40 Disturbing (True!) Stories That Will Give You The Creeps

I don’t believe in ghosts. However I have a hard time explaining how a metal folding chair that was set up folded itself up in the basement behind me while I was watching TV as a child. I fucking flew up the stairs.

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These true stories from Ask Reddit aren’t a good idea to read after midnight.

1. Stayed in a hotel with my girlfriend. We went down to the pool for an hour and when we came back in the room there was about a dozen small handprints on the window. Now I was freaked because we would’ve noticed them when we first went up to put our stuff in the room. Later talking to a guy at the front desk, he said the hotel is haunted and a lady threw herself and children from the balcony of the floor we were on.

2. 2 friends and I got bored one summer night and decided to drive up into the mountain to a spot that overlooks the town. It’s a rough dirt road and we were in a VW Rabbit. We finally make it to the little clearing on the side of the road and pull over. There are no houses on this road for miles and we didn’t see any other vehicles the rest of the night.

So we get out of the car. It’s pitch black except the lights of the little town at the bottom of the clearing, miles away. We’re all kinda bullshitting as we get out and something gets our attention. We all turn and look at the same time and see this thing running through the woods about 30 feet from us. Now this thing looked like a person, except it was glowing. Remember those glow in the dark stars you could stick to your ceiling? It glowed at about that intensity.

So we watch this thing run, pushing branches out of its way and what not. We all get back in the car without a word and start driving off in total silence. About 30 seconds later someone finally says “What the fuck did we just see?” The best answer we could come up with, as crazy as it sounds, was that we saw a ghost. All 3 agreed we saw the exact same thing.

So a couple years go by and I’m with the older brother of one of my best friends and we’re just shooting the shit. I bring this story up expecting him to laugh at me and he gets a shocked look on his face and asks if I’m serious. Apparently his teacher in high school had told them he saw the exact same thing run across that road in front of him one night. Made me feel a little less crazy.

3. This happened literally Friday night.

My son is about 10 months old and absolutely hates sleep. He will sleep in his crib until about 3-4 am then wake up screaming for a bottle then spend the rest of the night in our bed.

Friday night he woke up screaming and I got up and went to the kitchen to make him a bottle. I turned towards the night light in the kitchen so I could pour the water to the right level when I heard a woman humming in a soothing way behind me. It wasn’t like a quick thing, it was a full ten seconds of “hmmmhmmmhmmMMmHmmmm”.

My son started screaming even harder as soon as the humming stopped. I dropped the bottle and booked it to our baby’s room to check him and our room to make sure it wasn’t my wife. He was fine and she was dead ass asleep with the door still closed like I left it. I had to wake her up.

He has no toys that make the humming sound I heard. I still have no idea what the fuck it was. The freakiest part was how hard he screamed when it stopped.

4. When I was 14, I had just moved to another state. My bedroom was sparse, I didn’t even have a bed frame, just a mattress on the floor. Next to my bed was an alarm clock that had big large red numbers on it. I laid down on my bed, put my head on my pillow and a looked toward my clock. The time was “10:24”.

I blinked…literally blinked.

The clock said “10:24” but it was morning. Light was coming through the window. I swear I didn’t sleep, I literally blinked and it was 12 hours later at the exact same time. I spent the rest of the day in a tired haze, like I had stayed up all night. All I know is I had just gone to bed and blinked and now it was morning. Every time I hear those conspiracy theory shows on the radio about time skips and wormholes and things, I always wonder if that’s what happened to me. But it is by far the freakiest thing to happen to me.

5. I don’t believe in ghosts.

However I have a hard time explaining how a metal folding chair that was set up folded itself up in the basement behind me while I was watching TV as a child.

I fucking flew up the stairs.

6. Around a decade ago I experienced what can only be called an inner body hallucination. It started with a numb feeling in my ankle that slowly spread up my leg over time, but when the feeling got to my knee things got very weird. It felt like there was a direct link between my ankle and my neck to the point where If one moved, the other moved automatically at the exact same time, the exact same amount. It was not possible me to stop one from moving when I moved the other, and they would move at a precision that would take someone a very long time to be able to fake properly.

