Life is full of surprising twists and turns. Whether we like it or not, we live in a great big world filled with weirdos and creeps, and we're bound to run into them from time to time. These disturbing real-life encounters are everything we fear in the realm of social interaction.
1. Cover Your Windows
A random guy once told me, "I drove by your house the other day and watched you change". He then proceeded to tell me what I had been wearing and what I changed into. He described my clothes 100% accurately. And at the time I was 15 and he was 26.
My bedroom was in the basement, and he literally had to be hiding in the bushes in order to see through my window and blinds because there were massive and thick bushes covering them. But that wasn't even the creepiest part.
I hung blankets over my windows immediately and have had blackout curtains in every house I've ever lived in since. A few months after that incident, I got a random call from a woman asking if I knew this guy. She asked if anything ever happened to me and if I was okay.
Turns out he was under arrest for rape and had a room filled with photos of all the women he was stalking. My photo and address were on his wall.
2. Peekaboo
I once got paged to a side room in the psych ward, only to find no patient in the bed. I was just about to leave the room and go back out to the nurses’ station when something caught my eye. When I looked up, my blood ran cold.
I saw a face with wide, slightly wild “psych eyes” peering down at me from a gap in the ceiling tiles. It was a lady waiting for a bed in the psych hospital who’d clearly thought that the ceiling was the best place to hide from the people trying to poison her.
I honestly can’t think of another occasion where I’ve been quite so terrified. The worst thing was that I had to walk (well, dash) back out underneath her to get help from the nurses and security to get her down.
3. As Impressive As It Is Confusing
I used to work in a bar back in my college days. It was a pretty slow night one night, and I'm just standing behind the bar drying pint glasses and this middle-aged woman walks in and asks for a glass of water. But she was whispering and kind of looked scared.
I obliged and fetched her a glass of water and handed it to her. As she takes it, she leans in and whispers, "There's a man with an ax behind me and he's trying to get me!" I'm pretty weirded out but I manage to reply, "There's no one there, ma'am," or something to that effect.
She then says under her breath, "Everything is geometry!" and proceeds to turn and run out of the bar full tilt, stripping off her shirt. And then, in a feat I can only describe as legendary, she removes her pants without stopping. She books it diagonally across the intersection. Totally unadorned.
The handful of customers and I were, needless to say, astounded.
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4. TSA Or CPA?
Last winter break, I went to Colorado to go snowboarding. On the way home, I'm going through security when a woman carrying a large suitcase and a rear-facing car seat runs up behind me and asks to go ahead of me. Apparently, she was running late for her flight and it was scheduled to leave in five minutes, I planned ahead so I’m not in a rush and let her go first.
At this point, the TSA agent says that she has to put the car seat through the X-ray machine. The mom picks up the car seat and shoves it onto the moving belt and it slides into the machine. All of a sudden there is a violent screaming from inside the machine. The mom starts freaking out and crying.
Now the TSA is upset as well, wondering what the heck is going on inside the machine. I look at the screen and see the outline of what appears to be a small human. Next thing you know, the car seat comes out the other side, flipped on its side. There is a baby who appears to be just a few weeks old flailing inside of the overturned car seat.
Now everyone is yelling and there is quite a scene occurring. The lady talked with the TSA and was pulled to a back room, I doubt she made her flight.
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5. From Sweetheart To Psycho
I cared for an elderly woman with no family who came to us when her husband passed. She didn’t speak often, but when she did, it was usually just words that made no sense. I felt so bad for her because ever since she arrived, many of the residents in her area that she seemed to enjoy spending time with began passing in such short timespans.
To remember them, she’d put up their pictures next to her pictures of her husband, as well as several others who were probably her family. I always felt sorry for her and showed her extra attention, and we became close. It just seemed so unfair that she had such luck and kept losing the people she cared about. Little did I know, she was keeping a deranged secret.
One day, she looked at me and said, plain as day, “Sweetie, I think I’m done now,” and she handed me a picture. It was a picture of me, and I smiled because it touched my heart that I was that important to her. She passed nearly a week later, and I cried for days. It hit me really hard. She knew it was the end for her, and she said goodbye as best she could.
A little less than two years later, the elderly woman came up in conversation while talking with a colleague. My colleague referred to her as “that crazy witch,” which seemed very out of character for her and it shocked and offended me deeply. I not-so-nicely expressed this to her, and she looked at me with this surprised expression and said, “Oh dear, do you not know?”
As it turned out, it was discovered sometime after that the elderly woman had taken her husband’s life with poison. Following an investigation, it also appeared that she had a ritual of befriending someone, obtaining a picture of them, and hiding their picture until she could slay them (usually with poison). Then, she’d display their picture as a sort of trophy.
It was suspected that this may have been the reason for the spike in our mortality rates during her stay, as well as the considerable number of photos in her “collection". The last I heard, the people in her old “family” photos weren’t of any relation to her, and the authorities were still trying to ID the individuals and compare them to several cold cases.
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6. You’ve Got The Wrong Guy
When I was around eight years old, I was waiting outside the Disneyland bathroom for my dad who was in there for a while and some guy who looked like a grandfather came up to me and yelled in a shaky voice, "C'mon, Jake! I can't stand here forever, now!" I'm a girl, so that made it even weirder.
At first, I thought he was talking to someone else, but then he came closer. He got irritated, saying, "Jake! Don't ignore me!" I started looking at him with a clearly confused face, trying to signal that I don't know who in the world Jake is, so please go away. But he got even closer and grabbed my arm.
He started pulling me away, saying "We are GOING to sit down, Jake! C'mon!" I was trying to stay put but this guy was strong and eventually, my legs wouldn't stay put. He effectively dragged me out of my place.
At this point, I started screaming but it was more unintelligible shrieks and people must have thought that I really was "Jake," and I was just resisting, not that I didn't even know who this guy was. Luckily though, my dad came out of the bathroom then pulled me back, and started yelling at the guy.
The security got involved and then they told us the most upsetting story. Apparently, the guy's grandson was named Jake, who had a seizure and passed inside that bathroom over a year ago. The grandfather had some form of Alzheimer’s and stayed there every weekend just waiting for his grandson to come out of the bathroom.
7. Nope, Nope, Nope
I’m a Mexican nurse, and my worst experience occurred when a female in her 70s came to the ER. She referred that her leg hurt, and she had a bandage above her ankle. She said she had cut it with glass three weeks ago, so she put the bandage on, but that’s all she did.
So, I took off her bandage, and at first glance, I saw that she had two small cuts. But as I looked at it more closely, I was something that made my face go white...She had two little white things moving in the wound. They were small larvae.
I was already shocked at this point, but then it got so much worse. The woman said she felt a lot of tingling in her leg, so I squeezed the wound on her leg a little, and like 50 larvae came pouring out. They said a fly probably laid eggs on her wound, and she didn’t notice. I squeezed a second time, and another 50 larvae came out.
She had to be taken to the OR because the holes were really deep. So, that’s the worst one.
8. Full-Service Bakery
A paraplegic man comes into the bakery I work at. He's in a covered chair that is completely reclined, a water hookup by his mouth, a small waist bag, and a few other bits and pieces. The point is, this guy was completely immobile besides having his chair, and I wasn't even sure how the chair operated (eye movement maybe, I haven't got a clue).
He orders a coconut dream bar and I put it in a bag and walk over to the register. He says, "My money is in my lap bag". And I reply, "Excuse me?" He motions his eyes towards this grimy old waist bag sitting on his lap (right over his crotch) and tells me to grab the money out of his bag.
I've only just started to work at the bakery, so I wasn't completely comfortable going through a customer’s belongings. But I wasn't going to say no because he would think I was being weird about his disability. As I'm walking around the counter to open his bag, all I can think about is how grimy the bag is.
At this point, there's a HUGE line forming behind him and my co-worker is on break. I'm absolutely beyond stressed. Luckily, I find the two dollars he mentioned and ring him up for the dessert. I brought it around to him, put the change back in his bag, and set the bakery bag on his lap. But he wasn't done with me yet.
"Excuse me," he says somewhat rudely. "I'd like a bite". Absolutely mortified that five people are lined up behind him and he's demanding me to feed him a pastry right there in front of the register, I stand and stare at him. Finally, I manage to say, "Ummm...Okay?"
So I stand there and feed him a whole coconut dream bar while the rest of my customers have to stand in line and watch the exchange. After he left, some of the customers asked what had happened and who that guy thought he was demanding me to feed him.
9. Some Things Are Meant To Be Private
When I was a kid living in Russia, I would walk to school every day with my brother. One day, I had to walk alone because my brother was sick. As I was walking, I saw this lady laying in the dirt. She was dressed like a nun and was screaming something at me.
She then started digging into the ground with her hands and kept looking at me and saying random things. I ran as fast as my child-sized legs could take me.
10. A Lost Soul
I’m on an on-call victim support team, so I often end up at the hospital at odd hours. This was around 4:00 am. I’d just finished doing my thing, and I was sitting in my car in the parking lot collecting myself and writing notes for my report when I saw someone out of the corner of my eye.
I clearly saw the blue of a hospital gown, but when I looked over, no one was there. I figured I was just tired and riding out the adrenaline of the call, so I went back to doing my thing. But after a few minutes, I once again spotted something moving in my peripherals. This time when I looked up, someone was there.
Standing on the curb in front of the hospital, I saw a man in his mid to late 50s, with thin hair up top and no facial hair. He was wearing a hospital gown and holding on to something metal, but I couldn’t tell if it was an IV pole or a crutch from my angle. He wasn’t leaning on it.
He had this expression on his face of wide-eyed shock with his mouth slightly open, like he was trying to think of something to say and had totally stalled out. At this point, I started glancing around for staff or something because this man didn’t look like he should be outside alone.
His skin was a messed up pale color, and he was barefoot. I couldn’t see his feet well in the shadows, but his hands and fingers looked bruised. As I was looking around for staff, our eyes met, and I knew he saw me. I started thinking, Okay, this guy can’t wander around alone, half-exposed and unmasked.
I had huge chills, but I turned to grab my mask and get out of my car to help guide him back inside. But when I looked up again, I couldn't believe my eyes. He was gone. I looked all over the parking lot for him, but he had definitely disappeared.
There was no way he could have vanished like that in the split second it took me to grab my mask. I don’t know how to explain this without sounding dramatic, but my skin crawled when he looked at me. He looked like a guy who was slowly realizing he’d passed and didn’t know what to do now. I still think about it.
11. The Night Terror
I’m not a nurse, but I used to work in group homes and facilities for those with intellectual and developmental disabilities. One night I took an extra overnight shift, and I heard a door slam. It was odd because all the clients’ doors got shut once they went to bed, and they all had alarms. I investigated…Nothing.
So, I sat back down and started doing some paperwork from the shift before. Then I heard the alarm for a client’s room. I froze and just looked up; it’s not uncommon that someone wants a cup of juice. But this time, I got the scare of a lifetime.
