1. A Close Shave
My boyfriend and I came back at 2 am from a night out. We were both quite drunk and stumbled into the hallway to the elevator when we see drops of something on the floor. It was blood. Fresh and wet. The elevator button and door were covered in bloody hand prints as well.
My boyfriend called the elevator, pushing me aside not knowing what would be in it. Luckily nothing except for a puddle of blood. The elevator came from the 5th floor. So we went investigating. The trail of blood ended at a door with huge hand smears of blood on the door.
It took all our courage to ring. It’s not the nicest place to live because of robbery. But I am so glad we did. An elderly man opened the door. He looked like straight out of a horror movie. Covered in blood from head to toe. His grey sweater was red. His hair was wet. His shoes were filled with blood.
We immediately sobered up. I called an ambulance which arrived in 2 minutes. My boyfriend went inside the flat helping the man sit down. There was so much blood I have never seen that in my life.
We didn't know what happened to him until we met him properly for the first time yesterday. He recognized my boyfriend’s glasses. He told us he was drunk, wanted to ride his bike home, crashed somehow and got a huge cut on his head. He takes heart medicine which thins his blood. That's why he lost so much.
If we wouldn't have rung the doorbell he would have bled to death. He actually gifted us money and a super expensive bottle of champagne for something completely self-explanatory.
Ohiomamb0
2. Pepper Spray
When I was 13, I just got dropped off from the school bus, so I had ways to walk home. As I get close to the corner of my street, some guy in a dark blue car rolls up and asked where I was headed.
I told him I was going home. The guy then excruciatingly slowed his car down to match my walk and asked if I wanted a ride home. I told him no thanks I'm almost home. Then he continued to ask where I live and if I still wanted a ride home.
Luckily I had a phone at this age. I pulled out my Nokia phone and pretend to call my mom (she wouldn't have picked up the phone and I was almost home). The guy saw what I was doing and sped off like crazy.
From the age of 13, I started carrying pepper spray.
Leefies
3. Weird Sounds
I was up in my third-floor bedroom having just had a spliff chilling to music with my headphones on when I started to hear weird noises. Naturally, I just thought it was because I was stoned but it was weird enough for me to take my headphones off.
I listened for a bit and coming from downstairs was a creepy voice I didn’t recognise mixed in with John’s (my housemate) voice but he sounded like he was in pain. I was surprised so I started walking slowly down my stairs and then looked into his room and saw John on his floor holding his eyes in pain with a big dude in a hoody shouting at him and then grabbing things off the shelves.
The next thing I knew autopilot had kicked in and I ran towards the room.
The hooded dude turned and ran out the door when I smashed into him making us both go tumbling down the staircase trying to exchange punches on the way down. We scuffled a bit in the hallway until he eventually ran out the door.
It transpired that John (who at that time was on crutches) was hobbling home and went to open our front door when the hooded dude came up behind him and pepper sprayed him in his face blinding him. He then took him up to his bedroom to rob him and his stuff. Poor guy had to have eye pads on for the next 2 days.
Anyway, it was all pretty messed up but John was ok in the end and honestly I was so stoned it didn’t really feel like it was happening at the time. It was like a bad trip. We all moved out 2 weeks later.
mrpiper1980
4. Trespassing
When I was 15, I regularly was at home by myself since both of my parents worked full time and my brother had moved away to college. Well one day during the summer, I was just relaxing at home, when all of a sudden someone knocked on the front door. I get up and check the peephole, and see two guys just standing in the driveway just off the porch.
One of them was wearing a suit, the other wearing sweatpants and a hoodie, but facing away from the house like he’s playing lookout. I decide to ignore them, thinking they’ll go away.
Instead, they continue knocking, knocking, knocking but getting progressively louder and more aggressive.
Finally, I decided to call the sheriff’s department and ask for a non-emergency check since they’re trespassing. My dumb self decides to yell through the door that I had called, and before I can even realize how dumb it is, the guy starts kicking the front door. I freaked out, ran back toward the center of the house. Then realized that there’s a third guy trying to kick in the back door as well. At this point I call 911 and start screaming about these three guys trying to break into my house.
Notoriously, it took the sheriff’s deputies longer to get there than anyone would imagine, and they saw the guys walking down the road later. They stopped them to question, but no arrest.
NC_DE336
5. Missing Piggybank
My cousin who was like 14 was babysitting us. I was 9 years old with a 4 year old brother. Her dad called coming down from crack or Heroin, something really bad. He called and screamed at her to tell him where her piggybank was, she told him to sod off and hung up.
He called back, she didn't pick up, and he left a voice message to threaten us. He was full of crap but we were terrified. Can you imagine the pure fear a 9 year old feels when a grown man who sounds crazy says he's going to murder her with a knife? So we prepared.
We blocked out the windows, locked everything, and put heavy furniture in front of the doors.
My brother was asleep in his room, my cousin told me just leave him, but I couldn't stand the thought of him being alone in there so I belly crawled, heart beating out of my chest, across the kitchen, through the living room to his room, scooped him up, and brought him back to my mom’s room, which we then barricaded ourselves into.
I got no sleep that night and my mom and my aunt came back the next morning like "What the heck did you kids do?!" But I was honestly just happy to be alive and that my mom was home again.
The worst part of the whole thing is when she got home her dad had sold all of her belongings. I mean everything, her bed, her dresser, tv, it was all gone. It was just an empty room. He's clean now but I still hate his freaking guts.
rayofsunshine121
6. At the Motel
Back in the early 90’s I worked as a night auditor for a small motel in Prospect Heights Illinois. I was a young mother and worked nights while my husband worked days. Occasionally, my husband would stop by and check on me. It was a brutal schedule and I truly don’t know how I made it on only a couple hours of sleep each day.
