[Music] foreign [Music] The following is a true story as told by a now 58-year-old who wishes to remain anonymous. July 17, 1986. Up ahead, the jagged timber obscures my path. I wait. I do a mental check. How far have I come? I estimate that I'm about two miles or so from the closest road. Comfortable alone time, away from people, is where my mind really finds its shine. I'm an introvert, a 23-year-old who was always anxious in crowds. I'm currently trespassing, but nobody wanders these grounds. I have next to nothing to worry about, but something
is ahead. I feel it in my gut. I can make out a slight blue hue that shouldn't be there—a blanket, maybe? Possibly something left behind by teenagers partying one summer night in the past. No way, though. Not this far out. My grandfather used to warn me about moonshiners who still hid out in these parts. I always thought he was crazy, that he didn't realize that time had passed him by. Maybe, just maybe, I'm wrong. Those kinds of guys certainly wouldn't take kindly to trespassing young men with no reason to be there. I crouch down, and
I really wish I would have brought my binoculars. I cut my eyes and focus for a full minute or two. I felt a bit silly, but I was on edge. My mind forced me to check for any movement, signs of anything that could put me in danger. I see none. I decided my curiosity is too much to bear, so I stand up tall, brush my pants, and move forward at a slower clip. As I approach, it's clear that this isn't some blanket; it's a blue tarp. One sheen gave way to the fact that it wasn't
terribly old. Time had yet to mute its sleek look. The wear and tear hadn't completely set in yet. The area had been clear of brush, but I make out some sort of cabin—crudely constructed. Maybe "cabin" is too strong a word; a large shelter of some kind. I move closer but stop again. I listen, my mind begging me to be careful. I hear absolutely nothing unusual, though—no voices, no screams, no terrifying sound of some nightmarish monster. Just the sounds of Tennessee, the sounds that were supposed to be there. I've been out of work for over a
year. I hike these areas to run away from my life problems. When the sun is beating down and I've covered a few miles, it seems I can relax, forget about the world that I'm supposed to follow. But here I am, standing close to what feels like something I shouldn't be a part of. My mind is doing everything it can to stop me from taking another step. It knows—my heart knows—it just simply doesn't feel right. I always choose the path of least resistance. It's what led me down this horrible path that I'm on. No, not this
path in the woods that I'm walking. I meant the trajectory of my life—no body, no outlook, no family of my own, and nobody who has nothing better to do than to trespass, lurking in the woods for days on end, searching for God knows what. Regardless of my reasons, I move around the structure and find myself staring at the entrance. The door is closed, and notice—it hangs perfectly from its metal hinges. The shelter, as ragged as it looks, is well-kept in the places that matter. The roof is covered in sheets of dark green metal that would
do a perfect job of keeping the rain out. I scan; nothing else stands out—no markings, no symbols, no campfires, no additional structures. Though this one is quite large, this thing has got to be every bit of 400 square feet. Of all the shelters I've ever stumbled upon, it's by far the biggest. I manage a "hello." The word doesn't echo like I thought it would; the sound of my voice doesn't hang, it drops out to no response. There's no one here. I step to the door and feel my hand against the wood slats. I'm not sure
why—maybe subconsciously I was scared. The heat from the devil's shelter waited for me on the other side. Of course, there was no heat. I felt nothing out of the ordinary. The door is wedged closed; someone had jammed a piece of wood into the front slit like a shim to keep the door firmly shut. I managed to pull it free, but the door stayed in its closed position. I gave it a push and let the hinges do the rest of the work. I catch a strange smell—a mixture of mold and copper pennies. It's dark inside; there
are no windows to bring in the light, so it's incredibly tough to see a few feet in. I make out a row of old car batteries, neatly situated. I'm instantly confused. I pull up my backpack, unzip the front pocket, and locate my flashlight. I haven't moved past the doorway. Down on a single knee, I check over my shoulder just for good measure—still alone. I aim the flashlight directly at the car batteries. They're new, and on top of them lies a hodgepodge of clean wires. They're holding what looks like the same red and black shine that
they had when they were purchased. I remove the light beam further in. A single chair sits in the middle of the room. The arms of the chair have been modified, wide armrests with some sort of loop sitting in their ends. The head of the chair contains some sort of metal device; it resembles a helmet, maybe, and brings to mind a memory of one of those chairs you see in a psych ward of a horror movie. Past the chair... Table is a small TV, a nice one I might add. It looked like one of those high-end