Obviously this started freaking me out hardcore and luckily I had already been taken to the hospital and was waiting in the waiting room while this was happening. But the feeling kept crawling up my body, now effecting both of my legs. Eventually it reached my rib cage and that’s when things truly started to get freaky.

It felt like the bones in my rib cage were slowly starting to come loose and float around in my stomach, in a clockwise manner that exactly matched the rhythm of my breathing. Now by this time I was completely hysterical as it truly felt like my bones were coming loose and I was convinced I was dying. It was not for almost 30 minutes after that when they took an x-ray of my chest and showed it to me that I began to understand that nothing was happening to me and that it was all in my head.

The doctors at the hospital obviously assumed that I was on some kind of hallucinogen and so I was tested for every drug they could think of, but I came back completely clean. They were completely mystified as to what could have caused it as I had never had anything remotely similar happen in the past.

The scariest part was that it felt so real. It felt no different than any other physical sensation in my body, and it dawned on me that I would not be able to trust my physical senses. There was no difference between the hallucinated physical sensations and any other sensations I had or have felt since.

Over 10 years later now and I still do not know what causes it. From time to time, if i think about it too much, I will still have ripples of the effect occur. Specifically, it will feel as if a bone near my kidney or some other organ in that area is coming loose and revolving in a circle around that organ with each breathe I take.

I haven’t really ever told this story to many people as I know most would just assume I am fucking crazy.

7. In 1991 I went to a 7-11 by myself when we were at my grandmother’s house. There was another kid there about my age, we looked similar, etc. I bought a Slurpee and walked back to my grandma’s house and that was that. The other kid was kidnapped and murdered, pretty much right after leaving that 7-11. The only thing I can think of that kept it from being me was maybe I won some sort of cosmic coin toss. The police are pretty sure they know who did it but couldn’t prove it, and to this day it still weirds me out. I’m 41 now and live in that neighborhood.

8. I was home alone, laying down on my living room floor, and hardcore spacing out at the ceiling. I heard my mother scream on my front porch. I rushed out, but she wasn’t there. I ran around the outside of my house. Not a single person in sight. It 10000% sounded like my mom, and it curdled my bones because it was so raw and animalistic in its sound. I called her right away.

Mom picks up the phone and I ask her if she is alright. She responds that she is and tells me to hold on for a minute while she pulls over into the parking lot of a business. She was driving and didn’t want to talk on the phone at the same time.

Seconds later, I hear a lot of noise and my mom screamed. An eternity stretches on before mom is calm enough to say anything coherent. She goes on to tell me how the car in front of her and the one behind her (before she pulled over, the ones that continued on the same path of travel that she had been on) had been struck by a speeding semi that ran a red light at the next intersection. It was a terrible accident with extensive injuries. The semi clipped the rear of the front vehicle and front of the rear vehicle. My mom’s car would have been hit dead center.

We always joke that we are psychic, as this is not the first instance like it that we have had, but it was definitely the most freaky of the bunch!

9. I have a very vivid memory of waking up terrified in the middle of the night and running to my parents room because I saw a ghost when I was a kid. He followed me and stared at me from the doorway as I crawled into their bed and hid under the covers. We looked at each other, for a few minutes and then he left. I was so shaken that I stayed awake the rest of the night until my parents woke up in the morning. I was an adult when I realized that it was not a ghost and actually someone scoping out our house in the middle of the night.

10. I used to live in a one bed room apartment with a den. In the den we had a spare bed for visitors or whatever. One night my boyfriend was super sick so I went and slept in the spare bed. In the middle of the night I had what seemed to be sleep paralysis, where I couldn’t move but was seemingly awake. In that state I saw a dark figure walk into the room and just stand over me for a while. Like the dark figure was right over my face.

The next day I was very freaked out. I told my boyfriend and he asked if I was joking. The same night he saw a dark shadowy figure in our bedroom, pacing in front of the bed. He said he slept with the light on all night. Which had explained why it was on the next morning when I went into the room.

