By Emily Madriga Updated January 3, 2021

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Daniella Urdinlaz

By Emily Madriga Updated January 3, 2021

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Daniella Urdinlaz

Man in the closet

“I’m a crime writer and once interviewed a woman who told me an unrelated horror story about something that happened to her as a girl.

When she was like ten, she had trouble sleeping and imagined the Boogeyman was living in her closet, staring at her during the night. Every night she would come down and tell her parents and every night her father would tell her the Boogeyman didn’t exist and she should go back to bed.

Well, this happened for several nights and the father got tired of it. So that night he walked her back to her bedroom, turned on the light, and said, “I’ll show you there’s no Boogeyman” and went to open the closet door. But something on the other side held it shut. He sent his daughter out of the room and forced the door open to find that a man was inside. He’d been sneaking into their house every night to stand in the girl’s closet and watch her (and maybe more).

He beat the ever-loving shit out of the man and the man went to prison. When I interviewed this woman I looked him up online. He’d recently gotten out on parole and had skipped out on his weekly checks. There was a warrant out for his arrest and nobody knew where he was anymore.” — JamesRenner

A beheading in America

“Short story. My wife is from Enterprise, OR and I guess a kid in her school got beheaded on his way home. Was literally found with his head cut off on the side of the street and to this day no one knows who did it or how it happened. Absolutely gives me chills.” — Green_Apprentice

Suicide

“When I was much younger we lived across the street from a big family. He had a wife and 5 sons, and one night he brought his whole family into the living room and lined them up and pulled a shotgun out from under the couch and shot himself in the head. The kids were messed up again for the rest of their lives.” — Loganapple09

Man in a van

“When I was a little girl – 9 years old or thereabouts – I was playing at the school down the street from my house. It was the middle of summer and myself and a girlfriend were hanging around watching the boys play street hockey.

One of the boys called my name and said a man in the parking lot was looking for me. The parking lot was mostly obscured by the building, but I could see an old 70s style van that hadn’t been there earlier.

I was walking over to the van when the mother of one of the other kids showed up looking for her son and asked me what I was doing. When I told her someone in the van was looking for me, she took my hand and started to walk with me and the van pulled out and sped away.

Friend’s mom walked me home and I wasn’t allowed out of my yard without my parents for the rest of the summer. I was so upset and didn’t understand why I was being punished.

It was only years later that I understood that I was likely being targeted by some opportunistic scumbag for who knows what.

Thanks Mrs. Gibson, wherever you are.” — Im_vegan_btw__

Creepy man taking photos

“This happened with my sister in law, when she was about 11 or 12. Her and her family lived in a trailer park, just down the street was her bus stop for school. Each morning, she would see a man in his trailer taking pictures of her and her friends, it creeped her out so she went to tell her mom (my mother in law) of what this guy was doing and how he would just stand in the window staring at them and taking pictures. So, her mom calls the police and report him; the police didn’t do anything. This went on for about another two weeks with no action from the police to where now my sister in law is terrified to stand and wait for the school bus and her mom had to call the police again! This time, the police actually arrived at this perverts house and lo-and-behold, the police find a wall covered in pictures of my sister in law, some of the other neighborhood little girls and some child porn. Her and the other families watched from afar with this guy cuffed up and being escorted to the police cruiser.” — bittercritterbug92

WARNING: NOT SAFE FOR LIFE

“I’ve told this story before. I’m an eye doctor and I had a patient come to me with an infected eyelid two other eye doctors tried to treat and failed. They were dumping all sorts of medicine into it and it wasn’t getting any better. At this point, it was swollen and painful for weeks with no improvement despite being on tons of meds. Apparently, neither of them thought to flip the lid upside down (you know that gross trick some kids do with their upper eyelids?). It was a painful maneuver for her very swollen eyelid, which might explain it. Anyhow, there appeared to be what looked like a visible abscess inside the tissue with thick gooey material, I thought I’d give it a nudge and saw it move. This wasn’t an abscess, it was something else. I managed to remove it quite easily in one whole piece. It was a fly larva. The patient told me that she had a bug hit her in the eye a few days before she got this “infection”. I removed the larva and within two days the wound closed and she was 100% recovered on basic antibiotic eye drops. Yes, I do have the photos from this case for those interested.” — OscarDivine

He knew everything

“When I was in first grade, about 7or 8 years old, a man stopped by my school and told me “Eliksir, your dad sent me to get you” (i always walked from school and if anybody would have “gotten me”, it would have been my mom) so I just asked “my dad sent you?.” And he answered “yes your dad the very specific job” i dont know why but i started running towards my home, and lo and behold my mother was there and my parents had never sent anyone to get me. My mother called the police immediately we filled a report and my mom walked me to and from school for at least a few days after that.” — eliksir_mtl

Child abuse

“My great grandpa once lined up all his children (including my grandpa) and his wife and told them he was going to shoot all of them. I don’t know what happened but he didn’t end up shooting them. He was an alcoholic and he died before I ever met him. My grandpa has always been a gruff man with a short fuse, but you can’t really blame him after hearing about his childhood.” — Just_OneReason

Molester in the closet

“Something similar happened to me as a kid, maybe 2 or 3. My mom and I lived in a cheap single wide trailer in a real shitty trailer park (single mom working 2 jobs and was going to cosmetology school after my dad left). I stayed with my aunts overnight a lot because my mom would work graveyard shifts.