My job was to perform a daily audit on the rooms and money. Also I would check people in and out of the hotel. The hours were midnight to eight in the morning. One night I had finished my audit and was watching a scary movie on the little tv they had behind the front desk. It was winter and very cold. A man came up to the door and he was wearing a ski mask.
For a second, I thought it was my husband so I kind of smiled. He came up to the front desk and I asked if I could help him. He asked me why I had smiled at him. Well I knew right then I was in trouble. He waved a big knife at me and told me to turn around. I felt the most fear then. I felt like I was going to die.
He hopped over the front desk and cut one of the phone lines and took the money. I had my coat and purse back there and he took those as well. As he left he said, “I have your purse, I know where you live now!”
I stayed hunched in the corner behind the front desk as he left. Then I realized he had only cut the handset to one phone and the main line on another, so I took the handset from one phone and attached it to another where he had not cut the main line. I dialed 911 and got an operator on the line.
Just as I was about to talk, the guy came back. Apparently he had dropped his knife behind the desk. I saw it on the floor as he came around. I picked it up. In my mind I’m thinking, can I stab him? We stood there kind of facing each other. Me, in my uniform and this big guy in a thick ski jacket. He demanded I give him the knife. I truly thought if I tried to stab him I would lose and he would kill me. I gave him the knife. He took the knife and hit me over the head with the handle of the knife a couple of times and then left. The police soon came and I recounted my story.
As far as I know, he was never caught. The place I worked for let me have a day off but when I needed more because I had head injuries, they fired me. It turns out, they had been robbed a few times before but had never put in security. I did take them to court for lost wages and I won. About a year later, maybe less, I saw on the news that a night auditor/clerk at the same hotel had been kidnapped from the motel, raped, stabbed and left for dead. They caught that guy and he is now in prison.
buyer0100
7. Confused
I was treating a guy high on meth in the back of an ambulance. As we were securing him to the cot for transport, he flips out and starts screaming. We tried everything we could to calm him down but to avail.
He eventually opened the side door and ran to the police on scene. Yes the tweaker ran to the cops, instead of us trying to help him.
For about 20 seconds, I thought I was going to have to throw down in the ambulance with a guy high on meth.
jweis2012
8. Creepy Person
I was 18 and I was coming home after doing a job interview. I finally came up on my street and an older man came out from behind a tree and asked me where a particular street was.
Right away I got creepy vibes from him and I said "sorry I don't know where that is" and as I was crossing the street he slowly turned around and said in the most creepy way "hey, do you wanna hang out."
I quickly said "no!" and speed walked to my house and the whole time I was scared he saw what house I walked into and that he knew where I lived.
BlueTrain97
9. It was a Bomb
I was about 14 or 15. School had just ended so the bus home was packed with other school kids too. We were a couple stops away from where everyone got on when this guy with a huge jacket, hood up and mask on (we were in the middle of a heatwave so super odd) got on the bus, stormed upstairs past me and my friends and threw down this huge bag he was carrying. He screamed “THIS IS A BOMB” and ran off the bus.
It took everyone a few seconds to process what just happened, but after those few seconds I experienced the most crazy panic I’ve ever seen.
Everyone bolted downstairs and tried to get out, but the doors were closed. I remember this huge black dude just punched the glass out of the door like it was nothing and people were just dragging themselves through it. When I got to the door I hit the emergency release to make it easier to jump off.
Once we were out we sprinted at least 500m down the road and crouched for the explosion. Except there was no explosion. It was just a hoax. Turns out that the guy that did it was someone from my school that had previously been expelled.
DuKeHeNrY22
10. Harassment at Night
I was walking through campus after a night class, around 9 or 9:30pm. It's a BIG campus (UCF) and pretty empty at this point. The shuttle I took was at the other end of campus so it was a pretty long walk. At one point I'm walking through a swampy area with a raised boardwalk. There are two girls way ahead of me walking together, I see them reach the end of the boardwalk and go into the next building.
As I reach the end of the boardwalk, this guy kinda hops up out of nowhere/the surrounding woods. He takes my hand and starts telling me how beautiful I am, what's my name, what year am I at uni, what am I doing tonight, where do I live? I ask him why he wants to know and he says "I'm taking a survey". I'm literally in such shock that it takes me a second to realize he's even touching my hand. Everything he was asking me sounded really unauthentic and like it was scripted, like he was in a rush to get everything out.
He also had this really weird, unsettling vibe that he was giving off that instantly freaked me out, but it was dark outside, and I was all alone at this point.
Thankfully, a minute or two later a guy walks out through the building , and I use that moment to break my hand away from the weirdo and tell him "I have to go". I've never walked so fast to my shuttle and looked over my shoulder the whole time. I couldn't stop shaking the whole ride home. Something about that guy was off and I was sure if that man hadn't come out when he did that something bad would've happened to me. Exactly what, I don't want to think about. Keep in mind there had been a group of 2 girls walking ahead of me and he hadn't approached them. He was looking for a girl by herself.
silver_fawn
11. Meeting Strange Men at a Park
I was driving with my friend through a popular park in our city when we came to a dead end parking lot trying to find a certain trail. We started to turn around when a man who was at the trunk of his car ran up to the passenger side of my car, panicking and throwing his arms up.
I immediately think he's broken down or needs help or maybe something is wrong with my car. I lock the doors and roll the window down a crack to hear what the issue was. When he came closer, I got a very uneasy feeling. The guy just didn't seem right. He smiled and asked if we had ever been to some store in the local area. He offered us candy and told us to take a look at what we wanted in the back of his car (what a cliche).
