“I was almost kidnapped”

“I almost got kidnapped once. I was like 23 or so.

I was walking down my street at a little after dusk. I saw a van approaching a little ahead, no lights on. Didn’t think much of it due to the time of day.

The van slowed down and almost started creeping, as i was approaching this part of the sidewalk which had a tall solid wall fence to a community. This gave me some pause in that quick moment. For me to keep walking, I’d have to go between the wall and the van.

In the little time it took me to take a couple of steps, and as the van was getting close, i noticed that the side door was slowly sliding open.

The one thought in my mind was, why isn’t the light turning on inside the van? When you open the door of a vehicle, the light should come on inside it. Unless you deliberately switch that off.

And I just ran to the median, I ran in front of the van and across the street… because if they’re gonna have some use of roadkill me, have at it…. but they’re not getting me in one glorious piece.

Immediately, the van took off like someone lit it on fire. From a slow crawl to full speed. As i looked after it to see the plates… I noticed it had no plates. And still no lights.

I called the police, of course. They sent cars out and didn’t find the van. I never had anything like this happen again and I’m just an ordinary person, so i don’t suspect it was targeted. I was just in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

Trust your intuition

“Always hated the dad scout leader in my area growing up. Just seemed like a real creep. Hated seeing him at community events, soccer games, back to school nights, etc.

10 year old me staged a hissy fit to end all melt downs with me slamming doors, crying and breaking shit to avoid being moved from cub scouts (where the moms ran things) to avoid boy scouts.

Turns out the scout leader was molesting 3 or 4 of the boys in the troop and threatening to kill them if they ever spoke.

Justice found him and he’s in prison.”

“My gut told me not to”

“I was driving a friend home late at night when I was around 21. She lived in a pretty rural area outside of St. Louis, MO and about a quarter mile from her house was an old abandoned farm and farm house. I always thought of this place as non-threatening as she told me she and her two sisters would go there as kids and they found an attic full of cool things, including a trunk of vintage woman’s clothing and old love letters. Like something out of a movie.

Anyway, I’m driving her home and it’s a hot, humid Missouri summer and we have the windows open as the late night had offered some cool air. We are also singing at the top of our lungs. We pass the abandoned farm and I drop her off at her house. I wait long enough to see she makes it inside and I head back out the way I came. I’m driving along and I get to almost where the farm is and I see two things in the road. My danger meter goes off as I had just driven this road and there was nothing there. I put the windows up and make sure the doors are locked. I get closer and I realize the items are two car batteries, spaced out in the road(which was basically a one lane road) in a way that I would have to get out and move them to drive on the road. I immediately knew I wasn’t getting out of the car so I picked the side of the road that had the lesser ditch and I gunned it. I was driving a little SUV and remember feeling the car run over branches and things in the little ditch, but I just gunned it and got out of there. All the way home I felt creeped out and kept checking my rear view mirror. I called my friend the next morning and told her what had happened and we both agreed it was weird. Shortly after that I moved to another state and didn’t think much of it after that.

Fast forward to 2-3 years later when I was back visiting my hometown. I randomly ran into my old friend and she ran up to me with wide eyes and grabbed my arms. She asked me if I remembered what I told her that night. I said yes and she proceeded to tell me that not too long after that had happened her family was awakened in the middle of the night to someone pounding on their sliding glass door. Her dad went to check and saw two naked, injured women and let them in and called 911. They had been abducted from St. Louis City(about 40 minutes away) by two men and brought to the old, abandoned farmhouse where the men tortured and raped them. The women somehow managed to get free and ran to the only light they could see, the light over my friends garage. They survived, but the men were never caught. There was evidence the men had been going there for a while. My friend was convinced they had put the batteries in the road to lure me out of the car. I’m just really glad my gut told me not to.”

Another roadblock

“I live in rural Connecticut and my mom was driving me down dark, twisty roads to my friends house and in the middle of the road was yellow caution tape. Not “police line, do not cross” tape, but just tape that said caution, blocking the whole road. it had been clearly ripped and tied back together in some places. My mom examined it and gunned it in reverse and got out of there fast. That same night, some woman had gotten out to examine it and had gotten back in the car to call the police because she found it suspicious, but not suspicious enough to leave before calling 911. She was grabbed out of her car but the people who grabbed her didn’t know she had called 911 and the police rolled up as the car was driving away with her in the trunk. They chased them down and she lived but it was scary. Trust your gut with roadblocks!!!”

