The town I grew up in was pretty country, to put it lightly. Nothing but farms, crops, abandoned churches, and ugly, worn down houses. Everyone around us was pretty broke.
Property taxes were like $1,000 a year, if that. With that came a lot of sketchball characters. Hell, even our neighbor was a weirdo.
Nice, but weird. We weren't well off ourselves, but things at least got a little better for my family when my siblings and I were old enough to work, too. When this app, Hot or Not, was still a thing many years back.
I matched this girl, Kelly, who I started seeing for a while. We matched in late summertime, and we were seeing each other through September already. This was early October.
Kelly and I were looking for a nice, cheap date to go on. Really, there wasn't much to do around there. We've gone on hikes, explored, and gotten food.
Not much else going on. So, we took a new route in the car this day somewhere neither of us had been just to find something. We found this little restaurant sitting in a random parking lot on the side of the road.
It had outdoor seating, so we went there. It was a warm, cloudy day when we arrived and got seated at a table outside the restaurant. We were there for 45 minutes to an hour and after leaving it grew noticeably foggy out.
We continued to drive down this route we'd never been down before. A really desolate road with just open fields and farmland on either side with occasional patches of trees and woods. Then we passed something different.
It was a sign for a pumpkin patch, only it was a very cheaplymade sign. It wasn't some big billboard or anything like that. It was a wooden picket sign that said pumpkin picking this way and an arrow pointing to the right.
Right behind the sign was a dirt driveway cutting through the field. Through the fog, we saw a house that the driveway led to. So, a spur-of-the- moment decision, we both agreed we wanted to check it out because why not.
It drove off the road down the driveway, and we passed the house into this back area, which was covered by trees in two directions, the left side and the far back side. Tucked between the house and woods was this big pumpkin patch. It was a genuine pumpkin farm, and we saw at least 200 pumpkins scattered all over the place.
And that was just what the fog allowed us to see. We parked next to this old jalapy of a pickup truck, the only other vehicle visible on the property. We noticed an older couple sitting on the back deck of the house.
As we got out, the two of them got up and greeted us. I said, "We're here for the pumpkin picking. " And the old woman said with a smile, "Welcome.
Pick anything you'd like. " I asked her how much it would be for a pumpkin. And the old woman [music] said, "It's free.
" We were surprised. The fog was acting as a sort of barrier, so we couldn't clearly see the two. It was a little creepy, but I could still tell that it looked like the old man was smiling at Kelly.
His smile was very gummy. It was kind of gross. We both said thank you and started walking into the pumpkin patch.
A lot of the pumpkins were on the smaller side or mushy and just not very attractive. The ground was also kind of wet from the fog, I guess, and some of the pumpkins felt wet and muddy, too. It was hard to find a really nice one, but eventually we did find one.
I picked up this big, healthy looking pumpkin. It was heavy. I brought it over to the back deck where the old couple just was.
They weren't there anymore. I asked Kelly if we should just leave. She said probably.
It really felt like we were clear to leave since we already thanked the couple and they made it clear they were free. So, we got back in the car and I started doing a three-point turn on the dirt driveway to leave when we heard someone yelling outside. We both got startled and turned to face the house where we saw a middle-aged man in a cap yelling, "Hey, stop.
" I lowered the window and he put his face through the window and yelled, "What the hell are y'all doing? I'm calling 911. " I said, "What did we do?
" And he said, "Put that pumpkin back right now. " Kelly and I talking over each other both tried to explain to the man that the older couple told us to take whatever we wanted. I assumed they were his parents.
The man said, "What older couple? What are you talking about? " I replied, "Are your parents also here?
" He said, "I ain't got no parents. " Kelly and I, both equally confused, looked at each other. I said, "Sir, there was an older couple sitting on your back deck 10 minutes ago, and they told us to take whatever we wanted.
" The man said, "There ain't no older couples here. " He asked where the pumpkin is. I told him in the back.
I unlocked the door, and he grabbed the pumpkin. He said if we ever came back here, he'd shoot us. And then he spit at the ground and walked back to his house.