Keep in mind, I was 21 or so at the time, not a child. At that point I'm accelerating to get the heck out of there and as we're pulling away there was another man coming down the hill with a huge stick in his hand and immediately tried to flag us down too. I sped off and saw them talking together and watched as I drove away.
On the road out, we saw a woman jogging towards where we had just had this super creepy encounter and I pulled over immediately and told her to turn around. I wouldn't be able to live with myself if I had just let her jog into a weird situation like that. I have no idea if those men wanted to kidnap someone or kill or what, but I'm glad we got the heck out of there. I haven't been to that park since.
Charbarzz
12. Someone was Watching Me
I was sitting at a coffee shop one afternoon minding my own business when a stranger came in the door, awkwardly glanced in my direction then looked me dead in the eye and said "You're being watched".
My heart jumped and I just kind of responded in fear, "Excuse me?" "You're being watched."
He proclaimed once more, but this time a little more sternly.
I must've had this look of terror on my face because he quickly chuckles and tells me someone is standing outside the window behind me staring at me, I look behind me and it's my brother.
trollcitybandit
13. Kidnapped at Walmart
I was never in any danger, but observed another girl almost get kidnapped at Walmart. Back when I was in high school, my mom, dad, kid brother, and I went grocery shopping at Walmart. A teenage girl, who was about my age at the time, approached us and awkwardly said she thought some sketchy men had been following her around the store.
I guess my family doesn't look very threatening, because she asked my dad if he would be willing to walk her out to her car. She seemed embarrassed and kept saying she was probably overreacting, but my dad was quick to say that he would never want me (his teenage daughter) walking out alone if I suspected someone was following me.
My mom, brother, and I stayed with our cart, and my dad went out into the parking lot with the girl.
Several minutes later, they both came back inside and we knew something must've happened.
It turns out that an old van was parked and idling right next to her car. When the driver and passenger noticed the girl was with my dad, it sped away.
The police were called, the girl's parents showed up, and my dad and the girl provided statements to the officer. The officer applauded the girl for going with her gut by asking my dad to walk her out, because based on the evidence, there very well could've been a much scarier ending to the story.
Meanwhile, the incident freaked my parents out so much that I wasn't allowed to go to the store alone after dark until I graduated from high school. Lol.
sm127
14. Survey Went Wrong
I was on a jobsite in a very poor, rural area of southern Virginia. I was there with a small crew, sampling people's drinking water for reasons. The area was so poor, two of the homes didn't have running water. One collected water from a nearby creek, the other had that same creek actually running through their house and that was their water supply.
This was in a fairly hilly/low mountain area, and the road grades were steep. There was a guy, maybe early 20's, that we noticed skipping up the hill, the way a kid would skip across a playground. It was no effort for him. We were sampling an outdoor tap at one of the homes, and he skipped up to us and just stopped and stood, staring at us, shaking.
He was built like a professional football player, really muscular, maybe 6 feet. We tried to talk to him, some friendly conversation, but he just stood there and shook. I realized if he got mad (was he mad? it was impossible to tell), we were screwed. I'm not particularly big, there were two smallish women on the crew, and one older guy. For a very long moment it wasn't clear how things were going to go. Then he peaced out and resumed skipping up and down the hills.
We later learned he'd had a traumatic brain injury and was "harmless." But he did scare the crap out of us.
calcaneus
15. Abandoned Hotel Scare
There’s an abandoned hotel near where I live, it closed about 10 years ago and it’s been knocked down now sadly. I went in with my friends when it was still up (we were about 12) and we snuck in for like the 1000th time.
We went into the old kitchen and there was this guy just there with his back turned in a parka. He looked about 20, and he just slowly started turning around, one foot at a time.
When he turned around fully, he was wearing one of those cheap theatre masks.
We booked it and I cut my leg off the fence we climbed through. When we got about half a kilometer away my friend just started crying because he was so shocked. To be honest, I think that guy was just exploring, heard us and decided to scare us, but still it was awful.
euanmac369
16. Saved by Rudeness
I was coming out of my local Walmart at maybe 9:30pm to a dark, only partially occupied parking lot. It was nice outside since it was summer, and I usually park far enough away to give myself a walk. I should mention that I’m a fairly small, thin female in my 20s as it seems important later.
My car was parked across the isle from a couple of others; a small sedan directly beside a large, very dark SUV. A lady probably in her thirties was standing between the sedan and SUV with a shopping cart with a baby carrier inside. I started loading my groceries and stuff into my car, and the lady started calling out to me.
“Hey miss, can you help me?” I immediately got bad vibes, and didn’t approach. I asked “what’s up? How can I help?” without moving from near my car.
She was pulling at the baby carrier in the cart and apparently struggling. “Can you help me get this out of the cart? I can’t get it out!”
It seemed weird to me, since that more than likely wasn’t her first time using the carrier, and since I was pretty obviously smaller and likely less strong than she was. (That might be an unfair assumption to make, but it still seemed weird to me.)
Then, the light in the front seat of the SUV came on. I told her, “you can probably ask the person in that car, I don’t think I’m strong enough to help you!”
She seemed frustrated, and I was getting a bad feeling from the situation, so I was starting to get into my car. She shouted again “I can’t get my baby out, can’t you help me?”
I would feel really bad if she really needed help, but I just pulled the car door shut and called my mom right away. It felt like some sort of setup for human trafficking or something- no actual baby noises or signs of an actual baby, and the way the cars were parked and the darkened SUV. I might be paranoid and overthinking, but I just didn’t get a good feeling from any of it. I’m sorry if that lady and her baby really needed help, but I’m sure a Walmart employee would have helped if that were the case.
heymissspider
17. I’m Not Alone
We had self locking doors in college but I had gone down the hallway to the bathroom to brush my teeth and get ready for bed. I had left my door slightly ajar so I wouldn’t have to bring my keys with me. When I got back to my room I could just sense someone was in there.