This happened about a year ago and we haven’t talked about it since. We’d rather forget that entire night happened.

11. I lived in a haunted house for eight months.

Let me preface this with saying I really don’t believe in ghosts. There’s always some more rational explanation to these kind of phenomenas, but sometimes that explanation can’t be easily found.

As with this house. Me and five guys rented it together. I woke up, many times, from hearing people rummaging around in different parts of the house (especially when I was home alone). Light switches switching on and off. Toilets flushing. Doors banging. Shit like that. Lots of sleep paralysis too, and I wasn’t the only one noticing this shit.

Worst though, was the eerie sensation of waking up and sensing a child is creeping into your bed behind your back and tucking itself in. But there were no children living with us.

These days, I’m thinking it must’ve been some sort of carbon monoxide poisoning or something like that going on. I’m at a loss for rational explanations.

12. I had a friend stay the night, we were the only ones upstairs in my bedroom getting ready to go to sleep, we were probably around 12 yo. I don’t remember what we were talking about before she asks me: “Do you know what will make the Devil mad?” I said no, she said to tell him that God loves him. So we both said out loud, “Hey Devil, God loves you!” It was not even 10 seconds after that there was a deep, loud rumbling laughter coming from under my bed. We were so scared we did not move until the sun came up! Will never forget that.

13. I was heading out to school back in 8th grade. I was walking towards the door to exit the house. I see the glass door in front of the main door (forgot what it’s called) open.

I’m about 2 feet away from the door and I see the lock flick to “open” by itself. I immediately open the door and there was nobody there. Nobody on the sidewalk in front of the house. Nothing.

That’s my only paranormal experience, and I gotta say, thanks ghost for unlocking the door for me!

14. I worked at a subway during a period of time where a serial robber was hitting multiple subways each day, and becoming violent.

I worked at a particular subway that was the easiest target of them all. One employee at night, not in a shopping center, off from the main road, small parking lot covered with trees. The cops would actually come check on me at night due to how sure they were this dude was gonna rob it.

One night a guy came in and started fidgeting with the front door, he said he thought something was wrong with it, but then said it was fine. The guy was really nice the whole time, but started asking some odd questions about what time I get out with all the robberies happening. I felt it was odd, and lied saying I left later than I did.

Later that night I arm the alarm and go to close the door but it won’t close at all, the alarm goes off, cops fly in the parking lot. One cop starts looking at the door and finds a really small magnet that stopped the door from closing. He placed it there so I couldn’t close the door. During this time a car rolls by slowly, but everyone wrote it off as someone thinking it got robbed.

A couple days later they catch him and it’s that dude, I see footage of his car, and it was the car that drove by while I was still with the cop.

15. It was a couple of years ago that a few of my friends and myself were bored and decided to go to a national park (by car) in the middle of the night during a days long snowstorm/blizzard.

Needless to say, we got lost. While driving on a dirt road through a forest in the middle of nowhere (not a house in like 10km radius), at around 3am, with a snowstorm raging, we saw someone next to the road.

That was weird as is, but this guy also had a light jacket and sunglasses. We all noticed him calmly standing somewhat close to the ‘road’, not moving an inch. In retrospect, we probably should’ve checked if he was alright, but one friend said ‘hey, what if those aren’t sunglasses but his actual eyes?’ so we noped the fuck out of there.

I don’t believe in supernatural shit, but this is the only unexplainable thing I ever experienced. What in the fuck was that guy doing at 3am, during a blizzard, in the literal middle of nowhere, with fucking sunglasses?

16. I lost time once. I was competing in a fencing tournament and the bout goes until one person scores five points. We start the bout and I score the first point. I get back to the start line and ready for the next and my opponent is walking towards me to shake my hand and the referee says “5-3 bout” meaning I’d won 5-3. No idea what happened but I lost 3 or 4 minutes. Has never happened again (to my knowledge). Blip in the matrix?