I drove us out of there. We were as confused as could be. We considered the idea that maybe it was a joke, but that would be a real sick joke.
I made a joke, saying, "What if there were ghosts? " And Kelly said, "Stop. " Clearly freaked out, but then I got the chills myself as I thought about what I just said.
There was silence in the car for a few seconds, and I know we both pondered that idea. Out of curiosity, one day, my two siblings went to that pumpkin farm to go pumpkin picking. They bought a pumpkin from the guy we saw and they probed him a bit, asking about the farm and if the man lives there with anyone.
The man said he lives there alone. This was unsettling to hear. It truly to this day doesn't make a lick of sense.
Could the man have been lying about the older couple being there? I don't know, possibly. But why?
The scarier question is what if he wasn't lying and he truly does live alone? Then who were those people? It was late October when I woke up to one of my best friends, Connor, hitting me up asking if I was down to come to his house later.
It was a Saturday afternoon and I was in high school at the time, so I spent most of my weekends with friends. Connor's parents were out of town for the weekend and he was home alone with one of his older sisters, whom I'll just call Chantel. She was supposedly watching him the entire weekend.
With that information, I knew he was just asking me to come over and party. Again, I didn't have any work responsibilities to worry about at the time, so I agreed to the idea and headed over to his house. When I got to his house, we played some Call of Duty on his family room's couch for a few hours, talking about school, sports, girls, and whatever else we cared about at the time.
Eventually, he brought up the idea of going to a Halloween party in his neighborhood that a bunch of people from our high school were going to. [music] At first, I was a bit hesitant of the idea, but after some convincing, I was down to go. I'm not introverted or anything.
I just wasn't feeling like partying that night, but Connor was dying to go. So, trying to be a good friend, I agreed to go. I asked him about getting some kind of costume, and he had two security staff shirts that we could just throw on and use as the bare minimum of a Halloween costume.
We continued to play on Xbox for a few more hours until 10:30 rolled around. Connor ran upstairs to Chantel's room, telling her we were going as if she cared. Then we threw on our shirts and headed out.
After a quick 5-minute walk, we pulled up to a Halloween decorated house where we could hear the music blaring from inside. We walked past the decorations and through the door where we were slammed with the loud music we heard outside. The place was packed with maybe 70 other high school kids raving and just talking in groups throughout the house.
It was your average high school party. A few minutes later, I'd already lost Connor as I was pulled aside by Lo, one of my baseball teammates, who [music] I'd hardly seen at all that year. He sat me down on a couch in a circle with some of my other friends and teammates.
[music] We continued to talk for a couple hours, laughing at dumb memories brought up in conversation and partaking in activities that normally go down at parties. [music] At this point in the night, I was feeling tired and completely out of it. [music] I knew it was time for me to go home and get some rest for the night.
I looked through the party for Connor where [music] he was flirting with a girl in the corner of the kitchen. As I accidentally interrupted his conversation, [music] I asked him if it was cool for me to go back to his house and sleep. He agreed and said he was going to stay for a little longer, but the girl he was talking to asked if I could go get some drinks from the basement.
I agreed to do so after realizing I completely interrupted their deep conversation. It was the least I could do. It didn't take me long to find the basement.
As I opened the door and headed down the dimly lit stairs, I stumbled down the last few steps and fell into the fridge. As I opened it, I was greeted by a man's voice behind me who tried quietly saying, "Boo! " I jumped and threw my hands up, facing the direction I heard the voice from.
There was a tall, 35-year-old looking man wearing a black cloak costume and standing behind me with a grin on his face, making a surprise gesture with his hands. "What the hell was that for? " I yelled with a clear slur in my speech.
The guy laughed and introduced himself as the party host's cousin. I was so out of it, I didn't even question why he was in a dark basement by himself, and there was a massive party going on upstairs with loud music. The guy awkwardly tried making conversation, but I told him I needed to get my friend his drink and leave the party.