RCAs that I've seen at the store before. Sitting next to the television is another box of some sort—some kind of electronic device I don't instantly recognize. I'm frozen here in the doorway. I hear my heart pounding and my breathing is slightly elevated. I continue to scan the room. On the west wall, the light from my flashlight picks up on an open cardboard box. On the outside, a strip of old duct tape is firmly stuck to its side. Someone has written a few letters and numbers: CM pound 1A-5Z. It means nothing to me. I swing the
flashlight back towards the car batteries—again, nothing else there. Finally, on the east wall, I make out two small camp beds. They're empty—no bedding or pillows, just sitting open—but I didn't get the impression that they've been used in a while. I'm at a complete loss. What on God's green earth have I stumbled upon? What is all of this? I decide not to venture inside. It's late now, well past sunset, and it's getting dark very quickly. I close the door and jam the shim. I decide to retreat the same way that I came, about a half a
mile. I'll set up camp for the night and return in the morning. July 18, 1986: I spent the night struggling to sleep. My mind was playing out scenarios, and I couldn't shut off the valve. See, the land I'm on is owned by a well-known judge in the county. He's the type of guy who has political connections that probably reach to the top of the state. He's a known outdoorsman, like many in Tennessee, and spends a good deal of time in these woods hunting. It was about the only worry I had when choosing this location to
poke around in. In the end, I figured it was too large an area for us to randomly come upon one another. What does strike me as strange, though, is the shelter has clearly been here for a while. There's no way this thing is going unnoticed. The judge has to know it's here. At some point, he would have come upon this thing if it was built without his knowledge. I cleaned up my camping area the best I can and threw my pack over my shoulder. A few deep breaths, and I head back towards the shelter. My
curiosity has me begging for answers. I'm hopeful that those lie ahead. I make my way back to the spot I was before, staring out at the shelter a bit in front of me, and again looking for movement. I'm not as nervous this time around. I stay motionless for a couple of minutes—nothing moving. I situate my pack and move back in at the shelter's door. I find myself removing the shim that I'd left last night. I use the door to back open and again catch that strange smell of copper pennies; it's incredibly distinct. I put my
pack down, grab my flashlight, and shoot the beam into the dark room. Nothing has moved. I step inside. I first approach the batteries I saw the day before—not really sure what I was looking for, but nothing strange turns up. Upon closer inspection, I move to the east wall and inspect the cots. There's really nothing much to them. I shine my flashlight above and below them. I find nothing of interest. I remain convinced that these cots have not been slept in for some time. I can't explain exactly why I feel this way, but something about them
gives me the impression that they haven't been used much. Just in front of those cots, in the corner of the room, I find a single brown box with a cardboard cover that I hadn't seen before. I move closer in to inspect it. There's nothing on the outside to indicate what it is for. I kneel and pull off the lid, setting it aside. The box is full of file folders, their tabs showing only handwritten letters and a number sequence. Keeping the flashlight focused on the folders, I take my finger and flip through the tabs. Each yellowing
folder is thin. Some of them seem empty. I stop on a random one and pull the file from the box. I open the folder and see a single white sheet of paper with a single letter and a single number printed on its front. I move the paper over, and behind, I find a photograph—a single close-up of someone's eye. I can see a partial cheek and a nose in what looks like a few strands of long blonde hair. You get the impression the eye belongs to a female. The eye itself has something wrong with it—the pupil
is deformed. An inky black center looks as if it's leaking into the girl's blue iris. The photograph is not dated, and there are no other markings. I pull a few other files and find similar photos in each file. There's one single piece of paper with one letter and one number behind that, a single close-up of a human eye—all of them deformed. Some of the pupils are not fully formed; others show a pupil that seems to float somewhere random within the iris. I put the folders back, careful to make sure the letters and numbers remain in
sequence. I close the lid and push the box back into the corner, stand up, and turn towards the table sitting at the front of the room. My flashlight picks up the television; it's unplugged, but a second wire is running from an input on its backside to a device sitting near it on the table. I move over to the device and inspect it. I've seen something like this before—it's decent sized, encased in plastic. A door or clip hangs at its center. the helmet before stepping back out of the shelter. I take a deep breath, the smell
still lingering in my nostrils, and try to shake off the unease creeping into my mind. As I step outside, the daylight feels almost too bright, a stark contrast to the darkness I just left. I glance around, half-expecting someone to be watching me, but the only thing I see is the same green canopy of the Tennessee limber swaying gently in the wind. I hold the videotape tightly in my hand, feeling its weight — a tangible reminder of whatever has been recorded on it. The helmet dangles loosely, the straps brushing against my arm, and I can't help