This client, with super long straight hair, who had wildly active Tourettes and was never quiet, was standing at the edge of the hallway IN THE DARK COCKING THEIR HEAD AND JUST STARING STRAIGHT AT ME, LOOKING LIKE SOMEONE FROM THE FREAKING GRUDGE.
The house was dark; I kept it that way not to bother the clients at night (but I kept the TV on for light). This client just stood there and stared into my soul. Nobody moved a muscle for like 10 minutes. Then the client just slowly backed away and went back to bed without breaking eye contact. I turned a lamp on after that.
12. Run, Don’t Walk
The nursing home I worked in used to be an orphanage. The seasoned staff would say offhand stuff like, “Sometimes the residents see kids,” and I’d always laugh it off. But then, one morning, I was getting some of the residents out of bed, and one of our ladies started staring out the window.
She stopped me and said, “Give those kids a blanket. They’ll freeze out there". Then another night, we had a resident who wouldn’t stay in bed. She had bed alarms so we would hear her get up because it wasn’t uncommon. This woman shared a room with a non-verbal stroke patient named Maggie.
One night, she was way more active than usual, with her bed alarm going off every few minutes. So, I went in there, and I was like, “Mildred, what’s up?” She answered, “There’s a man under Maggie’s bed". I squatted down next to Maggie’s bed, and I said, “I don’t see anyone!” Her reply made my blood run cold.
This woman said, “I don’t see how. He’s looking right at you!” I was out of there immediately, and I didn’t go back in.
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13. Crocodile Tears
When I was 14, I went for a walk by myself on a dirt path. I passed some guy who was just sitting on a rock in the middle of the forest. I didn’t make eye contact with him, but I could see that he was crying. I wanted to help, but my gut told me not to.
Three days later, I turned on the news and saw his picture. That's when I learned a shocking truth about that man—he had savagely slaughtered his wife and five-year-old daughter.
14. An Eye For An Eye
A few years ago, I was taking the metro out to Studio City to visit my boyfriend every few days which involved taking three trains, the second one being the sketchiest, as it ran through the Compton area. One time, on the second train, an elderly man came onto the train with a sign asking for money (this is a very common occurrence in that area).
This man's sign stated that he was blind. When he reached my seat, I gave him a gold dollar (change from my fare). He asked how much the coin was worth, but as I told him, I noticed a middle-aged woman rolling her eyes at me for giving this man money.
Not everyone shared her opinion because soon after my donation, more people began giving the man money. This visibly frustrated the woman even more. It wasn't long before she began making comments to herself. "I don’t why y'all are giving him money," she said, "he’s faking".
After several comments, the elderly man turns around and starts yelling at this woman. She accuses him of faking his blindness to fool all of us out of our money. This is where things get real. The man responds to her accusation by popping out his left eyeball. I am shocked, but can clearly see he has no eye there.
The woman, however, was not phased by this. She yells, "One eye don't mean anything. I know the other one's real. You’re faking!" He pops in the first eye and pops out the second one. As I sat there in shock, this woman still hasn't been convinced!
She says his eyes are really behind the skin that had healed over this man's empty sockets! The angry blind man proceeded to argue with her until the next stop, where he exited proclaiming, "I don't need this today".
15. Painting The Ward Red
I spent 16 years working in mental health and consequently saw a ton of traumatizing stuff. One of the worst was a woman who shanked herself in the wrist with a shard of plastic from a clock she broke in the doctor’s office. She then proceeded to run laps around the unit, spraying blood literally everywhere.
The floors, ceiling, and walls were just covered in blood. But that wasn't all. My brain has blocked out some of the details, but I think she tore off all her clothes as well. We ultimately had to wrap a blanket around her and take her down so we could stop the bleeding. I felt terrible for all of the other patients who witnessed it.
16. That’s Toe-tally Gross
I worked in the kitchen, so I was the lowly guy delivering food trays. I made a delivery to one guy who had a horrendously infected foot. Most of the toes were necrotic and black, and the rest of the foot wasn’t doing much better. I wouldn’t be surprised if he was waiting for an amputation.
His dietary requirements were diabetic, so it was likely. The room smelled AWFUL. Anyway, these rooms are small, with typically two beds in them, but the other bed was empty because of the smell from his infection. However, I still had to squeeze by the foot of his bed.
Because I was paying attention to the tray (so I didn’t knock it into the equipment), I accidentally brushed my leg against his infected foot, which was sticking out of the covers and hanging off the bed. BIG MISTAKE. His big toenail came off onto my leg. It was just…stuck to my leg. We looked at each other in horror.
I cleared my throat and asked my usual questions. I cleared and adjusted his table, gave him his tray, and wished him a good day. I left calmly and then ran to the nurse’s station and asked for help getting this dude’s entire necrotic toenail (with bonus flesh) off my freaking leg.
The nurse who finally got it off ended up soaking that portion of my pant leg in some disinfectant liquid that smelled like it could take the paint off a car.
17. The Lady In Red
I worked in an ER for a long time, mostly overnights while I was in the air force. All of the housekeepers would talk about the lady in the red dress. They would often see her down in the basement where the morgue was. We would have to go down there to the place where they did sterilizations to drop stuff off. No one ever saw anything.
One day, a patient came in for a cut on his finger and needed stitches. He was a young guy with no history of mental illness or anything—but what he told me was absolutely chilling.
He'd found it difficult to get to the ER and ended up wandering down to the basement...until a nice lady in a red dress told him to go the other way and up the stairs, and he found us. We believed the housekeepers after that.
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18. That’s Ripe
When I was younger, my neighbors had a really big fig tree in the space between our houses. Every year, our neighbors would wait and wait until the figs were just right to pick, eat, and make into jam. Well one day, right about the time to pick the figs, I was in the backyard with my brother.
We heard a noise and looked over the fence to see an older woman. We recognized her as the lady who lived up the street. What she did next made our jaws DROP. She proceeded to squat in front of the tree and push out one of the biggest steamers I've ever seen. She then picked all the figs off the tree and ran.
19. For The Love Of Cheese
This happened to me the last time I went to Walmart. I took my son to the men's room and there was a guy kind of mumbling in the stall. I figured he was in there helping his son as well so we continued our "business". While we were washing our hands, his mumbling got louder and stranger.
Before I could get my kid out of there, he flushed the toilet and was out of the stall immediately. He came rushing up to me and asked where the cheese snacks were, but in such a way that the only words I really understood were "cheese snacks". I told him that I didn’t work there and he broke down crying.
I just kind of slowly backed out of the bathroom with my kid.
20. What A Circus
At the Hollywood Metro Stations, you always see the craziest things, but to me, this one topped anything I have ever seen. So, I’m heading home after a night of drinking with my buddies and I go to the Hollywood/Highland station at around two am. Nobody was in the station...or so I thought.
I start to hear laughing from two guys and giggling and it’s getting closer. Out from the shadows emerges these guys in their birthday suits. One is holding the other one upside down, holding onto his ankles while his buddy is gripping his. They were doing cartwheels with each other as a single unit.
I sat and stared at these guys for about five minutes before the train arrived and I left the station. This happened about six years ago and I’m still having trouble understanding what exactly I saw.
Wikimedia.Commons
21. They Needed An Old Priest And A Young Priest
I used to work in a Catholic hospital. While on night rounds on the orthopedic floor, I finally asked a nurse why the patient room right off the elevator was used for storing extra beds/IV poles. I assumed it may have been too noisy and had patient complaints from being by the elevator. But the truth was much more disturbing.
The real story was that the room was haunted by this woman who acted very strange, and apparently, they had to call a priest in to see if she was literally possessed. He said she was. The patient accused a nurse of stealing her baby (the patient was 70ish, and her son had sadly passed as an infant). Shockingly, it turned out that the nurse was indeed pregnant but didn’t know it yet.
Anyway, the patient apparently “levitated” and passed a few days later. They hung a cross outside the wall of the room, but it fell off and broke. Inside the room, the automatic paper towel dispenser (the one you wave your hand in front of) would constantly spill out paper towels, and the automatic sink would also turn on and off randomly.
So, they quit putting patients in that room. I never witnessed it myself, but I also never went into the room after that.
22. Statues Get Hungry Too
I was walking with about four or five friends in town late at night, I would have to say it was at least 1:30 in the morning. We were walking home from a bar and we were having a great time. After a while, we noticed that a random guy had been following us. We kept going and he followed us everywhere, staying 100 yards back and slowly eating something out of a white bowl.
We walked for about another half a mile and he was still there. Finally, we decided to confront the guy and see what his deal was—but when we turned around, he was gone. We heard laughing down an alley we recently passed. All of us walk up to the alley, and there is this guy, crouched down in front of some statue resembling a pig, trying to feed the pig.
23. Lock Your Doors
My wife and I had to travel to San Antonio for my PRK/LASEK surgery. When we arrived in town, we found out our initial hotel plans fell through, and we had to find a last-minute motel to stay at. We get everything situated around noon and get our key for a second-floor room. We load back into our car and drive to the other side of the motel to park our car near our room and start unloading our luggage.
As we were unloading our car with our two suitcases and a couple of backpacks, my wife and I noticed a disheveled man walking parallel to the motel. He turns towards us and starts approaching us. In our mind, we figured he was just going to ask for cash and go on his way. I mean, the majority of my encounters with homeless and/or drug users are that, but we're still on guard because we don't know this area.
After he approached us, he asked if we needed help unloading our stuff. He has a 40oz in one hand and another 40oz halfway out of his cargo pocket, and at this point, I can smell the booze coming off of him. We politely tell him no and that we don't need help as it's only a couple of things. He stumbles to put his opened 40oz on the brick ledge next to us and states he would like to help us and it's the least he can do.
He firmly takes my suitcase out of my hand and starts to introduce himself as, "Reuben". I'm obviously on guard here, I mean the man has my suitcase in his hand and I don't even know him. He starts walking to the stairs, continuing his life story. He seems pretty harmless, but still gives my wife and me those vibes. I explained to him that I don't have cash on hand and that I wouldn't be able to tip him for his generosity.
Reuben says that it's fine, and again, this is the least he could do. At this point, he's following my wife and me on the outside balcony to our room. Again, my bells are ringing and so are my wife's. I restate that I don't have cash. My wife hurries into the room and I'm with Reuben with my stuff. He hands me my stuff and I put it in the room right behind the door.
I'm starting to close the door, my thigh pressed against it as well as my wife. As I'm thanking him for his help, he extends his hand out in the form of expecting a payment. I again tell him that we don't have the cash to tip him. In an instant, Reubens' facial expression underwent a radical transformation: it changed from an "I'm glad to help you" happy face to an, "I will hurt you and your wife and won't think twice about it"-soulless look.