Anyway, she picked me up from my aunt’s house around 7am one day and we went back to our trailer. I remember immediately not wanting to go inside, begging to ride my bike but my exhausted mother just wanted to go to sleep so we went inside and she laid in bed.

I sat up watching Barney for a while and being the dickhead toddler that I was kept waking my mom up asking to go outside and ride my bike, which we usually kept in my room because if we left it outside it would get stolen. I told my mom I didn’t want to go play in my room so I asked to lay with her.

While we were laying there, for some reason I told my mom that there was someone in my closet and he wanted to hurt me (no idea how I knew that, I don’t think I even went into my room that day). She got up to show me no one was there and when she walked in my room the folding closet door started to open and got stuck on something.

Turns out, a previously convicted child molester had skipped bail on a new trial, watched my mom’s comings and goings for a few days, and broke into our house while she was at work. He took my bike in the closet with him hoping I would come looking for it when we got home and the only thing that kept him from jumping out of the closet to attack my mom when she walked in there was the spokes on my bike getting stuck on the little metal tabs at the bottom of those folding closet doors. Needless to say, we ran like hell out of the house and got in the car and drove away. Unfortunately the guy got out of the house before the cops showed up.” — skcroz91

There’s something in the water

“I used to love swimming, I’d go snorkeling, scuba diving, even jumped off a few cliffs into the water.

When I was about 18 I read the necrnomicon (the collection of Lovecraft short stories, not the real thing) had a good scare, giggled at how silly I was to be unnerved and went about my life.

Next year went to Crete on holiday, first day I jumped right into the ocean with my dad and went out deep. Lo and behold, I feel something tickling my legs. I dive under to see since its too deep for seaweed to reach this high and I wanted to see fish.

Tentacles. Everywhere. I was so shocked I lost my air and panicked hard, I started breathing in water as glowing eyes, sharp beaks and suckered tentacles flashed about me.

Thankfully, Dad got me to the shore and didn’t understand what was going on, he’d seen nothing but suddenly had a really grim look on his face.

Went to the doctors. Turns out I’m the victim of a family curse, Schizoaffective disorder. My dad was horrified cause since he hadn’t got it like his brother and mother, he thought I’d be safe.

They caught it early but this revelation then led to a lot of aspects of my life being thrown in the air. Entire people in my life became false, ideas I’d had were delusional, outbursts revealed to be due to mood swings.

I’m doing much better now, I still don’t go in the water.” — Voidscale

A backpack

“One day as a kid I was exploring the forests near our house with my cousin. The forest was on a hill, but there were several craters there because of bombs that were dropped there during the world wars (Germany). One day we saw a backpack at the bottom of one. We tried to climb down, but it was kinda steep and slippery, so we didn’t want to risk falling. We planned on returning later with a rope, and went home. The next day news story was that there was a backpack found with the remains of a girl, in that forest. A guy walking his dog found it, after the dog wouldn’t stop barking and going crazy at the edge of the crater, while starring at the backpack. We stopped exploring the forests after.” — somewhatofalegend

Murder suicide

“A kid from a couple towns away from me lived on a farm with his girlfriend, they were in the kitchen one night, she was cooking and him and his friend were cleaning their guns at the table. His went off and shot her killing her immediately, he then loaded up, ran outside and shot himself in the head.” — ciggybuttbrain666

Real life is the scariest thing of all

“I had brain surgery roughly 3 years ago. I lost my concept of time. What felt like 4 months was only 3 days. The amount of physical, mental, and emotional pain I went through was crazy. I had to find all of my memories and relearn how to walk, talk, everything. If you want to go through something terrifying that is it.” — AkierraLFS

Totally random

“One of my dad’s friend’s wife was murdered by some crazy dude walking down the street. This guy had just been released from a mental hospital and literally just stabbed her as she walked home. When my dads friend came back he thought she had just taken the dogs out for a walk so he walked along the normal walk route and he saw loads of blue lights. He was stopped by a police officer and wasnt allowed any closer until he saw that it was his wife.” — Nick_Pears

Flesh-eating bacteria

“When I was young, I saw a documentary about a guy who got flesh eating bacteria in his nasal cavity. It ate his face and he’s still alive. Eventually they removed the bacteria by removing the eaten parts of his face. He got a prosthetic face, which back in those days was basically a plastic Halloween mask that tried to look human. At the end of the documentary, he took the mask off. His face from his forehead down to his mouth was just a hole.” — huggalump

Andrew Cunanan encounter

“Walking my dog and crossing the street with a green light and a guy blows throw the red light and almost hits me and the dog. I yell “ASSHOLE” and he slams on his breaks and turns around and pulls into parking lot ahead of me.

