for 30 more minutes and he told me to set a timer on my phone. I did. 30 minutes felt like 30 hours and once it went off I woke him once again. This time I filmed myself waking him up because I was really afraid of what was going to happen. He was angry once again and I told him that the 30 minutes was up. I asked to leave, begging him to leave and he just said no. Over and over. He said that we aren't leaving yet. I was shaking uncontrollably, but I put on a brave face and pretended like I was being playful. Okay, I'll just get an Uber then, I said. I turned around and started to open the car door when I felt his hand grab my shoulder then dig into it, yakking me back in place. I honestly think I blacked out from fear for a few seconds. He then said, what the hell do you think you're doing? His hand was still on my shoulder, his finger squeezing into my skin. My mind was racing and I was on the verge of tears. This caught my eye and I quickly played it off by saying that my mom would call the police or come to get me if I wasn't home soon. I had also mentioned earlier that my dad works in law enforcement, so this was a little bit more believable of a lie. At the mention of police, something changed in his face. He looked frantic. He let me go and then happily agreed to drive me home. I felt a deep relief, the deepest relief I've ever felt. I then swallowed the lump in my throat as he climbed to the front seat and started our 5 hour drive back to my house. The drive back was much quieter than the drive up. I didn't say anything unless he initiated. I just gripped my phone in my hand and tried not to make eye contact with him. I wondered if he had any remorse for what he did in those moments. When we reached the town where I live, it was 11:30 at night. Kane pulled into the main strip to get to my house and I saw flashing lights behind me. My instinct was to be terrified because my dad is a cop, so I've always made Extra sure not to break any traffic laws. The police pulled us over and two men stepped out of the COB car. I frantically rolled down my window so they could see my familiar face, the daughter of their boss. One of them greeted me and looked both concerned and disappointed that I was in the car with someone getting pulled over. The other cop told Kane to get out of the car while I explained what we were doing out so late. I spared the illegal and horrific details. I was tired, scared, and I needed to be safe in my own home. I also didn't want them waking up my sleeping dad with such bad news. I overheard the second officer ask Kane about his info. When he then said, what's your name, son? Kane fumbled and he said to speak up. The name he gave was not Kane, and he told the Officer he was 22, night 23. My heart sank into my feet as I sat motionless while they explained to Kane that he missed a stop sign and that they're letting him off with a warning. They told me to get home and I nodded my head. When we pulled off, I let my emotions take over and I started screaming at the stranger I was sitting next to. Why did you lie to me? What the hell's wrong with you? It looked distressed from the volume of my yelling, and he told me to calm down, that he was sorry he lied. He said that he only lied about his identity for his own safety. That honestly baffled me, considering that he had just assaulted me. I screamed at him all the way to my house, and as we pulled in, I threw the car doors open and started throwing my stuff onto the lawn, desperate to just get the hell away from him. He tried to talk to me to offer more pitiful excuses for his disgusting actions, but I screamed at him to get the hell away from me and that I never wanted to see him ever again. I gathered my stuff off the lawn and then hauled it into my room. While my parents slept soundway unaware of the terrible secret I had, I woke up my mom and told her that I was home as she requested. Once I got to my room, I broke down. What happened to me was starting to sink in. As I was sobbing silently into my blanket, my phone lit up with a text from Kane. It read, I'm sorry what happened. I really am. If it makes you feel any better, I just got pulled over. So that's my karma, I guess. Let me know if you want to talk. I felt a wave of nausea hit me like a train. I screenshotted the message, blocked his number, and deleted his contact. I haven't heard from him since and I haven't hung out with anyone since. Sense besides my boyfriend who thank God is normal. I still think about what happened almost every day and I still feel sick when someone I don't know gets close to me. Even if it's just a stranger passing me by in the grocery store. I know that what happened was the product of my own irrational teenage actions. I know that I shouldn't have met up with someone that I didn't know, but I really had faith that he would be a normal person. Somewhat, at least, I wish I would have listened to my instincts and to my parents warnings. I don't know what would have happened if I didn't make up that police story and I don't even want to think about it. I will never meet up with someone I don't know again while trying to cope with what happened to me. I had googled Nimhem Mountain again. I found a link that said Cane Mountain North Trail Loop, New York if you made it this far or you take anything away from the story, please let it be this. Trust your instincts. Trust your gut. If something feels wrong, it probably is. Don't meet up with strangers no matter how good they look or how normal they seem. This was a lengthy story and I apologize for that. It was hard for me to share that after all this time, after carrying this secret for so long. I'm doing this in hopes that it inspires someone out there to follow my advice and help keep themselves safe. What happened to me was disgusting and horrible and I never want it to happen to anyone else again. That being said Kane, screw you and I hope you're rotting in jail or hell right now. I want to assure everyone that yes, I am getting the help to cope with what what happened. I go to EDMR therapy weekly and my doctors, therapists and psychiatrists all know about the event. I'm not really interested in sharing my story with my parents or friends as it would just cause me even more pain. I'm doing well now and I'll continue to get support I never heard from Kane after the night I got home. Thankfully, he's been pulled over multiple times that I know of, so his name is already in the police database. I push myself to share this story in hopes of spreading awareness about online safety and trusting your instincts. I give everyone permission to share my story. Share it with your little sisters, cousins, nieces, every young woman in your life who might make the same mistakes that I did. My name is Devin and I'm a 33 year old female. When I was 10, my mom, stepdad and sister lived on a tin house cul de sac right off a very busy street in our city, but was still considered quite safe. One day I was playing outside in the front yard with our weenie dog who barked so much that we actually named him Woofitz. Wolfitz and I were playing out front around maybe 5pm or so, so it was still light out. All of a sudden a black sedan came pulling up in front of my house and then a middle aged man got out and started walking towards me asking if I knew where Gary lived. I replied honestly, telling him that I didn't know anyone by that name and that he must be mistaken. As I'm telling him this, he continues walking closer and closer to me asking me if I can just hop in his car and help him find Gary's house because it's one of his son's friends and he can't get a hold of him. I repeatedly told the man no and that I didn't have any information to help him. Keep in mind, Wolfitz is outright losing his crap the entire time and causing a ruckus. Right about that time he had made it to about 10ft away from me, extending his hand and still attempting to coax me into the car with him. My mom, who was in the middle of making dinner at the time, finally came storming out the front door yelling at Woofitts to stop barking. At which time the man. The man then saw her and he immediately ran to his car and sped off. You would think that would be the end of it, right? No. That same sedan came back circling up and down our whole street every single day for the entire following week. My parents eventually reported it to the police, but nothing ever came of it. Stay safe out there everyone. And especially keep your little children safe. For this story I'm going to refer to my sister as S instead of using her real name. It was a warm summer afternoon in 2014 in Australia. I was around 7 years old and S was 10. My mom had just gone to the shops with my grandma and other sister. S and I were sitting on the couch wondering where our dog Patty was. We looked around the house and outside for some explanation. My grandparents home was on top of a hill with houses on each side of their place and also houses across the road. The house sat back off the road about 20 meters with two gates on each side that led down the driveway to the backyard. We walked out onto the decking that overlooked the street and we realized that one of the gates was open. So us being kids and in a fairly safe area, we decided to go for a walk to try and find our dog. Once we left through the gate, we turned right and about 50 meters down the road was a street on our right side. We decided to walk down there to see if we could spot Patty. When an old white car sped around the corner and then stopped about 20 meters in front of us. Both the driver and passenger doors opened and then two men hopped out, looking to be in their early to mid-30s. The driver was a smaller guy, while the passenger was more of a bigger guy. The bigger guy asked if we were lost and if we needed a lift home. Now, being aware of stranger danger, we told them no, we didn't need a ride as we just lived around the corner. They insisted that we get inside, but as we said no again and started backing away. The bigger guy then started yelling at us to get in the car. Car. We said no once more and he