Sure enough, a big drunk guy stumbled out of my closet and I realized that my door was now locked behind me and that even yelling for help would take a few minutes.
While he for sure was trying to get amorous (and no, I didn’t know him personally, just had seen him around campus), he wasn’t being too pushy yet.
All I remember was trying to get him to leave and within a minute or two a girl was knocking on my door and he let me open it. She did know him and basically told him to scram, which he did. I asked her how she knew, and she said she thought she saw him wander in there and came to check on me. All I can say is she was an angel because I’ve always felt like that night would not have ended well for me.
Tanaisy
18. Through the Window
When I was young, I was deep in the woods at my uncle’s house. The parents went out and the 5 kids (4-14) stayed home. We were playing a hide and seek game in the house with no lights on. There weren’t street lights or anything, so you couldn’t see anything at all.
Base was in the living room and I hid in the living room, so I could quickly get to base. My brother (11) was “it”. He was doing his countdown and I was hiding just a couple of feet from him when a lightning strike drew our attention to the window. We were both shocked to see the outline of a man at the window trying to see in.
We started whispering and on the next lightning strike, the guy was starting to walk to the front door. My brother (Ben) quickly ran to lock the front door and got there right before the guy started shaking the handle. Ben started flipping on the lights (presumably so the guy would know people were home and he’d leave) and he yelled for me to lock the other doors.
I ran and locked the kitchen door and then to the sliding glass door at the back of the house. As I was locking that door, the guy was suddenly there - standing there on the other side of the glass. I was frozen, but Ben calmly told me to close the curtain and I focused on his voice and did what he said.
My uncle has guns, but his son was gone on a hunting trip, so all we could find was a BB gun that looked like a real rifle. Ben stepped out on the porch with it to try to make the guy believe we were armed. They constantly had phone issues and we couldn’t get the phone to work to make a call. We were trying to call someone on my uncle’s CB radio, but weren’t getting anyone.
Eventually, an older cousin - who was only like 15 himself - showed up and we thought an adult was there and we had been saved. That calmed us down and we went back to normal, I guess. I’m not sure I’ve ever had a creepier moment than looking up at the window and seeing someone on the other side.
HereForLNM
19. Chase in the Woods
When I was little, maybe 8 or 9, I was in the woods at my grandparents house in the poconos with my sister and some dude just started following us. Not chasing us, just following.
Keep in mind this was in the middle of nowhere and on private property so it's not like he had a reason for being there.
We ran for a bit and then stopped and waited a few minutes to see if he was behind us and sure enough he was there again.
He never even said anything to us, he just stared and followed, sometimes running towards us. I never found out who it was. My grandfather would let buddies hunt on his property but he had no clue who the guy was based on what I told him he looked like.
daquariousdingleden
20. Break-in
One time in the middle of the night when I was maybe six I was sleeping in my room that has a window right to the left of my bed and somewhere in the middle of the night I heard my window open which at this point is I'm going to say 4 ft away from me.
I look up terrified and there's a guy in a completely black costume looking at me.
He asks if there's someone with a certain name in the house. I say no not wanting anyone to get hurt. I went to tell my dad. He was terrified. The next morning, our neighbors caught him.
Apparently he was looking for his ex that had lived in my house. I have no idea what he was going to do but luckily no one was harmed.
DarkCreeperWTF
21. Missing Stuff
I lived in a trailer park for a couple of years and one night I was sitting up in bed facing the window watching TV on my phone. I happened to look up as I saw a shadow walking between mine and my neighbors yard. It was really late at night and I knew no one would be outside at that time. I texted my neighbor telling her about it and asked if she had seen anything.
A few nights later me and a couple of neighborhood women were walking down the little road in the trailer park when we started to hear twigs and branches being snapped. It stopped when we stopped walking and continued if we took a step. Since it was dark and across the road we couldn't see what it was. It freaked us out a little bit.
Then things got weird, stuff outside would go missing and on some nights a fire could be seen across the road and the creek near a big cave on the mountain side. Whenever someone would loudly say they see a fire within minutes the fire would be out. We all thought a hobo was living in the cave and that possibly was harmless.
But that changed when two guys were walking the trailer park late at night and came across a man trying to break in my windows. From what the guys told the police this strange man was standing outside my kids’ bedroom window trying to lift it up when they screamed at him and he took off running for the mountain.
Police searched around the trailer park and under a few trailers where they found a makeshift bed, bucket and a flashlight under my neighbors trailer.
Horribleheadaches
22. Granny Pepper Spray
My mother worked in homecare for the elderly and/or disabled. Part of her job involved cooking meals for people, but sometimes she'd find their kitchen empty and would have to take the person grocery shopping. It was against the rules, she could've been fired for it, but she wasn't going to leave somebody's elderly granny alone in an apartment without food.
So one afternoon, just coming back from the store with the little old lady she was helping, a man pushed his way into the apartment behind them. He had a weapon, ordered them to stay quiet, and ordered the old lady out of the room. And then started trying to get my mom's jeans off.
Up until that point, mom was mostly worried about her client getting hurt, but right then she suddenly remembered some bible verse about how women are supposed to yell and make noise during a forced situation like that so that nobody can claim it was consensual. So she started screaming while trying to fight him off.
And that's when the old lady tottered out of her bedroom, armed with pepper spray! She got the jerk right in the eyes and he went stumbling out the front door. She loved my mom and couldn't stand to hear her terrified screaming, so found a way to save her. The cops never caught the guy, even though he left his coat behind and everything.