My hand is on my blade and at this point, I am pushing the door shut, but before I shut it, he utters a bone-chilling warning, "You better keep your windows and doors locked". I slammed and immediately locked the door and ensured the windows were in fact locked. We moved some of the furniture in front of the door and windows in a way to barricade them and kept them there for the remainder of our stay when we were in the room and finally notified the front desk of him.
Even returning to the room, we would look under the bed and in the bathroom for him in case he broke in. Each time we left the room for my medical appointments, we would always be on the lookout for Reuben and even to the point of parking in different spots and taking different ways to our room so we wouldn't bump into him again.
This was 4-5 years ago and my wife and I still get shivers down our spine by the way he just changed so suddenly and uttered those words to us. Hypothetically, if someone would share a San Antonio news report of a man named Reuben murdering someone since then, I wouldn't be surprised.
24. Poor Cujo
I work in an operating room, and we frequently get dog bite victims. Once when I went out to the waiting room to update the parents, the child’s father handed me something that made my jaw drop: A trash bag with the head of the dog that bit his son in it. He said he thought we’d need it to test for rabies.
Hmm…No, animal control would handle that particular task, thank you very much. I took it, though.
25. Lower The Volume, Sir
I was at Bed Bath & Beyond, shopping for towels. My parents were getting ready to go through the register, so I just kind of went off and looked around the shelves that are positioned near the front of the store. As I'm looking through whatever's there, I detect the pungent smell of bodily refuse wafting through the air.
I turn around, fairly confused, and I see an older gentleman, about fifty or sixty, with a wet brown stain running right from the seat of his pants to the bottom of his right pant leg. He's walking up to the cash register really nervously, and he asks the guy there, "Can I borrow your phone? I NEED TO BORROW YOUR PHONE!"
The BB&B worker lets him borrow the phone, and (I'm assuming) he calls his wife. I'm just trying to be polite and not look over at him, but then I hear, "MARTHA! I NEED YOU TO PICK ME UP!" I'm guessing she replied: "What? Why?" "I WENT TO THE BATHROOM IN MY PANTS" "What?!" "I WENT TO THE BATHROOM IN MY PANTS! PICK ME UP!" Needless to say, it was weird for everyone there. I felt so bad for the guy.
26. The Horrifying House Call
A few years ago, I was in desperate need of a job and a friend helped me get on with his company doing home health. I became a home health aide where I’d just go house to house, doing light housework and helping the client wash up. Most of these people were out in the boonies where I couldn’t get cell service and there wasn’t another home for miles.
This one client lived in such a place. He gave me weird vibes from the get-go. I showed up at his requested time, cleaned up his house, and helped him wash up. I asked if he needed anything else before I left—that’s when he turned on me. He grabbed me quickly, pulled me to him, and said, “Yeah, you can make love to me before you go".
This man, who supposedly was too weak to even shower himself, had a very tight grip on me and I couldn’t get away. It probably only lasted between five and ten seconds but it was terrifying. I was alone with this man in his home, with no cell service o landline. I was thinking that he could have done whatever he wanted to me.
I walk with pepper spray now.
27. Carry On, Good Sirs
I was driving to work on an early Wednesday morning. I start quite early, so it was maybe around 5:30 am when I came to a crossing. On the other side of the road, there was a barbershop and a fast-food restaurant. A 1950s Cadillac was pulled over by the barbershop and there were two large guys standing outside the vehicle.
One guy was power-washing the barbershop window with urine, swaying from side to side as he presumably tried to spell his own name. But that's not the weirdest part. The other guy was facing me, dressed in nothing but a Swedish flag as a cape and a trashcan over his head (you know the ones that have lots of tiny holes in them), and giving me an old German salute.
28. Didn’t Need To See That
I walked into the morgue one time to find someone holding a guy’s eye in her hand. It was still attached to the body’s head by the nerve. It turned out she was removing the cornea for a donor transplant into a living person, but it still caught me off-guard. I looked outside the door, leaned back in, and said, “You know there’s a slider out here that says ‘in use,’ right?”
Then I slid it to read “in use” and left to come back after she was done.
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29. Nature Calls
I was standing on the main high street holding the McDonalds sign pointing towards the restaurant. I was casually standing listening to my iPod when I notice a mother who seemed to be at least in her mid-thirties lift her probably six or seven-year-old daughter off the ground with hands under both shoulders. What happened next shocked me to the core.
She nonchalantly held her like that while she relieved herself into the gutter. In full view of the entire public walking past her. And this was on one of the busiest shopping streets in Scotland and the most expensive place to shop in the UK.
30. When Patients Rally
I’m an ER nurse. I had an old lady come in by ambulance, nearly deceased. She was a DNR, so we weren’t going to do much for her. She didn’t have any family that we could find. The hospital was full, so we had to keep her in the ER for the night. Again, she was nearly gone. When you’ve seen enough people pass, there’s no mistaking it, and she was almost there.
She was barely responsive: pale, cool, and her breaths were really irregular. Her heart rate was up and down, too. We just turned the lights down and kept an eye on her monitor, basically waiting for her to pass. About an hour later, she was standing at the door of her room. She’d gotten up and put on all her clothes. We were all like, “What the heck!?”
One of the nurses went to check on her, and she said she was hungry. Not really knowing what to make of things, we got her a chair, a bedside table, and we went to the cafeteria and got her a tray of food. The lady just sat there, ate all of her food, and even talked with the staff a little. After about an hour, she told her nurse that she was tired and wanted to lie back down.
We helped her back into bed, and within 30 minutes, she was gone. It wasn’t exactly paranormal, but in my 22 years working in busy, inner-city ERs, it’s the weirdest thing I’ve seen.
31. Amazing First Impression
I was in a Staples waiting in line at the service desk checkout when I see a blue pickup truck with two men in it pull into the parking lot in front of the store. They spoke to each other for a moment when the driver suddenly begins to launch his fists at the passenger repeatedly, cracking his head against the window several times.
A struggle ensues and the wrestling continues before a pause, at which point the passenger gets out and calmly enters the store to ask if the store is hiring. He gets an application form from the manager on duty and we all stare as he then returns to the waiting truck, where the tussle begins again after he appears to take the keys from the ignition.
The truck rocks as he gets hit in the face and slammed against the window several more times and the driver manages to get the keys back, start the car, and drive away.
32. Ignorance Is Bliss
I’m an EMT for the ambulance service. We have two hospitals in our county: One is a general hospital, and the other is a level II trauma center that most people go to. Last week, both ERs filled to the point where the general hospital told us they could no longer accept patients, and the level II trauma center would only take patients under certain circumstances. Here’s where it gets creepy.
While my partner and I were in the ER, we kept noticing a man lying in a bed out in the open. He looked so peaceful as he slept. But then, we found out from an RN we knew that the man had actually passed from unknown circumstances—but they had nowhere to put his body. The morgue was full, and no one could track down the county coroner.
All they could do was make it look like he was sleeping, so the other patients wouldn’t take notice. I thought it was very unethical, but the RN kept reminding me that they had absolutely no room for his body unless they put it in the janitor’s closet.
33. The Consequences Of Creeping
I caught a dirty old man doing something creepy on my way to work along a busy footpath in Sydney. He was up-skirting three office girls. I caught him doing it while a big group of people were all waiting to cross the street, there were about 20 people, I screamed out, "Hey, this dirty old man is taking pictures up your skirt!"
And the crowd just turned on him, I hurried away but I looked back and he was on the ground getting kicked and punched by at least five people, I saw the camera go flying. Mob justice was probably not the kind of footage he was hoping to get that day.
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34. Sister Acts
I'm a female, first of all. I'm 21 now, but when I was four years old, my sister had just turned 16. She had just gotten her license and was so excited. It was probably only September, and she got her license in July. My sister is from my dad's first marriage, and she lived with her mom and stepdad while I lived with our dad and my mom.
We lived about 30 minutes apart. My dad worked late hours, and my mom frequently traveled for work, so I had to spend a lot of time at a babysitters (which was costly) until my sister got her license. My dad finally gave her permission to pick me up after she got out of school and take me to her mom's until he was off work. She was so excited to finally be able to use her license!
I know I said I was only four, but I remember this event so vividly. It took years for my sister to even ask me if I remembered it, but when I told her all the parts I remember (about 80%) she filled in the rest for me. It was one of the first times my sister would get to pick me up from my babysitter, which means it would be one of the first times she'd been allowed to drive with me alone.
Almost as soon as we pulled onto the main road, a white pick-up truck swerved behind us. Weird, but whatever. After a few turns, my sister noticed that the truck still followed her. Even when she would just switch lanes, he was right there switching behind her. My sister, being a bit of a paranoid person, tested it a little and switched lanes several times.
She said she heard his tires squealing by his quick cuts to get behind her again. She told me not to worry, and I remember being an oblivious little kid. She looked scared, but I had no concerns. The man started to get really angry. I don't remember anything about what he looked like, but I do remember that he had this look of pure hate on his face
It’s strange that you can sometimes remember expressions but not the faces they were on. He wasn't only angry, he was full of hate. He was honking the horn repeatedly, just laying on it, and he was very close to our car. He was swerving back and forth, trying to get our attention. He would pull up beside us occasionally, flip us off, and honk.
The first big event came about when we pulled up at a four-way stoplight. It's a bigger one, so there was a lot of room in the intersection. We were the first ones at the stop light in our lane, and nobody was beside us. The man used this lane to pass us and pull his car in front of us almost in the intersection. He was now blocking us.
I so perfectly remember that white pick up truck. He got out of it, and started storming towards our car. He was screaming so hard I remember thinking his face almost looked purple. Neither one of us remembers what he was saying, but he pulled up his shirt to reveal to us that he had a piece. He pointed to it and at us, threatening us and closing the gap between us. My sister put her hand over my body, told me to close my eyes, and floored it through the intersection.
She said she was worried we were either going to hit him, or get hit in the intersection, but it was a better chance than sitting there and waiting for the psycho to shoot. But that was just the beginning of the nightmare. He hopped back into his car and followed us. My house was closer to where we were than my sister’s, so for some reason, she decided to go to my empty house.
Obviously, he followed us and blocked us into the driveway. He got out and walked towards my sister’s parked car. Once again, she had to think fast and swerve her way across our lawn back out onto the road. This was before cell phones, and she had just started driving and was still young. She had no idea what to do, really.
He followed us back onto our neighborhood road, pulling up next to our car and hitting his truck against us, trying to make us skid or wreck. There is a smallish area of grass between my neighborhood road and a major busy road, and it was obvious he was trying to push our car hard enough to send us into the traffic beside us. I remember him doing that little gesture where you drag your finger along your throat, like you're slitting it.
His face was still purple. There was a gas station nearby and my sister decided on the last Hail Mary move she could think of. I remember her talking to me so seriously and sternly. She told me she needed me to be a big girl and the second we pulled by the door of the gas station, to undo my seatbelt and jump out, and run inside so fast that I shouldn't even worry about closing my door.