The guy in the elevator

“I get really bad vibes from the car park in work – it’s a giant, poorly lit multi-storey and I’ve seen enough horror films to know I shouldn’t be taking it lightly. Whenever I get in, I pay attention to the floors people call the lift to to keep an eye on where they’re going.

One time a guy got in in front of me and pressed 6, while I was parked on 8. He didn’t get out at 6, and was still in the lift as I got to my floor. I leave, he doesn’t… so I guess he’s remembered he’s on another floor, but just before I get to the dark area with all the cars, I turned back. This guy had waited about 30 seconds (therefore held the lift to wait) and silently emerged to follow me. I just stopped and stared him down. He had a deer-in-the-headlights look and turned straight back to the lift.

I have no idea if it saved my life but it freaked me the fuck out!”

“It just felt wrong”

“Was driving to work one morning about 2am. Was behind a slow 18 wheeler and was getting a feeling I needed to move. As we came up to a red light i switched over a lane so I wouldnt be behind him anymore. Just about a second later I heard something that sounded like an explosion, which was a tow truck slamming into the back of the 18 wheeler at about 70 mph. Tore off the two rear axels on the trailer, and most certainly would have smashed my car to pieces.”

Slow down

“When I was around 18, I was on a backroad with some friends and a girl I didn’t know was driving really fast. Now, I’m a bit of an adrenaline junkie, and I have always enjoyed a calculated risk in the name of a good time, but on this occasion I told her to either slow the fuck down or let me out. I literally had to start screaming at her before she listened and slowed down.

A week later she crashed on that same stretch of road at 90mph, killing her, and the three passengers of her car.”

“Pussy”

“My husband is a state trooper and has always said the wreck that sticks with him the most was a group of 4 17-18 year olds in a car speeding on the freeway. One of the kids was screaming and begging the driver to let him out. The driver pulled over and let him out as he and the other 2 passengers made fun of him for being a “pussy” and not wanting to have “fun.” A couple miles later, the driver flew off an overpass, went over the guard rail, and onto the freeway below, killing him and the other 2 passengers instantly and ejecting 1 out of the car. Luckily there was no one below that they fell onto. My husband always remembers that kid who demanded to get out and how terrified and shaken he was when he walked up on what happened and was able to explain that he was in the car with them just minutes prior and would have been dead had he not been a “pussy.””

Fast cars

“My boyfriend’s ex’s rebound did this to her. He had a fast little car. They were cruising one day, he started laughing. She asked what, he jammed on the gas and started whipping along a mountain while she screamed for him to stop, clawing at the door, hysterically freaking out as the car skidded along the road inches from 100+ foot drops. She told my boyfriend about it, he did what I believe to be the right thing and told her family (they dated for like, 4 years so he knew them and they knew he didn’t lie). They banned her from seeing him and reinforced it. He ended up killing himself doing the same thing in the rain.”

“Leave now”

“My now wife and I did the long distance thing in college, and I planned on doing my normal routine to visit her, leave Chicagoland in the morning, get to her early afternoon on Friday. Well I’m closing my store on Thursday night, and get a feeling I should leave that night. So I said ‘F it’ and left that night.

A little after lunch on Friday, tornado sirens go off. I don’t think anything of it until I head back home Sunday, and drive through a town about half hour north of her. It got lit up by the tornado. I quickly realize that I had left at my normal time, I woulda been smack dab in the middle of tornado.”

“I just didn’t like him”

“My ex husband had a friend who I just didn’t like although I could never explain why. He was very handsome, always smiling, very respectful speech (always called me ma’am or Miss even though he’s a few years older than us). My ex used to give me shit for expressing my feelings about this guy. I was never rude to him when he’d stop by, but I did have trouble hiding my creeped out vibe.

Fast forward to 3 years later. Guy is convicted of indecent liberties and statutory rape of his girlfriend’s daughter (12 yo) and a 14 yo female.”

“Awful vibe”

“I remember meeting the Dad of a student. I got an awful vibe off of him. People always talked about how nice he was and how in love he and his wife were. I always thought she really loves him but he’s just not right. Found out years later he’d been raping his older daughter every time his wife was away for a conference. (Not the child I was teaching, her older sister).”