I'm honestly pretty open and chatty to strangers when I'm out of it like that, but even at that moment, I didn't like his vibe, and I tried everything I could to get away. He blurted, "Nice meeting you. " As I turned around, walking up the creaking stairs.
I told my friend goodbye and left the party. The lights and Halloween decorations on each house in the neighborhood lit up the street as I walked back to Connor's house. It didn't really matter, though, because the walk was literally 5 minutes at most.
I reflected on the weird exchange I had with that man in the basement as I walked, and I couldn't shake the odd vibes he gave off. The more I thought about it, the weirder it became in my head. I eventually got to Connor's house.
It was completely dark and Shantel's car was gone from the driveway, meaning I was home alone. I walked into the dark, eerie house and didn't bother turning on some lights. Just headed straight to the basement to sleep.
I walked down there and passed out on the couch. I lay like a baby for maybe 15 minutes until I heard a crashing noise upstairs. It woke me right up.
I tried listening for anything else, but I heard nothing. I thought I was hearing things, then tried getting back to sleep. I don't know how much time passed from when I first heard the crash, but I could hear the floorboards above me creaking like someone was walking on them.
I thought it was Connor or Chantel, but it sounded way too heavy to be either of them. I pulled out my phone and texted Connor asking if he was home yet. I stared at the ceiling trying to listen.
The door to the basement opened. I could hear a person walk down the staircase. I peeked around the bend of the room to see the stair opening.
I saw the man I saw earlier at the party standing right there quietly illuminated by the stair light. I tried not to make any noise, praying that the man would just walk away. A few moments passed by before he randomly turned and quietly walked out of the basement, closing the door.
I picked up my phone and dialed 911. I explained the situation to them, gave them everything they needed, and I waited patiently in the basement for them to show up. I tried opening the windows down there, but they were all sealed shut.
I had no escape through the basement door that the man was standing by earlier. The cops eventually came and they arrested the man because he was still there. He was found hiding underneath Chantel's bed.
She had gotten home and was getting ready for bed and was moments from getting into the bed when she heard the cops knocking on the front door downstairs. I have no idea what his intention was, but clearly he followed me home. The whole encounter has really confused me.
I'm just glad things played out the way they did. Oddly enough, the cops were able to review neighboring houses cameras and they saw the man following me home, but then he lost me after taking the corner into the culde-sac. He ended up lurking on Chantel, watching her get out of her car and walk into the house.
Then he snuck around to the backyard and broke in through the back door. Always be alert of your surroundings. It was the middle of October.
The leaves were just starting to change to that beautiful mix of orange and yellow. My wife Courtney and I are a gay couple. We've been married for 2 years now.
We wanted to take advantage of the fall foliage and go to the Catskill Mountains in New York. We booked an Airbnb by Overlook Mountain, a popular hiking destination. We're avid hikers, so we go all over the country to explore national parks and famous hiking destinations.
This was our third time going to Catskill, New York. The owner of the Airbnb was an adorable looking, sweet woman who was definitely in her 50s or 60s. Out of respect, I'll just name her Kathy.
Kathy was very easy to work with and very responsive. She had the key to the little house hidden in a code locked mailbox and she gave me the code. Inside was a very rustic and cabinety type of field with wooden walls and floors but bright colored rugs to cover the wood floors.
It was wellkept and nice, spacious enough for two people. Outside was woods in all directions. There was a shed converted to a little clubhouse outside with a pool table and dartboard and a bunch of things hung on the walls.
We drove to the base of the overlook mountain trail and there were some people around. Not many, but a few. As we were ascending the mountain on foot, we'd pass occasional hikers on their way down.
Eventually, we sat on a big rock overlooking an amazing cliff view, just admiring for a while. Eventually, we heard a footstep crunching a leaf behind us. We turned around and saw a woman by herself leaning on a tree.
She was like 55 or something. She was clearly looking at us until we turned and saw her. Then she awkwardly looked away.
I would have otherwise said hi, but she made it weird. We just ignored it until randomly we heard her say hi. So, we turned again and saw she was looking at us.