I was to run inside and go directly to the person behind the counter and tell them to call 9-1-1 because a bad man was following us. We pulled in and she threw the car in park and I jumped out and did as I was told. She was only a few seconds behind, but she had to actually stop the car, park it, turn it off, whatever. She closed her door and mine for me, and just ran inside with me.
The man came into the parking lot behind us, and when we were inside, he went through my sister's car. By the time officers arrived, he was gone. They never found him, and we never knew what provoked him or what his plan was. The only thing he took from the car was my sister's ID and the cash she had on her. I can still so vividly picture what was happening, but I don't remember being scared.
I don't remember my sister ever showing that she was freaking out, although later at her mom's she did lose her mind, sobbing her eyes out and yelling, understandably. I think the way she handled it really prevented it from being a really traumatic experience for me. It's still scary, but it's not something that haunts me, and I have her to thank.
35. Those In Glass Stalls
Unfortunately, I was using the bathroom in a Walmart. As I exit my stall, I notice a woman in the handicap stall who is using the toilet with the door wide open. I obviously want to get out of there as quickly as possible, so I proceed to the exit without washing my hands because I know I have some hand sanitizer in my purse and I’d rather not see this.
Apparently, this was way over the line for this woman because as the door closed behind me, she started yelling, saying how gross I was. I turned around and pointed out that she was the one peeing with the door open, but somehow, I was the gross one for not wanting to witness that.
36. There In Spirit
I used to be an army combat medic, but now I’m a firefighter/medic. I’ve seen some things. The oddest one involved a transport from a horrible car crash/rollover. It took the jaws of life and all to get this woman out, but we kept her stable the whole way to the hospital. I personally held her hand as we wheeled her gurney inside to the doctors. I had a feeling she wouldn’t make it; she lost a metric ton of blood.
After the handoff, the paperwork/documentation went fairly quickly, so I went to the vending machine to get a much-needed caffeine boost. But as I walked out the ER doors, I got the shock of my life. I swear the same woman that we’d just wheeled in had walked out of the ER fully clothed, with no blood or damage to herself.
She looked me in the eyes and gave me a smile! I freaked the heck out! So, I checked back with the nurses’ station, where the nurse told me I was crazy because the doctors declared her deceased 10 minutes ago…
37. A Cringey Mistake
While working nights in the operating room of a level one trauma center, you run into many awful things. Including the worst of society. But something that sticks with you is seeing a severely injured person in complete shock. Not like “WOW, my arm is off,” but like body shock. They’re barely aware of the world around them. Eerily calm. Pale, sluggish. Not at all bothered by the bustling room around them.
I remember one person who had a ruptured aortic aneurysm. Due to a communication breakdown, we incised before the patient was asleep (surgeons get tunnel vision in moments like that). But the patient was just like, “Hey, that hurts,” in a very chill, almost bored manner. It was wild.
38. Nobody Panic!
A mother had been working on a computer at the hotel where I work when she noticed her three-year-old was missing. She doesn't notify staff immediately, just walks around the building a few times trying to see if he's wandered to another room. Finally, one of my coworkers working a service desk asks if she needs any help and the mother explains she's looking for her son.
Totally calm, not worried at all. That continued for the 40 minutes it took to find her son. My co-worker just had a baby and was crying for the missing child, but this mom just wandered around looking half-heartedly, like he'd turn up under a chair and nothing was the matter.
39. Don’t Turn Around
I used to work in a geriatric psych unit. We had one patient who was declining physically and mentally, so orders were put in for this patient to be watched 24/7 for safety reasons. I was in the room with the patient, and she was lying down on her bed. I then watched as her eyes opened wide, terrified, as she stared at the end of her bed. Slowly, she moved her eyes up to the ceiling and pointed at it.
She then murmured something and was showing visible fear with whatever she was seeing. I assumed it was a hallucination and tried to comfort her, but she seemed fixated on whatever she was seeing as she pointed at it. Then her eyes slowly moved from the ceiling to right behind me, and she looked terrified. It scared the heck out of me.
40. It’s Coming From Inside The House
I was once in a hot tub with some friends late at night, and we were all telling some stories. One of the guys told us this one, a story of a girl he knows—the people he was with verified it was true. So one day, this girl was called over to babysit. She did it a lot for these people, so it was routine for her. Anyways, she was told to put the kids to bed at 9, and she did.
After she put them to bed, she started watching TV and doing homework, waiting for the parents to come home. But then, she started hearing some noises coming out of the basement, like pans falling and stuff. She just ignored it, and thought it was the washing machine or something. Anyways, a little later, she starts hearing the noises again.
She decides to call the authorities. The lady at the station told her there's a patroller in her area, and that he'll be at the house in about 20 minutes. Anyways, in about five minutes, she hears a knock on the door. She answers, and it's a full SWAT team. She asked, "I thought they were just sending a patroller..." One of the guys told her, "After you hung up the phone, we heard a second phone on the line hang up".
Apparently, there was a man in the basement listening to the conversation. The lady in the station waited and heard him hang up, then immediately sent the SWAT team to help. They went downstairs and caught him; he was wanted for multiple cases of assault.
41. There’s Worse Thing Than Tailgating
I was the first of my friends to get a driver’s license. We were staying the night out of town and decided to take a nice drive around the county at approximately midnight. On our way back to my friend’s house, there is a car that is right on my bumper. Being a really annoying teenager, I decided to slow way down to see if I can get them to just pass me.
I get all the way down to 20 mph on a road where the limit is 50 mph and they still don't pass. I'm starting to get creeped out. I turn onto my friend’s road; the car turns as well. We're all starting to freak out now. I turn down my friend’s driveway (which is only for her house and two other houses, and we know the car isn't going to either of the other two houses). We're practically sobbing at this point.
We park the car, jump out of it, run into the house, and hide. The car sits in her driveway for a few minutes and then drives away. We never found out who it was. Never found out what they wanted. I still wonder what the heck that was.
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42. Behind Closed Doors
A few years ago, I went to a language school abroad that had sister schools in different cities so you could start in one place and if you wanted a change, you could just up and go to one of the other cities for a while. The school had low-grade apartments that housed four or five people located near the school. So, it was normal for roommates to come and go and reappear again.
One day a new roommate arrived called Amy who had been in another city for a few months already. We got along great and one night after a few drinks she told me the craziest story I've ever heard. In the previous city, one of her roommates kept to himself, didn't interact with them, ordered takeaway, and ate alone in his room.
Each to their own. He went away for 2 weeks for reasons unknown to Amy, he just mentioned when he would be back to another roommate and went. This happened to coincide with a heatwave. After a couple of days, there was a bad smell coming from his room. A couple of days later, they agreed they are going to have to go in and get rid of whatever it is because it's overwhelming.
They open his room, and an instant retching smell hits them. Against a wall is every takeaway carton from months of daily meals stacked up, but they're clean. Rinsed clean, not just empty. They aren't the source. After a brief search, they find a boot nearby. Inside the boot is filled with pieces of cooked chicken. It looked like he was getting chicken stews or curries or similar every day and had licked the sauce off these pieces and stuffed them into a boot.
They chuck the chicken, wrap the boot in several bags, and put it back where they found it. A couple of days later it's clear the smell is still getting worse. They have to go back. So they go. They look around for the other boot, but when they find it, it's chicken free. They are going to have to dig a little deeper. Nothing could have prepared them for what they discovered...
Under the bed was something large in black bags and it definitely was the source of the smell. They pull the whole thing out from under there into the center of the room and it's heavy. They all stood for a moment trying to register what it was. It was roughly person-shaped, made of black bags with tape used to create the neck and to attach the 'arms and legs'.
Amy noticed a small split in the bag at the join of the 'legs' but it didn't look accidental as the split was reinforced with more tape. She leaned closer to see what was in the bag. It was more cooked chicken, a lot of cooked chicken. Then it all fell into place. The boot was a homemade fleshlight, this thing was the next level up.
43. But What About The Deer?
Was outside wandering around at a huge university by myself at about 4 am when I see a deer running down the middle of the road. The noise of it running against the pavement was super bizarre. Next, a pickup truck comes barreling after it. The deer runs onto the campus lawns and the truck jumps the curb and follows it through the yards.
I run after, because obviously I’ve got to see what this is about, and by the time I get to where the truck had eventually stopped the deer was nowhere in sight. Four guys were standing outside the truck yelling at each other. I sort of duck behind this bush area and run into another guy who was ducking there, doing the same thing as me.
We kind of looked at each other, shrugged, and kept watching. These guys look university age, yelling about all sorts of concerning things. The guy in the bushes with me starts to make moves to get closer to the action, and the guys see him. They start to walk over, I'm terrified, and they see me. They are marching over, eerily confident.
I thought for sure this was a cult thing and I was done for. One guy, who was absolutely massive, comes right up to me and picks me up…in a hug. And sort of just sways left to right with me in his arms saying, "We were just kidding. We were just kidding". He set me back down and the dudes walk calmly back to their truck and drive away.
44. This Sounds Very Silent Hill
I worked in general surgery, and I got called to the ward at 3 am to resite an IV that had come out. When I got to the ward, most of the lights were off because the patients were sleeping. There was some dim light from the nurses’ station, but you could still barely see anything. I greeted the nurses and asked them which room the patient for the IV was in before venturing into the darkness.
I figured I didn’t want to wake the entire ward, so I left the lights off and planned to just switch the room light on when I got there. As I was walking down the dimly lit corridor, I saw a shadow on the floor, moving towards me. I stopped and stared, trying to figure out what it was. It was bigger than a dog and moving weirdly, but my brain couldn’t figure out what it was.
So, I freaked out and ran back to the nurses’ station. I told them I saw a shadow crawling on the floor and didn’t know what it was. One of them looked extremely worried and ran to turn on the lights. I was standing well away, staring at where I saw the shadow. When the lights came on, we saw it was a patient with above-knee amputations on both sides, dragging himself across the floor.
Relieved, I asked him what he was doing. He then explained that he wanted to use the toilet, but he didn’t want to bother anyone in the middle of the night.
45. A Load Of Trouble
I survived a kidnapping attempt in the 1980s. This was in a Sacramento neighborhood late at night, when I was visiting a friend when I was maybe 9-10 years old. Three of us walk out to go play at this park at an elementary school several blocks away. It was around 10:00 pm at night. We were playing Frisbee in the street in front of the school, and our Frisbee lands in the street.
Just as it touches on the pavement, a white van pulls up and stops, as if to allow us to get our Frisbee. I walk toward the van and grab the Frisbee, then move to the side to allow the van to pass. As the van passed, the most terrifying thing occurred. The sliding door opened and a guy dressed in black like a ninja came flying out and tried to grab me.