17. Used to live with a friend and he was a Marine. Well one day while he was out doing his Marine shit for two weeks I had the house to myself and I was playing Skyrim and I felt a small hand starting to grip mine. That same night I had a sleep paralysis episode and when I opened my eyes I saw a little girl on top of my chest shaking her hair in my face before she vanished. A month later I had moved out and I was visiting my brother in Fort Hood. And my friends were playing with an Ouija board and they told me a bunch of weird things happened. Anyway after all that his brother goes into the to the room that was mine and I had left my old bed there since I got a new one and he saw a little girl sleeping on it. From what my friend had told me his brother closed the door and asked his mom who was the little girl was she was confused and they went back to check it out and the room was empty.

18. My grandparents were in a nursing home and I was living at their house fixing it up to sell. My grandmother died and that night I woke up at 3AM to her standing at the foot of my bed in a white robe telling me that she loved me and thanking me for taking care of her home. After that I had demonic encounters inside the home.

19. Well currently there’s some creepy shit happening to me. A couple days ago my TV made a sound like it just turned on but it didn’t and the on/off light was bright red. Then I looked outside my window for a brief moment and thought I saw a shadow disappear.

Tonight at 3 AM (aka 30 mins ago) my TV randomly turned on. We’re talking literally 3:00 AM. On the dot. No remotes near my bed.

I’ll often wake up with random scratches on my body, which are not from my cat (since I sleep with the door closed and she’s not in my bedroom) and I can’t scratch myself (due to being an excessive nail biter).

Short story. I pulled an all-nighter like 2 weeks ago. I genuinely laid in my bed the whole night reading and watching TV. Then suddenly, at like 7 in the morning, I get a stinging sensation in my left leg. I look down and there’s a long, fresh scratch on my ankle. Not gushing blood or anything, just a small, fresh scratch. No fricking clue how it happened since I was just laying in my bed.

20. I went missing for three days when I was 12 and I have no idea what happened.

21. I was sleeping on a friends couch when living in Phnom Penh – there the houses often have tile that will go up the walls a few feet. I saw a shadow on the wall after my friend went to sleep and thought maybe his roommate had come home and was in the kitchen. I’m a curious little one so I got up to walk into the kitchen to say something and no one was there. But I could smell dirty human. Friends had laundry drying in front of a hole under the stairs, I could see a knee poking out from behind the drying clothing. I turned and ran to my friends room, banging on his door yelling about someone being in the house.

In Cambodia it’s very very common for break-ins, most of my friends had things stolen from them while sleeping in their own homes or while walking on the streets. The worst was smelling him before seeing him, and then knowing that someone could so easily walk into a home without anyone knowing. If I hadn’t been on the couch – or if I had already been asleep things might have ended differently.

22. There is a local myth about a Longhorn skull wearing devil who kills and cannibalizes people on our bike paths. It was midnight and I was playing Overwatch when I got a hurting feeling that I was being watched. I had been reading Creepypastas all day so I convinced myself it was artificial. I decided after an hour of it to close my blinds and noticed a person with a longhorn skull looking through my window out by the bike path. I shut those things immediately and sat in my bed for the rest of night without sleeping. What is scary is that people in my town do go missing at night. Police say it is human trafficking but we all know its the local Devil.

23. If you don’t know about the “Ever dream this man?” website that was circulating a few years back: it was a website with an image of. Balding man explaining how millions of people see him in their dreams every night. This is important for later.

When I was 12 I used to sleep with my bedroom door open. I also have a bad habit of constantly waking up in the middle of the night due to insomnia. My bed was always up against the wall so I’d either sleep facing the wall, or looking out at the rest of my room.

One night, I wake up as usual, facing the wall. I turn around to shift sleeping positions, and there’s a face just floating in the doorway, staring at me with a slight grin. I nope the fuck out and immediately turn back around, terrified beyond belief, too scared to do anything except close my eyes and hope I can fall asleep again (Which I do, relatively quickly).