Another bad feeling

“I had this feeling when I was 17 and went to a sleepover with my friend. Her 22 year old brother seemed nice enough but made me nervous every time he came in the room. I woke up the next morning with him standing over me and putting his hand down my pants. Haven’t been to a sleepover since.”

Go to the doctor

“A pain in the lungs when I inhaled. I’ve never been stabbed, don’t know what it’s like but the pain should have been equal to it, if not worse.

It had happened before, years ago. Some hot water in the shower and the pain was gone.

My wife (then girlfriend) insisted on going to ER. I insisted on hot water. “I feel like we should go and see a doctor”, she had said.

I was diagnosed with pulmonary embolism on both lungs. Doctor said “1 or 2 more hours and you were gone”.

So yeah, I owe my wife one.”

Bar fight

“Few years ago I was at a bar with a couple of friends. All was good, we were drinking and having fun.

All of sudden, we heard this discussion taking place just a couple of tables from us. Two guys decided to have a shouting/threat match.

I stopped everything to pay attention to them. My friends were making fun of me, saying I was gossipy.

One of the guys in the discussion got up and left. Immediately after he left I told my friends we had to go. Now. Let’s gtfo now!

They didn’t get why I was like that, but I’m their friends since forever, they reluctantly agreed.

We went to a different bar in a different neighborhood but I couldn’t take my mind off of those two guys.

The next day, the news were talking about a bar fight. Apparently the guy who got up went home, grabbed a gun and came back for a drive by. Killed 4 people in the process.

My grandpa taught me to never ignore my gut and I couldn’t be happier to have listened.”

Cancer

“Lump in my right breast. 43 years old; clean mammogram 5 months earlier. I just knew. Four different doctors told me it was nothing and to come back in a year. I did not and found a 5th. Yeah, I had to argue my way into being diagnosed with a rare and aggressive form of breast cancer.”

My cat smelled cancer

“Felt hinky about one of many growing skin spots. Took 6 doctor visits asking they look at skin spot, all saying it’s nothing don’t worry, but cat sniffing the spot continuously made me worry. Took this evidence to new doc on day dermatologist happened to be visiting. My doc laughed it off like all the others but said a dermatologist might be interested in weird shape. Dermatologist took one look, sniffed it, said get biopsy right now. Biopsy showed aggressive subdural cancer (under the skin, the spot was the ‘iceberg’ tip) Got a big lump of me cut out, but just in time.”

Mother’s intuition

“My mum knew something was wrong with me when I was younger, Drs didn’t want to see me for another 2 weeks. Mum went into a blind rage over the phone telling them that she was taking me to get checked whether they liked it or not….

We got to the GP, he puts a stethoscope on my back and smells my breath. Then says “We need to get him to hospital NOW.”

Turns out I have type 1 Diabetes and if I’d waited another day I would have died.”

“I felt like I was being watched”

“I was at the county fair when I was younger, like eight or nine. I wandered off from my parents and I had an odd feeling that I was being watched, but I ignored that for some reason. This man had followed me up and down the walkways of the expo hall we were standing in. As he started to get closer, I got this overwhelming feeling of fright.

I called for my dad and I could tell it startled him — he promptly turned and changed direction from me.

A really quick thing but it’s stuck with me all these years.”

Left behind

“It didn’t happen to me but was told by my mom. When she was pregnant with my older sister. Her and her family decided to go hiking in the mountains. On the day of the hike she suddenly felt discomfort and unconformable. So she stayed behind while the rest of her family went for the hike. Her family got lost and if it wasn’t for my mom staying behind, they wouldn’t have gotten help. Keep in mind that there was no cellphones back then, so if you got lost, it was a lot harder to contact rescue to come find you.”

DON’T GO

“I had just left my apartment complex and was heading to a friends. I pulled out of my driveway and up to the traffic light and stopped, I was in the left turn lane, light was red. It was late out and there wasn’t many people on the road. I watched as the light went yellow, and then red for through traffic, one guy ran the tail end of the yellow, like usual.

My turn! Light goes green, I have an arrow blinking for me to turn left, I looked both ways and there was no one around, and I just didn’t go.