He had a harness on and the van had been rigged with a telescoping mechanism that allowed him to come out around five feet while hanging from this harness. The harness was operated by another person inside, also dressed in black. So there were at least three people involved in this attempt, including the driver of the vehicle.
I barely dodged his attempt to grab me and all three of us ran toward the elementary school and hopped the fence, ran along the fence through bushes, and then hopped a second fence that allowed us to be inside the school. We were scared as heck and could hear the van driving around and assumed they were in hot pursuit of us.
We found a way to get onto the roof of the school from inside, thank God, and proceeded to observe the van driving around the school for at least 30 minutes in an obvious attempt to find us. This scared us even more because one would think the would-be kidnappers would flee, but I suppose they thought we couldn’t identify them.
This was before cell phones, so we stayed up there until around 45 minutes after we last saw them. It appeared that some of them were searching for us on foot also, which added to the fear. We eventually escaped and went back to my friend’s house, and never told anyone in our family out of fear of being punished for being out late playing.
46. The Great Mysteries Of Life
I was on my way to work, and nearing an intersection, when the car in front of me slowed down well before the light. It was a dark green Jaguar. It stopped abruptly in the left lane and before I could merge into the right lane to pass it, the driver jumped out. It was a young woman wearing a tank top, sweatpants, and flip-flops, which seemed odd since it was a chilly, overcast day, and it had just started raining.
The look on her face was anxious, and after jumping out of the car in the middle of the street, she sprinted towards the gas station, leaving the car door open and losing one of her flip-flops in the process. About the same moment she was running inside the gas station, two black sedans also stopped on the street, one behind me and one in the right lane.
Four or five heavily armored men get out, a few of them holding what looked like armaments. They were dressed all in black, and had bulletproof vests on that said "AGENT". They honestly looked like they walked right out of a movie. All of this happened in about twenty seconds. They were heading towards the store as I drove away.
Unfortunately, I had to leave since I was already late for one of those mandatory meetings and I'd get written up if I missed it. When I drove by an hour later, all the cars, people, and the flip-flop were gone, and I couldn't find anything in the news about it. It was so bizarre, and I still wonder why she was being hunted down by some team of armed agents wearing riot gear.
47. What An Athlete!
When I was in college, I was staying the night at my boyfriend’s house. He had 2 roommates, and one of them had this weird girlfriend, but she was nice so we got along well enough. One night, I woke up randomly at 3 a.m. and decided to go smoke outside. The previous night the roommate broke up with the weird girl for the 100th time.
The window to his room faced the courtyard, the area I would be in. So, I go outside and it’s dark but I heard branches cracking. I turn on the light on my phone and see the odd girlfriend sitting by her ex-boyfriend’s window. In the middle of the night. I called out her name and asked what in the world was she doing.
Mind you this is a gated courtyard. She would have had to scale the 6ft wooden fence just to even get in. She didn’t answer, just stood up and scaled the fence like a creepy human spider.
48. A Movie And A Show
One time I was at a place called Asheville Pizza & Brewing, which has a movie theater where you can order food. So I was ordering my food in the back of the theater when I notice two guys dressed in black suits, white shirts, black ties, and sunglasses. I thought it was pretty weird, but I assumed it was probably nothing.
So, I go back to my friends and we're watching previews when my one friend decides to go to the bathroom. A few minutes after she leaves, a man in green spandex shorts and a power ranger helmet with a spray-painted toy glock comes running down the aisle and proceeds to grab a girl sitting a few rows in front of us.
I then noticed the two men in black rushing towards him with their glocks drawn. The Alien takes the girl and begins moving back to the entrance of the theater at the same time my friend is coming back from the bathroom. I still remember the look of sheer, "What the heck!?" on her face when she ran into them and their little scene.
They moved past her and the agents quickly followed after him. We all went back to watching the movie, but about five minutes later, the agents came back with the alien in tow, proclaiming that there was, "Nothing to see here".
49. WHY Do People Keep Leaving Those Laying Around?
I used to have to restock the medication machines down in the operating rooms. They used one of the rooms for storage for a while, and it can be a bit creepy down there by yourself. But I walked into the operating room they had stored some random stuff in, flipped on the light, and about had a dang heart attack. They had one of those full-sized CPR dummies laying on a gurney covered with a blanket, with just its head poking out.
My first thought was, “Oh my God, a deceased person!”
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50. Hello Neighbour
I have a neighbor who lives on the same floor as me and his apartment is right next to mine. He's over seventy and blind, and every now and then he enjoys walking down the hall, while feeling the walls around him, because he has no strength to actually go outside anymore. Last year in August, I was locking my apartment door and getting ready to leave and meet a friend, when I noticed him walking slowly down the hall towards me.
I politely said hi to him, as usual. As I fumbled with my keys, he approached me slowly and then he did the most demented thing ever: He leaned in and started fondling my butt. I took a step away in shock, but he came after me and said, "Let me kiss your pussy". I felt my blood freeze. I then said in disbelief "What the? You should be ashamed!" but he replied by repeating the exact same phrase. I pushed him away and left quickly.
I still live here, and he still takes strolls in the hallway. I have told a few friends, but not my landlord or any authority, because I'm sure they won't take me seriously or say something like "Don't mind him, he's old and senile, he doesn't know what he's doing". My friends were concerned though and asked me if I was ok. I wasn't.
51. Food Fight
I was walking into the hospital cafeteria when I saw a guy wearing a gown and holding his IV port, crouched down behind a trash can. He was an interesting-looking fella, sorta trashy looking, but he was ONLY wearing the gown. So, he was quite noticeable. I then saw security run in, and I watched him crouch down lower. Officer Man Pants (a female security guard I’ve affectionately nicknamed) finally spotted him and yelled at him to come with her.
The man jumped up and screamed, “Not YOU again, witch!” Then he pelted her in the face with an open carton of milk. A chase ensued, and I went back to get my breakfast. It turned out he was trying to leave with his IV port still attached to give him easier access to get high. It’s a pretty common practice of drug-addicted individuals in a hospital setting.
We always let these people go AMA (against medical advice), but we let them know we must remove the port, per hospital policy. It rarely works in our favor.
52. The Shower Intrusion
I was taking a shower in the bathroom of my walkout basement. My three-year-old son was upstairs with my mother eating breakfast. I heard him open the door and told him, "Mommy is in the shower, you have to wait". The door didn't close but he didn't respond either, so I asked him to go back upstairs and ask grandma for whatever he needed.
Instead, I saw a shadow and the outline of a hand touching the shower curtain. I got chills up my spine—I suddenly realized that there was an adult in the bathroom, not my son. I screamed and punched through the shower curtain. I don't think I connected, but I heard the man run out anyway. As fast as I could, I jumped out and grabbed a towel to check on my son and mom.
At the same time, my mom was coming downstairs to see if I was OK—she had heard me scream. The man never went upstairs and they didn't even know what had happened. The walkout basement door and window were wide open. I called 9-1-1 but they couldn’t find whoever it was who had come into my home. They did, however, find my empty wallet about a block away.
They came back to me a few weeks later to let me know that they caught a guy in the area accosting women and they think it was the same guy. I’d never been so scared in my life. The most visceral part for me was knowing he was just standing quietly in the bathroom while I talked to him like he was my son. Honestly, I don't know why but that creeps me out the most.
53. Change Your Attitude
I was at a clothing store one day, and there was a woman who was furious that another shopper had taken the dressing room she had left unattended with her clothes in it for half an hour. She came in and demanded the manager unlock the door with a changing stranger currently in the dressing room. She was screaming and swearing.
She continued to make a scene, until the woman in the dressing room came out in between outfits, and threw the angry lady’s clothes at her, telling her that she should be embarrassed of herself. The kicker is that the woman who started it all had a two-year-old child with her. We had to comfort both the child and the crying dressing room attendant.
54. Don’t Bring A Jump Rope To A Dog Fight
When I lived in Wisconsin, I saw an awesome parking lot fight between two groups of tough-looking kids. Two groups of three kids met up and started pushing each other. Then one kid ran and got his older brother. This prompted the other group to get their older brothers. One older brother started spinning a jump rope as a weapon, which led the other older brother to take off his belt and start spinning it around.
Before any real punches are thrown, one of the littlest kids ran off and got the absolute trump card of the parking lot brawl: His massive pit bull. The other group of kids promptly took off running. The best part was that the pit bull was not threatening in any way, just running along with a big goofy look on his face like this was the best game ever.
55. IT’s Not Okay
I work in healthcare. Down the hall from the pharmacy was a boardroom/classroom. I walked out into the hallway to deliver an IV bag and immediately stepped into my worst nightmare...literally. Under my feet were multiple bloody, blue sheets, each sporting multiple severed limbs. My brain had to do a jumpstart before I realized they were fake.
They were holding a “Stop the Bleed” course in the classroom and had used the hallway to set up their equipment. I must have looked incredibly alarmed because I caught the eye of a student, and her face got really stony. But the horror didn't end there...I also walked out into that same empty hallway to find a single, floating red balloon.
56. Repeat Offender
I was hitchhiking home from high school (I know, I know) and got picked up by a really weird guy with stereotypical creepy thick glasses. For the record, I am a guy. It was really hot in his truck—he probably had the heat on in retrospect—as we drove along a main road. At one point he mentions the heat and said that it was OK if I wanted to take off my shirt. I had the perfect response.
I said, “No thanks” then opened the door and rolled out into traffic when the truck was coming to a light. Thank God the door handle hadn't been removed or anything. Bonus: I hitchhiked around a year later and the exact same guy pulled up and asked me if I wanted a ride. He didn't recognize me and I said no, then realized at that point that he must do this kind of thing often. I never hitchhiked again after that last day.
57. All Sweetness And Fright
I’m a long-term care provider for the disabled. We care for this super cute young girl whose only way of getting around is sitting on a chair with wheels and pushing her heels on the floor. She’ll be in this really contorted position, as she has spastic limbs. She’ll almost have her head bent completely backward over the seat of the chair. She also can’t talk and relies on these kinds of guttural grunts and screams.
As I said, she is super cute, but she only gets put in that chair later in the evening while wearing a sleeping gown. Our hallways were pretty dimly lit at that time, and there were tons of hidden nooks and corners. I’m used to it now, but the first time I ran into this weirdly contorted “thing” that I couldn’t directly place, I kinda freaked out. Even more so when the said “thing” kicked her legs and moved toward me while letting out a happy scream.
It seemed like something right out of one of those hospital horror flicks. She is the cutest, though, really. I love bumping into her and saying hi.
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58. The Homeless Hero
I was eleven when this happened. I was at the park with my cousin who was three, and being a stubborn three-year-old, he told me to just leave him be so he could play with the other kids. So, I sat out on the bench and kept a watchful eye on him. I should have been paying more attention to who was watching me.