but wonder who it belonged to. Once I’m sure the area is still quiet, I hurry back toward the edge of the timber, my heart racing. I need to figure out what to do with this tape, and quickly. It could contain anything — evidence of something illegal, something sinister, or perhaps just mundane recordings. Either way, my curiosity is overpowering. I find a spot beneath the same large tree where I had sat moments before and decide to examine the tape closely. The label is faded, almost illegible, but I can make out a few words. A chill runs
down my spine as the realization hits me: this could link to all the strange occurrences I’ve heard about in this area. With shaky hands, I pull out my flashlight, feeling compelled to know what’s on the tape. “Do I really want to do this?” I think to myself. But I can’t turn back now; I need to discover the truth. The sky slowly darkens as I prepare to set up my makeshift viewing station, wondering what horrors — or revelations — await me inside the shelter. Time seems to stand still as I breathe deeply, grappling with a mix
of fear and curiosity. I know there’s no turning back. Its plastic case in hand, I make my way over to the table and set the case near the television. Still holding the tape, I kneel with my flashlight and relocate the cable I saw earlier, following it until it reaches its power strip. There must be an inverter here somewhere; otherwise, all this wiring is foolish. No reason to search for it—it really doesn't matter either. I plug these in and have power, or I don't. Both plugs are inserted, and I poke my head up just past the
tabletop. A blue light flashes on the VCR—it's on. I'm shaky again. This time, I slow down. I sit on the floor facing the metal chair and the door, telling myself to calm down. I attempt to control my breathing and my heart rate. It works. After a few minutes, I stand up and turn back towards the TV. I reach out and turn on the RCA, fiddling with a knob. I hear the sound of static as the screen blinks into view. I'm instantly unsettled. I can faintly hear the sounds of birds outside the door; inside, the TV's
blue light illuminates my face. My flashlight hangs towards the floor. The sound of static among everything else is simply disturbing. Not sure why, I slide the tape into the VCR slot and hear the machine grab the reel. I press play; the screen goes black, and the sound of static is replaced by what sounds like the ocean. It ebbs and flows; the screen flashes to white and back to black as the sound of the ocean continues. Finally, the screen changes to a close-up shot of a man. He's staring at the camera; his eyes are blinking. The
blinking is unnaturally fast, like the recording was sped up. A slight tone can now be heard. The blinking man disappears. The screen changes again, this time to a pattern of shapes, two tones now running simultaneously. The sounds seem piercing somehow, as if the first tone was cut to only make its way to my left ear, the second tone doing the same only to my right. They then sink and switch ears; this pattern continues. I feel disoriented. I hit fast forward on the tape, watching the screen as the patterns continue. I hit play a few times
and verify that the same tones continue and the same patterns as I fast forward again until the patterns disappear, and the picture looks to show a blue screen. I hit play. A woman's voice enunciates, and it sounds slightly computerized. I rewind, find the start of the blue screen, and hit play again. The woman speaks: “Your name is Crystal. You were born in 1979. Your mother abandoned you. You were saved. We saved you. We are your saviors. Your name is Crystal. You were born in 1979. Your mother abandoned you. You were saved. We saved you. We
are your savior.” This goes on until I end the tape and hit eject. I grab another tape from the box and enter it into the VCR. Same black screen, the same sounds of the ocean, the fast-blinking man, and the same patterns and tones. I fast forward through the tape to another blue screen, same woman's voice: “Your name is Ashley. You were born in 1978. Your mother abandoned you. You were saved. We saved you. We are your savior. Your name is Ashley. You were born in 1978. Your mother abandoned you. You were saved. We saved you.
We are your saviors.” Multiple tapes continue on with the same pattern, the same tones, the same man, the same computerized voice. The only change was the name and the year of birth. I put all the tapes back into the box and make another sweep of the room, but there's nothing else here. I step outside, close the door, and jam the shim. None of this is right; nothing about this is normal. I put my backpack on and hike out of the timber at a fast pace. I make it back to the dirt road by nightfall, and
I'm determined to call the sheriff. My lips are chapped, and my body aches, but that doesn't stop me from jogging toward town. Not a single car passes me, and the night sky is clear as glass. I watch the stars flash like glitter and talk to God for the first time in years. I ask him for guidance; I ask him to explain to me what I just saw. I get no response. After about an hour, I come upon the lights from town and increase my pace. I find a payphone outside a gas station near the restrooms.