OpheliaRainGalaxy
23. Saved by My Guts
I was running late to work one day early morning around 7. I was driving down the highway to get to the interstate when I noticed a kid, maybe 4 years old, trying to ride his bike down the hill. I thought that's weird but not my problem. I can‘t afford to be late again, someone else will help.
As I drove past I got this feeling in my gut that said 'turn the heck around' I turn around and I park a few feet ahead of him to meet him in the middle. I ask him what he's doing and if his parents know where he is. Naturally he's concerned and I tell him I'm not going to take him and I just want to make sure he's safe and I'm going to call the cops. I get his name and that he lives up the street in the rich area. Found out he was trying to go to the McDonald's down the hill. After I've called the cops, another car pulls up.
A couple gets out and they are clearly tweakers who live in the trailer park which is nowhere near where this kid lives (they have missing teeth and just look like their life has been nothing but poor decisions). The woman tries to act like she knows him and where he lives. When I ask her what his name is and where they live she doesn't tell me because 'I could be trying to take him' I tell her no and that I've called the cops. She continues to try and push for them to take him home even attempting to pick him up.
I take out my pepper spray and say 'back the heck up. You didn't give me a name or where he lives, you are not taking him anywhere.' I'm shaking and terrified having this child cling to my leg at this point. Unsure if I just brought a pepper spray to a gunfight. The woman backs up, says she'll wait for the cops. The guy with her is clearly uncomfortable and looks like he wants to get out of there.
They waited till the cops came and naturally as I was talking to an officer for some reason they let her pick him up — the boy looked incredibly uncomfortable in her arms. I told an officer I didn't think they had good intentions and they were trying to take him before the cops got there. I told him she couldn't even give me his name or where he lived for 'knowing him'. I saw an officer take the kid from the woman and put him in his car, it's the only reason things didn't escalate, I was fully prepared to make sure this kid got home without these creeps knowing where.
I didn't hear anything more aside from a call that he got home safe. To this day I am 99% sure that I stopped a child from going missing. I hope the kid is still good and hopefully learned to go to McDonald's with his parents and not on his own. From that day I learned to always trust my gut and to never fall for the 'someone else will help' mind set. Because despite all this stuff that happened, no one else stopped. I, a woman barely 19 was there standing up to tweakers and no one stopped to help me or the kid. They just slowed down to see what was happening.
Square_Parsley_9402
24. Fake Job Offer
I was almost kidnapped when I was 15. I was walking home from school late since I had an after-school club. Normally I would get a ride since my high school is pretty far, but no one in my family could pick me up.
I was walking down the blvd when a man in a black pickup truck driving in the opposite direction of me waved and honked at me. I thought nothing of it until he U-turned and started driving next to me as I was walking. He asked me if I wanted a job. Now this is when I started to know what’s happening here and I needed an excuse fast. So I pretended to not know what he was saying and told him my English is not good. (I’m actually an Asian immigrant but I speak fluent English since I grew up in the US lol)
Once I neared the crosswalk he quickly drove into the parking lot on the corner and kept trying to lure me in his car. This is when things get terrifying for me. He took out a fat stack of $100 bills. It actually scared me because this man could have anything on him if that stack was real.
I just gave him this look which told him I’m not stupid and ran into the neighborhood once the crosswalk lit since he couldn’t get to me in time from the parking lot.
I kept running in the neighborhood until I’m pretty sure I lost him. Also, I stood outside this house that had people working on the lawn just in case he was still following me and I was tired from running. After maybe 5 minutes I went back to the avenue since I need to walk through there to get home. Luckily a mom was walking with her kids so I just walked near them on the way home.
After that, I never walked home from my high school ever again. I just waited late on campus if I needed to or got a ride from my friends since this is when they were getting their licenses. I’m 21 now and I still get very anxious whenever I see a black pickup truck. If I have to walk somewhere I cover myself or make myself look more masculine. If I didn’t have luck that day I wouldn’t be having a normal life or even be alive right now.
factorycheesecake
25. A Case of Human Trafficking
In our mid-twenties, my husband and I lived in a townhome without a yard in a pretty nice area of town. We knew we were purchasing a house soon, so we went ahead and got our first puppy! I’m a morning person, whilst my husband is not, so I would usually get up around 5 am and take the puppy out to the little patch of grass across the street from our townhome (still inside the entire complex, mind you). Did this for several months, no big deal.
Well one morning while out waiting on the puppy, an old Ford van, all beat up with no windows, slowly drives by and goes back behind another building.
A few minutes later as I’m getting ready to cross the street and go back inside, the van comes back up the road to where I was getting ready to cross, stops in the middle of the road and turns off its lights. I waved them on in front of me and at that point, both doors of the van started to open. All I remember was seeing someone start to get out before both the dog and I felt the undeniable urge to run across the street and inside as fast as possible. Once inside, the van sped off and disappeared.
The creepiest part of this whole thing was when I went upstairs to wake my husband, only to find out he was in the middle of a dream where I’d been kidnapped. To this day, I refuse to run outside or go on walks alone, even on our quiet country roads. And big old vans still creep me out.
AwwG
26. A Guy on Drugs
When I was three my mom was driving with me in the backseat, some dude was just standing in the road with his bike, unbuttoned shirt showing his stomach.
She honked at him and he proceeded to come up to the car, punched my mom's window in and scream at her, kick the side and front of the car and ride away on his bike.
Mom was super bloody from the glass and I remember them putting the guy into the back of a police SUV with his bike. Apparently, he was on meth.
Lingo_Ringo
27. A Terrific Experience
I used to work as a cashier in a middle eastern restaurant and we’d get a lot of interesting people coming in. One day while the manager and cooks are busy, a pretty “normal” looking guy comes in and asks for water. No biggie. Then he starts asking questions.
