Here Are 34 Truly Terrifying Stories That’ll Keep You Captivated (And Scared) For Hours On End

From various R/AskReddit threads

1. Rando tries to break in with sob story

When I was younger my dad was out was out of town and my mom let me have a few friends over. We lived right by a pretty busy highway and over there years had quite a few people knock on our door for help (car broke down, lost, accident, etc.). While my mom was home with us a man knocked saying he wanted to borrow the phone.

My mother told him he could sit on the porch and use her cellphone. The man kept asking to come inside and asking if my dad was home. He eventually started trying to force his way inside. My mom slammed and locked the door, called 911, and put my friends and I into a closet. It took the police department 20+ minutes to reach us. By that time my mom had called our neighbor and he came over his shotgun and made the guy lay on the ground until the police arrived.

2. Do YOU know David Crist?

I love to ride my bike along country roads. Not far from where I live is a tiny town called Three Oaks, in Michigan. One Saturday, my wife was working and I had nothing to do, so I strapped my bike to my car and drove the hour to Three Oaks. I parked in the scenic downtown area, and then rode out of the town and into the surrounding countryside.

As I wound my way further into the remote countryside, houses and businesses and cars grew increasingly scare. Eventually, there were only an occasional house or two every 1/2 mile or mile and corn fields and small woods flanking the dirt and gravel roads that I peddled down.

It’s on one of those back roads that a minivan drove past me. Within moments of it passing, it turned around pulled up along side me. I looked over and the passenger, a woman in her mid to late twenty’, was looking at me with her window down. The driver, a man of seemingly the same age, leaned over the passenger and said to me in a slight southern drawl and with a big smile on his face, “Hey, do you know David Crist?” I thought for a brief second, but I don’t know any David Crist, so I said so. The driver said, “You don’t know of him at all?” I said that I didn’t and apologized, and then pedaled on. The van sat for a moment longer and then pulled a u-turn and drove off in the direction it was originally heading.

I thought nothing of the encounter. Maybe the driver was a friend of David Crist, and he thought we had met though David or something. I don’t know. At the time, I didn’t think I had any reason to worry.

I continued on my ride, turning down this road and heading north, and then turning down that road and heading east. I didn’t have any agenda. I was just out to enjoy the summer day and meander through the relaxing countryside.

Maybe ten minutes later, and on an entirely new road and heading an entirely different direction from the one I had first met the van, I saw the van again. We were heading toward each other, and I gave a smile and nod as I passed the driver. I remember thinking it was an odd coincidence that I should come across this van again. The driver stared as he passed and he had a big smile on his face.

At this point, I began wondering what they were doing. They might be lost, and looking for this David Crist guy, or maybe they’re just enjoying a scenic drive and thought I looked like a friend of a friend, or something. I didn’t know, but at that point I was starting to think about the situation a little more critically.

I continued taking a twisting, turning, meandering path. Taking this road, and then turning onto that, heading north, south, west, east.

Then, I came across the van again. Again, they’re heading in my direction and I pulled along side them. The driver rolled down his window and leaned out. He was a late twenties white man, with a few inches of a goatee and a baseball cap. He had a large smile plastered across his face again. I stopped my bike and looked at him, waiting for him to say something, and he just looked at me for a good thirty seconds. Now, thirty seconds doesn’t sound like a long time, but you go flag down a stranger and then just look at them for thirty seconds, and you’ll realize that, in that kind of situation, thirty seconds is a lifetime. Finally, he spoke and said, “Hey, do you know David Crist?” Same damn question. This time there was no smile on his face. He stared at me, and I was thinking to myself, “Is he joking? Does he really not remember he asked me this same question twenty minutes ago? Is he just being funny? Is he high as hell?” After a moment, I told him that I still didn’t know anyone by the name of David Crist and I pedaled off down the road.

It’s at that time that I realized exactly in how remote of an area I was. I peered down the road I was on and I didn’t see a house on its entire length. I was flanked by a corn field on one side and a forest on the other. I looked over my shoulder and saw the van slowly driving down the road away from me. It couldn’t be a coincidence that I came across this van three times now, not with me taking random roads heading different directions. It made no sense why anyone driving would take that same maze of roads. The only thing they could have been doing was just driving around, maybe a pleasure drive, but why would they stop me and ask that same question twice? It was quite strange, and I was beginning to become a little concerned.

I decided to begin to head back toward the town center. I pedaled hard, and the gravel road ahead of me continued with a bend to the right, and a dirt path, for it couldn’t really be called a road, to the left. As I neared the fork, who should come around the bend but the damned van. I gripped my pocket knife, which I always take with me on rides like this — just in case — and then realized, all they would have to do is run me down with the van, and I would be in serious trouble. As the van drew closer, I was ready to jump off and run into the cornfields.

The van slowed down as it approached me and the driver rolled his window down and leaned out again, but this time I didn’t stop riding. I increased my speed, even though I knew I could never outrun the van if they gave chase. I looked over my shoulder and saw the van sitting in the middle of the road. I took the right fork and continued on the gravel road until I could no longer see the van behind the corn rows and then I stopped.

I got off my bike and crept along the cornfield until I was at its edge and I peaked down the road I had just been on. The van was in the distance driving away from me. I ran back to my bike, and then as soon as the van was entirely out of sight, I turned around and took the left fork along the dirt path. I rode as fast I could, knowing that if the people in the van had nefarious things in mind, and if they caught me on this dirt path, flanked by cornfields and far from an area that anyone would come across us, that would be the time they attacked.

My ruse worked, or perhaps the van was never after me at all, and I made it the rest of the way to the town center without seeing them again. When I got home later that day, I was still replaying the events in my head and the name David Crist kept creeping through my mind. Was David Crist someone famous, I wondered, like a musician. Should I have known David Crist? I decided to Google the name. I tried a couple of different spellings for Krist, but it the Crist spelling that revealed a terrifying result.