On the side of the payphone was a sticker with a list of emergency numbers. At the bottom was a non-emergency number. For reasons unknown, I decide to call that one instead of 9-1-1. A woman answers. I freeze; I hadn't even actually talked to another human being in over a week. I tell her that I would like to have an officer investigate a suspicious location. The dispatcher sounds a bit confused and asks where this location is. I give the approximate location. The woman asks if there's some sort of crime being committed, to which I respond that
I wasn't sure. I then proceed to explain what I'd seen. She is clearly skeptical but promises to dispatch an officer, and we both hang up the phone. I step away from the payphone and sit down on the curb. I'm exhausted. July 25, 1986. I kick a rock from the dirt road as I stare into the timber. It's been a week since I called the authorities regarding that place. I have a two-mile hike ahead—easy stuff compared to the type of sleep I've been getting these past few nights. I realize quickly that I had no way of
knowing what the sheriff... Ended up finding I make my way into the timber. I can tell my steps are a bit quicker than usual, as my mind yearns for some sort of closure. As I walk, I think through how depressing all of this really is. The shelter itself has a vibe of something that shouldn't be; it's depressing all on its own. The real sad part is that I realized that I had no one to tell this crazy story to—no family, no friends, no one I trusted. I was just dazed. I was sitting, staring at the
wall as my mind would just run through the reality of what I just found. This judge—he knows! What does a man like that have to do with a shelter like this? My mind creates the avenues for my thoughts to flow through. I'm close to the shelter now; at least I think I am. I'm not seeing the blue tarp; I can't make out the building, no green roof. I turn in a circle to make sure that I'm in the right place. I eventually find the tree that I rested against a few days back—definitely in the right
area—but something is off. If the sheriff has been here, I see no sign of him. In fact, I don't see a sign of anything. I instantly get this strange feeling in my stomach. I move forward and find myself standing in the open space where the shelter used to stand. The shelter is gone. Where it used to be, I find brushes and branches and dirt stacked. I move closer, I kick at the dirt; the brown quickly fades into a black residue. I kick at it some more and kneel down to get a closer look. Ash! I
grab a stick and dig—dark black ashes. They burned it to the ground. I stand up; I'm afraid now. I feel like I've walked into a trap, a feeling like I wasn't alone. I retreat to the base of my familiar tree, stop, and look back. No movement at all. They burned that shelter down to ashes and then buried it under the brush. I'm asking myself every question in the book. I called the authorities to report this place, and a week later, it's destroyed and hidden. It doesn't make any sense—powerless! I have nothing to prove my story,
nobody that would trust me if I told them. I called a sheriff, who I assumed called the judge. That judge burned down the devil's shelter, and now I'm a young man trespassing with a story I have no way of proving. I slide down against the base of the tree, mindful of equations with no answers. I've known the tree for a while, listening to the sounds of the woods, questioning everything. I should have grabbed one of those cassette tapes or one of those file folders. My efforts to conceal my poking around completely destroyed any chance of
anyone ever believing me. March 2nd, 1987. I listened to the dial tone buzz for a long while before I dialed their number. After two rings, a woman answers. I explain myself, tell the young woman on the phone that I'm following up on a call that I made to the Sheriff's Office a few months ago. After advising the woman that I was never given a case number and then giving the address of the judge's home, the woman advises me that they have no records on file. I hang up the phone. October 17, 1990. I'm a depressed
mess. These last three years have been nothing but odd jobs, apartment rentals, cheap used cars, and late-night television. I think of that shelter often; it haunts my nights and drives my brain rabbit. I'm seated on an old couch; it's late. The television flashes scenes from an episode of *In the Heat of the Night*. I've debated on going to the FBI. I already know they'll think I'm crazy. I'm sure they'll have information on me—they'll see a 27-year-old unemployed hippie. I already know it's a complete waste of time for me. It's the only answer, though, to at
least attempt to ease my conscience and fall asleep. November 2nd, 1990. There's a knock at the door. Finally! I've been waiting for a while, and I'm a nervous wreck. I open up the door. A young agent greets me from my front patio, and I welcome him inside. He's slim; he's probably close to my age. I'm sure he's already judging me in my cheap rental. I direct him to my kitchen table, and he takes a seat. He declines a cup of coffee. I pour one for myself and sit opposite him. He's no-nonsense. We spend almost no
time on small talk. He pulls a form from his briefcase and has a pen at the ready. For the next hour, I explain in detail the shelter that I stumbled upon and the judge's land four years prior. The agent is professional; he seems to be keeping notes and asks a few questions along the way. After I'm done, I look him dead in the face and tell him I'm not crazy. I apologize for not calling earlier and tell him I was afraid to do so because I was trespassing. Finally, I tell him this whole thing has
really bothered me; it has completely impacted my entire life. He offers no sympathy. He thanks me for reaching out, shakes my hand, and gives me his card. He tells me I did the right thing in contacting the FBI and that they take all reports very seriously. As he exits, he tells me he'll be in touch. I never hear from him again. June 21st, 2001. On the second ring of the doorbell, I opened up my door. There, standing on the porch, is a well-dressed man in a gray suit and dark tie. He asked for me. By
name, I respond to him that I'm the one he's asking for. He introduces himself and proceeds to explain that he's a private investigator and wanted to ask me a few questions. Before I answer, a bit confused, I ask if everything is okay, if I'm in some sort of trouble. The PI explained that he's investigating a missing person case from Colorado and that he came across a report I gave to the FBI in 1990. I let him inside; he hands me an FBI report. "What can you tell me about this judge in your report?" "Nothing. I
definitely didn't know the guy personally; I just knew of him. He was well-known in the county at the time. I just happened to be trespassing on his acreage when I came upon the shelter described in my report." "Why are you investigating him?" "Not exactly. I've been hired to investigate a missing person case from Colorado. She was last seen in a small town outside of Boulder in 1981. Her family hasn't been able to make any headway." "Terrible, but I'm sorry. How does this connect to the judge in Tennessee?" "Well, I was able to locate one of