I was reading my book and occasionally looking up to check on my cousin. Out of nowhere, some fifty-year-old man sat down next to me and started talking. I didn’t make much of it at first because he seemed harmless. He kept asking me which kid was mine and that started to creep me out because I was obviously too young to have kids.
I made it quite clear to this guy that I was uncomfortable, but he just kept talking to me. And then he tried it—he got really close to me and was like, "Do you want another one?" That’s when I really started to freak out. Just then, this homeless guy—who would later become a pretty good friend of mine named Marty—pulled me off the bench.
He must have seen that something wasn’t right. He said the creep was lucky that he didn't “pop his jaw". I’m still friends with Marty today and I'm grateful that he showed up when he did. One stranger saved me from another.
59. Just Some Friendly Sounding Banter
I'm sitting in the tram on my way to work, and some random dude comes in and sits down in the seat next to me. About a minute later, he asks me if I'm hearing "those sounds" too. I reply, "no," and he starts explaining to me what "those sounds" sound like. Stuff like white noise, mumbling in various voices and apparently various languages (as far as he could tell) and also random sounds like a cowbell.
He goes into detail about how he already had huge problems with that kind of stuff and then proceeds to tell me that he's already in therapy because of that. As he talks, he becomes really scared and distraught while I'm becoming more and more creeped out by him.
60. Sharing A Private Moment
I was in Germany with my wife, we decided to take a break from sightseeing to just have a pastry and go to the bathroom. We go to this nice restaurant in the city square, my wife orders for us and I run to the bathroom. The stall doors to the bathrooms were clear glass, but when you closed the door and locked it the doors would frost over so you couldn’t see into the stall but you could see out.
Anyway, a guy hadn’t locked his stall door, just closed it. The dude literally just made bizarre faces at me while he pooped, making direct eye contact the entire time while I was at the urinal. He had no idea I could see him through the glass and it took my entire being to not laugh hysterically.
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61. This Is Why You Don’t Talk To Strangers
I was walking home from Catholic school and this random guy starts walking next to me wanting to start a conversation. I go along with it hesitantly out of politeness, not knowing if he wants to mug me or what. We get to the street corner and a black suburban rolls up. Two burly guys get out of the suburban and start yelling at the guy.
They beat him up in front of me and then someone inside the suburban opens up the backseat door and the two guys shove the poor fellow inside. The whole time I'm just hoping they don't think I'm with him. As soon as everyone got in the suburban, it takes off. I picked up the pace and got home, hoping they'd forget about me.
62. What A Way To Ruin A Night
Oh man, this happened in my junior year of college. Not my proudest moment. Me and maybe half a dozen friends are hanging out on Saturday night and we are just crispy baked. Then there was a knock at the door. Serious knocking. Panicked knocking. What do we do? Gotta be officers, and we are so screwed. Like, I'm getting kicked out of housing this time.
So one of the girls goes to answer the door. A guy with insane Ted Kaczynski hair and no pants is SCREAMING at the door to let him in. The girl screams and tries to shut the door, but the guy is forcing his way in. He is bleeding pretty bad, and is suddenly basically draped over my friend in a heap. He is totally incoherent, just keeps yelling PLEASE and making no sense otherwise.
My friend runs down to help the girl. I could muster precisely zero courage. I was terrified. I stood at the top of the stairs like a housewife who had seen a mouse in an old cartoon. WHAT DO WE DO, WHAT DO WE DO!? OH GOD WHAT DO WE DO!? We have to call the authorities! Right? I CANT DO IT I'M FREAKING OUT MAN. I DON'T KNOW WHAT TO DO WITH MY HANDS! Someone finally calls and tells the authorities an old, possibly homeless man is trying to force his way into the apartment.
I remain totally panicking at the top of the steps, helping in no way whatsoever. My friend has now wrestled the guy out of the apartment and is trying to calm him down. Eventually, officers come and they take the disheveled, pantsless homeless man away in an ambulance. We close the door and sit back down in the living room. "Is anyone else not baked at all anymore?" someone asked.
We were not. We'd go over the series of events a hundred times over the next few weeks. I tried to downplay my role as the guardian of the stairwell. Like a week later, though, we'd find out it was neither an old guy nor a homeless guy, but rather a friend of a friend on a really bad acid trip who had lost his pants and ran through a field in a panic.
63. Teaching Her Baby Independence
In Penn Station NYC, I was waiting for my train back to a Long Island town (you need to wait in a specific area to see which track will have the train you need until it arrives) and I noticed a woman over near one of the areas with machines to buy your train ticket. She had a baby with her and is using the baby's hands to select items on the ticket machine—but something didn't seem right.
That’s when I realized that it wasn't a real baby but rather a doll. She was trying to have her baby doll select stuff on the computer screen. I watched on as a NYPD officer noticed this as well and walked over to her. He began to try and talk to her for a minute or so and then kind of just walked away. Definitely an odd one for me.
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64. A Not So Fun Ride
Recently I was shopping at a big box store and saw a mother and her five-year-old son checking out at the registers. The mother looks away from the little guy for a few seconds in order to pay the cashier. During this time, the boy jumps into a stray electronic cart, which is known at this store to be permanently set to the fastest speed setting.
After the mother notices what her child has done, she grabs onto the cart and starts screaming at him to get out. Naturally, the kid floored the cart and started dragging his mother behind him as you would see in some of the old cartoons. The mother drops her bags and holds onto the cart even tighter as she is dragged face-first around a pillar nearby.
After they pass the pillar, the cart finally stops. The kid had just dragged his mother a good thirty feet. Nearby employees helped her gather the items, which were strewn all across the store. I'm pretty sure that the boy was grounded as soon as they walked out of the store, though I do know the manager gave her an apology coupon.
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65. Ooh, Shiny!
I was serving at a soup kitchen in high school and something shiny caught my eye out the window. I looked and saw a guy holding what looked like a blade and polishing it. It was creepy as heck—then it turned horrifying. About five seconds later he lunges out of the bush and stabs a guy minding his own business who was waiting in line for the kitchen to open.
No idea what happened to the victim but the whole thing played in slow motion, it was awful. Looking back it seems obvious what was about to happen, but I was like, 15 at the time?
66. That Seems Like A You Problem
I once went to Walmart, and while waiting in the car aisle, this lady comes up to me. She starts questioning me about some items. I don't work there obviously but decide to help her as best I can anyway. After she gets her answers, she goes and gets a couple of items, then walks down the aisle away from me and proceeds to browse.
About 30 seconds later she comes up to me and proceeds to ask me for help again. I begin to tell her that I'm not an employee, but before I can say anything she points to her crotch which was now soaked with pee. She tells me she couldn't hold it and had peed herself and she needed help finding pants. I tell her I have no idea where the pants are.
Things just escalated and there’s a puddle of liquid up ahead, starting to reek. She says that it doesn’t matter if I don’t work there, she just needs help finding a pair of pants. I tried to explain that she should probably use Walmart’s bathroom and find an employee in the clothing section. She got mad and yelled as she proceeded to walk away.
About 30 minutes later, I see her walking around in the same pants, asking another poor stranger for advice.
67. No Hard Feelings
I had a co-worker tell me something so disturbing—I didn't even know how to respond. He said, "I could probably just kill someone and not feel anything about it. Especially if they had it coming". Who says something like that?? And mind you, this was after we got done chatting about his mutually toxic relationship. Whoever she is, I hope she's okay...
68. Walker Creepy Ranger
I dropped my son off at school one morning and then went to the grocery store with my infant daughter. It was so early that there were only a few other customers in the store. There was an older man with a walker that I didn’t really pay too much attention to, except that he kept popping up in the same aisle as us.
I got out to my car and put my groceries in. Then, when I was putting my daughter in her car seat, the man came up behind me. He asked me a question and when I turned to answer him, he did the most unimaginable thing—he shoved his walker into the back of my legs pinning me against my car inside the open door. I tried moving around but couldn’t go anywhere except forward. He then started pushing me down to the floor of my car.
I was so scared that he was going to go for my daughter, so I threw myself over her so my whole upper body was in her car seat and wedged myself in tight trying to cover as much of her as possible. He grabbed me by the hair and was trying to pull me up when someone started honking their car horn.
Another mom had been sitting in her car with her own baby asleep and had seen what was happening. Another car pulled up behind mine and the man ran over getting in quickly, obviously never needing the walker. We called the authorities but when the officers ran the plates on the car that he left in, they found out that the car’s owner had reported it missing.
I never found out who that guy was. I’m not even sure if he was actually an old guy.
69. Nightmare Fuel
One evening, I had a tire low on air right before I was taking off out of LA. I pulled into a gas station and filled up my tire. While I was at the air station, an SUV pulled up to a gas pump and two men got out. They were laughing and joking with each other. They were speaking another language so I have no idea what they were talking about.
Well, one guy goes in to pay for gas. After paying, they each proceed to put gasoline on their hands and rub it onto their own bodies. Arms, legs, neck, etc. Then they get into the car and leave. This happened three years ago and it's bothered me ever since.
70. You Never Know When You’re Going To Be Called Into A Meeting
I was hiking with my boyfriend and we decided to go off-trail. We were about three hours into the woods in the middle of nowhere when suddenly there was a man in a suit standing about 30 feet away staring at us. We were like “what?” After a few seconds, he just turned around and walked away. We checked the map and there was nothing but woods for miles in the direction he went.
71. Cash Me Outside
I used to work at a restaurant when I was 16. I was working a super late shift when we had this weird customer come in. The guy just wouldn't leave. He was like 30 and just stared at me the entire time as he ate his food. It went on for two whole hours. When he finally came up to the cash to pay, he was super weird about it.
I said, "Okay here's your price," and he paused and said, "Do I get a discount?" I was like, “No. Will you be paying cash or card?" He replied, "Cash". Then he just stared at me while I waited for him to hand me his cash. After like two minutes of this weird interaction, I gave him his money and the receipt, but he didn’t leave.
So, I said, "Have a good night," to make him go away. Super awkwardly, he blurted out, "Can I go now?” and I was like, "Yup!" That's when he uttered the words that finally made me lose it. "Am I pestering you? Why don't I take you home and pester you there?" I knew I had to get out of that situation, so I walked to the back room where I got my co-worker to deal with him.
Apparently, my co-worker scolded that guy and said it was shameful he would say that to a minor. The guy managed to creep out my co-worker when he said, "Well then, can I take you home?" What a creep.
72. Straight Shooter
I was at a bookstore with my parents looking for some books on skyscrapers. This was a just a few days after some guy had gone on a lethal spree. This old guy sitting at a table at the cafe looks up at me as I was walking by and said something so disturbing it’s impossible to forget.
He said, "You see how you're walking around like that? That's what those people were doing when they were all shot".
73. Close Second
I worked with a girl who casually told the story of someone almost kidnapping her little sister. One day she walked outside to tell her sister who was about six to come inside, and her sister was climbing into the open door of a car at the end of the driveway. My coworker screamed and the car drove off without the sister. Such a close call.