We said hi back. Then she asked where we're from. From here, we just got into a seemingly normal conversation with her.
She said her name was Melinda and she was from the area. She asked where we're staying, offering her knowledge of the area to suggest places to check out. I told her right up the road at an Airbnb.
She suggested some places to go. And then the conversation kind of died off from there. Courtney and I said, "Well, it was nice meeting you.
" As we now started descending the trail back towards the car. Weirdly, we noticed the Melinda lady was now also heading down as well, but she was keeping a bit of a distance, not with an earshot. We found a spot to rest on the way down for a minute, and we noticed Melinda seemed to stop too at the same time.
She was still out of earshot. This was weird. We felt like she was following us, so we decided to just stay put and wait her out, see if she'd move.
After a while, she finally did continue making her way down past us. She looked at us and smiled and said, "Okay. " as she walked past us.
We waited till she was out of sight before we continued hiking down. We got back to the parking area a while later, and from there, we went straight back to the Airbnb right up the road. We were exhausted, so we took a nap.
Then we went out to eat at this place called Garden Cafe, which was highly rated. After that, it was pitch blackout, so we went back to the Airbnb with plans to just cuddle up and watch movies. We had a long day of hiking, so we were going to sleep good.
There was only a TV in the living room, but it was set up to have Netflix and everything, so we found a good movie to watch and put it on. We were so tired that we started drifting off to sleep halfway through the movie. I noticed Courtney was completely knocked out and I was following suit when suddenly.
I was immediately snapped back awake to the sound of knocks at the door. We were in the middle of the woods. Knocks at the door were a huge concern.
Nobody should be here. There was no peepphole in the door. I couldn't check who was there.
All the blinds were closed and I wasn't going to dare peeking out of one of them. I shook Courtney awake and told her someone's at the door. I muted the TV and we waited for a second set of knocks that came only seconds later.
We both agreed there's no shot we were opening the door. It was still early, like 9:00, so I texted Kathy asking if she was at the door. It was then a knock at the window and a woman's voice on the other side asking, "Is someone in there?
" Courtney and I were now freaked out. I'd say we were in a panic. Knocking on a stranger's window is not a normal thing somebody does.
What happened next was even more disturbing. We heard the person trying to lift open the window. Thankfully, it was locked.
Kathy was calling me now. I showed Courtney and she said, "Maybe it is her outside. That's why she's calling.
" I picked up in a low voice and Kathy on the other end told me she was at home and she asked who was outside. When I told her what's happening, she sounded confused and concerned. "None of her friends or relatives would go to that house," she said.
She told us, "Don't open the door. " And we took her advice. After hanging up, there were now knocks on another window, and the voice [music] called, "I need help.
Please let me in. " We knew better than to fall for this. Something bad would happen if we let them in.
We started to realize it could have been that weird lady from the hiking trail. Like, what if she followed us back to the Airbnb? We honestly wouldn't have even noticed.
I went to the bedroom where it was completely pitch black, and I ever so delicately moved the blind up just a crack [music] to peek outside. There was a man walking past the window. He didn't notice me.
I went back to Courtney to tell her that there were multiple people out there. This was an invasion. We called 911.
I gave them the address and stayed on the line. There were a few more knocks at the door, but we never answered. The people outside eventually gave up, I believe, [music] because the knocks and yells stopped.
The police took a while to get there, but when they did, we felt a lot better. The officers were very nice and they stayed with us while we figured out what we wanted to do. I called Kathy again and explained what happened and why we didn't feel safe staying there tonight anymore.
She was completely understanding. We still paid for that night, but the rest of the stay was cancelled and the officer stayed with us while we packed our things and loaded the car. One of them led us in his car to the nearest motel where we stayed for the night.
Given the circumstances, we drove home the next day because honestly, we just didn't want to be in the area after that. We think this was some kind of group that was looking for easy targets to abduct and may have been using a woman as some kind of scout to gain their trust. And they saw two young women by themselves, so they tried to target us.
For future hikes, we've started to bring pepper spray with us just as a form of self-defense.