the missing girl's best friends from back then. She was in rough shape—an addict. I talked to her at length regarding the disappearance, and she ends up telling me that this missing girl had been running around with some group from the East Coast. The best I could gather was that they were some sort of cult of some kind. She didn't have much for details, but she did give me the name of some guy in Tennessee." "I visited him a month ago." "The judge?" "No, and it ended up being a dead end. This guy was stationed in
Germany from 1979 to 1983. He claims to have no idea who this missing girl is, but in our interview, when I told him the cult angle, something about the story struck a chord. He told me that he used to know a guy—a judge—who claimed that he was some sort of connected man. He always thought the guy was slightly crazy, but what's strange is this guy was also connected to some kind of cult. The real coincidence was his travel; he made frequent trips from Tennessee to the Boulder area to meet up with some of these other
cult members. Honestly, I have no idea how the puzzle piece even came to be. I'm still scratching my head over it." "And the guy traveling between Tennessee and Boulder is the judge, right?" "Yes. The man who was making those trips is the same judge in your report." "Imagine my surprise when I came across your report and saw all of those things about the supposed shelter on his land." "The judge passed away two years back." "Really? This is all we've got? I've spent weeks interviewing people who knew this judge; not a single one of them had
a bad thing to say about the guy. He's clean as a whistle." My mind strays. The PI sticks around for another 15 minutes or so; there wasn't much else to gain from our conversation. I walked to the door and watched as he hopped into his SUV. It was the last time that I ever talked to anyone about the devil's shelter. I had a very odd experience that I really can't explain; it really gives me real gang initiation or human trafficking vibes, and I'm left feeling uncomfortable—not like warning people or something. I've gone back to this
location, but there's nothing to indicate anyone was ever there. So, I'm a professional mushroom picker, and I've been an outdoorsman for over 30 years. I go to a lot of remote places at a lot of weird times because rain doesn't care if it's day or night. I had plans to go out picking, so I went to bed super early, got up around 10 PM, and started getting my gear together. I couldn't shake this feeling like I had a dream where I stopped at a rest stop and got attacked, but I don't remember having a dream
like that. I remember just being uncomfortable that someone was going to come out of nowhere when I pulled over to pee. I just couldn't shake the feeling of seeing the normal places I stopped at but with something bad happening while I was there. I pull over to pee—driving all the time. I'm on the road a lot with a lot of coffee, so for something like that to just weird me out is very unusual. I'm also armed, so for it to bug me at this level was just unsettling and highly unusual. I'm also on the taller
side, and, truthfully, human beings have never really been imposing in any sense. Past experience has taught me that when I walk out of those kinds of bad situations, I'm fine. So, I literally have zero reason to have this kind of worry, especially at the forefront of my mind. I'm driving 22 in Hebo, Oregon, then it turns into 101 just south of Tillamook. I had already pulled over once but got an unnerving feeling. After about 10 seconds, I just bailed because it felt like people were outside. I didn't hear or see anyone; it was just kind
of like a present feeling. So, I told myself, "You're fine. I won't stop at a pull-out or wait for the rest stop." I couldn't wait anymore. I found a spot where cars don't seem to pull over— not in front of a house or any paths. There's zero excuse for any human being to be out there. It's perfect—there's no indication of other people using it either. Around me is a salt marsh-slough type habitat, wide open plain—no houses around, no mushroom picker paths, no garbage, nobody. had been behind me, and nobody came up in front of me.
It was just me in the woods, and I had been for some time. I pulled over and thought, well, okay, there’s no way someone is just gonna pop out; I must be crazy or stressed. I’m freaking out over nothing. I reached over to grab my coffee, dug out a sandwich, and decided to look up one last time. After all, nobody had been there every time I looked. Why do I still have this feeling? Nothing is going to be there, and then every now and then, there is a guy dressed like he just walked out the
front door of a club in the pouring rain at midnight on a Tuesday in the middle of basically a conservation-level type ecosystem. I couldn't believe it; it was actually happening. Then the dream I remembered suddenly clicked, and things started to fall into place that made the situation feel very, very bad—almost like I was actively remembering it before it happened. The memories kind of flushed in a flood and sped up to meet how the present was going down. I saw how it ended. If I stayed, he didn't approach my car like he was approaching the passenger
side as a concerned citizen or something. He walked into the middle of the road in front of my car, the place I needed to drive to. His clothes weren't soaked, and his pant legs didn't have mud from picking mushrooms. Sneakers, not boots, weren't even dirty. I don't even know how something like this is physically possible to achieve. I don't even think his clothes started getting wet from the pouring rain until I started observing him. I understand how all this sounds, so I’ve chosen my words carefully here. His left arm swayed as he walked, but his
right arm stayed rigid; they kept his hip pointed away from me as he approached my car, just a slew of bright red lights indicating that he likely had a weapon. He wasn't looking at me, or my car, or my plate either—he was looking at some things, not just one thing about 10 to 15 feet behind me. He didn't increase or decrease his speed; he kept moving at the same pace with his arm extended at my car, staring at one thing behind me and shifting his gaze to another thing behind me. I drove the car into
drive as he continued to move in the way of the car, and I nearly ran him over. This had no effect on him; he's not shocked, he doesn't jump out of the way. About a half-mile up the road, another car came in the opposite direction, and their headlights washed over the area. He was there with his arm out, staring where I just was, as if I had never driven in a way. He was still actively approaching me. The car got closer, I moved further away, and when I looked back, he was gone. I’ve been sober
for over three years; life has been unusually hard these past few weeks. Life was fine when this event happened. I'm not really entirely sure what to think of it. It's just so strange and unnerving, and having it happen after such a strange complex feeling has made it almost feel supernatural in a sense. At minimum, I think I was about to get robbed and killed. The longer I reflect back on this experience, the more I wonder if this person was human or even existed at all, or if he did, and some extrasensory perception saved my life.