I came across a newspaper article from Knoxville, TN. The article explained how a man named David Crist had turned himself in after stabbing another man at a gas station in 2013. The article included a photo of this criminal David Crist, and I believe it was the same man that was driving the van. Add a baseball cap and a few inches of a goatee and the man in the van was a dead ringer for David Crist in the article. I did an inmate search of the Knox country prison and there was no David Crist in the inmate population.

Somehow David Crist had gotten out of prison, or maybe he was never convicted, as I couldn’t find any articles about sentencing, in less than two years after stabbing a guy and for some reason he had made his way to Michigan. Why was he driving along these back roads? Who was the woman in the passenger seat, and why the hell did he keep asking if I knew of him?

Do I know David Crist? Yes, I do now.

newspaper article of stabbing http://www.local8now.com/home/headlines/Knox-County-deputies-search-for-stabbing-suspect-185123191.html

3. Unexplained visitor

I’d just moved into a basement suite. Every time I went out I would lock the deadbolt but not the door handle but when I came home a lot of the time the deadbolt would be unlocked and the door handle would be locked. At first I thought I was just confused about which one I had locked so I started paying more attention. It kept happening and I realized someone must be going in when I went out. I assumed it was the landlady and was annoyed but didn’t say anything at first.

Then one day I came home and found the wrong lock locked again. I went in pissed off and opened the fridge to get something to eat. There was a book in the fridge that I had never seen before. I collected old books and this one was published in the early 1900s which creeped me out completely because it was like it had been left for me. I finally called my landlady and asked if she was going into my apartment and told her what had happened. She freaked right out, said the last person who lived there was a really creepy guy with mental health and drug problems. She got all the locks changed that day and it never happened again.

4. Hearing stuff from the bathtub = pure horror

When I was about 14 my parents left me alone overnight for the first time. I grew up in a small farming community, so my parents really had nothing to worry about. They left and I decided to take an awesome bubble bath and paint my nails like all girls everywhere, obviously.

While I was in the bath, I heard our back door open. I thought I was hearing things, and besides, I had locked all the doors per my mom’s orders. But then I heard the kitchen floor squeaky spot. I didn’t know what to do so I just went under the bubbles and left my head out. I saw two shoes through the crack between the door and the floor. I could hear a person breathing. They stood there for about 30 seconds and then walked away.

I heard the door slam but I didn’t move, I just stayed there until the water was freezing and cried. Then I got out, called my grandma, and checked the doors. The back door was unlocked and the lock hadn’t been messed with or broken. Later that week we learned that a man was breaking into farm houses.

5. This is why you NEVER hitchhike

Back in the 70s my grandfather dropped my grandmother, mom, and her 2 sisters off to do some shopping on his way to work. Since he wasn’t able to pick them up, they hitch hiked home.

My mom at the time was only around 10 or 11, middle sister would’ve been about 7 or 8 and the youngest was about a year old.

They get picked up by a guy in pick up truck, who has them all sit in the back row with one of them holding the baby. My grandmother was giving directions to their home from the highway, but the guy ignored her and went by their exit claiming he had to make a stop first. Didn’t really say much else to them during the drive, my mom remembers my grandmother being very quiet and very nervous.

Eventually they come up to a farm, driver tells them to wait in the car and goes inside the house. While he’s gone they just sit there terrified, they’re in the middle of nowhere and know they couldn’t make it out on foot. A few minutes later the driver comes out with a second guy who looks into truck and sees my mom’s youngest sister. He starts flipping out, screaming at the driver that he shouldn’t have brought the baby back, they aren’t going to do anything with her and some other things I can’t remember, ends up telling him to get them away from the farm.

Driver gets back into the truck, apologizes, and they get back on the highway and drive again in silence. My grandmother, normally a very smart woman, had him drive directly to their house (although I suspect her reasoning was she’d already given him the address before anything seemed off). They lived at that house for several years and luckily never saw either of them a second time.

6. Near miss from lunatic rapist

My (female) friend’s dad once answered the door late one night, like 11pm or so and there’s was a weird man asking for directions to the main road. Her dad usually works nights, but on this rare occasion he’d taken the night off. So, he told him the route, and the weird man thanked him and went off, but in the opposite direction. He’d seemed quite nervous and jittery, which is odd, but what’s even weirder is he’s known in the area, he’d lived there years, he wouldn’t need to ask directions to the main road.

Anyway, it was revealed in the news that on the same night, he’d broken into a house and violently raped a woman and her daughter, and later tried to sexually assault another woman in the street but a passer by managed to help her get away. This was after he called at my friend’s house, so he’d gone there then went off in that wrong direction and tried to rape someone.

Now, my friend’s family was having a lot of drama at the time, her mum is a nutcase alcoholic and the whole street knew that she’d been sent to rehab. With her dad working nights, it’s likely that the weird rapey man knew my friend would be home alone. We think she had a very close call with that one.

7. This kid is too psycho for words…

In freshman year of middle school (6th grade) there was a once-a-week ‘group therapy’ session with developmentally delayed kids that involved them doing some crafts activity or playing with legos or watching a movie as a group. It was half normal kids, half DD kids, and the normal kids could sign up for it. I signed up pretty instantly as it meant an escape from History once a week. One of my best friends at the time had the same idea, and it basically turned into a second lunch period for us. The whole thing was overseen by a therapist named Bruce and it was generally pretty laid back. Bruce was an overweight 50-ish balding guy with the attitude and general appearance of Santa Claus. He ran most of the school’s extracurriculars and was pretty much universally liked.

The other important player in this story was a kid who I’ll call G. You know that stereotype of psychopaths being obsessed with animal torture as a kid? This was dead-on G. He’d regularly tell these long excited stories during group about how much fun he had last week tearing the leg off a squirrel he caught in his live trap, or other similar things. Most of us just sort of ignored him as it was just sort of assumed that he was all talk and just making up gross stuff to get attention.