Now, onto that man from earlier. I didn’t know it at the time, but that man on the website looked remarkably similar to the brief glimpse I got in my bedroom doorway. If that wasn’t freaky enough, a few months after visiting that site (A bit after that terrifying event) my dad calls my brother and I into the living room. He wants to know who printed out this image, and he shows it to us.

It was the poster from the website. I distinctly remember I never hit print when I visited it, so no one had any idea where tf it came from. All I remember is being scared shitless because I still had that disembodied face fresh in my mind, and I was convinced it was linked to that site somehow.

After that, I’ve always slept with my door closed. The website later turned out to be a hoax, but the memory still lingers with me.

24. A late night around 11 or so I was in my bed watching some TV (I usually go to sleep around 10). As I start to fade into sleep, I heard faint footsteps from my kitchen (my kitchen isn’t so far way from my bedroom). My eyes opened wide after that, I peeked to see the kitchen and when I looked I saw the fridge wide open. I remember the fridge being closed (I drink/eat before I sleep) before I went to my bed. So then I went to close it and came back. I still get chills thinking about it.

25. We moved into a new place. Built around 1930 and sometime in the 70s had a fire. My 3 year old (at the time) started running around the house and playing hide and seek with himself. Kids weren’t allowed in our room, but our room was on the first floor and the closet was actually the underside of the stairs. He kept running in there and shouting: “Found you! Hide better!” We didn’t think much of it. New house. Kids have imaginary friends… Until that night when he asked if Sam could sleep in his room. He said she was lonely, but they’re friends now so she can sleep with him. She doesn’t want to sleep in the closet anymore.

No one else ever saw her and weird things rarely happened. We moved a year later and except for the day after we moved (he asked if she can come too) he has never spoken of her again.

26. I had a roommate who was always a complete asshole. Never was polite or kind to anyone. One night after I helped his drunk ass to bed he turned to me and said, “I really appreciate you and I know you don’t like seeing me like this. You’ve been a good roommate and friend, thank you.” I found him dead the next morning due to an undiagnosed heart condition that alcohol had amplified.

Not creepy or freaky in the normal sense, but I will never forget how serious and genuine he was in his last words spoken ever. It was the first time I had ever heard him compliment anyone.

27. As a college student, I worked security on my college campus. Plenty of strange stuff. Walking through a chapel at 3 am when someone decides they should start playing phantom of the opera on the large pipe organ. High school cheerleader seizing in the shower. Suicide attempt and a few burglars.

The creepiest: We also had responsibility for a church adjacent to campus. Not a huge church and probably about 40 years old. if I were to guess Doing my rounds — first walking the exterior and then walking through the interior at about 3:30 am . I hear a toilet flush and footsteps go down the hall. Except there is no one in either the bathroom or the hall. In fact, I am standing in the hall. and can see the bathroom Called other staff over and we did a complete search (including the boiler room that could have from a horror movie). Nobody there and no signs of entry.

A year or so later, a co-worker claims to have been walking past the church and saw a lady staring him down partway behind a curtain. Looked like she was from the 1950s or 1960s (with cat glasses). So, yes, I think it is haunted.

28. Someone attempted to kidnap me in a park. Thankfully I was 13 and a little smarter then. He came up to me and grabbed my wrists and kept screaming, “You’re coming with me.” I don’t think his grip was too hard because I was able to rip away and I ran super fast away. Gave a statement to the police and he was arrested!

29. Three times In my life I have awoken to see the same golden grid projected on my wall. Twice in my youth, and once more a few years ago.

It resembles a projection of light that has passed through a yellow, patterned glass. But that’s not likely, because my 1st bedroom didn’t have windows, the light didn’t move and when I placed my hand in it, the light did not project onto it. It fades after about 1 minute and I go back to sleep.

30. One evening, for some reason, I thought about a person that I had gone to college with but had not seen in more than 30 years. So I decided to google her name to see what she had done with her life.

I found her obituary. It had been posted earlier that day. If I had googled her one day earlier I would never have known that she had died.