For reference, I work as a barista in a coffee shop inside a larger store. I am one of a handful of male baristas at my shop. I'm gay and very open about this. I wear pride shoes; I have a pride flag attached to my name tag. I have a couple of wristbands with rainbows and phrases like "Orlando Strong," as well as a local LGBT+ center. So, the other day, I was working my shift at a register when a gentleman came up to me and smiled. I think he noticed the pride flag on my name tag,
but he didn't explicitly mention it at first. He said he didn't know what to order and asked for my opinion. Now, I'm not a coffee drinker, but I know a drink fits most tastes, so I asked him what he likes, and then I tried to give him recommendations. As I was talking, I could tell he was paying more attention to me than to what I was actually saying, which I’m completely okay with. He was a shorter, well-built man, had beautiful eyes, a nice beard—basically the perfect dilf. Eventually, he decided on a super sweet iced drink
that we have, and I went to make it for him. As I was making the drink, one of my co-workers leaned over and whispered, "I think that customer just took a picture of you." That was a bit of a red flag, but I thanked her and kind of brushed it off. I gave him his drink, and he smiled. Then he pointed to the pride flag and said, "I love that flag; where can I get one of those?" I laughed and said, "I got it from a pride event that I went to a few years ago."
He then said, "And where can I get the person it's attached to?" I immediately felt a rush, and I started blushing, but I tried to act professional and brushed it off. He eventually took his drink and sat at one of the tables. I continued going about my day, debating whether I should give in to this guy or not. Every now and then, I glanced at his table to see him looking at me; no matter when I looked, it seemed that he was looking at me. I started to get... That weird feeling—the heart eyes with red
flags type of thing—then I noticed that he hasn't taken a single drink out of his coffee. When I go for a break, I wipe down some of the tables. I stopped by his table and asked if he didn't like it, and if not, I could make him a new one free of charge. He hands me the drink and mentions he's not sure if it's too sweet for him or not, then asks me to try it. I politely declined, telling him I don't drink coffee. He's shocked and asks me why I'm working here and blah, blah,
blah. As we're talking, though, his questions begin to shift. "So you lift at all?" Me: "No, not really." "Well, how much do you think you could lift if you had to? The job requirement is 50 pounds, so I guess at least that much." "Well, I've learned it’s good to be able to lift at least half your body weight. How much do you think you weigh?" Immediate red flags are going off. There's something about the combination of the directness of those two questions that made me feel like I was being asked how much of a fight
I'd be able to put up, especially if drugged. I have been drugged at a party before, and these things are red flags that I've learned to pick up on. So I kindly and quickly end the conversation and go back to cleaning tables. As the hours go by, he continues to sit there, not drinking his drink. Other employees and a couple of managers ask if everything's okay; he says he's perfectly happy. Every now and then, he takes a phone call, and at one point, I swear I can see a guy on his phone at a different
part of the store talking opposite of the guy at the table. Suddenly, I start to feel like there are more eyes on me than I realize. I pull one of my managers to the back and tell him that I'm getting weirder and weirder feelings about that guy. The manager told me we’d keep an eye on him. Now, I was closing on this shift, so as we got closer and closer to closing time, I noticed him still sitting there. When the announcement that the store is closing in half an hour is made, he comes up to
the counter and asks me if I could walk to my car with him when I get off. I tell him our closing duties take us at least 45 minutes after we close. He tells me he'd be happy to wait. I politely decline, and he asks when I work next. So I tell him I'm off for the next couple of weeks. "Well then, I should feel like I should walk you to your car, especially if I might not be able to see you for a couple of weeks." I politely decline again, and eventually, he does leave.