then picked something up and threw it at us, but he missed. He once again then told us to get in and started walking towards us. So we began running. As we got about 20 meters up the street, I looked back and I saw that the smaller guy seemed to have some sort of weapon and he was now running at us. Was it a gun? A knife? I can't remember exactly what it looked like except that it was all black and about 25cm long. I just told s to run faster. We were gaining ground on him. Once we got to the end of the street, we ran into the front yard of someone's house and then hid behind their fence. We heard their car start up and then drive down the other end of the street. We then decided to book it home. We got to the gate and Patty walked up from the left side of the road. We grabbed him and then ran inside. I forgot to mention that my grandpa was still in the house. We called out to our grandpa and he then came up from down in the shed. We told him what happened and he just told us to go wait upstairs as our mom would be arriving home any second. We sat at the window looking out for the car as we were going to try and get the plates. If they happened to drive past to report to the cops. Lo and behold, they drove past looking out their windows, I'm assuming looking for us. And they went around the block a few times. The car was all dirty, so we only got three letters of the license plate. We called the police once mom got home and told them everything, but unfortunately nothing else ever came of the situation. I know this story isn't as exciting as the others, but it sure was the scariest thing to ever happen to Smith and I. I'm very glad that we knew when something was off and didn't get in the car with the strangers. I would hate to know what would have happened if we'd gotten in that car that day, and I really hope that nothing ever happened to any other children around that area. I'm a girl and my mom was a horrible addict. She barely took care of me as a kid. At the time of the this incident, I was around six or seven, so my awareness and understanding of things happening may not totally make much sense. This happened in the 90s. One night my mother and I were on a car ride. I wasn't sure why we were driving, but it was late at night. I'm not sure what time it was, but I assumed that it was really late because there weren't that many cars on the street and I was sleeping in the back seat seat. I don't even remember getting in the car. My mom drove up to some sketchy house and then left me in the car for what felt like forever. Suddenly, the car door swung open and someone violently grabbed me by my arm and then yanked me right out of the car. I started screaming and crying until the man that grabbed me looked me in my eyes and then said, be quiet and don't try and run or I'll kill you. He. He had a scruffy beard and looked like a madman. I was scared to death, so I listened. He held me tight by my arm, shut the car door, and then walked with me down the street. I looked back at the house my mom was in, hoping that my mom would come out at the last second and just save me. I looked at the house as long as I could as the man dragged me further and further away. As we walked down the street, I wanted to cry, but I was in shock. Shock and in fear. I didn't know what to do. If I sniffled or cried, the man would tighten his grip and yell at me. I can't even explain how scared and confused I was. We walked for a little while and we ended up in the projects. The projects were a bunch of buildings crammed together in a crappy neighborhood. We walked into one of the buildings and then walked up a flight of stairs. My legs and feet hurt like hell, but again I was way too scared to stop moving or complain. We walked up another flight of stairs when I saw Some random guy smoking a cigarette in the stairway. Then without warning, the guy that kidnapped me fell to the ground. It happened so fast. I didn't know how the kidnapper fell to the ground so fast. But the next thing I remember is the cigarette guy was punching and kicking the kidnapper in his head and face. The kidnapper went was out cold. Cigarette guy picked up the kidnapper by the back of his jacket and then threw him down the stairs. You have no idea how scary and violent it is to see an unconscious man fall down the stairs. To this day, I still have a fear of falling down the stairs. He bled everywhere. I still have no idea how that cigarette guy knew to help me, but I'm glad he did. Maybe he just picked up on some something and had a bad vibe. But he acted instantly. The first second he could, he attacked my would be kidnapper. Cigarette guy starts pacing back and forth, swearing at himself, gritting his teeth and then clenching his fists. I thought he was mad at me, so I started to cry. He then looked at me and said okay, okay. Shut up. Shut up. He had an attitude, so I listened to him out of fear. I wasn't as scared of cigarette guy as much as the bearded guy, but I was still in fear of him. He started to ask me questions with an attitude like why are you out this late? Where are your parents? Why would you ever talk to strangers? I was in so much shock and confusion that I couldn't answer the man's questions correctly. He asked if I knew my way home, but I told him I didn't. I told him a broken story about what happened and somehow with the information I gave him, he knew where my mom's car was. The only thing I remember about the road is passing a house with Christmas lights on it. Despite Christmas already being over, I think he knew the area well enough and figured out where I needed to go from the information. But I honestly don't even remember telling him about the Christmas lights. Anyways, he told me he would take me back if I promised over and over that I wouldn't tell the police that I saw him or anyone that looked like him. And he made me promise that I wouldn't even tell the police anything. He had an attitude. I didn't care what he asked me. I just wanted to go back to my mom. So I agreed. I followed him down the stairs. The bearded guy was still laying on the ground bleeding at the bottom of the stairs that the cigarette guy threw him down. He wasn't moving at all for all now I know he was dead and I hope now that he is. Cigarette Guy stepped over the bearded guy and I followed. We walked outside and Cigarette Guy looked around all panicky. I remember him telling me the police don't like me. We walked out of the projects and my feet still hurt. Cigarette Guy was walking fast in a panic and I had to basically jog to keep up with that. I started crying and he had asked what was wrong. I told him that my feet hurt and I remember him sucking his teeth and then picking me up with an attitude. He kind of awkwardly cradled me in both arms. He walked down the road for a moment. I then remember him swearing and running behind a house or a building. A cop car was driving down the road. He then put me down and told me to run to the police car. I tried to run but my legs could barely move and I was scared. The cop car kept driving and rode away without even seeing me before I could even get remotely close to it. He kept swearing to himself as he then picked me up again and then ran down the street. He took me behind a lot of houses and hid from every cop car that drove by. I assumed now that the police were looking for me. He carried me in both arms running fast down the road. When I then saw my mom at her car in the distance, she was now surrounded by the police. Cigarette Guy put me down and told me to run to the police. I got so excited that the pain in my legs just disappeared. He put me down and ran away. I ran towards the police and my mom and my mom picked me up and hugged me tight. The police then started to ask me and my mom questions. I don't remember. I didn't remember too much about their questions. But I remember my mom telling the police some convoluted story that just didn't make any sense. She basically just told me not to say anything and I didn't really say much, but I really cried a lot. We then went home. Days later, my dad picked me up and knew something was wrong. I told him everything. I never lived with my mom again. When I grew up and had to think about that day, I really never forgave my mother. Not too long ago, I had asked my dad what he remembers about the situation and he told me what he thinks happened. From what I explained to him a few years ago, he said that my mom was on a drug binge, I got kidnapped and that someone saved me. But the person that saved me had warrants for his arrest and that he wasn't actually mad at me. He was just really frustrated with his own situation that he had to do deal with. Imagine being a criminal on the run and now you have a kidnapped girl with you and you just beat up a guy half to death. If he would have gotten caught with me, he could be in jail for my kidnapping. With my mom lying and me being in shock and confused, I wouldn't be able to tell them that the man helped me because while it was all happening, I didn't even notice he was helping me. To the man that saved me, thank you. And to the man that tried to kidnap me, me. Hopefully I never see you again. I think that I found Cigarette Guy. Someone on Reddit knows a man with a similar story. I really hope both people are the same. So far it actually looks like it's the same man that saved me. I'll keep everyone posted. Update 2 I finally received confirmation I found Cigarette Guy. Recently, someone commented on my original post claiming to know someone who could be Cigarette Guy because they had told a similar story to mine. The locations and small details that I left out seemed to match up. I simply had to wait for the commenter to get in contact with hopefully the Cigarette Guy. The way the commenter knew him was that they were online friends and played video games together. The commenter was on a work trip so he couldn't contact Cigarette Cigarette Guy for a few days, so I had to wait for a little while for contact to be made between them. Today the commenter got in touch with me and he told me he talked to Cigarette