He asked about what ethnicity the owners are and if I’m related to them and while those questions aren’t inherently threatening, he spoke the same way The Joker does. Like he’s about to do something bad to you and you can’t escape it because he’s already set up a trap.
He leaves. He returns less than a minute later with a black duffel bag and another guy who looked homeless blocking the doorway. I legitimately thought he was about to pull out a gun and try to rob the place or shoot me. Instead, he tells me to tell the owner exactly what he’s been asking me and he leaves. Nothing bad really happened but I was terrified that he’d come back and I eventually left the place because of it.
billofkites
28. Pebbles
During a camping trip, we woke up in the middle of the night to rocks hitting the walls of our cabin. They were being thrown at intervals, like once every 10 seconds or so. What’s even more strange is that we could hear them making some weird noises too, like they were trying to scare us or something (and they sure did).
This happened for a couple of minutes until we heard them walking away with their heavy boots. We remained quiet the entire time, never leaving our beds.
The next morning we saw pebbles scattered around our cabin. We reported the incident to the local rangers that day but never heard back from them. We still to this day don’t know who, what, and why this happened.
The pessimistic side of me thinks there was a group of serial killers waiting for a response from us to confirm there were people inside the cabin. But I’d like to think it was just some drunk teens pranking around our campsite. Either way, it was a scary night.
ThatGuyPhilip
29. Escaped Convict
I came across this weird guy when I was walking home from school one day. I was either 12 or 13. It was a good 20-30 minute walk home from school, and I’m finally in my neighborhood on my street. I can see a couple of blocks ahead that there’s this tall guy walking towards my direction. He’s on the opposite side of the street. Then he crossed the street to my side. I stepped into the gutter, yielding him to the sidewalk, and then he did the same.
We’re still a block away from each other. I stepped back on the sidewalk, and then a few steps later he did the same. In my mind, I’m freaking out. This guy looked super sketchy.
I had half a mind to just turn up the nearest driveway and “fumble” at house keys pretending to get inside. But I froze. I stayed on the sidewalk until we were a few steps away, and I sidestepped into the gutter. He just passed me. No words, no motions. At that moment I just booked it home as fast as I could. At one point I turned to see if he had turned around and started following or whatever, and saw he had stopped and was staring at me.
I made it inside and called one of my parents at work to tell them. Turned on the tv, which happened to be on the local news channel. And here he is. Breaking news — escaped convict. I called the police and told them what I saw, and they caught him 30 minutes later a few blocks away. I stopped walking and started riding a bike to school.
Se7enShooter
30. Lured into a Room
I was working as a hotel receptionist, and I was asked to ask a guest to leave our property. He was reportedly intimidating guests and behind on payments (he had been staying with us for nearly two months and paying daily). I informed him that the next morning he'd be required to check out, and he said, "Sure thing" without even asking why.
That night he asked for help with his door because he thinks it doesn't lock. I tell him that his door will always open from within, but if it's locked it won't open from outside.
He doesn't believe me, so I go up to a good room and I ask him to go inside, lock the door, and I will show him that it doesn't open from outside. He says, "No, you have to see it from inside." Like HELL!
I go back up to my desk after refusing to enter the room with him, and I finish my shift. The next morning I'm in class (in college at the time), and my manager calls me and tells me the guy boarded himself up and set the room on fire. Firefighters were able to get him out, and police informed our manager that guy had just been released from prison after serving 23 years for homicide in his teens.
BluePump9Damage
31. Stranger’s Car
I got into a stranger's car without thinking it through one night when I was walking home in my little village. I was about 14. I assumed it was someone I knew stopping to give me a lift as it was also raining.
I got in and shut the door when I realise I have no idea who this man is, he presses the electric door lock and turns to face me and says in the scariest tone, 'You shouldn't get into strangers' cars.'
He proceeded to drive in silence for what must have been 2 minutes, then he stopped the car and let me out. I ran home and didn't tell anyone about it until years later.
Mrsj888
32. A Stalker at Home
I was filling my car up and a guy walked up to me, introduced himself and asked for a date. I turned him down as politely as possible and drove home. The next day I had a knock at the door, peeped out the window and it was him.
I hid, and I heard him rattling the doorknob violently a couple of times. I used to be lax about locking my front door when I was at home so it was by pure lucky chance I had, otherwise he would've been able to come in.
He was a really big guy and I was terrified, as I lived alone.
After he left I went outside and he'd left a note saying 'Just wanted to come by and say hi, merry Christmas xoxoxo' on my car. He must have followed me after asking me out and figured out where I lived. After that, I was terrified every night of sleeping alone.
lemontartlemontart
33. Encounter with a Creep
I was 8 and walking home from my dad's office, which was just around the block from our house at the time, and a guy from the adjacent office started following me and asking questions like, "Are you hungry? Let's go get pizza" and "we could go play somewhere if you're bored. "
He kept following me until my street.
Our neighbor, who also happened to be a cab driver, was passing by and offered me a ride home and the guy suddenly turned tail.
Our neighbor told my parents what happened and turns out the guy was a pedophile with arrests from another county. I was 20 before I was allowed to go out without supervision.
desailes
34. Car Chase
It was late at night and I was driving home. On the way home, someone tried to cut me off when I was making a turn which almost resulted in our cars crashing. The other driver was very upset and started following me, flashing his lights to blind me etc. I almost arrived home when the driver again cut me off and forced me to park my car and blocked my car.
He got out with another guy, grabbed a screwdriver and tried first to open my car door, which I locked just in time, and then he tried smashing my window.
I wasn't so foolish as to get out of my car and risk being stabbed so I reached for my phone and started calling a few of my buddies who lived on my street and luckily they answered and came outside.
