This was only a few months ago. I was spending the weekend cozying up inside, as it was the end of winter and these were the last few days of cold before it was supposed to start heating up. That night, it was rainy and cold, so I had nothing better to do than watch some movies and relax.
But it was sometime not too long after dinner that there was a knock at the door. I got up and walked over, but looking out the peephole, I didn't recognize the man. He was wearing a brown jacket and a beanie, and he was holding a snow shovel.
Seeing as there wasn't any snow on the ground, I didn't understand what he was here for. I cracked the door just an inch and asked what he wanted. It took all but five seconds of listening to him to know he was up to no good.
He stumbled over his words and was trying to tell me a whole story about how he was just a friendly guy looking for any jobs to do in my yard. Something felt off about it and unnatural, so I said, "No thanks," and started shutting the door. But the guy quickly put his hand on it; for a second, he just stared at me, keeping the door open, before he let go.
I shut and locked it, and after processing what happened, I looked back out the window. He walked down to the sidewalk and disappeared in the rainy fog. I watched for another minute to make sure he'd actually left for good, then I went back to my movie.
The guy was definitely sketchy, but I didn't think he would come back or anything and would probably just go on to the next house. The rain had picked up over the next hour. I was still in the living room and had started another movie, although I knew I was probably too tired to finish it.
My eyes were drifting in and out, but randomly, there was a thump above me that shook me awake. It was just one thump and it was kind of hard to tell how loud it actually was with the rain outside, but what was odd about it was that it was definitely from above me. I got up and walked upstairs, looking for anything fallen over or even a leak in the ceiling that might have made the house settle a bit.
However, I found nothing. It could have been one of the gutters clicking out of place from the heavy rain, or really anything else, so I ignored it. I went back downstairs, and being more awake now, I decided to finish the rest of the movie.
By the time I'd finished it and was ready to go to bed, it was nearly 12:00 a. m. I shut off the TV and went around turning off all the lights downstairs, but as I was walking upstairs to go to bed, I could very quickly feel the temperature drop as I got closer to the top of the steps.
Maybe I was too tired to give it much thought, but when I got upstairs and started closing each of the doors that I'd opened earlier, I noticed something from the corner of one of the rooms: the window was cracked open. I must have stared at it for a whole ten seconds, thinking how impossible that was and just being extremely confused. I walked over and looked at it closer; it was one of the windows that had a small roof overhang under it, and before I closed it, I barely could see an imprint on the window sill of what looked like a shoe.
I could feel the blood rush from my face as I turned around and just listened for a moment. The low creaking of the house combined with the rain speckling the roof only made me more unnerved, knowing someone was in my house right now. I began slowly walking as quietly as I could back into the hallway.
All the other doors were still open, making me feel like someone's eyes could be watching me right now through one of the doorways. I was able to make it downstairs, though, and from there, I got my phone and hid in the garage, calling 911. It took five minutes for the first officer to arrive.
I heard nothing but the rain during that time. Once I let the officer in, I waited on my porch as he searched the home. About two minutes later, I heard him call out upstairs, and then he came down holding a guy in handcuffs.
I quickly recognized him as the man who showed up on my doorstep earlier in the night, and he had a terrible look of anger as he passed by me and was thrown in the car. Putting all the pieces together, the guy had climbed up onto my roof, which was likely the cause of the thump I heard hours ago. Then he got in through the second-story window, which I never had thought to even lock.
Most disturbing, though, is that the officer said he was hiding in the master bedroom, which I was literally thirty seconds from entering and maybe even falling asleep without any idea he was in there. The guy even took his shoes off after climbing in the window to not let his shoe prints show on the carpet, so the fact that I saw the tiny imprint on the window sill is a miracle. With him going directly to my bedroom, his intentions were clearly malicious, and thankfully the judge agreed.
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Thank you again to Aura for sponsoring this portion of today's video. A couple of years ago, I applied for a temporary job at a local gas station. I was planning to move in six months, so I couldn't get anything too permanent, but I still needed to make some cash beforehand.
This job paid well enough to convince me to work the job opening they had for the overnight shift. I would just stay by the register and occasionally do regular maintenance work. This was during my fourth month working there.
At some point during this time, I became familiar with a customer that came in pretty frequently, almost every night around 1:00 or 2:00 a. m. This guy would walk in and buy random different things.
Sometimes it was household items, or food, or tools. I always thought it was weird because he'd come in every night to buy a couple of things that would be way cheaper and easier to get at any regular grocery store. He didn't talk much either; all I knew was that his name was Dave and he drove an old red Chevy sedan.
He looked like he was maybe 40 to 45 years old. Anyway, one night at the usual 1:00 a. m.
time, Dave pulled into the gas station. No other customers were here; it was just me sitting in the corner waiting out the time. When Dave walked in, though, there was something different about him.
He was dripping in sweat and he was rushing through the aisles searching for something specific. When he finally found what he was looking for, he hurried up to the counter and tossed it down for me to ring up. It was a Master Lock, like one for locking up a bicycle.
I really didn't feel like it was appropriate for me to question him, but with the guy sweating and being in a rush, I just felt a little off about this. "It's good to see you again, Dave. Did you just get a new bike?