I finish my closing duties and head to the employee area. As soon as I get there, I tell one of my managers about the situation and ask if I could take the side exit from the store. He agrees and tells me he’d walk with me to my car to make sure I'm okay if I’m cool with waiting a little while. I am, so I walk out the side doors with a couple of managers, and get into my car. As I'm driving away, I see a large van with extremely tinted windows parked right in front of
the front door. There’s no way to know for sure if my customer was in that van, and if it was as ominous as I thought it was, but I know that I was not about to stay to figure it out. I took a long and winding path home that night. So, to that very hot guy that I sold coffee to: let’s not meet. I'll try to be as brief as possible and stick to the relevant events that are going to give me this feeling—the latest events that happened last night. I didn't get much sleep; apologies
if I ramble or if I'm unclear. My wife and I recently purchased our first home after the birth of our daughter. Everything was as you would expect: the first few months—painting, decorating, renovating—asking in our newfound slice of the American dream. You get the idea. Unusual things started happening several months ago. One day, as I was getting home from work, I passed by a strange truck two or three houses down from ours. I say strange for a few reasons: we literally know everybody in our small neighborhood; I've never seen this truck or person before; and there's
no reason for through traffic to come down our street. The truck was driving very slowly—like, put it in drive but don't press the gas slowly. As I pulled in the driveway, the truck flipped a U-turn and came back toward my house. Getting out of my car, the truck crawled by, the driver staring daggers at me as he passed, then sped off. I don’t like to judge based on appearances, and I like to think that I don't scare easily. Something about this guy's eyes just gave me a bad feeling. Obviously, this was weird. I mentioned what
happened to my wife, telling her we should be more mindful about security. I told her about the type of truck. My wife then said a same truck drove by and the guy stared at her when she got home this afternoon. I thought he was just being creepy and checking her out. I tried to tease her a little bit to lighten the mood, following her cockiness for assuming any guy driving by was checking her out. I didn’t want to freak her out, but I... Myself was definitely freaked out. He saw that truck a few more times
over the next couple of weeks, either driving by slowly or parked down the block and facing our yard. But one day, a truck stopped driving by; we haven't seen it since. I sort of just dismissed the whole thing as me being paranoid, but then other things started happening. The past month or so, my wife and I have been hearing tapping on the windows at the front of our house at night. It's happened two or three times to each of us separately, always around 10 or 11 PM, sort of like this soft but distinct tap tap
tap. It sounds like a knocking with a single knuckle on a metal part of the screen door, if that makes any sense. The first time that my wife and I heard the tapping together was last weekend. We were in the front room playing with our daughter around 9:30, just about to settle her down for bed. The front room has a large almost floor-to-ceiling window running the length of the wall next to the front door, which faces the street. We were all sitting on the floor with our backs to the window, reading our daughter a book
when we heard it: tap tap tap tap. Now, our house is older, and creaks and cracks are not uncommon, but this sound was so distinctively intentional that my wife and I immediately looked at one another and bolted up out of the room. I had my wife and daughter lock themselves in a back room while I turned on all the lights to sweep around the house. Of course, I didn't see anything. I was ready to dismiss the whole thing as, again, more paranoia over something that I probably had an innocent explanation for. That all was until
last night around 9:45. We hear our daughter making noise in the baby monitor. I waited a few minutes to see if she would settle down, but when it became clear she wouldn't, I got up to put her back to sleep. Now, the layout of the room is important to visualize this next part: this room is on the side of our house. The exterior wall juts out a bit in an L-shape, and the corner of this L is made up of windows. If you're standing in the door to the room, you're directly across from these windows.