I get closer and see the car has Illinois plates( I live in PA) he says “careful who call asshole I’ve killed people” I just keep walking and he drives away.

The next day I hear spree killer Andrew Cunanan used a stolen credit card at a gas station in my town. 100% was him I called a asshole.” — Whitealroker1

Chemistry creep

“My mom was stalked by a guy in her chemistry class. This was back in the late seventies, during her first semester at college. They were lab partners, and Mom thought he seemed cute and nice, and was too shy at the time to ask him out, but she said if he’d asked her out, she would’ve went. They were friendly with each other in class, but their paths didn’t cross outside of that since they were in different majors.

As the semester wore on, however, she noticed he was often waiting for her outside of her other classes, the library, the student union, out in front where her dad picked her up and dropped her off. This continued into the spring semester. Puzzled, but not yet alarmed, she asked him how he always seemed to know where she was. He proudly said, “Oh, I asked the registrar’s office for a copy of your schedule!”

My mom went to complain to the secretary who gave out her schedule, and the secretary blew it off because “you guys are dating”. Luckily, Mom had already arranged to transfer to a different school for sophomore year, and spent the remaining time left avoiding him. She never saw him after that. But it wasn’t over.

Flash forward to grad school. Mom was at work, and Grandma gets a knock on the door. Since the man at the door was in a naval uniform, and my grandmother was a Navy nurse, she let the man in, because he looked rather sad. He starts off by saying how sorry he is for my mother’s loss, which completely mystified Grandma.

“Well, ma’am, I just got back from overseas, and I found out my friend recently killed himself. He spoke so highly of his fiancée, your daughter, and I wanted to meet her.”

My grandmother told him her daughter didn’t even have a boyfriend at the moment, let alone a fiancé. It doesn’t take too long to establish the man’s deceased friend in question was in fact Mom’s stalker. The Naval Lieutenant was pretty upset, and my grandmother even more so. She made him leave before Mom got home.

The weird thing about the stalker’s death is that it was ruled a suicide, but he hanged himself from a very high up tree branch you’d need a ladder to get to, and his hands were tied behind his back. From what my mother later learned, he had a tendency to snoop and generally stick his nose in places they didn’t belong besides the obvious stalking thing, and this didn’t win him too many friends, so it’s anyone’s guess who he might have pissed off. My mom always concludes this story kind of nonchalantly, like, “Yeah, back in those days, they didn’t really know much about stalking. They’ve gotten a little better in terms of awareness now.” It gives me the creeps to think what could have happened if he escalated his attempts to follow her after she left that school.” — harperpitt011

“He was a monster”

“Have a great x grandma who’s “son tragically killed himself.” He had something wrong with him and raped at least one woman and there were several little girls that had horrible things done to them. All the official causes of death were suicide. My mom actually told me the truth, that our grandma killed him because he was a monster. Everyone knew but because of what he did and was nobody batted an eye. It was a different world.” — JCtheWanderingCrow

Road kill

“There was a man who got out of his car after it broke down on the highway and attempted to walk across the highway to the other side late at night. He was hit by a car and his body was driven over so many times that by the time the sun came up his body parts were scattered across 300m of highway.” — Kalaghni

Infection

“When I worked in healthcare I had a patient who got a sinus infection. He stopped taking his antibiotics after a few days because he felt better. His sinus infection came back with a vengeance. When he got to the Emergency Department he was presenting with stroke symptoms. The infection had spread to his cranial cavity. There was so much pus that it was twisting his brain. No one thought he would survive the surgery. The family was advised to expect the worst. Amazingly he actually survived. He ended up needing 3 more surgeries to wash out and spent almost 2 months in the hospital. Take your full dose of antibiotics, people!” — slappy_mcslapenstein

Hammer box

“One of our employees fell into the “Hammer box”. This is a device filled with ultra high torque rotating “hammers” used to grind up large appliances into scrap metal. It apparently turned 3 times before the emergency shutoff was hit pulling in half the employees body at a diagonal running from the middle of his pelvis to his shoulder. The gruesome part was that he was still alive, as the pressure from the hammers was holding the enormous wound shut. Took 30 minutes for EMT’s to arrive while he screamed for them to simply turn the machine back on and end it. He didn’t make it.” — Mandorism