Guy and he said a few more details that confirmed that it was the same man that saved me when I was a kid. I'm so excited that I don't know what to do with myself right now. I'm currently waiting to get his phone number so I can talk to him. I want to thank him and see how he's doing. We talked a little bit between his friends sending messages back and forth, but we're trying to set something up so we can actually speak to each other Personally. I just wanted to thank everyone for their nice words and well wishes. I'm very thankful for everyone interested in my story because it actually ended up reaching someone that knew the person who saved me and we have the chance to be back in contact after all these years. Final Update I had the chance to talk to him a few days ago. He was cautious and he didn't know if he could trust me, but after a little while he opened up and we then talked for a good amount of time. There's A lot of questions that he answered for me, but I'm not sure exactly what he would feel comfortable with me sharing with everyone. So I plan on speaking to him again soon and asking him what he would want. He's in a better position in life and he handled his legal troubles. He's doing a lot better now in his life and I'm just still so grateful that he saved me and we were able to reconnect. He really did save my life that day. This is something that was super traumatic for me, but it was never discussed again in my household. I was talking with my mom about it the other night and she still didn't really say much. I thought I would share my thoughts with you all. When I was 13, I got a Dell desktop for school. The Internet was fairly new for me back in 2003. AOL, MySpace, Yahoo messenger, AOL chat rooms, 16 female Cali anyone? AOL chatrooms was where I went. I was a shy overweight kid back then, still shy to this day. But online. Online I could be anyone. I could say anything. It was amazing. I discovered so many things when I got on the Internet. But if I could be anyone, so could someone else. Thus how I met one 27 year old man. One night I logged on. The AOL dial up sound still makes me feel uneasy. I was sitting in my cold, dark darn kitchen. The computer was there so I could be monitored. It was just me and my mom though and she was always working so no one ever actually monitored me. Plus she had no idea how to use a computer. So I got away with a lot. I was bored so I hopped into an AOL chat room. I lurked for a bit then. 15 year old female here in the chat. I was really 13 but saying I was 15 made me feel so much more mature. Private messages then started coming in. Hey, my name is Rob. Where are you from? Is how it started. I told him where I was from that I was in high school, which wasn't a lie. My school was from the 7th to 12th grade. You. I then put in the chat asking him to say 19 mil New York. Oh man, was it cool to be talking to an older guy. And boy was he cute. I honestly don't really remember that much. Maybe I blinked it out, maybe my memory is just shot. I do remember emails back and forth, the occasional phone call. I remember finding out that he was talking to another girl and I wanted to break things off but he begged and pleaded until I caved. Then the let's not meet part. I was Nervous. He had never asked for a pic. He'd never really asked for much from me, just the emails, back and forth, a phone call a day. But somehow he made me feel safe, Made me feel wanted, cared for. He drove from New York to West Virginia one day. My mom worked right beside my house so we parked about a quarter mile away and took the back alley to enter my house. My friend was with me when he showed up, but she was scared when she'd seen him and then ran out the back door. I maybe should have taken a hint from that, but I just stood on the back porch with my head down. I was given a hug as he led me inside. Not five minutes after being there, sitting on the couch, did he move things further then even further into my bedroom. I won't get get into the details on what happened next. I assume that most of you can guess. After that he left. He gave me instructions to get in his car after I got off the school bus and we'll go on a date. I had no idea where he was staying. I lived extremely far in the country, an hour's drive from the closest hotel. The next day I get ready for school and then ride the bus for the 45 minute drive. As soon as I hop off in the school parking lot, I get directly into his car. No one noticed. No one said anything. We drove around. We never even go on a date. He just finds different places to park so that he can use me. I noticed a photo of another young girl, 15 or 16 in the visor of his car. I question him. I actually believe when he tells me it's his cousin. Believe when I question why his hairline is receding so much. Believe him when he tells me that I can't see his driver's license because he left it in the hotel. Believed him when he said that he loved me. I get dropped off at school. Super sad that he was going back home. All with promises that he'll call. Once again, everything feels very fuzzy. I can't remember many emotions from this time. I do remember that a few days later, later my mom says she found out that I skipped school with a man and that I was never allowed to see him again. And that was that. I do remember sending an email. I do remember a late night phone call. I remember saying that I wish I could just live with you. I remember him suggesting to come get me and I remember saying okay. Days later, by the time he made the drive again, I was really feeling iffy about leaving my mom. I mean I did love Her. After all, she's my mother. I didn't think things through. I didn't put much thought into anything really. I packed a few clothes in a suitcase, forgot all underwear. That is one of my sharpest memories. I felt bad that he drove eight hours to get me, so I actually left in the middle of the night. I got in the car with him and his cousin and he got in the backseat seat with me. He proceeded to have sex with me while his cousin drove, then got back in the front seat. This happened a few times between my home and his. The drive took forever. I had nothing to drink, was offered nothing. When they got something, they stopped to nap at a rest stop and I attempted to collect cold on my ma which was disabled. On our phone I dug around for some change to get something to drink, but I couldn't afford anything in the convenience store so I drink out of the truck stop sink. Hours later we park a block away from his house while he runs in to get something. I'm sitting in the backseat waking up from a nap when around eight or so men and women in black suits surround the car screaming for us to get out with our hands up. My first thought was damn. My first 10 minutes in New York and I'm already being rob. I'm absolutely terrified. I get out and a man pulls me over to the curb while the other officers force his cousin onto the ground. All the while they're asking my name and age, telling me to tell his cousin my age. I'm put in the back of an unmarked car, driven to the NYPD ride past reporters, cameras and news trucks. I'm then snuck into the back of the station. That's where I then see Robin in handcuffs for the last time. And for in love 14 year old me, this is devastating. I'm then taken into a room and questioned for hours. I'm then taken to the hospital, then a hotel where a nice woman brings me Taco Bell and stays with me as I fall asleep. The next day, two FBI officers escort me home on a plane. When I get off, I'm then greeted by police officers, my mother and a whole horde of news reporters. I later found out that when my mom reported me missing, the police didn't really want to do much. They didn't even take the picture of me. She had his license plate number. She remembered seeing his car parked by the road that first meeting. She took note of it since it was an out of state car. Good thing for her being vigilant. I find this is the only reason that I'm alive today. The police said they would look into into it. But that wasn't enough for my mom. She contacted a family friend who in turn contacted the governor of West Virginia, who then in turn made the police look further into it. After they ran the license number, they looked into the man and found out who it was. That was when they issued an Amber alert, noting that I was in extreme danger. My cousin told my mom that he looked at Rob's rap sheet and it was a mile long, but wouldn't tell my mother what was on it for fear of scaring her even more. I never went to court, never went to any hearings. But I did fall into a horrible depression. My friend's parents wouldn't let them hang out with me. People spray painted slut on my locker at school. I had no friends. But most of all, I thought a man was in prison for loving me. When I learned he got sentenced to 10 years in prison, I became deeply troubled. I was in and out of the mental hospital for self harm for years. I was also on a slew of depression medication. Psychiatrists never talked to me about anything. I had to process it all myself. My teenage years were better though. I transferred schools and made best friends, graduated. But still in the back of my mind, I felt that I was the reason that a man lost teeth 10 years of his life until I was then told that he was led out of prison. A couple of years after he was out, I contacted him on Facebook. At the time I was around 24 or 25 years old. He told me that if I ever contacted him again, he would kill both me and my mother. That he still knows where I live. I had no idea what he planned to do with me. My mom still says, selling me to a sex trafficker. I was told that he also had other girls my age he was talking to. Some good things did happen though. Because of my kidnapping. Schools all over my state started Internet safety education classes. Kids were taught safety. Parents were taught how to keep kids safe. No other girls were taken by this man. So to the man who ruined so many years of my life. I'm 29 now. I am happy, healthy and have zero remorse. Now now that you're