So one week we were playing with playdough. Since it was a DD group the huge tub of playdough had long since assumed a uniform shade of turd brown and the general drive was to get people to build things and tell stories about them. Most people just built dinosaurs or threw clay at eachother. G, for whatever reason, had a huge flat square slab laid out and was building four large pillars on the corners. He eventually put a roof on it, which wouldn’t stay on due to the lack of interior supports. The normal kids would always leave a few minutes early as the group ran right into the start of the next period and we’d need time to get to class. I was no different, and walked out while Bruce and the DD kids were smashing playdough, giggling and throwing chunks of turd-dough back into the bin.

I got to my next class and the teacher wasn’t there. Nobody knew what was going on. About 10 minutes later she finally showed up looking frazzled and wouldn’t give us any information other than ‘something happened’ that needed staff attention. Being 6th graders, we went nuts with speculation.

A few hours later I ran into the friend from group, who was visibly jumpy and disturbed. He wouldn’t tell me why other than mentioning that therapy group was cancelled indefinitely. I kept prying for information and eventually got the story out of him.

So during the cleanup the playdough had to be compacted back into its tub. This involved lots of smashing playdough sculptures, a bit that the DD kids greatly enjoyed to the point where they’d try to smash other people’s stuff. G’s house was one of the last things to go. He smashed down two columns, let one of the other DD’s smash another, and finally dared Bruce to smash the last one really hard.

The last one with the pocketknife in it.

I never saw either Bruce or G ever again.

8. ACTUALLY kidnapped (but nobody believed it).

My mom was kidnapped, blindfolded, taken to a dark place she still isn’t sure was even a man-made structure, and then tied to a chair. The guy that took her kept talking to her the entire time; she has never told me details except that the man was crazy. After a while she started talking to him, asking him questions, getting him to talk to her about less crazy stuff. She isn’t sure how long this went on, just that it was a long time. After quite some time, the man (whom she never saw directly or recognized the voice of) told her, “I don’t know why, but I need to let you go”.

My guess is that she humanized herself enough to him so that he couldn’t go through with whatever it was he had initially kidnapped her for. He loaded her back up in the car and dropped off, still blindfolded, at a convenience store up the road from where she lived, told her to count to 1000 before taking the blindfold off, then he left. After she got home and told her parents they didn’t believe her and thought she was making it up so that she wouldn’t get in trouble for being out late.

9. Footsteps in the house

When I was about 9 or 10, my older brother and I had a few friends over to stay the night. My Dad had to work the next day so we were all left at the house by ourselves for the day. We were excited to play playstation all day on our Saturday off. Well my Dad worked late that night (until probably 8 or 9). As soon as the sun went down we went into one of the rooms upstairs to play Uno. Fast forward 30 minutes and we start hearing footsteps slowing walking up the wooden stairs. My dad wasn’t going to be home for another 2 hours so we didn’t know who it was. There were four of us, me, my brother, my friend, and his friend.

We would take turns walking out of the room to see what it was but before we could look down the dark stairs we would hear what sounded like someone running down the stairs as fast as they could so they couldn’t be seen. This continued for probably 2 hours ending with all of us huddled in the room upstairs with the door wedged shut with a chair until my Dad got home.

None of us were really believers in anything paranormal but a child’s imagination is a crazy thing. Now 15 years later, I still don’t know what to make of it but every one of us heard those footsteps walking up those dark stairs. I bring it up to my friend who I’m still friends with and he remembers it just as vividly as I do. It kind of creeps me out just thinking about it.

10. Creepy car stalking us down the road.

It was 2001 and my friend and I were 17 (both female) and driving back from a late movie to my house one night. I lived in a pretty rural area in Maine, about 20 minutes from the nearest town.

As we were driving down the highway through the woods, we passed a median with a car sitting in it, facing in the oncoming direction, with all its lights off. Right after we drove past it, it flashed its lights, did a 3 point turn and started driving behind us. We giggled that “oh, it must be a gang initiation, we’re gonna get murdered!” because this was Maine and that was obviously not what was happening.

The turnoff for my road was a few miles away and this car stayed behind us the whole time. We made the left turn and the car kept going down the highway. Phew! But 30 seconds later we realized that the car must have backed up on the highway and made the turn after us. Now we were getting a little worried. There was still one more road to turn down before we got to my house (this is way in the woods) and the car did the same thing…backed up and made the left after us. Now we were legit freaked.

I had a long driveway and the car followed us right into the driveway and almost up to my house, which had all the lights on because my mom was home. We ran into my house, just in time to see the mystery car reverse back down the driveway and drive away.

To this day we still have no idea why that car was following us – if they thought we were someone else or if they actually had bad intentions and only changed their mind when they saw that my houselights were on. Since we only ever saw the front of the car, we didn’t get a license plate or a better description than “a blue car”.

11. This is more than just “road rage”

Once as a teenager, I was leaving a fast food drive-thru and someone in an old bronco started to follow me. At first I thought it was a road rage situation and did the “sorry” wave, and tried to let him pass but he swerved at me like he was trying to hit my car. He pulled up alongside of me and was screaming out the window, just incoherently furious, continuing to swerve at me.

This was before the days of cell phones and I was in an unfamiliar area of town. I was driving a Firebird and tried to outrun him, but he would run red lights and make crazy turns to keep up with me. I eventually ran into a dead end and he pulled his truck across the road to block it. There were big ditches on either side so I was stuck.

He got out and started scrambling at my door handle (doors locked) and pounding on the windows, his face inches from mine just screaming and screaming in a way that seemed like he couldn’t even quite see me. Shaking and crying, I turned on my overhead light so he could see I was just a teenage girl and not who he was looking for and he jumped on my hood and started pounding (and drooling in thick, white smears) on my windshield.

I was screaming and crying and he stopped, held up one finger like “wait a minute” and scurried off to his truck. I floored the gas and ran into the ditch and drove like a crazy person for 45 minutes until I knew I had lost him.