The guy with the screwdriver and his buddy saw that they were gonna be outnumbered and quickly escaped in their car. Overall a very scary experience and I'm pretty sure if I hadn't locked my door in time I would've had a huge screwdriver in my neck.
coconutnuts
35. A Long Shortcut
I was fifteen. My friend and I were walking home from basketball practice when we took a random alleyway as a shortcut to buy drinks from a nearby store. We saw in the corner of the alleyway two big and muscular Lebanese guys holding this small woman down on the floor, squirming and covering her mouth with their hands. One of the guys was taking his pants and me and my friend knew immediately that they were going to rape her.
Without thinking, my friend and I threw our sports bags at their head, rushed in and tried to knock them to the floor. They were too strong and one of them started beating up my friend while the other choked me out. I for sure thought I was going to die but the woman managed to pull his hair back and poked him hard in both eyes.
While he was stunned, we both pushed him to the floor and I started kicking him in the nuts incredibly hard.
His other friend let go of my friend and charged at me, but my friend and I both tackled him to the floor and we told the woman to go get help. We held him long enough until she came back with several construction workers who had drills and hammers in their hands. We called the police and they came and arrested them.
In the end, my friend had a shattered collarbone, a bruised eye and a broken rib, while my nose had been broken. The lady I don’t know, we never saw her again or those bastards. Scariest moment ever for me, and it made it worse that everyone in my school heard about it the next day.
kingofstormandfire
36. My Friend Hurt Me
When I was 15 years old I had a crush on a boy. A friend of mine had a crush on the same boy and wanted to distract me from him. So she did the very worst thing and ended up betraying me.
She sent my phone number and address to an older man with a history of questionable behavior. He called me repeatedly and told me he had my photo by his bed and couldn't stop thinking about me.
I was taking drivers ed classes at the time and during class, the guy next to me asked if I knew the person outside. There was an overweight mustached man at the window looking inside at me, but I had no idea who he was. I figured he was there to pick up someone after class.
On our break, I stepped outside and sat on the curb to drink a bottled water. The man approached me and told me who he was, and that he wanted to take me somewhere special.
I was obviously terrified and told him to leave me alone, but he grabbed me by the arm and started dragging me through the parking lot. I was kicking and screaming all the way to his car, where he opened his back door to try and shove me inside. This was when a group of young men from my class noticed and started yelling for him to stop. The guy let me go and told me he'd be back for me and I said if I saw him again I'd call the police.
He never actually showed his face at my class again, but I never went outside on break after that either. Over the next couple of weeks, he made a couple of calls to my house threatening to rape me if he saw me in public. That period of time was horrific but he eventually disappeared from my life. This was the second man that my friend gave my contact information to that stalked me. She wasn't my friend anymore after that.
pocketmole
37. Rejection Gone Wrong
It happened when I was 19, more than 10 years ago, but feels like yesterday. I was leaving my boyfriend's house at about midnight and stopped to get gas. He lived in a town about an hour away from me, and his car was in the shop, so I drove to see him.
I had to go inside to pay for my gas, and decided to get a soda. When I turned around after having my soda, there was a guy standing right behind me. I almost ran into him. I apologized, and he smiled and started hitting on me. I can't remember what he said, but it wasn't crude. Asking for my number or something. I said thanks, but that I had a boyfriend, and waited in line. I was not rude or mean, although it did make me uncomfortable. I've never been good at dealing with those kinds of situations. He didn't say anything else until we were both outside.
He started to yell at me for not thinking he was "good enough" and catcall me. Terrified, I got in in my car as fast as possible and started driving.
As soon as I got on the road, I felt relieved. Until a car came up behind me, going way too fast. It was late, the roads were deserted, and it was a pretty rural area, so I immediately got very nervous.
It was the guy from the store. He swung up around me, driving the wrong way down the road. He was screaming and hanging out of his car window. He was so angry he was spitting at me. I drove faster, and he tried to run me off the road, and I ended up on the shoulder. Somehow I was able to pull the car back onto the road. I put the pedal to the metal and didn't look back.
I don't know how long he followed me, I was just sobbing and focused on the road. I drove faster than I ever have in my entire life. Finally, I realized there were no lights around me. I was alone. I have never felt so relieved in my entire life.
isayawkwardthings
38. Soccer
I was playing football (soccer) with neighbourhood friends on the local playground, where a neighbour had his motorcycle parked about 30 meters from where we were playing.
The neighbour was around 40 years old, seemingly well-adjusted and with a family of his own.
The neighbour came out and walked right up to us to tell us he would break our necks if the ball touched his bike.
His tone was very serious, cold and intimidating. My friends and I were all around 10 years old.
dyingflutchman
39. Help from a Gang
When I was probably like 7-9, I used to live in the ghetto and I had to go home from the bus stop through an alleyway at like 3-4:30 pm which was not the safest thing for a kid to do. When I was going home from school one day, I was walking through the alleyway to my house, and this like 30 to 35-year-old man asked why I was out so late.
I said that I was walking home from the bus stop (it took like 2-4 minutes to get to my house because it was the last house on the street, so it took a while to walk there) and all of a sudden he puts his arm around my shoulder and starts talking about how I'm really cute for my age and all that jazz.
And out of nowhere, one of the gangs that lived in my neighbourhood yelled at the guy to get off me and when he asked why this super buff kid that kinda looked like me said that I'm his little sister and that he was late to pick me up from the bus stop.