" I asked in a friendly manner, hoping it would come off as just casual conversation. He didn't even look at me; instead, he fumbled around for his wallet and started yanking out cash in a hurry. I left it at that and just rang him up, then watched him rush into his car and pull away.
Something was definitely weird, but hey, maybe he just got a new bicycle and had been riding it around for a couple of hours and needed to get back to wherever he parked it so he could lock it up before it was stolen. Maybe that's a stretch, but it was the best I could come up with. The rest of the night passed by, and so did several more days.
I didn't see him for almost a whole week, which was odd considering he usually came in every night. It wasn't until my Wednesday shift that I saw him again. It was drizzling outside, so the first several hours went by really slowly.
I was leaning back in my chair and looking out the window at the rain coming down when his red car pulled into the parking lot. As soon as he parked, he got out and rushed inside. I greeted him as he entered, but he ignored me.
He hurried through the aisles and was talking under his breath. I couldn't hear what he was saying, but he sounded frustrated, and I got really uncomfortable, like my gut was telling me something was wrong. Then I heard a thud.
My eyes shifted to the window, looking in the direction it came from, and the only thing there was Dave's car. It was a loud thud too, like someone kicking the inside of the door. After a second, I looked back at Dave.
He wasn't rushing anymore; he was standing in the aisle staring directly at me as if I had just discovered something that I shouldn't have. There was another thud, but my eyes were fixed on Dave as I could feel panic rushing through my body. Then he quickly looked away and hurried out the door.
I was still stunned, but managed to get my phone out and snap a picture of his license plate as he drove away. I called the police immediately. That night felt extremely long as I waited for any updates from them, and it wasn't until I got home around 6:00 a.
m. that I received a call from the police. They found the guy from the license plate I gave them, and they found a woman that he had kidnapped.
Apparently, he had just moved into a new small cabin on the edge of town less than a week ago, and he had no registered prior address, so they had no way to know what he'd been up to before this incident. Luckily, they saved this woman before she was harmed. Though, it also turned out Dave wasn't his real name, which isn't surprising, but at least he's locked up for good now.
I was 14 when this happened, and this was over spring break. My parents' anniversary happened to be during this week, so they went on a date night a few hours prior and were staying in a hotel, having the house to myself for once. I invited one of my friends, Justin, to stay the night.
He brought a ton of snacks and sodas, which we set up on the table in the basement, and fired up the PlayStation. We had the speakers up pretty loud, and we were gaming down there for 3 hours straight. Eventually, though, Justin went upstairs to get a glass of water, and when he came back down, he looked worried.
I asked what was up, and he said there was someone outside the house by the kitchen. We had a large sliding glass door, and I guess he saw a person standing in our backyard. I thought he was trying to play a joke on me, but he was serious.
We both went back upstairs and into the kitchen, and at first look, it didn't appear that anyone was in the backyard. But then we noticed that there were some smudges on the outside of the door that looked like someone might have been leaning on the glass and looking inside. That's obviously really creepy, so I shut the blinds, and we did a quick perimeter check around the other windows.
We didn't see anything else, so we figured we were all good. Again, we were both just kids and didn't really know how to handle something like this. After a couple of minutes, we went back downstairs and continued where we left off.
Another couple of hours went by, and it had to be well into the night, like 2 or 3:00 a. m. Justin was getting tired, so we wrapped up our last match and turned off the PlayStation.
The basement had two small couches, so we each took one and laid out some blankets, then turned off the lights and called it a night. For some reason, I had trouble falling asleep; like, I would fall asleep for a few minutes and then wake right back up over and over. I don't know why—possibly from too much caffeine—but it went on for a really long time.
It felt like over an hour. But then, one of these times that I woke up, something was different. I opened my eyes.
It was pitch black in the whole basement, but there was a tiny streak of light across the other end of the room. I sat up a bit and could tell it was coming from the door above the staircase. I looked over at the other couch, and Justin was still there sound asleep.
Did he get up at some point to get more water? There's no way I wouldn't have noticed. I got up, feeling too uneasy to sleep without making sure this was nothing.
I went over to the bottom of the stairs and looked up. The door was cracked open but not enough to see through. I went to the top and opened it further.
The hallway light was on, and so was the kitchen light. It was about then that I remembered that man that Justin said was standing outside the house, and I walked over to the kitchen to look out the back door. The backyard was empty, and nobody was out there from what I could see.
As I was about to look away, though, something moved across the reflection on the glass door. I spun around, looking behind me and staring down the hall. Whatever I just saw had quickly moved across the other end of the hallway.
I didn't know what to do. I just stood for a second before sprinting back into the basement. I woke up Justin, and after a quick explanation, he was just as terrified as I was.
We hid in one of the closets down there and called the police, and while we were waiting, we could hear someone moving around upstairs. It was like they were running around the house looking for something. It got quiet after a few minutes, though, and when the police showed up, the person was gone.
They found that the small bolt that locked the back door was snapped off, so that's how they got in. Other than that, we don't know anything. For several years after this incident, though, every few months, we would find those same smudges on the back door of someone clearly looking inside.
It wasn't until we finally got a security camera that they left us alone, at least as far as we can tell. It's been over a year since we've seen any signs of them. What they wanted is still unknown.