No idea what his deal was. My mom thought I made up this entire story to lie about the damage to my car, and still seems hesitant to believe me…

12. JESUS

This happened to my friend. She was 15 at the time and lived with her parents. She woke up in the night feeling that someone was watching her. She had a big room in the main floor. She woke up and was just sure she wasn’t alone in the room. Heart pounding she turned on her night light, and there was a strange man sitting in a chair by the corner of the room, he was masturbating.

She screamed bloody murder and her dad wake up and ran to her room. A small fight ensued, cops was called. They where living close to a housing for immigrants, and one of the asylum seekers was really mentally ill. My poor friend went to years and years of therapy and is doing well today.

13. Police officer who isn’t going to keep you safe

When my wife was in college, she took a philosophy class or something. On the first day everyone announced who they were etc. turns out she was sitting next to a police officer who was taking the class for continuing education or a promotion (can’t remember, but he was actively a police officer). This was really great for her because she’s small and it was a night time class.

They became friends ish (as much as two people sitting next to each other for a few classes are) he agreed to walk her to her car after class since the school wasn’t in the best area and it made her feel safe.

Around mid terms he stops showing up. She’s kind of confused, but figured life happens and something else probably came up.

A few weeks later we’re at her parents house and her mom asks if we had heard about the police officer that had been arrested. We hadn’t so she begins to fill us in on this police officer that had been pulling women over and raping them in their cars.

We live in a small town, but it gets super rural super fast if you leave, so nobody is passing these scenes as they’re happening.

Anyway, turns out that the officer raping women was the same guy that was walking her to her car after class every week and the reason he wasn’t in class was because he had been arrested.

14. More unlocking doors.

When I was in college I lived in a decently safe apartment complex. You needed a gate clicker for your car, and the foot entrance required a code. All doors had a dead bolt, and extensive locks for the sliding patio door. Well when the complex went under new management, the foot path gate code stopped working so anyone could push it open.

In mid October a note was sent out to all residents stating that a new gate code would be issued in the following days and for everyone to keep their doors locked due to suspicious behavior. The following week another note was sent out describing a man that had been seen peering over balconies and through windows, but the gate code still hadn’t been fixed. On Halloween I distinctly remember locking my deadbolt after a night out because I friends staying over, and I usually locked my door anyway since I lived alone.

I woke up the next morning and my door was unlocked, I asked if anyone had went outside and they all said no. The following night I was by myself, and a little skeptical of my door so I made it a point to check my door before I went to sleep. Wake up next morning and the door is unlocked. I was a little freaked out so I scanned my apartment for anything missing, or a sign that someone had been in there. Nothing.

So by the third night I was damn sure I locked my door, and checked my sliding door locks as well. Around 5:30/6 am my cat started to get restless so I threw her in the living room until I was ready to wake up. She starts making some weird noises a few minutes later, so I go into the living room and hear a weird noise, like a thud or something, I look at my door and its fucking unlocked.

By this time I’m freaking out, called my apartment manager and got them to inspect my apartment to make sure there was no way for anyone to get in, and had my locks changed. Never happened again but I’m about 99% sure someone had been sneaking in to my apartment when I wasn’t home and watching me sleep. Maybe I was just being paranoid, but I know for a fact I had locked my door all three nights.

15. Camping paranormal or paranoia?

I was a chaperone for a Girl Scout camping trip when I was 16 (the kids were about 5-9 years old). I had a cabin with six kids I was in charge of at night, and helped out during the day.

Night one, one of my kids had a bit of a developmental issue. I wake up to her leaving the cabin. I chase after her thinking she is going to the latrine, but she’s sleepwalking. I’m out in the dark barefoot trying to coax this creepy kid back inside when I hear something big out in the woods. I grab the kid and she starts screaming like an infant and goes stiff. I carry her back inside, everyone in my cabin is awake, I don’t sleep the rest of the night.

Day two: Sleepwalker is moved to another cabin. That afternoon, when I’m walking the kids back from the latrine, sleepwalker and another kid sneak away from the group. I realize they are gone, get help, find kids fifteen minutes later. Back at camp, they start telling scary stories about their sneaking away, saying it was the “KittyCow” who lives in the woods.

Night two: Wake up and its gotten cold. Get up to close the windows and shutters and see a light in the woods, like someone has a lantern. It “walks” to a point in the woods, then stops. I stay still in the dark and watch it for a long while, about to shrug it off when the light moves again, coming around and going down the side of the cabin, closer, but not close enough to see who is carrying it. I realize its heading to the window by the kids bunk beds, sneak over and close the window and shutters. The light stays close on the other side of the shutters for a long time before moving on and disappearing.

Day three: Tell adults about light. They dismiss it as probably a ranger checking the campsite.

Kids by this time are totally freaking each other out over KittyCow. Literally starting to be afraid to leave the craft area in broad daylight because KittyCow might be there. There’s all sorts of weird KittyCow stories.

That afternoon, we find out a bear broke into another camp and ate food, so in addition to a real threat, we think that may be the origin of KittyCow. Plus, it would make sense that there would be rangers out looking, as there’s a bear on the loose.

Night Three: I stay up listening to music to see if the lights will come back. About 1 am, I see it coming by again, again walking to a point in the woods and waiting. Around 1:30, it starts closer to the cabin. As its walking around the side, I hear one of the other chaperones start to yell “hey, who is that? Who’s out there?” The light cuts off. I yell back to the chaperone that I saw it too, what should we do? I’m terrified at this point.

The chaperone tells me to bring my kids over to her, holding hands. We all cram in one cabin, and a bit later a thunderstorm starts. For another night I basically don’t sleep.

The next day everyone sort of laughs it off again, sort of saying we weren’t seeing anything, that maybe it was heat lightning or the kids were playing with flashlights and we saw them reflected. I’m so sleep deprived it hurts and I’m hearing popping noises.