listed as a level three sex offender and that you were in prison for so many years, I was very lucky. I was lucky I had a mom who never gave up. I was lucky she raised me as a single mother. I know it was hard on her. She had to deal with my depression, my anxiety, my acting out. She would visit me every single day that I was in the mental hospital as a teen, which totaled about a month at three different different times. She would work two jobs just to make sure that I had what I needed. Take me after working a 12 hour shift to an alternative school because I was kicked out of regular school for self harm. A lot of people don't understand how intoxicating it can be to have someone old or inexperienced interested in you. How that feeling of falling prey to someone lingers with you always. If you have kids, please check what they're doing online. You may trust them, but don't trust the creeps that linger. They're out there. While your kid might be smart and you know that they would never do anything crazy, it never ever hurts to actually check this happened around 2006 when I was in my mid-20s and my sister, the unfortunate main character in the story, had just turned 2021 at the time. She and her boyfriend lived with my fiance and I. On weekends we went out to one of the two bars that had karaoke, air hockey, etc. This particular night we were at the bar further out from where we lived in the city, a good half an hour by car. Everyone was having drinks, socializing with people we knew and singing karaoke. It was one of the those places. Lots of regulars, nothing out of the ordinary really. Except that night my sister started hanging out with these two older women who had a liquor store in their purses and were quite sharing although I didn't know it at the time as she tended to drink a lot more than me. That was a score for her. Less money spent on drinks, but she ended up far more hammered than usual. Towards the end of the night at around 1:45am she was really drunk. The aforementioned fiance, my sister's boyfriend and I were all in a heated air hockey game, planning to leave as soon as it was over. She walked up to us and said she was going to smoke a cigarette outside until we were done. Nothing unusual. Everyone did that. About five minutes later we paid our tab and walked out, but she was not on the porch here area where smokers congregated. Okay, weird but not alarming. We went out back of the bar to check for her inside, in the restroom and in the large parking lot too. It's notable that this particular bar was in a business park, so there were multiple businesses that were closed as well as the Mexican restaurant next door that had just closed as well. We searched and searched, asked everyone that knew us and and even those who didn't if they had seen her no one had. I asked the workers from the restaurant that were sitting outside as well. They seemed nervous when telling me they hadn't seen her, but I didn't really think that much about it until much later. By then I was in a full on panic after trying to call her cell about 15 times only to have it go straight to voicemail. Being a bit inebriated myself, I had started searching for her. I went as far as to take off my heels and started running down the highway searching for her as honestly, there had been times where she would start walking home in the past, though never from this place as it was so far away from where we lived. The fiance and her boyfriend thought we should go to the house and see if she got someone to bring her home. Seemed unlikely, but not heard of. We get home and she's nowhere to be found. Just as we were about to head back and I was going to phone the police, I had received a call from the police department on my phone. They indicated that they had my sister but that there had been an accident and I needed to get down there. We were rushed to the police department where we were taken into a room with my sister. Her face was red from obvious crying and bruises were starting to show on her arms and chest. She said that when she told her she was going outside, she thought we said we were leaving then. So she walked to the car. After a few minutes, being drunk and tired, she sat down up against it to wait. A van pulled up and then a young man was asking her directions to somewhere. She walked closer to try and explain when suddenly the back door flew open and then two other men grabbed her and then threw her in, taking off. They were rough with her, hitting her a few times while holding her down, saying. Saying they only wanted her money. They snatched her purse from her, breaking the straps and searched it quite haphazardly as they didn't find the $30 she had in it. After driving around a bit and them speaking in Spanish which she couldn't understand, they pulled out a gun, making sure she saw it, then put a bandana around her eyes telling her they'd let her go. She was driven to some woods by a neighborhood that she didn't know. The door was open and they pushed her out, telling her to run, that if she took the blindfold off or turn around, they'd shoot. Well, she ran and ran. Eventually she did take the blindfold off and came to the first door she saw, beating on it and screaming for help. The police were called. She was picked up. And now we're back to my being there. Hearing what I feared had happened, we filed a report. The police did a search and located the bandana she ripped off, but as she was so intoxicated and terrified, she wasn't able to give a clear description of the van other than white order model or the three occupants other than young Hispanic men. The investigation turned up nothing as no cameras caught any of this. Hell, we even had detectives in our home who said, look, we need the truth. If you got drunk and just went home with someone and didn't want your boyfriend to find out, we will file charges on you. Aside from the bruise's broken purse and her trauma, there was nothing concrete to go on. That was unpleasant. I'm still fairly convinced someone at the restaurant knew something, given their suspicious behaviors when I asked about her, but the police were never able to find that leak. All said and done, the guys were never found. We eventually just moved on in different states. It's now just a story in our lives. It still makes me sick thinking what could have happened, but thankfully didn't be safe out there, kids. When my dad and I moved into this small apartment, it was supposed to be a temporary solution while our house underwent renovations. We were adjusting to our new surroundings in the apartment complex, which for the most part was pretty quiet. Most of our neighbors kept to themselves and life was uneventful except for one family that lived a couple of doors down from us. The family consisted of a mother and her two adult children, a son and a daughter, both in their twenties. From the moment we moved in, it was clear that their household was far from peaceful. It seemed like every other day their arguments would spill out into the common areas of the complex. The son, a tall, muscular guy with a constant scowl, and his sister, a petite woman with an equally fiery temper, were always at each other's throats. Their mother, a weary looking woman with dark circles under her eyes, often tried to mediate, but her efforts were usually in vain. Despite the frequent disturbances, my dad and I tried to mind our own business. After all, we were only going to be there for a few months, and it didn't seem worth getting involved in someone else's family drama. But all of that changed on one sunny afternoon when the arguments escalated into something far more dangerous. I remember the day vividly. It was a lazy Saturday and I was in my room trying to focus on a book I'd been meaning to finish. My dad was in the living room tinkering with some electronics, his favorite pastime. It was the Usual sounds of the apartment complex. Distant conversations, footsteps, the hum of the appliances providing a comforting background noise. Suddenly, the familiar sound of yelling pierced the tranquility. I sighed and tried to ignore it, thinking it was just a noise, another one of their routine arguments. But this time the yelling was different. It was more urgent, more desperate. I put down my book and walked over to the window, curiosity getting the better of me. What I saw next made my blood run cold. The mother and daughter were outside, backing away from the building with terrified expressions on their faces. The son was following them, his face twisted in rage, and in his hand he held a large kitchen knife. He was shouting something unintelligible, but his intentions were clear. Dad. I yelled, my voice cracking with a panic. Come here. Quick. My dad rushed to my side and looked out the window. His eyes widened as he took in the scene. Without a moment's hesitation, he grabbed his phone and bolted for the door. I followed close behind, my heart pounding in my chest. By the time we reached the footpath outside, the situation had escalated even further. The son was now only a few feet away from his mother and sister, who were backed up against the wall with nowhere to go. My dad, who had always been a man of action, didn't waste any time. He lunged at the son, grabbing his arm in an attempt to wrestle the knife away. Call the police. He shouted over his shoulder at me. I fumbled my phone, my hands shaking as I dialed 911. My dad and the son were now locked in a struggle, the knife glinting in the sunlight as they fought for control. The mother and daughter watched in horror, too stunned to move. 911, what's your emergency? The operator's voice crackled through the phone. There's a man with a knife attacking his family. My dad's trying to stop him. We need help now. I blurted out, giving our address as quickly as I could. The operator assured me that help was on the way, but every second felt like an eternity. I watched in terror as my dad managed to pin the son to the ground, finally prying the knife knife away from his grasp. The son, surprisingly, didn't really resist much after that. He laid