I can not explain what happened other than something inside me just said DON’T GO, so I sat there staring at the green light. A couple seconds later a car came screaming through the red light, through the intersection, probably doing about 100km/hr, in the lane I would have been turning in to. They were going so fast their vehicle had a bounce to it. If I had turned my car would have been destroyed, and me along with it.

I sat there through the whole next light cycle and then turned, pulled over and called my sister. It was a ghostly feeling. I am a light jumper, I look both ways but I am impatient, and I can not explain what stopped me from going the second that light went green, but I’m glad it did.”

Move over

“I was taking my mom to a follow up appointment from back surgery the month before. The freeway was closed due to a car accident and life flight was called to transport the people injured in the accident. The highway patrol was funneling everyone off of the freeway to the right side exit. I had the strongest feeling we needed to move to the left farthest lane, so I did.

No more than a minute after I moved over, a garbage truck came barreling down the freeway and crashed into the car that was in front of us in the other lane so fast that it lifted the front end of the truck and it landed on top of the car.

We were in a tiny sports car that would have crumpled like a tin can under the weight of a garbage truck and definitely would have killed my mom and me in a second.”

Rearview Mirror

“A few years ago I was stopped at a redlight around 3am. I had just picked up my bf from downtown. I had a sudden urge to look in my rear view mirror. And thank fuck I did because in it I saw a suv that was speeding and wasn’t slowing down. I ended up halfway in the intersection to get out of their way. We both would’ve died.m from rear impact.”

Missed my bus

“Went to go catch the bus, saw the bus about to pull out from the stop, and i could have made it if i ran. Something told me not to catch it and just wait for the next one, so i did. Caught the next bus half an hour later. Now, i usually sit at the back of the bus on the drivers side, so that’s where i sat. A little way into the journey, traffic was slowing, and we got to the cause of it. A lorry had crashed into the bus i had missed, right into the back on the drivers side. Had i caught that bus, i wouldn’t be here. Still gives me chills after 6 years”

I slept on the couch

“I was like eight or nine when my parents took me and my younger brother to stay the night at my paternal grandparents’ house because they were in the middle of divorcing. They lived in a farmhouse that was connected to a barn (with machinery, gasoline tanks, and hay on the ground floor and furnished rooms on the floor above that) and the room we were supposed to stay in was in that barn. As soon as we went into the guest room, I was overwhelmed by panic and felt really dizzy. I turned around and just said that we will not sleep in that room and we spent the night on the couch in the living room instead. Later that night, a gas leak in the barn ignited and almost the entire barn including the guest rooms on its top floor exploded. Maybe I had that weird feeling because the gas had leaked into the room already but no one else felt anything and I’m sure I would be dead if I hadn’t noticed it”

Late for work

“About ten years ago, I had a job that started at 6am on the weekends. I didn’t drive and would take the light rail, which was a 15 min walk from the house I rented. One dark morning, I saw a person up ahead of me a few blocks away. I usually see homeless people on my walk to the light rail and most are harmless just trying to collect cans for the deposit or asking for change, but this guy just felt off. I could tell from blocks away that there was something wrong about him, so I cross the street and grab my phone from my backpack because I still had to go to work and this road was the only way to the light rail. Suddenly, I hear a “bubububump!” I look over my shoulder and it was him with his DICK in his hand. That sound was the sound of his shoes hitting the pavement as he ran towards me. I took off running, screamed, “I’m calling 911,” and held my phone to my ear. He must have saw and took it seriously because he ran the opposite direction that I ran. I did call 911, but they wanted me to wait there for the cop and I was like “fuck no!” I said it was because I didn’t want to be late for work, but I was terrified of him finding me. I will never forget the sound of his shoes hitting the pavement.”

Cross the road

“It was about two years ago. I was walking down a main road. I don’t know why, but something told me I needed to cross. I wasn’t even going that way, but I just felt like I had to cross. It was quiet, so I quickly ran across the road. Just as I got to the other side, a drunk driver came down the road, and hit a light pole where I had just been. Had I not crossed, I would’ve been killed on impact.”

Gut reaction

“I was driving across the country last summer, and was behind a guy and something just didn’t feel right. He wasn’t doing anything crazy…but the way he was driving just felt off. Slowing down randomly and then speeding up a lot to compensate…wobbling around his lane, occasionally grazing the shoulder etc. 2 lane highway so, I’m torn about passing him because a) what if he cuts me off or something while I’m doing it, and b) I don’t know if I want him behind me…but also I don’t want to be anywhere near him and passing him and speeding off seems like an ok option.