I end up being paired with another chaperone and we go for a hike with the kids. It’s all foggy in the woods, and the kids are really strung out between the excitement the night before, which they blame on KittyCow. Out in the woods the kids start claiming they are seeing KittyCow everywhere, sneaking up on us.

I can’t tell you now how weird and terrifying things got then. You had this Silent Hill fog, all the girls are wearing matching ponchos, so the scene was surreal. The kids are freaking out over every tree, screaming KittyCow is coming to get them, and I’m barely held together on no sleep, convinced myself that some weirdo has been creeping around our camp.

Things literally devolve into mass hysteria, the kids are literally falling to the ground screaming and sobbing, and the other chaperone LEAVES. She just books it out of the forest back to camp while I am coaxing, pulling, and CARRYING screaming children out of the mist.

I got the kids almost back to camp when the other chaperones come rushing out. The chaperone who left claimed she saw a bear and ran for her life. I didn’t leave any kids behind.

I have never and will never experience anything as creepy and terrifying as that afternoon in the woods. While nothing happened, its haunted my dreams since then.

16. Saved from death by my dog

When I was around 14 years old, I really liked to go for runs with my shepherd x lab. I lived in a fairly quiet, clean suburban neighborhood that was situated beside a broad expanse of pasture used by about ten horses (I would say it was roughly 40 acres).

Anyway, a bike path ran between the pasture and my neighborhood and I generally ran down the path. One night I decided to go with my pup around 10:00 pm. May not seem like the smartest decision, but I had spent many nights with my group of friends biking/rollerblading around the neighborhood so I thought nothing of the late hour. I was running down the bike path with my dog, who is a a big pup yet the friendliest guy you’ll meet. As we ran I noticed a dark lump a little ways ahead, and because it was nearly pitch black I could barely see it. I dismissed it as a garbage bag.

As we drew closer, my dog perked up his ears and his hackles went up and he started to growl…which he rarely ever does. He loves basically everything. I stopped running and stared as the ‘garbage bag’ started to move. 14 year old me still didn’t really know what the heck I was looking at, and it wasn’t until the supposed garbage stood up that I realized it was a man…who then started to run towards us!

My dog then turned around and, I kid you not, started to run and yanked me along behind him. We reached a street, he darted down it, then pulled me into a dark alley, onto another street, then another alley, then another street, until we somehow lost the guy. My dog saved my life, I’m pretty sure. The guy may not have been an axe murderer but it turns out some creepy ex felon was arrested in our neighborhood about two days later. I love my dog <3

17. The streets are an unholy place

I was walking home from the beach one day around noon and a guy driving down the street in a Ford Escape slows down and in slightly broken English asks me how much, I tell him to fuck off and he tells me $200 for an hour.

At this point I’m walking faster and his car is keeping pace with me, he crosses two lanes and parks in a driveway in front of me and opens his door and a passenger door opens as well.

Another guy steps out and walks towards me, I start screaming my head off and cussing them out trying to draw attention on this busy street while fishing my knife out of my bag. I walked into the street and around the car, call my boyfriend and tell them its the cops.

I give my boyfriend their license plate number and almost run to his house because it was about a block away. They followed me for another minute and then drove past me really fast while calling me a ‘fucking cunt’. I was 16 at the time and I really wish I had called the cops because as an adult I am 100% sure I was about to be kidnapped and raped.

18. Almost snatched as a kid!

Didn’t realize until years later that I was almost snatched.

Grew up in a small town. Out playing in the yard with my 2 younger siblings like every other summer day. Guy pulls up alongside the yard in a truck, calls me over. Asks my name, if I’m having a good summer. He says he could really use my help, he’s out looking for his lost puppy. He can show me a photo of the puppy if I come closer. No, closer. The picture is small, can I please help him? I yelled to my brother on the other side of the yard “Daaaaaan, come help us find a puppy!”

I have to assume he thought I yelled ‘dad’ because he noped / screeched out of there without another word.

I remember being really worried about that puppy…until we had an assembly at our primary school about things strangers might say to lure you into their vehicles.

19. Cabins are a house of horrors

Rented a cabin for a week with my SO – first night there we had spent the day visiting her family (the actual reason for our trip), had dinner, she got pretty wasted. Get back to the cabin, carry my SO inside – to find all our bags opened/dumped onto the floor. This set me into panic mode.

I hadn’t been drinking and I routinely carry, so I pull out my gun and sweep the house – I check every room, closets, even under the bed – nothing. My SO is still fast asleep, so I check our stuff over and there’s nothing missing. It had just been dumped onto the floor. So I look around some more, all the windows are locked, the backdoor was even dead bolted.

It just really bothered me that there was no sign of break in. I know I locked the place before I left, so either someone else had a key to my cabin, or whoever it was was still inside the cabin. Either way, I didn’t think I’d do much sleeping.

It was too late to make other arrangements, and considering that most likely there wasn’t anything to worry about really. We had been gone all day, from 9am – midnight. So odds whoever it was did it was probably way earlier. But still… I couldn’t shake it. I went in and covered up my SO, used the bathroom, set up a rocking chair facing the front door – my hand on my gun on my lap, I started watch.

I felt pretty silly sitting there, but I couldn’t not sit there either. And some time around 3-4am, I fell asleep.

I woke up the next morning around 7am, sun shining through. I actually half scared myself because I hadn’t meant to fall asleep – which then scared me again because I wasn’t holding my gun. I start looking around, and on the couch is my gun. I’m like What… then I look – the front door is wide open. I’m like.. NO FUCKING WAY. I jump up and start running to check on my SO – thank God she was still there, untouched. I go back out into the living room and pick up my gun, all my bullets are missing.

I go outside and look around, car and everything is still there – no signs of anybody. I walk back inside, look in the far corner of the living room and I see the corner of the main living room rug lifted up. I investigate – it’s covering the opening to the crawlspace.

That means this guy was IN MY CABIN THE ENTIRE TIME. I must have pulled up and caught the guy in the act, he thought fast and hid in the crawlspace. Then some time during the night, crawled out, DISARMED ME, and walked right out the front door.