there, breathing heavily as my dad yelled at him to stay down. Moments later, the sounds of sirens filled the air, and several police cars screeched to a halt in front of the complex. Officers rushed out, guns drawn, and then quickly took control of the situation. They handcuffed the son and led him away, still seething with anger but not putting up a fight. The mother and daughter then collapsed to the ground now sobbing with relief, my dad, his face pale and his hands trembling, handed the knife over to one of the officers. I stood there, still clutching my phone, feeling a mixture of fear and admiration for my father's bravery. One of the officers approached us and took our statements. The mother, once she had composed herself enough to speak, explained that her son had severe anger issues. She told us that he had been struggling for years, and this wasn't the first time he had become violent. She expressed her gratitude to my dad for stepping in and possibly saving their lives. As the police drove the son away, I couldn't help but feel a sense of uneasiness. What if he came back? What if the situation escalated even further next time? These thoughts swirled in my mind as we returned to our apartment, the adrenaline slowly wearing off. For the next few days, the apartment complex was unusually quiet. The usual sounds of life had been replaced by an eerie silence, as if everyone was holding their breath, waiting to see what would happen next. The mother and daughter kept in themselves themselves, rarely leaving their apartment. About a month later, we noticed the son had returned. He looked different, more subdued, almost resigned. The mother had mentioned that he was undergoing treatment, but it was hard to believe that a month away could make such a drastic change. Surprisingly, there were no more arguments or yelling matches. The family seemed to have settled into a fragile peace, and the complex slowly returned to its normal state. But the incident had left a lasting impression on me. It was a stark reminder of how quickly life could change and how important it was to be prepared for the unexpected. As for my dad and I, our bond grew stronger after that day. I had always admired him, but seeing him in action, risking his own safety to protect liked others well, it made me realize just how lucky I was to have him. Our time in the apartment was temporary, but the lessons we learned and the experiences we shared during those months would stay with us forever. Eventually, the renovations on our house were completed, and it was time to move back home. As we packed up our belongings and prepared to leave the apartment, I couldn't help but reflect on everything that had happened. The apartment complex, once just a temporary home, had become a place of growth and learning for me. I looked out the window one last time, taking in the familiar view of the footpath and the rows of the connected houses. The memory of that fateful afternoon was still fresh in my mind, but now it was tempered with a sense of resilience and hope. Life was unpredictable, but with my dad by my side, I knew that we could face whatever challenges came our way. As we drove away. I glanced back at the apartment complex, a small smile playing on my lips. It had been a place of turmoil and fear, but also of courage and strength. And I know no matter where life took us next, I would always carry those lessons with me, ready to face the future with a newfound sense of confidence and determination. My name is Bob, and I've been a fan of this channel for a long time. I'm an older viewer, probably a lot older than most. I'm almost 70 years old now, but the story I want to share happened when I was just 10 years old. Back in the summer of 64, I had a job delivering milk around my neighborhood. Yes, I'm that old. It was a quiet suburb with neat lawns, picket fences, and cozy homes. Every morning before dawn, I would load up my bicycle with clinking glass bottles and pedal through the serene streets. One thing that set our neighborhood APART the mysterious Mr. Franklin, who lived at the end of Elderberry 11, Maine. His house was an old Victorian with dark curtains always drawn. Rumors said that he rarely came out during the day, preferring the COVID of night for his activities. I noticed Mr. Franklin during my third week on the milk route after leaving milk on Ms. Thompson's doorstep. Another local in the neighborhood. I had felt a shiver down my spine. Turning around, I saw him. Mr. Franklin, standing in his overgrown garden, his pale face framed by messy gray hair. His unsettling smile made my heart race. From then on, I always felt his eyes on me during my deliveries. Sometimes I'd catch glimpses of him behind his curtains or see his figure under a street lamp. It seemed that he was always, always watching, but never approaching. As time passed, Mr. Franklin's presence became more real to me. My bike would be moved, or I'd hear footsteps behind me in dark alleys. One foggy morning, I saw him standing far away under a street light. His smile directed not at me, but something behind me, a chilling sight that made me spin around in fear. Fear became became my constant companion. I started taking different routes and avoiding quiet corners where Mr. Franklin might be lurking. Despite my efforts, I couldn't shake the feeling of being watched. Well, one really hot afternoon, seeking refuge from the heat in an abandoned warehouse, I overheard two men talking about Mr. Franklin. They spoke in hushed tones, warning each other about his collection of photographs, photos and letters about people in our neighborhood, more specifically, some of the children in the neighborhood. They said he watched everyone closely and they needed to keep an eye on me. Well, I couldn't sleep at all. Later that night, the thought of Mr. Franklin's obsession with collecting information about us gave me the chills. Finally, determined to confront him, I set out on my milk route at dawn the next morning. Morning, paddling down Elderberry Lane, I gathered my courage and knocked on his door. Come on in, boy, Mr. Franklin's voice called from inside, in a tone of kindness but also menacing at the same time, Mentally preparing myself, I entered his house. The air inside smelled musty from old books, and the walls were lined with shells filled with with files neatly labeled with names of people that I knew from the neighborhood. Mr. Franklin sat at a cluttered desk beneath a dusty chandelier. His smile when he turned to face me, was eerie, yet there was a hint of anticipation in his eyes. You've been watching me, I accused, my voice trembling. Mr. Franklin's smile widened. Watching, yes. But don't worry, I'm not just watching you, my boy. I watch them all, he said, gesturing to the files around us. He explained that he was an observer, a collector of stories and lives, trying to understand and capture the essence of what it meant to be alive. His words carried a strange longing, a desire to connect with lives passing him by. Unknown, noticed. At this point I was absolutely horrified, and I wanted out of this house immediately. But curiosity got the best of me. Why? I managed to ask, struggling to grasp his obsession. Mr. Franklin looked at me with a mix of disappointment and resignation. I want to know, to understand, he said softly. To possess something of the lives that surround me. With a newfound resolve, I declared that I wouldn't be part of his collection. Mr. Franklin nodded sadly, and with a wave of his hand, he allowed me to leave. Walking away from Elderberry Lane that morning, I felt relieved yet haunted by the weight of Mr. Franklin's gaze. Over the years, the neighborhood changed, replaced by modern streets and buildings. But the memory of Mr. Franklin and his unsettling obsession remained etched into my mind, a reminder of how darkness can hide beneath ordinary facades. Though I've moved on and built a different life for myself, there are nights when I find myself staring into the darkness, half expecting to see Mr. Franklin's figure with that unsettling smile. I've always been good at blending in, at becoming part of the background. It's a skill that served me well over the years, especially now as I watch her, the young woman in apartment 3B. From my vantage point across the courtyard, behind the safety of drawn curtains and a partially open window, I observe her daily routines with a mix of fascination and longing. And if by now you couldn't already tell, this is a different kind of story. The one where I'm the creeper. Anyways, she doesn't know me, not really. To her I'm just another face in the building, perhaps a neighbor she passes in the hallway or nods to in the elevator. But to me she is my everything. Her name is Sarah. I learned that from the mailbox one afternoon when I chanced to see her retrieve her mail. Sarah with the easy smile and the infectious laugh that echoes down the corridor on occasion. I know her schedule almost as well as my own. In the mornings, she emerges from her apartment at precisely 7:45, dressed for work in smart blouses and pencil skirts that accentuate her figure. She carries a sleek black briefcase and often stops by the coffee shop on the corner before then disappearing into the throng of the city's morning rush. I've imagined countless scenarios where our paths might cross naturally, perhaps at the corner cafe where I could strike up a casual conversation about the weather or the latest news. Bonsai. I know better than to risk the fragile fabric of my carefully constructed reality. No, it's safer to remain in the shadows to watch. And away during the day I occupy myself with mundane tasks. An errand here, a trip to the grocery store there, all the while keeping one ear tuned to the hum of life in the apartment complex. Occasionally I'll catch glimpses of first through the frosted glass of her kitchen window as she prepares dinner or unwinds after a long day. Nights are the hardest when the silence of the building presses in around me like a suffocating blanket. That's when I find myself drawn to the window, drawn to