74. It’s Not Like Anyone Else Was Using Them
I was living at a halfway house and we had chicken for dinner one day. Later that night I went in the kitchen to get a midnight snack. There was a guy in there arranging the chicken bones from earlier into weird patterns on a table. I asked him what he was up to and he looked at me very seriously and said he was summoning a demon.
I had never seen a demon before so, obviously I had some questions and hung around to see the show. Long story short…no demon showed up. It was both creepy and disappointing.
75. Parking Lots At Night
I was in a store picking up some items for my house when I noticed a man was literally peeking at me from around a corner. I brushed it off at first and continued my shopping, but I was aware that this man was following me around the store. He then came up to me and said I looked familiar. He asked if I went to the local university.
I told him that I didn’t and at that point, I got creeped out, so I checked out and went to my car. I heard footsteps behind me and knew he had followed me, so I just jumped in my car and locked the doors. But my nightmare was far from over—it was dark, so I hadn’t noticed when he went around the back of my car until he banged on my passenger’s side window.
I ignored him as he banged on the window and just started the car. That prompted him to run around the front and start banging on my driver’s side door. I was terrified and just pulled out of the parking space as fast as I could. The guy literally chased my car until I rounded a corner.
I have no idea what his plan was, but to this day, I am nervous being in dark parking lots at night.
76. Unsung Hero
I went down to the local creek with my friend. We were probably 10 or so. The local creepy teenager shows up, plastered out of his mind. I immediately knew this was bad. He mumbles something under his breath, and I looked at my friend with the "we need to get out of here look". He stepped closer towards us and another guy, older and probably twice the size, ran up and grabbed him.
He told us to go home and not come back. Later the creepy guy was involved in a robbery that turned violent. I still feel so thankful that that other guy who was there.
77. Doesn’t Hold Water
There was this time I stopped at a rest stop on 280 toward San Francisco at night. I wasn't yet aware that rest stops were sketchy places and had no qualms about getting out to go to the bathroom. After I had done my business and returned to my car, I was trying to send a text message and suddenly a guy appeared outside my window.
I cracked my door open a bit and he said, "your car is leaking water," and I was so irritated I just said, "I KNOW" and slammed the door. I didn't really care since I had the AC running not too long before it got dark. Anyway, I resume texting, and about five minutes later, I hear a car door slam. I look in my rearview and the guy is starting to approach my car again.
I pretty much just said screw it and turned on the car and started to back out noticing that there wasn't a single drop of water on the ground under my car. I was immediately creeped out to the max. I watched him in the rearview as I exited the rest stop, and he just stood where he was in the middle of the lot, watching me leave.
78. She Has Your Eyes
As a child, there was a girl that was friends with my cousin who developed an obsession with me. She found my number and would call my house phone asking about me daily. In 8th grade, she got my phone number and would send me voicemails and call me at super late hours. One night, she left the most disturbing message yet: “If I can’t be with you, I will pluck your eyes out with a fork and keep them in a jar". I have very light hazel eyes and that’s what started it all.
79. Janitors Are Supposed To Keep Things Clean
When I was in middle school, I was on the girls’ basketball team. Before practice, some of us girls would take our cell phones and hide them around the gym so they wouldn’t get stolen while we were practicing. The middle school I went to had a really bad history with substances so they banned backpacks and any type of bags from campus.
We would literally just carry our binders around and lock our gym stuff in P.E lockers. So, after practice, I went to grab my phone and saw that I was sent an illicit pic from my teammate (who I was texting right before practice). I asked her why she should text me that and she had no idea what I was talking about. Her phone was missing.
That’s when I noticed the janitor, who was taking out the garbage at the time, run out the side gym door. I didn’t think anything of it at the time. The next day, I got called into the office. They took my phone and later told me that the janitor was responsible for the photo. It was the first time I ever saw a male’s parts. I was 13.
80. Men Can’t Help It
When I was sixteen, I had a male therapist completely cross the line: He told me that men can’t help feeling attracted to me because my eyes and lips make me look like I’m aroused. I was speaking to him partly because I had been harassed by an adult male that year. I was so embarrassed that I never told anyone about this and I am still mad at myself for not saying anything then.
81. Stranger Station
I was in Paris, at the train station that takes you to the airport. My flight was very early in the morning, so I planned to stay at the station until five in the morning and then go to the airport. This dude that I didn’t know started talking to me. He was very friendly at first. He even praised my French and made small talk.
Then he asked me where I was from and I totally lied because I wasn’t about to give a total stranger all of my information. He asked me if I was going to the airport and I said that I was, early in the morning. At some point, I realized another guy was kind of circling us, keeping an eye on our conversation. For some reason, this gave me a bad vibe.
I was kind of far away from the other people because I was using a machine to buy tickets and several of them were not working. I started walking towards the entry where there were more people, but this guy followed me and was still trying to talk with me. The other guy continued to follow us and that’s when I knew that something was wrong.
The guy talking to me said, “Do you know that the station closes in like 15 minutes?” I wasn't able to hide my surprise. He told me they didn't close before, but due to the number of vagrants, they started locking up at night. He tried to touch my arm but I pulled away. My situation was getting really dangerous really fast.
He said, “You don't want to spend the night here. It’s a dangerous neighborhood and a pretty lady like you...one can only imagine what is going to happen to you". He offered to go to a hotel with me. I was looking at the reflection of the glass wall and realized that the other dude was getting closer to us. At that moment, I was certain that they were going to abduct me.
Then, my guardian angels intervened. I heard this Spanish-speaking lady somewhere nearby (I’m Spanish-speaking). I looked at her and she was with her two adult children. I almost cried. She was Mexican and for some reason, I was convinced she was going to help me. I walked towards her and said very fast a low in Spanish that those guys were harassing me.
She seemed to understand exactly what my situation was and said that we should stay together. I spent the rest of the night with her and her adult children until the train station opened again the next morning. I'm forever grateful to her and her family. They saved me.
82. Too Close For Comfort
A delivery driver I used to work with pointed a blaster at my head as I was bending down to get something from the cooler I was working near. I cracked a joke about him and when I stood up, I felt it at my temple. He started laughing and I laughed it off too, got him his order as soon as possible and when he left, I went home and called my boss, and didn’t go back until he was fired.
After a few years after the incident, he was involved in a horrifying crime where he took his ex-wife’s life and his soon after.
83. Creeper Gauge
I was heading home from my mom's and was at a light next to a gas station when the person next to me told me there was something wrong with my tire. I pulled into the gas station and when I saw the person follow me in, I felt something off, so I didn't get out. Instead I called my mom on my cellphone and when the guy pulled next to me, I gave him a thumbs up through the windshield.
I then drove back to my mom's, which I had just left and was only a few minutes away. I get there, get out, we look at my tires and they are just fine.
84. Just Give Me A Taste
Not long before he passed, a guy I know made the most shocking confession: He said that he wanted to kidnap someone, tie them up, and experiment with cannibalism. But that wasn't all. In particular, he said he was so curious about how someone's cheek tasted. I was freaked out then, and it still freak me out to think about it now.
85. That’s Not What You Want To See
I was sleeping in bed with my wife (then girlfriend) at this apartment she had years ago. I popped up out of sleep in the middle of the night. I was completely out of it and there standing at the foot of our bed was the old lady landlord, staring at us. I thought I was dreaming but the lady apologized to me the next day.
86. Trip to the Store
When I was about 3 or 4, my parents were building a big house and the lead contractor was always extra friendly to me. My parents were always a little bit hands-off so I somehow ended up alone with the lead contractor in a half-finished house. I vaguely remember him and honestly don’t know how long I was alone with him. My family always refused to say.
Later, I learned the dark truth. My mom caught him right as he was loading me into his truck and snatched me up while screaming at him, all while he’s insisting, he “just wanted to buy your daughter candy at the store!” They never reported him. I still can’t understand why.
87. Red Light, Green Light
I was driving through a somewhat rough neighborhood at night and while sitting at a light, we saw this guy in a beat-up car take a bump next to us. We make eye contact. As the light turns green, he merged behind us and then proceeds to follow us around flashing his lights and honking his horn for several blocks.
We pull up to another red light he pulls up next to us yelling at us to roll down the window. I was terrified—but it turned out he just wanted to let us know we had a tail light out. After he told us, he drove away.
88. Trespassers Beware
A friend and I used to go urban exploring when we were in our teens—basically just exploring derelict buildings. My friend was really into it and would take plaques and paperwork home with him, and was even a part of this online forum all about urban exploration in our area. One day we were exploring an old manganese bronze factory.
As we were walking down this hallway, we heard some strange noises coming from one of the many rooms around us. Pretty shook and not wanting to engage with anyone, we climbed through a broken window to get outside. My friend went first, then I went second. My friend turned around to speak to me and screamed.
I spun around 180° a saw a skinny, pale man with short ginger hair standing 3ft away from me. He asked us for a smoke and we declined (because we didn't smoke). He replied, "Thanks anyway" and climbed back inside. We didn't find out until a couple weeks later, but that man's body was found the following day.
He supposedly fell through the ceiling trying to strip copper from the wires along the roof. It was a deeply unsettling feeling, especially being around 13-14yrs old at the time.
89. It’s Important To Stretch
When I was in high school, me and a couple friends took some acid and went to a nature preserve. We were sitting on a bench in a covered area that was kind of remote and this lady probably in her thirties jogs right up in front of us and starts stretching and each time she would arch her back and turn her head to look at us.
She even looked at us from between her legs, now she was about 5 feet directly in front of us very close, just bizarre. This went on for what seemed like forever and I couldn’t tell if I was just tripping but we all saw it, I have no idea what she was doing
90. It’s A “Minor” Problem
My boss at the time made the mistake of hiring an older woman who was re-entering the workforce. He wanted to fire her the first day because she couldn’t even complete the basic hiring paperwork, which takes maybe 20 minutes for the slowest readers, in eight hours. He quickly lost his patience training her so he pawned her off on me.
Before the end of the first day, I was training her and she simply failed to learn anything that I explained to her. Also, she cried and called me mean for trying to “train her too quickly". So then she reported me to the boss and she wanted to report me to human resources for creating—get this—a hostile environment.
I was actually out of town when she was complaining to my boss, but he managed to spook her enough by asking if we should just call this hiring a mistake and have her and the company mutually part ways. She straightened up pretty quick apparently. When I came back a few days later she was better and more eager to learn. Well, the nightmare was actually just beginning.
As we are leaving for the day, her husband is waiting for her in the parking lot with her teenage son in the back seat. I pull out in my car after they do and the entire time, her son is turned around in the backseat smiling at me through the rear windshield. The following day she tells me her son has a huge crush on me now.
Apparently, her teenage son thinks I’m so hot that he’s going along for the ride tonight so he can see me again. Then this crazy woman, who I have known for literally three days, tells me all of her teenage minor child’s physical stats—including how well-endowed he is. How the heck his mother knows this, I do not wish to know.