20. Crazy family members stealing from our house

It was 1990 and I was 13 years old. It was a Friday night and my parents went out for the evening. They were visiting an aunts house which was about 45 mins away. My best friend was staying the night and we were upstairs chilling in my room. Now, the bedroom I was in and previously been my sisters just a few weeks prior. She moved in with a friend so I jumped on the chance to get the big room. It was on the second floor with two windows. One on the front of the house and another on the side, right next to the chimney.

My back was to the side window when she screamed a horrible scream. I turn and look and she’s yelling that there was a man in the window. She saw his face and he had his hands on the window sill. I question what she saw because, hello, we’re on the second floor.

About 10 seconds later my dog starts going off down stairs. Our house was positioned weird. We were right around a bend in the road on a very steep hill with a thick forest about 20 feet from the back of the house. There was a large deck that ran the stretch of the house with a door to the kitchen on one end and a set of French doors going into the family room on the other. We got a lot of animals on the deck so I tried to write his barking off on a possum. No dice. He is running back and forth across the back of the house chasing something. It’s pitch black and I am not going downstairs to turn the outside light on. Then it didn’t matter, the dog was at the front door, freaking out. So I did the stupidest thing you can imagine. I went for my dads gun that he kept in his sock drawer.

It wasn’t there.

I was afraid to call the police because if it was a false alarm my dad would have literally beat the shit out of me. So I called my neighbor. He was an FBI agent and for some reason I thought that made him coplike. I told him the brief rundown and that we were home alone. A span of about 5 minutes had passed and I finally realized I need to call my parents. No one answered so we made arrangements for my friends mom to get us so I could stay over there. I was not staying in the house alone.

A few minutes later my neighbor knocks on the door. He said that as he was walking into the yard a car peeled out right around the bend. There was no street parking so whomever it was didn’t live nearby (there was also a parking lot across from where they were). He said he would talk to my parent when they got home and would look around the yard the next day.

Finally my friends mom arrived about 20 minutes later. I left a note, loved my dog, locked up and took off.

The next day my dad was pissed. He said my friend made it up for attention and I blew it out of proportion. He was such a nice guy. The neighbor came back over and looked around. He mentioned some holes that were under the window next to the chimney. Finally my dad starts taking it seriously. He immediately starts inventoring belonging and we start inspecting the house thoroughly. I found pry marks on the front door (we seldom used it so we wouldn’t have noticed right away), but little else.

Now, I didn’t tell him about the gun because I assumed he moved it and if he knew I went looking for it he’d beat my ass. Well, he didn’t know it was missing and flipped his lid (understanding). He then went through his important paperwork and discovered that several credit cards were missing as well as some collectibles that were stashed in his closet.

We inventoried our belongings. My mom was missing some jewelry and I was missing (sob) all my Z Cavarichi clothes as well as some knickknacks.

Cops were called and a report was filed. It took a few days, but he was able to get info on charges made on one of the cards. It took over a week to get all the statements. There were charges for jewlery, clothing, alcohol, and the one that stood out, lots of baby supplies including a crib.

All of the clues led to one person. An old friend of my sisters that she had recently started hanging out with again. She was pregnant.

There’s a family meeting and my sister says that she lent her car to the girl a few times while she was at work. Our dad had her call the girl and tell her that if she confessed to what she did he wouldn’t press charges against her. She admits to copying the house and car key when she borrowed the car. While everyone was gone her and some friends came in and took things. She didn’t know about the gun or that something happened that one night. It seems her friends were coming back without her.

I’m trying to remember if she got in trouble or not, but I know a few of her friends got arrested. They changed the locks, added a keypad on the garage and my dad started setting booby traps. The worst trap was a series of razor blades that he duct taped around the doorknobs. That one almost caught me sneaking in one night.

21. Kids from mental hospital wanted to rape and kill me

My father was a supervisor of a now defunct inpatient mental health hospital. He supervised the children’s unit. These were kids, mostly boys, that had done some terrible shit. Or they came from terrible families and through no fault of their own, ended up there. One day a group outing had been planned for some of the kids on his unit. Two boys decided it would be a good time to start a fight right as they were about to leave. My dad decided that their behavior didn’t warrant a trip (I forgot where they were going, but it was somewhere really fun I believe). He kept them back at the facility that day. I was six at the time. Later that night my dad gets a phone call from home – it’s the police. Two boys had managed to slip past a psych tech sleeping on night shift at the facility and were found blocks from our house with duct tape and knives in their backpacks.

Apparently they hadn’t taken kindly to being left behind and waited until they knew the night crew would be distracted doing rounds or tending to patients. They had found my dad’s home address by breaking into his office and saw a picture of me on his desk. Needless to say they confessed to my dad’s face later that night they had planned to rape and murder me. The cops picked them up because they were too young (I believe they were 14 or 15) to be out as late as they were. My dad quit a few weeks later and we moved cross country.

22. Sick doctor recording people changing

This happened at a small hospital in Kansas. But about 7 years ago they had a physical therapist that was generally loved throughout the community. Those that received PT would go to his office, change into comfortable clothes in the restroom, begin therapy. It was kind of a communal locker room but had a lock on the door so you could be sure no one would come in.

One day one of assistants was changing in there and noticed something was off about the PT’s gym bag that was in there, and when she looked closer she noticed a hole facing the changing room in the side of the bag. She stuck her finger in and felt glass, opened it and found a video camera, set to record.

Of course she immediately brought this to the hospital leaders, who brought him in and questioned him. He confessed to recording the videos for some time, and was immediately fired. His clients are of all age groups, so it’s particularly disturbing to think he had videos of children.

So here’s the thing: you’ve caught someone doing something highly illegal red handed, and have the evidence, and what do you do? Not call the police, but fire the man and walk him to the door. Well this man, in hysterics, drives his car head on into semi truck on the way home, killing both drivers. There was a huge communal outpouring of sympathy for the PT, and the hospital never released the true reason for firing him, just a tragic “accident”.