the faint glow of light from apartment 3B. Sometimes she reads, curled up on the couch with a book held close to her chest. Other times she she watches television, the flickering screen casting shadows across her face. I wonder what occupies her thoughts during those quiet moments. Does she think of me, the faceless neighbor who watches her from across the courtyard? Or does she go about life oblivious to the silent presence that hovers on the periphery of her world? I've tried to rationalize my obsession, to convince my myself that it's harmless, that it's merely a passing fascination. But the truth is far more insidious. I can't tear myself away from her. The need to know her, to understand her. It consumes me in ways that I just can't explain. Tonight is no different. As I stand at the window, the darkness outside broken only by the soft glow of street lights, my gaze inevitably drifts to apartment 3B. I see movement, a flicker of movement that draws me closer to the glass, my breath fogging the window pane. She's there, framed against the lamplight from the living room, her silhouette ethereal and distant. There's a vulnerability about her in these moments, a rawness that she only reveals when she. She thinks no one's watching. And yet I'm watching. I'm always watching. Suddenly, she turns, as if sensing my gaze from across the courtyard. My heart lurches in my chest, and for a fleeting instant, our eyes meet through the glass. Panic surges through me, threatening to unravel the fragile threads of my carefully constructed facade. But then she smiles. A small, knowing smile that sends a shiver down my spine. Does she recognize me? Does she even understand the depths of my obsession? The lengths to which I've gone to remain hidden in plain sight? Or is it merely a trick of the light, a figment of my fevered imagination? I drew back from the window, retreating into the darkness of my own apartment. The weight of my guilt settles heavily on my shoulders. I know that what I'm doing is wrong, that my fixation on her is unhealthy and dangerous. Yet still I find myself drawn back to the window, drawn back to the quiet sanctuary of apartment 3B. For in those stolen moments of observation, I catch fleeting glimpses of a life that I can never truly be apart, of a life that only exists beyond the confines of my own fractured reality. And so I continue to watch, to wait, to yearn for a connection that may never come. For in the end, I'm nothing more than the watcher in the shadows, forever bound to the object of my obsession by the invisible threads of desire and regret. My name's Kevin, and I really love the busy streets of Chicago. There's always noise, cars honking, sirens far away. It's what I'm used to, you know? But things change. When Doug moved in next door three months ago, at first he seemed normal enough, nodding in the hall, sometimes riding the elevator with me. But as time went on, I noticed strange things about him. He stayed up really late, even when I got home around midnight. Sometimes I'd see a shadow moving past his window, like he was pacing. Then there were the noises. Sometimes I'd hear whispers or sounds through the walls. It was like Doug was talking to someone who wasn't there. Well, one cold night in our October, I got curious. I tiptoed down the hall and pressed my ear to Doug's door. At first it was just creaks from the old building. But then I heard Doug's voice, soft and talking in a language I didn't know. It gave me goosebumps. Well, the next morning, I couldn't stop thinking about it. I asked other neighbors if they noticed anything weird about Doug as well, but they just shrugged it off, saying he was just a quiet guy. I kept watching Doug after that. I saw him in the building, always alone and looking uneasy. He'd appear and disappear like a ghost. One rainy day, I saw Doug in the courtyard, staring hard across the street. He looked like he was concentrating really hard, like he was seeing something nobody else could. Doug's weirdness started to really make me feel uneasy in my own place. I started locking my door more and closing the blinds. At night, I even thought about moving out. Then one night, after a long day at work, I saw Doug in the hallway. He was staring right at me. Um, Kevin? He said suddenly, his voice rough, like he hadn't talked in ages. I froze. Um. Yeah, I said nervously. You've been watching me, Doug said, his eyes narrowing. I stumbled, trying to explain. I've noticed things, I said, my heart racing. Doug got closer, and I felt really small in that hallway. You don't get it, he whispered. There are things you can't understand. Things that I see around here. His words hung heavy in the air. The hallway fell tight, like it was closing in on us. Then Doug went back into his apartment without another word, leaving me shaken. After that, Doug kept to himself even more. The strange stuff quieted down, but I still couldn't forget what happened. I. I learned that sometimes people are scarier than you think. Doug's mystery made me think about how safe we really are, even in a big city like Chicago. Now, when I walk around, I sometimes look up at Doug's window, wondering what secrets he's hiding. The city keeps moving, but I know there's still doubt lurking in our building. And what the hell was Doug talking about with the things he's seen around here? I guess I'll always wonder. My name's Tommy, and I live in a small town where everyone knows everyone. We have this neighbor named Dan who lives down the street from me. Dan's always been a bit weird, but lately things have gotten really creepy. It started a few weeks ago when my friend Billy told me that he saw Dan watching him while he was playing basketball in his driveway. Billy said Dan just stood there behind a tree, not saying a word, just staring. That freaked Billy out, so he went inside. Then the other kids in the neighborhood started talking about how they'd see Dan hanging around the park where we all Play after school. He'd just sit on a bench and watch us not doing anything else. Ed made us all feel feel really uncomfortable. One day I was riding my bike around the block when I saw Dan's car parked on the side road near the park. He was inside, just sitting there, staring at the kids playing. I felt this cold chill run down my spine, like something wasn't right. I told my mom about it when I got home and she looked really worried. She told me to stop away from Dan and did not go near him if I saw him outside. She said she'd talked to the other parents in the neighborhood to see if they'd noticed anything strange too. A few days later, my mom told me that some of the other parents had seen Dan following kids home from school. They said that he'd walk behind them at a distance, like he was trying to stay hidden. That made my heart race because I walk home from school every day. One afternoon as I was walking home, I saw Dan across the street. He was standing behind a tree watching me. I walked faster, trying to ignore him, But I could feel his eyes on me the whole way home. That night, I couldn't sleep. I kept thinking about Dan and how he'd been watching us all. I didn't feel safe anymore, even in my own house. The next day, my mom. Mom and some of the other parents went to the police about this. They told them about Dan and all of the creepy things he'd been doing. The police said they'd keep an eye on him and also talk to him to find out what was going on. A few days later, we heard that Dan had been arrested. The police found out that he had a history of doing weird stuff around kids in the other neighborhoods too. They said that he wasn't supposed to be near kids at all. He was a registered sex offender. After that, things finally started to feel normal again in our neighborhood. We could go to the park and play basketball without worrying about Dan watching us and being a weirdo creep. It was a relief knowing that the police were keeping us all safe. But I still think about those days when Dan was watching us. It's scary to think that someone, you know could be doing something so creepy. I'm just glad we spoke up and got help before anything bad happened. About three years ago, I moved into a duplex with my ex boyfriend in what we thought was a safer part of the city. One of our neighbors, Sarah, worked in the rental office of the duplex. And her husband Jeff, who had just been released from prison, had been Doing landscaping work around the rental like mowing the lawns, cutting the trees, etc. He spent most of his time at home tinkering with his mower or truck. At first, Rachel and Jeff seemed like kind and friendly people. We even smoked weed together a few times. Jeff more than Sarah, and we also had chats about various things. I really felt safe living next to them and I trusted them. However, things started to get creepy. I once mentioned to Jeff that I sometimes heard footsteps in the attic above my room when I was home alone, along with the sound of furniture being moved around. It always freaked me out and I would call someone just to feel safer until the noises finally stopped. Jeff jokingly asked if I thought they were spying on me, but it made me uncomfortable. After my breakup with my boyfriend a few months ago, Jeff began texting me asking if I wanted to drink with him while Sarah was at work. I always made excuses and declined. Then one day he asked if I wanted to have sex with him because he thought that Sarah was cheating on him. I shut that down immediately, but it created a tense and awkward situation. I didn't tell Sarah because I didn't want want things to get worse or be kicked out of my place. I also hated confrontations, so I kept quiet. Soon after, I started hearing noises in the attic more frequently. It got worse when I heard a loud bang outside my door one night around 3 or 4am When I checked, I found a small lock pick on the ground. I kept it and I texted a picture to Sarah, thinking someone was lurking around. She dismissed it, saying it was Jeff's ice pick, not a lock pick, and then reassured me that no one could pick my deadbolt with it. But I knew the