I actually had to remind this woman that I was more than a decade older than her minor child. This made her laugh and said he’d be older soon enough. She did not end up working with us for long.
91. Something Much Worse Than A Ghost
I was about seven years old. My brother was about 10. It was well past our bedtime when our mom woke up off the couch to put us to bed. Our dad worked construction out of town back then, so it was often just us three at the house for weeks at a time. Up the stairs and to the immediate right was our parents' bedroom. Going left put you in the middle of a hallway.
Taking another left down that hallway led to my brother's room. The opposite end was my room, which was also across the hall from our upstairs bathroom. At either end of the hallway are windowed doors that we always kept locked and rarely used. The door on my end led to a balcony overlooking our front yard, and the door on my brother's end opened to our back porch.
My brother and mom both had a habit of waking up in the middle of the night to use the bathroom. I only knew this because I was always a light sleeper and they just couldn't help flushing with the door wide open. This night, however, my brother stopped on his way to his room and came back towards the bathroom. That’s when he made a comment that chilled me to the bone.
He told me: "I'm gonna try to pee before I go to bed tonight. The past few nights, I've been too afraid to walk to the bathroom. I keep seeing a man wearing stripes at the end of the hallway". I don't know if my mom wrote it off as my brother telling ghost stories to try to scare me, or if she was already half asleep and didn't catch it, but she didn't react at all to my brother's confession.
I, on the other hand, was terrified by it. The fear of seeing a ghost-like that at the end of the hallway or through the windows is the reason I started running from the stairs to my bedroom at night. Years later, when I was about 18, my mom and I were having a conversation in her car about a dog named Max that we’d had for a very short time when I was little.
We were sharing stories about Max's tendency towards destroying my shoes and other unruly behaviors, when my mom blurted out, "Do you remember that time I opened the front door for the authorities and Max ran inside to the kitchen and started tearing open that big bag of dog food we had?" This really caught me by surprise.
In all the years I lived in that house, we never once called law enforcement as far as I was aware. I asked her what she was talking about and she looked equally surprised, as if she had just revealed something by accident. Then, she said: "Oh, that's right! I never told you about this because you were too young at the time…”
She continued: "One night, I woke up hearing noises outside my window and, when I looked outside, I saw a man staring into my bedroom". She went on to describe how turning on the lights caused him to take off running, and how she had grabbed my dad's pistol before calling the authorities. I started to ask some more questions about the experience until something clicked in my head.
My mom said she couldn’t remember all the details she gave them when they showed up, but she remembered describing the man as a tall white male, wearing a striped shirt and jeans, with short dark hair, or something like that. They said it matched the description of a man they were looking for in the area. It turns out he had just escaped from behind bars, where he’d been charged with murder.
Now, I know it sounds so obvious hearing those two stories back to back, but it wasn't until a few years ago, in my mid-20s, that I pieced together that my brother had unknowingly warned us about a murderer who had spent multiple nights staking out our home. Who knows what he had been planning to do…
92. Feeding Time
I have worked for some of the richest people in Maryland and the one thing that stands out more than others is this doctor I worked for in Montgomery County, one of the most affluent zip codes in America.
This guy owned a lot of offices around the DC area, employing tons of employees and associate doctors, etc. He was really wealthy. He had a place with a huge garage full of exorbitantly expensive cars like Ferraris, an art collection, a wine cellar—the works. I used to do IT work for his medical practice and managed all the servers, etc., and occasionally went to their house because I was the lead admin.
Once, I was working in his house and was walking around upstairs where the bedrooms were when I came across the most off-putting sight. What I see is that this guy was lying in bed being fed by an assistant. I mean, he was literally lying in the bed while someone, completely platonically, hand-fed him, and not something like grapes but a regular meal. It was strange, to say the least.
Imagine someone feeding you a full meal with things like a steak and spoons of soup, salad, etc. and you never use your hands. It was like an adult being fed like a baby. I've never seen anything like that before and that was what popped into my mind, like a dictator or something who demands to be treated like a literal king. Keep in mind this was a man in his 50s who was in fine physical shape and didn't need a caregiver. It was just pure opulence.
93. I’ll Huff And I’ll Puff
When I was 14, we shared our house with another man who lived on the floor below us. I was home with my younger brother while our mom went out. All of a sudden, the man came screaming and banging on the door. He was yelling about how downstairs was flooding and it was coming from our bathroom. I didn't know what to do.
But because he was an adult, I trusted him and opened the door. He came in, ran into the bathroom, and did something. After I told my mom, she called management. What they told her was truly disturbing. There had never been a leak. There didn't find water marks or any other signs of flooding. So, my mom told us not to open the door for him again.
The next time my mom went out, he came banging on the door again. We told him that our mom said we shouldn't open the door for him. His reaction was terrifying. He did not appreciate that and he went absolutely crazy. "Let me in now!" He screamed over and over again all the while banging on the door. We never found out why he wanted to come in.
94. Some Devastatingly Flawed Logic
I worked at a daycare. One of the mothers gave me the heebie jeebies. She would show up randomly and be like "my baaaaaaby, I neeeed my baaaaby". Like, moms love their kids and miss them, but her obsession with her daughter really made me feel weird. She ended up taking her daughter's life so that she could be an angel. It really messed me up when I found out.
95. Behind The Door
My colleague was absent from work for a couple of days and she wasn’t answering their phone, so my boss and I went to her home. The building manager gave us a key to her apartment (which was totally against the law, I know), and we opened her unit. What we saw shook us to our cores—there she was, on the floor, completely lifeless.
Even before we entered, I had already smelled something sickly sweet and I just knew it wasn't good. We had to wait for the ambulance service to come to declare her gone…Turns out, she was sick for days and she didn’t contact a doctor or anyone else. She just slowly wasted away at home. I will never forget that first look into the apartment.
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96. Ruining Everything
This happened to my friend. It’s Halloween night and there’s a knock on her parents’ door. However, when her dad opens the door, he comes face to face with the most horrifying sight: There's a man with a bag on his head standing on their porch...completely silent. The man makes a move to step into their house and the dad pushes him backward.
Everyone watches as the man falls backward off of the step and smashes his head on the ground. But then the heartwrenching truth was revealed. The fallen figure was actually their grandfather, who was trying to prank the family. He was rushed to the hospital with permanent damage. He’s no longer able to care for himself or his wife who had health issues as well.
They both ended up in convalescent care. Additionally, my friend’s mother never forgave her husband, placing the blame for the accident entirely on his shoulders. They divorced shortly after.
97. They Never Really Got To Meet
I dated a girl for just a bit, with no plans at all to meet her parents at this point. We had just finished getting intimate for the first time when she got a call from her mom. Apparently, they had a little too much to drink and needed a sober ride home. She asked if I minded, and I didn't, so we headed to the bar to get them. They were kind enough to be outside waiting for us when we got there.
They were both leaning back on a railing above some concrete steps leading to an outside basement entrance. She waves at them and they wave back. Her dad lost his balance and went backward over the railing. Her mom looked over and just started wailing. I made my girlfriend stay in the car and call for help while I went to see what happened. It was more chilling than I could have ever imagined.
He landed just right on the corner of one of the stairs and split his skull wide open. He had passed before I ever said a word to him. That relationship didn't last very long.
98. That Would Make For A Shallow Gene Pool
I used to be a pool guy, so I used to go into people’s backyards to clean their pools. Once, it was a four-day week due to a holiday, so I was cramming five days of work into a four-day week. It was a hot summer day, and I walked into the backyard of this house. As I made my way through both gates, I witnessed an odd sight.
I saw two unclothed kids, maybe around 14 or 15 years old, cuddled on a poolside recliner. I looked at them, and they looked at me. I immediately turned around, and they ran inside. I’ve seen the owners all the time, but I’ve never seen those kids before. The next week I went back, and the wife was outside, so we started chit-chatting. That's when I learned the chilling truth.
I asked her if she’d had any visitors recently, and she said no. I let her know that I saw some kids in her backyard, and she cut me off. She said, “Yeah, I’m surprised you haven’t met them, lemme introduce you". The two kids were brother and sister. They canceled their service within two months.
99. Parents Can Have Sleepovers Too
I went to a giant sleepover when I was 8 or 9 for a friend's birthday. He had all his friends over and his parents had also invited some friends over as well. As the night winded down, we all went into my buddy’s room to jam some Super Smash Bros. Fast forward to about 2 AM. Most of the boys had fallen asleep, save for a few of us.
I had to go to the bathroom horribly. I was holding everything in as I was terrified of using other people's bathrooms and making a mess or smelling up the place. Eventually, I asked my friend where the bathroom was. I still don't know if I misheard him or was just stupid and forgot the minute I walked out of the room, but I somehow ended up at his parents door.
I opened it up full force—I will never, ever forgot what I saw next. I found myself staring at his mother in bed with this dude who’d been at the party, while his dad was sitting in the corner with the dude’s wife. I opened the door so quick they didn't even have time to semi-hide what they were doing. So there I was, 9 years old, frozen in place staring at his parents mid-swap with another couple.
I still see their faces to this day. The only reason I know they were swinging as I could see every single one of their faces. They all just looked at me trying to process what just happened. After a good five seconds of complete silence, finally the father yelled to get out and I just shut the door. I stood there for what seemed like hours.
I finally made my way back to my friend’s room, completely forgetting about my full bowels, and just laid down. I laid there all night, wide awake, till 7 AM when my mom picked me up. I never told anyone and NEVER went to another sleepover at my friend’s house or even went inside his house again, in fear of having to see his parents and having that talk with them.
100. Off The Playground
My cousin disappeared. This happened seven or nine years ago. I think he was 14 or 15 when it happened. He was kidnapped from the playground he was playing in. They put him in a van and drove off to the nearby city. However, his kidnappers made one huge mistake: They left him in the van to get some food, and that's when my cousin made his great escape.
He said a kind auto-rickshaw driver helped him call his dad who was living in the same city at the time. But that's not the most terrifying part. Turns out, the perpetrators were organ traffickers who were planning on harvesting his kidneys. Even typing this out is terrifying.
101. Stamp Of Disapproval
Years ago, I went on a first date with someone I met online. We met at a bar and the bartender carded us. Even though we were both older, they were still doing stings in the area, so he was carding every single person. I handed mine right over, but my date was a real jerk about it. The bartender checked mine and handed it back to me.
Then, he checked my date's ID, and rather than handing it back to him, he placed it on the bar right in front of me. When I saw it, my blood ran cold. It had an "intimate" offender stamp on it, which is a thing in my state. The guy picked it up, looked at the bartender, looked at me, and then got up and walked out. I immediately Googled him.
He was on the registry and had been in prison. Lesson learned. Always Google. And that bartender? We’re still friends.