What really bugs me are that those videos might be out there somewhere, on the Internet or in storage somewhere, but the hospital wanted to save face and not tarnish the reputation of someone who was already dead. Really gives me the creeps how small towns can cover this kind of thing up.

23. Crazy lady laying on highway

About 15 years ago my mom and cousin were coming home from visiting my aunt who lived 2 hours away. The drive takes you through the desert and up some mountains but there is a shortcut you can take to avoid the mountains and shave about 10 minutes off your drive time, only problem is the shortcut takes you literally through the middle of nowhere. Its a 2 lane road with nothing for 30 miles, no houses, no shops, no lights, not even those roadside emergency phone booths.

They’re driving along through the shortcut at about 11PM when they spot something on the road. At first my cousin thinks its a rock so she slows down to go around it. When she gets closer she realizes its a lady with long black hair and what looks like a burlap shawl wrapped around her. She’s crouched down facing away from my cousin. My mom says that she thought the lady might have been in trouble so they pull up next to her and ask if she’s OK and if she needs help.

My cousin says the lady stood up and looked at them and let out a shriek like a goddamn banshee. She insists that the her eyes were pitch black and her skin was as white as a sheet and she was really skinny, like almost anorexic skinny. I debate this because it was dark out and her mind might have been playing tricks on her, but none the less it was enough to spook the hell out her and make her punch the accelerator and get out of there.

The lady briefly ran after them but they lost sight of her after a short bit. They didn’t stop for anything, even running a stop sign, until they got to the next town where they stopped at a gas station to get something to drink and to collect their thoughts.

A few weeks later my cousin was telling her coworker what happened and she said it might have been a skin walker that she saw and that she’s lucky she got away. That spooked her even worse so now she wont go through the shortcut, even when someone else is driving she insists on taking the main highway. My mom maintains that it was probably some crazy lady on drugs.

24. Weird government shit

I’ve heard of that happening out here in the country side in Kansas. I grew up out in the country on the Arkansas river. Weird things happen in those woods along the river. Ranging from possible KKK (seen the still smouldering burnt cross) rallies deep in the woods to weird government experiments. We were 6 miles away from an AFB.

I remember I was 18 years old and was bombing down the dirt road by my house. The neighborhood had only entrance to it with the river serving as a barrier on the other end. I drove past a convoy of 6 black Chevy Tahoes with G-men driving. They had US govt issued tags and 2 of them towed large white dual axled covered trailers. For weeks after that me and the neighbors saw a lot of white and green lights shining out of the woods. The creepiest was the night a large dark green spot light shone out of the woods near my house and illuminated the grain elevator in the town 3 miles away! We traced the origin of the light to the riverbank but it was so fucking bright that we couldn’t see much else. Never figured it out.

I think weird shit just goes down in the country side.

25. Kidnappers at gas station

I used to work as a cashier at a BP that was right off the interstate. It doubled as a truck stop and was open 24 hours. I had worked there for about a year so I was fairly comfortable with the job and I was used to working night shifts alone, despite being a smaller female.

So I was working one night and everything was going as usual…it was about 1am and I saw a pickup truck pull in. Three passengers got out and entered the store. The two men were wearing camouflage outfits and the woman was wearing jeans and a sweater. The men talked to the woman outside of the door before entering and then they all went straight to me at the counter and asked for some cigarettes.

As the one man was paying, the other one went to the other side of the store looking at drinks. I looked at the woman and realized that she had a look of panic on her face. I immediately felt in my gut that something bad was going on. We made eye contact and she mouthed the words ‘help me’. Then the man grabbed his cigarettes with one hand and the woman’s arm with the other and yelled at his buddy that they were ready to go. I was only 19 and wasn’t really sure what to do so I waited until they walked out the door and slid my hand under the counter and hit the panic button.

About 5-10 minutes later the cops got there and I told them what happened. They looked at the surveillance videos and told me that they were investigating a kidnapping with a description of that same vehicle. I told them which direction they went on the interstate and the rest of the officers left after them while I gave my statement to the one who stayed behind. I never did find out if they caught them or not.

26. Almost left to the mercy of a pursuing car

My mum and I were driving out on this rural road one night. It was very late and I was about 10 years old. My mum stopped at a gas station to fill up our car and then we would be on our way. This particular gas station was the last stop before two 2+ hours of highway.

My mum got gas for the car and then we were off. My mum noticed a car behind her was following quite closely. At one point the highway separated into two different roads. Each road was at least 2+ hours before the next town. When my mum (accidentally) put on her blinker to turn left for one road she noticed the car behind her put on their left blinker. When my mum noticed she meant to turn on her right blinker the other car slowed down and turned on their right blinker. My mum (very smartly) thought it was strange that another vehicle made the same mistake she had. So, instead of going the way we needed to go she changed her route and went left instead. Again, the car behind us followed us.

By this time my mum knew something odd was up. There then appeared a small farmhouse off to the side of the road. My mum pulled over as if we lived at this farmhouse. The car that had been following us passed us, turned around, and then parked on the highway across the road from the farmhouse.

At this point, mum was sufficiently freaked out and she pulled out of the farmhouse driveway and drove back to the gas station a few miles back (Other car did not follow us at this point).

When we arrived at the gas station we realized that two of our car tires had been stabbed/punctured. Mum then realized the first time she stopped for gas was when the tires were punctured and if we had been stranded alongside the road of the desolate highway where we were headed we would have been at the mercy of strangers/cars following us.

27. Someone was killed on her porch

A girl in my high school English class was about 4 at the time of this story. She lived in a house backing onto a park with no fence around the backyard, she had a glass sliding door in her room that opened out to the park. It’s the middle of the night, she’s asleep. Hears a banging at the door, being a little kid she hides under the blankets. In the morning there’s a dead woman covered in blood outside the door, blood smeared down the glass.