So I see an exit sign and decide I’ll just wait it out until then, get gas and hopefully never see him again.

Dude then swerves into the left lane and then into the grass median, across the opposing side of the highway, and off into a field. Dude is still driving through this field as I’m passing.

No idea what that was about, but he probably would have run into me as I passed him.”

Stay away from vans

“Escaped the abduction of me and my friends thanks to my gut feeling.

I was at the mall with my friends, all of us around 12 years old. It was 8pm, and my mom was on her way to pick me up. We were all chilling together until each of our parents got here to get us. As we’re standing outside of a store near one of the side entrances, a man comes up to us. He’s about 30-ish, wearing huge glasses, and carrying a clipboard.

The man says, “Hey guys, do you want to watch some movie trailers and answer surveys about them? I’ll pay you each five dollars per trailer.”

Naturally, my friends are all for it. The thing is, my heart dropped as soon as I heard it. As they’re all saying yes, the man nods and then points to the side entrance. It’s pitch black outside, and that entrance leads to the back parking lot of the mall- which is always deserted. Then, he says: “We can do it over there.”

My friends start to follow the man as he walks toward the glass doors, and I’m trailing behind them. Then, as we get close enough for me to kind of see what’s outside, I notice a van parked right outside the entrance. The headlights are on, the car is running. The back doors seems to be open. Every part of my being screams “NO! DON’T GO!” I stop in my tracks, and loudly say, “Guys, my mom is here to pick us all up, I don’t think we have time for it.”

The man freezes and keeps his eyes trained on the doors, and I can see his jaw clenching tightly. My friends look at me with confusion, and I try to give them the most terrified expression of warning that I can. Thankfully they get the message, and say bye to the guy.

The man refused to turn to look at us, and simply began to walk outside of the mall.

As we’re walking away, I turn and look behind me one last time.

The van, and the man, were gone.”

Earthquake

“I think I was 10 or 11, and I was reorganizing my room, moving books and stuff around. I had been working on it all day and during the process I moved a book shelf ontop of a dresser to give me more space and loaded it up with 2 encyclopedia sets and a bunch of other books. I ended up moving my bed parallel to the dresser and passed out from working on my room all day. I woke up a little while after 4 and was contemplating getting a glass of water and moving my bed because it didn’t look safe under the bookshelf. I finally got out of my bed and walked towards the door, maybe 2-3 steps and boom, 1994 northridge earthquake hit. The bookshelf instantly fell on my bed. I don’t know if it would have killed me but it would have rrealllly smashed me up.”

Hey guys

“I used to date a girl who I would go see every night after I got off work. I worked until midnight. I would stay at her house until about 1 or 2am. Sometimes as I left her house she would follow me in her car and stop at a nearby all-night grocery store. I always begged her not to but she always said she’sd be fine. Sometimes I would wait in the parking lot until she came back out and then we’d go our separate ways. Sometimes I wouldn’t. So one time I felt ill so as we left she said “just go strait home, I’ll be fine, I always am” but for some reason I felt like thats the night I needed to be here. She thought I went strait home. I was in the parking lot as she pulled in but she didn’t see me. As she walked in a shady looking dude was walking out. She ignored him but he looked back at her about three or four times. Then he gets to his truck and another guy is in there and they talk through the window for a minute looking back at the store a couple times. The second guy gets out of the truck, gets something out of the back of it then they both head back into the store. I couldn’t be sure they were going to do anything but hell if I was gonna take a chance. I go into the store too. I see them going past every isle and then motion to each other like “there she is”. So I walk a bit faster to catch up. I turn into the isle just as they are approaching her. They are looking at each other. From behind I yell “hey!” They both turn and so does my girlfriend. I brush by them and give them a look (I had some muscle back then and was 6’4″) and say “hey guys”. They nod awkwardly as my girlfriend says to me “what are you doing here”. I kiss her and make up some story about wanting to buy aspirin. The two guys leave. I never told my girlfriend that story, I don’t know why. I kinda felt like a Super Hero to myself. We dated about 2 more years after that. I don’t know what they were going to do to/with her but it was nothing good.”