31. I would sleepwalk as a child. Usually I’d wake up in the living room, or I would freak myself out and wake up in the basement.

On one occasion I had wandered outside. I was 7 or 8 and I woke up standing in the middle of my backyard on a super foggy morning right around sunrise. I quickly figured out which direction my house was and ran back to bed. I never told my parents about it because I figured they would be mad at me for going outside when I should have been asleep.

32. Had a dream that I was going to get into a car accident. Woke up and the feeling that I was going to get into an accident just kinda stayed with me. Later that morning, some idiot ran a red and T-boned the car I was in.

33. Mom died 5 months ago, and I moved across the state- into her apartment- to be closer to family. I swearI heard her call my name one night. It felt so natural, hearing her voice in her own apartment, but she’d been dead over a month. I’m sure it was just a nearly-asleep hallucination, but it was spooky.

34. I was probably 9 years old, in about 1995. At that time all the schools and parents were warning us of stranger danger. It seemed like a lot of kids were getting kidnapped because they were being tricked into helping the kidnappers find a lost pet. One day I was it riding my bike alone on our street (a fairly populated street lots of kids out playing and whatnot) and a green two door car pulled up with a woman driving and a guy in the passenger seat. The guy calls out the window to me “hey kid! We lost our dog can you help us find her?” I can still remember the feeling I felt. It was like sirens were going off, and I thought for a split second that this was it I was going to be kidnapped. A rush of what felt like BURNING hot adrenaline shit through my body, I felt like I could hear everything 10x louder and see everything 10x better, I’ve never felt anything like that before. I hopped off my bike pulled the front tire up so I could turn around faster and I booked it home. I was shaking and tears were pouring down my face even though I wasn’t “crying”. I got home and told my mom what happened. She called the police, but I’m not sure if the people were ever caught. Crazy.

35. I was alone in my house with my step dad, I went to the bathroom, when I sat down on the toilet, that’s when I saw someone was trying to open the door, I pushed it and said “occupied” but whatever was at the other side kept trying to open the door, I called my step dad and I heard him from the kitchen saying “yeah?” At that point I was terrified, it suddenly stopped, I checked the whole house for anyone other than my step dad, didn’t find anybody, the. I went to the other bathroom and then used it, still don’t know what the hell was at the other side of the door.

36. My cousin and I were probably targeted for a scam, but I still don’t know how or why.

We are 6 years apart, but went to the same high school at different times. Small school, graduating classes about 60. Years later, we are on a road trip together several states away, and decide to stop at a Huddle House for coffee.

We walk in, and the guy at the next table turns around and smiles and says, “You went to Anytown High School, right?” When we say yes, he says he and his girlfriend (also at the table, smiling and not talking) went there too. We didn’t recognize them, but smiled politely, commented it was a small world.

He starts to rapidly talk about different things from the school, just disjointed comments that were a bit odd. He talked like a salesman, almost. At first, we smile and nod, but he had weird facts wrong. So we ask what year he graduated. He claimed not to remember. So we asked follow up questions and he gets cagey.

Suddenly the girlfriend goes “this isn’t working” and they suddenly pay and leave, food untouched.

We since have determined they didn’t go to our school, and have tried to figure out how he knew what he did, to no avail.

37. I was about 10 and I had a huge fear of someone being in my house, to the point where I wouldn’t go to the basement because it scared me. But I am glad I had that fear, because one day during the summer I was trying to go to sleep and I heard a noise from above me, and I freaked out. I then noticed over the coming days that my room was really hot, and I thought this was strange because we just got new air vents put in. My dad was checking them out and went to get some sort of tool, when I saw the scariest image possible. There was a skinny man looking at me and my dad from the vent in my ceiling. I froze and pretended not to notice him, and I went to get my dad, and me in my ten year old mind was instantly thinking run with him out of the house, but I have two cats and were scared to leave them, so I grabbed a paper towel and a pen and wrote in my chicken scratch handwriting “there is a man in my vent” but he couldn’t read it, and asked what it meant, and thats when we heard a thud, and he looked at it again and must have put it together, because he grabbed me and called the police, when my mom got home she got to see the man being dragged out of the house in cuffs.