The guy bolts out there as fast as he could (the guy obviously didn't live in the neighbourhood cause my family knew everyone basically and I had no idea who he was) and yelled "Sorry just trying to help her get home!" And then they walked me to my house and asked me if I wanted them to walk me home from school from then on, and me being a 7-9-year-old thought that was so cool to walk with a bunch of cool teenagers so I said yes as soon as they asked cause I wanted to show off to my elementary school friends and teachers that I'm friends with gang members.
girl-76
40. Shivers from a Robbery
My bar got robbed. Dudes told everyone to go down, we complied, obviously. I wasn't even a little scared. I was down but had my head up watching everything with fascination. It was sort of exciting.
Then one of the robbers made eye contact with me and just stopped what he was doing and stared at me.
I took my cue and buried my head in my arms. Everything was so quiet, then I heard his slow steps on the wood floor come right up to me, and while looking down I saw his feet on each side of my head, standing right over me.
All I could think is that this man going to shoot me in the back of the head. It sucked so bad. I don't know how long he stood there, probably only ten seconds, but it felt like 5 mins.
DotZei
41. A Scary Encounter
I was a pretty funny, not very serious person who had no personal experience with strangers except every once and a while. I didn’t have a car so I usually walked around my town. Everyone is pretty nice to me because I’m quiet and try my best to make friends so everyone respects me. I struggled majorly with depression because of losses and felt empty. One night I was walking home and a slim tall guy came up to me.
I’m kinda on the short end but almost average size. I was already getting pretty scared and set off many signals to get the heck out of there. After following me a few blocks I got pretty paranoid.
When the guy approached and told me to give him my money screamed, spun around and cracked him across the face and knocked him out instantly. When I looked at him, the jerk was one of my school friends. I never felt more regret in my life a few of my other friends came out of the dark and yelled “What the heck dude!”
The 4 of us crowded around a passed-out person yelling at each other. It was pretty sus, so the police were called. They were trying to prank me by scaring the crap out of me. I kept apologizing to him for a month. I felt pretty bad about it. I had nightmares. And all I gotta say is if you prank someone, don’t do that crap in the middle of the night, please.
Boolin-Doolin
42. I was Just 10
I was probably about 10 & at a McDonalds. I went to the restroom alone while my dad was at the playhouse area with my other siblings.
I opened the first stall and there was a little girl standing and crying holding a grocery bag in front of her. I look behind her and there was a woman shaving the girl’s head.
The woman was also putting the hair in the bag. I ran out of there so fast. Years later I find out the truth about the experience that left me traumatized. Apparently, this was something kidnappers did to hide girls’ identities. I couldn’t help thinking about that girl. What if I had said something then?
Safe-Yogurtcloset854
43. The Sniff
The guy who started sniffing raw cocoa powder. I worked in nature's market for a few years at my old job and we sold powders by the pound. Stuff like spirulina, matcha, and cocoa.
Apparently, teenagers were sniffing raw cocoa because it made them high, or at least they thought it did.
So this guy asks me about how to buy it, I show him, he puts some in a bag, then as I'm about to weigh and price it for him, pours some on the counter and starts sniffing it while I was mid-sentence. I was floored.
He starts telling me how it's like cocaine and stuff. I immediately get my coworker, who called the store manager and we waited. The manager kicks him out and bans him from the store.
CoacoaBunny91
44. PTSD
I was almost kidnapped at 12yrs old. A friend and I were walking from a fast food place around 7:30 am. I noticed a suspicious man standing (not in or around a car) at the ATM next door. He started following us. We noticed him.
He also noticed us noticing him. He started running at us, we ran to the business 2 buildings down where my mother was.
My friend went in first. I was behind her and he almost grabbed me. He was barely inches away. It took all 3 of us to hold the door so we could deadbolt it.
I spent years with what I now know was PTSD. Constantly looking over my shoulder. Paralyzing panic attacks, for example, when a man walked down the same grocery aisle. My heart would race, my vision blurred and goosebumps. That was a long time ago and think about it all the time.
dimwitted_fairy
45. Rendezvous in the Dark
I was meeting two female friends in a park in London, and we decided we'd walk to a station near the park. This wasn't that late at night but it was dark. Looking back on it, this was quite a stupid thing to do, but I'd grown up around this park and knew it well, plus nothing bad had happened to me before.
The friend who had her phone taken decides that the best idea would be to run back towards them to try and get her phone back and as she runs towards them, the two guys grab her and disappear into the bushes. At this point, I've thrown up and I'm convinced I have some sort of concussion, so I sit down, call the police, tell them what happened, and follow the guys with my other female friend, looking for them. What hurt was when I told the operator what happened and he asked me whether I ran off twice, and I felt like a coward. After I've called the police, we continue searching for my friend. Every so often we hear her scream for help, and it breaks my heart I can't do anything (the park is massive and there's long grass and trees everywhere, at night it becomes impossible to find any landmarks, let alone a person). I don't want to think about what happened when she was gone. We stumble around in the dark for about 30 minutes, and keep searching, getting more and more scared every minute.
Then, the police show up and tell us that they've found my friend but the two guys have ran off. We find my friend crying by a path with two joggers and a police car and I collapse; it turns out I had a massive cut on my head which was bleeding heavily the whole time. I didn't notice because of the adrenaline. Police guy patches me up, drives me and my friends home, and I sit on my bed and cry.
They never catch the guys who did it. I've kinda drifted from my friends now, but we still talk sometimes. I never found out what happened to my friend who was grabbed by the guys, I asked but she said she didn't remember. I'm now a lot more paranoid than before, and recently my college has had quite a few stabbings and muggings nearby, which hasn't helped. I only just realised how likely it was that this guy had a knife and just how close I came to death that night. For a while I felt like a total wuss for not fighting back but everyone I've talked to has said the same thing; it was the best thing I could have possibly done in that situation.
To add insult to injury, the guy broke my favourite chain as well. Guess I should buy sterling silver next time.
dnbrz