difference between a lock pick and an ice pick. Now I'm terrified to be alone in the duplex, especially at night. Our attics are connected and I can't shake the feeling that Jeff might be up there spying on me. I even discovered a freshly drilled hole in the ceiling of my room. I stuffed it with paper and just try not to think about it too much. I hope it's just paranoia and that nothing more will happen. Despite all this, I haven't reported anything to the police because I lack solid evidence. I have the lock pick and pictures of my door being tampered with, but whenever I checked the attic, it was empty. I never went in alone because the attic entrances in my garage and it requires two people to access. By the time my ex boyfriend arrived when I called him over about the noises, whatever was making them would Be gone. I'm really hesitant to report anything without concrete proof for safety. I've been staying with my current boyfriend until I move out in a few weeks, despite my neighbors being upset about my decision to leave. After that, I stopped hanging out with them, and I only spoke to them when we were both outside together. Our family moved into a cozy house in a decent neighborhood in a nice suburban area when I was nine years old. It was a peaceful neighborhood with friendly neighbors, except for one house that always seemed a bit off. Nathan lived in the house next door. He was in his late 40s, always wore the same faded denim overalls, and had a crooked smile that made me uneasy. Nathan was friendly at first, often waving and trying to strike up conversations with my parents whenever they were outside gardening. He had a wiry build and dark, bushy hair that always looked unkempt. As time passed, Nathan's behavior started to become more peculiar. He would linger at the edge of our property, staring at our house for long periods without saying a word. Sometimes I would catch him watching me play in the backyard, his eyes following my every move. It made me feel uncomfortable, like I was being watched by a predator. One day, my mom found a note tucked under our doormat. It was written in messy handwriting, saying how much Nathan liked our family and how he wanted to be our friend. The note made my mom feel uneasy, but she just brushed it off as Nathan just being lonely. Things took a darker turn when Nathan started leaving strange gifts on our doorstep. On one occasion, it was a dead bird wrapped in the newspaper. Another time it was a broken doll with missing limbs. Each gift sent shivers down our spines, and we began locking our doors and windows at all times. Nathan's visits became more frequent and unpredictable. He would knock on our door late at night, claiming that he needed to borrow something trivial, like a cup of sugar or a book that he knew we didn't have. Sometimes he would just stand outside our house, staring silently at our windows. My parents tried talking, talking to Nathan's family about his odd behavior, but they seemed indifferent, saying Nathan was harmless and just had issues. They hinted that Nathan had a mental disorder, but didn't go into the details. It became clear that Nathan's family was either unable or unwilling to control him. One evening, I was playing in the front yard when Nathan approached me with a wide grin. He had started asking strange questions about my family and where I went to school. His eyes had a wild look, and I could tell something wasn't right. I ran inside and told my parents, who immediately called the police. The police spoke to Nathan and his family, but said they couldn't do much unless Nathan posed a direct threat. They advised us to keep documenting his behavior and to call them immediately if things escalated. Weeks in months had passed without incident, and we finally started to relax a bit, thinking maybe Nathan had finally moved on. But on one stormy night, we heard a loud crash coming from Nathan's house. My dad went outside to investigate and he found Nathan standing in the middle of his living room surrounded by shattered glass and broken furniture. He was muttering to himself and he seemed completely disconnected from from reality. We called an ambulance and Nathan was promptly taken to the hospital. It turned out that he had a severe mental breakdown exacerbated by his untreated mental disorder. The doctor said he needed to be admitted to a psychiatric ward immediately for evaluation and treatment. After Nathan was taken away, there was a sense of relief in our neighborhood. We learned more about Nathan's condition and we realized that he had been struggling for years without proper care or supervision. His family eventually sold the house and moved away, leaving behind a community shaken by Nathan's unsettling presence. Looking back, I realize how important it is to take mental health seriously and to seek help for those who may be struggling. Nathan's story taught us compassion and the importance of understanding, even in the face of fear and uncertainty. Let me share a story that really shook me up after everything I've been through. I'm a 32 year old tall guy at over 6ft and around 180 pounds. Recently I've been dealing with a tough divorce. My wife moved out and I had decided to put our house up for sale. I moved into a new apartment to start fresh, trying to keep safe after a violent attack that I suffered. 38 stitches and a concussion later and I'm still not in the best shape for safety. I haven't changed my address officially. My mail goes to a P.O. box instead. It's a precaution that I took seriously. One one evening I was at home on my couch, flipping through TV channels while watching baseball. It was almost 8pm and I wasn't expecting visitors. None of my friends had mentioned stopping by when the doorbell rang. I ignored it at first, keeping the volume low on the tv. But after about five minutes, the doorbell rang again. I cautiously got up, trying not to make the floor creak too loudly. Peeking through the peephole, I saw a petite woman in her mid-20s standing outside. She looked innocent enough, but I didn't recognize her. I decided to be cautious and keep the chain on when I opened the door. She greeted me by my name and held up a pie, introducing herself as Alicia from apartment C2, which was just across the hall in a big to the right. I looked at her door and then back at her, hesitating before undoing the chain. Taking the pie, I asked how she knew my name. With a giggle, she explained that my mail had ended up in her mailbox by mistake. She then waved an envelope in front of me, a personal letter addressed to me at my new address. I took it, still feeling skeptical. I hadn't seen her around before, though I knew the guy who lived in C2. She giggled again, mentioning that she had just moved in and extended her hand out for a handshake. Normally I give a firm shake, but this time I admit it was weak. She grinned widely, speaking a bit louder. Nice to meet you. When I didn't respond, she lowered her tone neighbor and then stared directly into my eyes. After waving goodbye, instead of going back to her own apartment, she headed toward the elevator. I tossed the pie and opened the letter. It was unsigned and didn't contain anything relevant except my name and new address. I felt a bit creeped out, but I wonder if I was overreacting. What are you guys think hey everyone, I want to share a story that really shook up me and my boyfriend. A couple of years ago I moved to the UK for university. It was a big move for me, but I needed to get away from my parents toxic situation back home. My first year at uni was spent in student accommodation where I met some really awesome people and enjoyed my newfound independence. I didn't meet my boyfriend until later but life felt good. By my second year I decided to move into a house with some friends that we rented through the university. It was nice to have our own space and not worry about noise restrictions like we did in our small shared flat the year before. My room was a little the ground floor with a window that looked out into a small yard. I'd often go out there to smoke. There was an old thin wooden door that led to the street where we kept our bins and stuff. The door could only be locked from inside the backyard, so we'd hide it shut with some strings to keep it closed properly. We had neighbors on both sides. On one side were five guys who seemed much older than university students. They were a bit strange. One day there was a police incident involving them. One guy had attacked his flatmates with a kitchen knife and set their kitchen on fire. It was really scary to see one of them covered in cuts and Blood. My flatmates and I helped clean him up and gave him a shirt to wear. The police took the guy away who caused all the trouble. But the guy we helped out was odd. He talked nonsense and made unwanted advances towards me. We noticed that he smoked a lot of marijuana, but we tried to be helpful and didn't think much about it at the time. After that incident, I'd see him around sometimes whenever I was coming home from uni or running errands. He once approached me on the street near a corner shop and tried to start a strange conversation. I felt really uncomfortable and ignored him. He said something creepy like I'll wait for you in front of your house so we can talk. I brushed it off as a joke, bought my drink and headed back home. But as I turned into my street, there he was with his flatmate, sitting on my doorstep. I painted and called my male flatmate to ask him to tell them to leave, but he wasn't home. I waited nervously until they finally left and an hour later I rushed back home, locked the door and felt relieved. Despite this, things got worse. One day, while smoking in the backyard, I noticed the wood door was open. The strings we used to keep it closed were cut. I closed the door again and put on a new string, assuming it was just a mistake by one of the flatmates. Those weird neighbors often follow loudly, which disturbed my flatmates and me at night. We got used to it after a while, though. One evening, my boyfriend stayed over as usual. He