Apparently she was attacked in the park, ran for help and was trying to get someone in the house to help her. Ended up getting stabbed to death on the girl’s back porch.

28. Someone tried to kill brother with beer

Scary thing happened to my oldest brother once. I’m a little hazy on the details of who this was or why it happened, but my brother was at a guy’s house, probably to do some work for him (but I don’t know what). The guy offered my brother a beer after the work was done, so my brother went to the living room while the guy poured a couple glasses. When he came into the room, my brother noticed that his beer had no foam on top, while the guy’s beer did, which meant his own beer might have had something in it which had removed the foam.

Suspicious, my brother asked for a snack and, when the guy went to get it, scooped the foam off the guy’s glass and put it on his own then switched the glasses. The guy came back and they drank, and in no time the guy was out like a light. My brother bolted and called the cops. They arrested the guy and searched his house, and they found lots of wallets containing other men’s IDs and cards. They also apparently found remains in his walls or closet or something.

29. Bloody visitor

About three years ago, I was at my parents house alone. While watching a movie, I fell asleep. About an hour later, I woke up to see a man covered in blood standing in the middle of the living room. I was a little freaked out to say the least. I ran out the front door trying to get away. It was then that I saw a totaled truck in the road in front of the house. Turns out he had wrecked his truck and wandered into the nearest house looking for help. Called 911, ambulance came, guy was okay. Just a concussion.

30. Bizarre disappearance

A buddy picked me up to go to a couple bars, have a few drinks and what not. Everything was fine, I had a nice little drunk going on. Around 11pm, I went outside to smoke a stogie, then… boom I woke up at my house in my bed, the following morning. I don’t recall even leaving the bar, let alone how I returned home, I had multiple missed calls from my buddy.

Called him up to see what happened, and he said I just disappeared. The creepy part is, after got off the phone with him, I went to the restroom, to realize, some way, some how, during the time I went M.I.A. I had received a haircut and someone shaved my face…. hmm weird, I do my business, only to realize my wiggly bits had been groomed as well, with expertise precision, I must add, not a missed hair, nick or cut. Still to this day don’t know what happened, but upon sharing this story with other friends, I was spotted at other bars though out the night, pre-hair cut, and alone.

31. Some creep wanted to blow me!

I had a bathroom emergency while on the highway, so I stopped at a rest area. There was one car in the parking area, but I didn’t see anybody when I went into the bathroom. So, I’m taking care of my business, and I hear this whisper say “Let me suck you off”.

I was only 17, and apparently naive, so I just assumed some couple had been hiding in one of the other stalls when I came in. As I’m hurrying to finish my business, I hear it again, and when I looked over, some bearded dude was sticking his head under the bathroom stall and watching me. He wanted to blow me. I freaked out, left as quickly as I could (he tried to grab my junk when I walked by him), and called the cops in the next town I came to.

32. Fired worker almost shoots up his old workplace

I told this once before, but it fits this thread well.

I was working at a manufacturing company that was sold. The new owners came in and laid off about 30% of the workers. I was not let go, but a guy in my department (we will call him Dave) was. Dave was shocked to be fired because he was certain he was too valuable for them to lose. He was very angry when they let him go.

About a week later he calls me while at work to thank me (this is pre-cellphone so he called me on the company line at the extension for my department). I had recently taught him how to run a new machine and him knowing that was helping him get some decent job prospects. He said he wanted to take me out to lunch as a way of saying thanks.

A few days later we went. He picked me up at work during my lunch break and we drove down the street to this deli. For the first half of the lunch he was pissed off and venting about being fired. I understood his anger and just let him vent. I tried to say the right things and encourage him by telling him he would likely end up with a better job soon.

As lunch wore on things took a dark turn. He started talking about how he could do some real damage in the plant if he wanted to because he could sneak in the side door where nobody would see him and cause havoc before they even knew he was there. He told me how he could slide boards into the handrails of the doors and locked everyone inside if he wanted. He went on to list people he didn’t like that he blamed for his being fired.

As lunch came to an end I was still trying to stay positive, but was getting worried that Dave was going to do something rash. As we drove back he told me not to worry. He said he liked and respected me so he would never do anything to me, but some people might need to pay.

We get back, I wish him good luck and I suggest he try to relax a little and maybe spend a few days just unwinding and enjoying the time off. He says goodbye and I head inside.

My department had a window that looked out into the parking lot. I could see where he was parked from that window. He didn’t leave after I went inside. He sat in the car with an anguished look on his face. I started getting worried so I told my boss what was up and that I thought we needed to call 911. He did.

The police showed up and at first Dave wouldn’t get out of the car. Finally they talked him out of the car and got him handcuffed then they search the car. In the trunk of his car were several short boards, two rifles, a pistol, and a machete.

I was freaking out for two reasons. First, the idea of what he was planning, and second because I was certain he would blame me for his getting caught. He asked to speak to me before they took him away so I went outside assuming if he was going to threaten me it was best if he did it in front of the police. He asked if I called 911. I told him it was me who said to call 911 so yes, I was responsible for the police being there. He then looked me in the eye and said, “Thanks. You might have saved me.”

I get goosebumps just thinking about it.

33. “He wasn’t the renter…”

My mom owns a bunch of rental properties. Her first ever rental was to a nice Puerto Rican man who was looking to move into town. Mom and I are setting up the paper work and the apartment for him. A week goes by where we haven’t heard from him. Then he suddenly starts contacting us about the apartment but never wanted to meet up. He asks us to stop by one day to check things out (which was really odd). Turns someone had broken into the place. Mom makes me stay in the car and goes inside to check it out. It was mid-day when we got there so she felt safe enough to go inside.

A few days later she sees our renters face on the news. He was shot and killed 2-3 weeks prior and was accused of being a drug trafficker. The guy contacting my mom over the last week about the apartment, who would not meet up with us but wanted us to go check the place out, was not the renter.