In one corner, there's a rocking chair, and in the other corner, pointed towards the front of the house, one window faces the street while the other faces our neighbor's house. A garden bed planted with small shrubs wraps around the house directly underneath it. I was sitting in the chair, getting my daughter settled down. I had a lamp on, so the room was softly lit. Once she fell asleep, I stood up to put her in her crib. Something caught my eye: there was a figure standing a foot away from the window in the bare space between
the shrubs and the house, and they were definitely staring at us. I didn't look long enough to see anything more, but what appeared to be a man in a light gray hoodie was standing a few feet away on the other side of that glass. Sprinting from the room, I brought my daughter back to my wife and I's room, leaving her there while telling my understandably confused wife to lock the door. After turning off all the lights inside the house and turning on all the lights outside, I began moving from room to room, peering out the
windows into the darkness. I couldn't see anything out of the ordinary. Whoever it was must have taken off after seeing me notice them and made a quick exit. Obviously, I had some trouble sleeping after this, but hours checking security cameras and going from room to room, now windows, every single night, hoping, but also not hoping, that I would see anything that could explain what happened. This morning, I went outside to the spot where that figure would have been standing. I thought, well, hoped there would be a plant or something I mistook for the person. When
I got to the spot, I realized the figure had been standing in exactly a bare patch of ground about two feet in diameter directly in front of our window. Part of me is still hoping that I'm being paranoid. The mind can play tricks on you in the dark, seeing things that aren't actually there, especially when you're a sleep-deprived new parent. But with everything that's been happening, I can't shake the feeling that there's actually someone out there, watching us. Please let me be wrong. I was 15 years old, and back in those days, you'd usually catch
my friends and me at the big AMC movie theater. It's a huge theater; it kind of reminds me of an airport almost, and it was a very popular hangout for kids that age on weekends. I remember going to the movies one night with friends when a group of guys approached us, started chatting, flirting, as you do at that age. They said they went to one of the local high schools. One of the guys I was talking to eventually asked for my phone number. I gave it to him. I was naive; I thought it was harmless,
so I gave him my phone number. He called me maybe a day or two after that, so we talked for a bit. We had a few more phone conversations here and there before he asked me out on a date. As we made plans to meet, he told me that he needed to tell me something: he admitted that he actually wasn't 16 or whatever age he had said he was. He wasn't in high school; he was 22. I fell silent, trying to think of my response, but there was… More. Not only was he 22; he'd been
in prison and was recently released—why? Accessory to murder for being in the car when his friend shot someone while driving by. I still remember being frozen in fear. I calmly said that I didn't want to talk to him anymore and to please never call me again, and then I hung up. After I hung up, the phone immediately started ringing again. I picked it up, but before I could even say hello, this man had called back and was already screaming at the top of his lungs into the phone. I can't remember exactly what he was saying,
but it was along the lines of, "Don't you ever hang up on me!" calling me every name in the book. So I hung up again, this time leaving the phone off the receiver. I remember being so scared to tell my parents because I didn't want them to be disappointed in me. They were always so proud of me for making good decisions. It was my fault, after all, for giving some guy I just met my phone number, so I didn't say anything at first. The calls, however, kept coming, but to keep my parents in the dark,
I usually made sure I was only answering the phone when it rang. He told me that he put my home phone number into a reverse phone directory and had found my address. He would call and say things like, "I like your sister's new green car," to make sure I knew he was watching the house. Around this time, I developed a fear of being home alone. I couldn't be home for even a minute, so if my parents and sister were gone, I’d call a neighbor friend to come spend some time with me. One night, my parents
were in bed, but my sister and I were up late watching TV when I saw a car pull into our driveway. It just sat there with its lights on. I couldn't see who it was, but I knew who it was. After that, everything stopped. I remember thinking how crazy it was that he'd done all of that and then just disappeared. A year, maybe two years later, I was sitting at home watching the finale of *American Idol*, and the phone rang. The caller ID said it was coming from a correctional facility. Confused, I answered it. It
was a collect call from you-know-who. I couldn't believe it. I obviously didn't accept it and hung up, and thankfully, I never heard from him again. I told my parents about this years later, and they said, "No wonder you were scared to be alone!" I should have told them at the time because it could have escalated even further. A story mirrors a similar experience I had years ago, the one I posted here. I really do wonder if there's something about me that attracts these people. One lapse in judgment can lead to situations like these, but all
the creepy men I've encountered in my life—it's not me. Again, hey everyone, thanks for listening if you stuck around at this point. If you haven't yet, please hit the like button, the subscribe button, and that notification bell to be notified when future episodes come out. If you have a true scary story of your own, feel free to send it to my email or post it to my subreddit. You can stalk me on Twitter, you can stalk me on Facebook, and you can also stalk me on Instagram. All these links are below. What's going on, everybody?
I hope you enjoyed this episode. Hope you enjoyed the last episode and the last couple of things I've had going on over the week. Sorry I've only been doing like one episode a week; it's been pretty wild, and I've had a lot of [__] going on within my family and my household, so I'm not really going to go into too much detail about that. If you know, you know. But overall, all I need to know, and all you need to know, and all everyone needs to know is that the Horn Airish Community is [__] amazing,
and I love it so much, and I'm so excited to be a part of it. I am recording stories right now to be dropped next month, and I will be featured—and I'm going to be an episode, not in an episode but a narrator on Chilling. Yeah, shit's [__] coming. Again, I just can't—I'm very thankful and very happy and very grateful. I'm very lucky to be part of this community and to get the love and stuff that I have and the opportunities that have been presented to me, which is just incredible. It's a surreal feeling; I'm
very thankful, very blessed, and very lucky to be a part of it and to have, you know, again, all these options and stuff falling into place for me. It's just—again, I can't quite put it into words without saying stuff over and over again. Either way, I hope you enjoyed this episode. My plan is to have another one out this later on this week, but I got a lot to record for Chilling, so it might only end up being one episode this week. Hope you're cool with that. That's why I made this one a nice long
one. Yeah, outside of that, I can't think of anything else. I love you all. Thank you so much for being here and supporting me. Cheers!