woke up suddenly in the middle of the night because of a loud noise and whispering. He woke me up quietly and we listened in the dark. Suddenly, the wooden door banged open and we heard footsteps near my window. We froze as we we heard the backyard door being shaken, like someone was trying to break in. Thankfully, our curtains were closed so they couldn't see us. We were ready to dress quickly and escape through the window if they came in. Then we heard my window open some more and one of the guys spoke in a language that we didn't understand. They were trying to get in. My boyfriend and I jumped out of bed, grabbed my phone, got dressed, and then ran out of the room and out of the house. I called my flatmates and then the police. Luckily, the police station was nearby and they arrived in less than five minutes. I was in shock and I don't remember much. After the police came, they caught one of the guys, but the other escaped. Later on, they found him a few streets away, smoking weed. The police searched their house and they found drugs in a huge kitchen knife. It really terrified me to think they were trying to break in with such dangerous intentions. I never did anything to provoke them, so I couldn't understand why they targeted me and my boyfriend. One of them was sentenced to two years in prison for carrying a weapon with intent to harm. I moved back home a few months later because I was so scared and I couldn't stop thinking about what would have happened if my boyfriend hadn't woken up. I'm still coping with the trauma to this day. I often wake up from the slightest noise and have nightmares, but I'm really grateful to have my boyfriend by my side. We talk about it often, which helps me feel better. I want to share a crazy story from a couple of years back when I lived in Ireland for nearly a year as part of a university exchange program. Now I'm originally from Northern Ireland, so moving to a different part of the country was quite a change. I settled into an apartment in a cozy neighborhood in Galway. Most of the people I met were really friendly and respectful. Typical Irish hospitality. Except for one elderly lady who lived next door to me. She. She stood out for all the wrong reasons. About a month into my stay, our group of international students decided to attend a local music festival known for its lively atmosphere. It was a night of music, drinks, and enjoying the Irish spirit. We had a bit too much fun, sampling different beers and whiskies from all over Ireland. By the time we caught the last bus home, I could barely remember my own name, let alone what happened next. The next morning at 6:00am I was rudely awakened by my doorbell ringing incessantly. My head was pounding and the noise was unbearable in my small apartment. I stumbled to the door and peeked through the peephole to find a police officer standing there. I panicked, wondering what kind of trouble that I might have gotten into the previous night. But all I could recall was calling my girlfriend and crashing on my couch. The officer explained there had been a noise complaint. Confused and still a bit drunk, I managed to convince him that nothing had happened and he left the following morning, same time, same scenario. Two police officers at my door due to another noise complaint from my neighbor. I invited them inside to prove my innocence, showing them that I had just been watching Netflix and I quietly fell asleep. They informed me that the complaints were coming from a neighbor I had never met. I dismissed her as just being grumpy or maybe even prejudiced against foreigners. I consulted with a university student support officer who decided to move me to a different apartment on a lower floor. I was really frustrated because I had just settled in, but I had no choice. They had planned to help me move the next morning. Ever have one of those nights where you wake up in a panic, convinced that something terrible is happening? That night, I went to bed early, preparing for the move the next day. Then, at 3am, my doorbell went crazy. My doorbell rang incessantly and louder than ever before. I was terrified, frozen in bed, not knowing knowing what to do. After what felt like an eternity, the ringing stopped. I cautiously approached the door and looked through the peephole, but saw nothing. I just knew it was that crazy neighbor. I didn't sleep much for the rest of that night. The next morning, still shaken, I kept peeking out my door, worried the neighbor might confront me again. When I checked my balcony. I then saw her for the first time. She had somehow contorted herself around the fence separating our balconies, staring straight at me. It was eerie. We locked eyes briefly before she swiftly retreated back to her side. Moments later, the doorbell rang again. I was convinced I was in some horror movie scenario. Thankfully, it was just the movers arriving to help me relocate. I quickly explained the situation and then hurriedly packed my belongings to move downstairs. Apart from one unnerving encounter where she showed up at my new place asking about the police, I had managed to avoid her. After that, it seemed that the police had stopped responding to her calls, which I'm thankful for. This is less of a creepy one person encounter and more of a whole community creeped out by one man. The neighbor in question is somewhat famous for his lawn, an impossibly thick green landscape that he had tended by a company. I've vaguely been aware of him losing it on the landscapers, screaming at them outside enough that I knew he had a temper. The first real red flag that he might be legit crazy came last summer. He asked a teenage boy in the neighborhood to check in on the house once a day and make sure all the doors and windows were secured and water their flowers the day they left. Though, he left a crazy list saying the kid had to be there multiple times a day, turning off and on different sets of lights at specific times and leaving weird chores for him. Also, the kid was not allowed to walk on the lawn and had to remove his dirty shoes before walking on the concrete sidewalk. He was never to enter the house, but was to turn off and on the lights from the doorway by means of a stick with a loop on it. Also, he wasn't allowed to use the garden hose to water the lawn, and he had to instead use a teeny tiny watering can. The letter implied that my neighbor would have the kid under surveillance and would have pictures if he failed to comply. Basically, the kid's parents called him and said they weren't comfortable with the situation anymore and while they would keep an eye on the house, the deal was off. They argued over the phone. When my neighbor got back from vacation, it was early morning and he immediately went to their house, woke them up and tried to pick a fight with them. One of the neighbors is a retired cop and he came out to see what was going on and tried to settle the issue. The crazy neighbor said that he would let it rest if he was allowed to bare ass spank the kid. He flipped out when they told him no. Sometime after this, another neighbor was at the grocery store when he was cornered by the crazy neighbor. Crazy neighbor apparently just talked to him in rapid fire for half an hour. Among other things, he started saying how wives shouldn't have friends friends. And he said that his wife's sister was so fat that she broke the toilet seat last time she visited. After this, everyone started talking about how you don't see his wife anywhere. Occasionally she'll be out watering flowers, but while her husband is seen out, she isn't considering that she used to be a social butterfly. This is weird. During the winter, everyone found pamphlets on their mailbox from the landscaper he used uses along with a note saying that it was mandatory to now use this landscaper in our area and that failure to comply will result in being sued. Now we're private single family homes with no homeowners association, so this is patently untrue. During the winter, someone saw his wife and her arm was in a sling and she had a black eye. When they went to ask her about it, he wouldn't let her speak and he said that she had slid on ice. Since then there have been a few attempts made to talk to her alone and all have failed. They've gone as far as to get their church involved and to call a welfare check by the cops when he was out of the house. But if she was being abused, she has been refusing help. Snow was bad this year and he blew a fit about snowplows piling snow on his property. So he actually scattered snow screws on the roadway outside before they came by one morning. Then someone in the neighborhood got a puppy. It's quiet and has a fenced in backyard. Its owners wake up in the middle of the night to the doorbell ringing. When they come out, crazy neighbor is standing on the road at the edge of the property. He tells them that the first time the dog gets out, they won't have a dog anymore and pulls out a gun and waves it around before then pointing it towards the backyard and saying bang. Obviously, they go back inside and call the cops. When confronted, the crazy neighbor just claims that he was out for a walk and thought they were awake and just stopped by. He says that he didn't get the gun out, but it had been on his belt and that he didn't mean his statement as a threat. He got some sort of citation from the police come spring. He's taken to sitting outside in riding something every time someone walks or drives by. We don't know what, but I've taken to driving a different way home to avoid going by him. Most recently, someone put up a swing set in their backyard. They came back from work to find tire tracks through their backyard and the swingset ran over and crushed. No one saw anything. But his massive truck happens to have the same kind of tires as the treadmarks left behind. The retired cop is taken to compiling statements from everyone and keeping records because we think this is going to end really badly. He sends done some nighttime creepy crawling, threatened to shoot children, and he got to do a little jail time.