Even though he was caught and I still had a somewhat happy ending, the image of looking up and seeing his face, and being so petrified I couldn’t move or scream still haunts me.

38. When I was about 5 I was visiting my grandma in the city with my mum, dad and sister. We were walking towards the city centre so it was pretty crowded

I remember letting go of my dad’s hand and then feeling him grab back hold of it a few moments later. I kept walking, I don’t know how far. I hear my dad shouting from behind me and grabbing my other arm. I hear him say “sorry” and I look up and I realize I was holding hands with an old man that I didn’t know.

My dad assumed that I’d accidentally grabbed onto this man’s hand thinking he was my dad. I remember him pulling me away all embarrassed and I was just thinking, “But the man grabbed my hand?”

So basically, I think some guy tried to snatch me out of a crowded area.

I still don’t understand why my dad thought I grabbed onto his hand. My parents were normally quite paranoid about strangers. He must have been distracted when talking to my grandma.

39. One night I had a dream that a coworker killed me with an axe and when I got to work the next day she was telling a fellow coworker that she had a dream that she killed me with a knife. Sort of an odd coincidence, she never did try to kill me but it was a little bit creepy.

40. When I was 16 I had just gotten my license as well as my first after school job. Since school ended about an hour before I had to be at work, I would sometimes park in the adjacent parking lot and take a nap. This was a shopping strip with a grocery store, restaurants, and a bank on a fairly busy Friday afternoon. As I’m sitting there drifting off I see a black Denali pull up behind me blocking my car in the spot. A gentleman jumps out in a business suit and asks if I can help him. He looks nice enough, and I’m assuming he is looking for directions.

He starts to explain to me that his wife and he were supposed to be signing for a loan at the bank behind us today, so that they can purchase a boat, but she is stuck in a meeting and can’t make it. He then asks if I wouldn’t mind posing as her and singing the documents for her. I’m completely blown away, but super shy and feel the need to let him down easy (stupid I know). So I tell him I don’t think they’ll believe I am your wife. He then tells me it’s fine, he has her license with him (which he shows me) and she has the same hair/eye color as me, so they won’t know. At this point I’m freaking out. I start to notice how disheveled he looks, he’s sweating, and surprise surprise…no wedding ring. I just want him away from my car so I start telling him I can’t help him, that he needs to go ask someone else.

He says it’s fine, it’ll be quick, just jump in my truck and I’ll take you over there. Like I said this bank was in the same shopping strip…there would be no need to drive to it. Even in my gullible teenage mind I know this story is complete bull. I’m telling him no over and over, while scanning the parking lot for anyone who might be noticing, but of course no one has. He then starts getting irate telling me that I’m perfect and the only one who can do it, how beautiful I am, can he at least take me to dinner, and so on. I start trying to close my window and he REACHES through grabs my shoulder and starts trying the door handle (which was luckily locked.) I’m so frozen I don’t even really react, I can’t go anywhere as he’s blocking me in. Suddenly and I’m not really sure why I just blurt out that I’m only 16…and for some reason THAT freaks him out. He slowly backs away, get in his truck, and leaves.

I called the police afterwards but they never followed up with me. But I just KNOW he had found that license and made up that story as a way to lure women into his truck, and it scared the hell out of me that he could have convinced someone before. Years later I spotted him on the sex offender registry for assault. Thought Catalog Logo Mark


About the author

January Nelson

January Nelson

January Nelson is a writer, editor, and dreamer. She writes about astrology, games, love, relationships, and entertainment. January graduated with an English and Literature degree from Columbia University.

The only Thought Catalog Books sale of the year is finally live…

Wherever this season finds you—celebrating, reflecting, or simply slowing down—we hope our books help you embrace each moment and carry a little hope and healing into the new year.

Use BLACKFRIDAY24 at checkout for 15% off our entire catalog of books and other creative goods.