[Music] My name is Evan. I'm 28 years old. After my divorce, I moved to a small town named Chadam in Alabama.
Apart from my parents house, I didn't really have anywhere else to go, so I came to live in my grandfather's old house. He passed away a few years ago and left the place to us. It's about 10 minutes outside town, sitting on 10 acres surrounded by woods.
It's real quiet out there. I thought I'd enjoy that. The house is old.
Wood floors that creek, doors that stick, the kind of place that always feels a little cold no matter how high the thermostat is. But it was free and I didn't have a better option. The first few nights were normal.
I unpacked and cleaned. I spent the evening sitting on the porch with a beer. It was peaceful.
No traffic, just the wind through the trees and the occasional owl. But then the noises started. The first time I heard it was on the seventh night.
I had just gotten into bed around midnight. I was almost asleep when I heard whistling outside. It wasn't a song I recognized, just a slow, broken tune.
Off key. It sounded like someone walking through the woods behind the house, whistling as they went. It creeped me out, but I figured it was some hunter or drunk neighbor.
The next night, it happened again. Same time, same tune, but this time it sounded closer. I got out of bed and turned on the porch light, but I didn't see anyone.
I went outside with a flashlight and checked around the yard. Nothing. No tracks, no sounds of someone running off.
Just the whistling fading deeper into the woods. I tried to ignore it. For a couple of nights, I just stayed in bed and tried to sleep through it.
But every time the whistling would start around 117 a. m. I know that sounds like a random number, but I swear it was always around 1:15 or 119 somewhere there.
It was like clockwork. I started thinking maybe someone was messing with me on purpose, someone who knew I was out there alone. I called the sheriff's office a few days later.
An old deputy who I'll call deputy H came out. He'd been in the job a long time. When I told him what was happening, he got real quiet.
He said word for word, "Your granddaddy used to call us about the same thing. Said someone was whistling around the property late at night, always in the spring. We never found anything.
I figured he was just getting old, but now you're hearing it, too. That shook me. I had no idea my grandfather dealt with this.
Deputy H told me to keep the doors locked and stay inside after dark. I started doing that. Not like I wasn't already.
I double checked every window. One night, I even put chairs under the door knobs, but the whistling kept coming closer every night. One night, I heard it behind the shed.
It was louder than usual, like the person was standing right outside. I grabbed my flashlight and looked through the blinds. I didn't see anyone, but I didn't dare go outside.
The next night, I heard it from the front porch, right by the door. Three long whistles, then silence. The night after that, it came from under the floorboards.
I swear to God, it was like someone was in the crawl space, whistling up through the vents. I didn't sleep at all that night. I started digging through the attic the next day, trying to find anything my grandfather left behind.
I found a box of his journals. He wrote about the whistling. He said it happened every spring for over 10 years.
He didn't know who it was, but he thought it was someone watching the house. He said he used to sit up with a rifle by the front door just in case. He said it only ever happened when he lived alone after my grandmother died.
I called Deputy H again. He came by and read the journal and he looked nervous. He told me to be careful.
He said, "Don't open the door if you don't know who it is. " That night, I stayed up. I sat on the couch with a shotgun across my lap.
A shotgun I barely knew how to load. I waited. At 1:17 a.
m. The whistling started again, but this time it didn't come from outside. It came from the hallway inside the house.
I froze. The hallway light was off. I could hear the whistling moving closer step by step.
I stood up, aimed the shotgun, and shouted, "Who's there? " The whistling stopped. I flipped the hallway light on.
Nothing was there. No one. I didn't sleep again after that.
It was two nights since then and I hadn't heard it again. I was getting sick. I didn't know who this person was.
I didn't know why they picked me or my grandfather, but it was real and I knew it was. I don't believe in hallucinations to that degree, nor do I believe in anything paranormal. This was a real person.
After that night, things went quiet for 2 days. No sounds, no movement, no sign of anything. I thought maybe it was finally over.
On the third night, I went to bed just after midnight. I didn't stay up this time. I left the hallway light on just in case.
At exactly 1:17 a. m. , I woke up to a new sound.
Not whistling, knocking. Slow, paced out knocks. Three of them.
They were coming from inside the house, from the back door. Then silence. I didn't move.
I stayed in bed listening. A minute later, I heard a new sound. A creek from the floorboard in the hallway.
Then another. Someone was walking. The hallway light went out.
I grabbed my shotgun, heart pounding, and stepped out of the bedroom. The hallway was dark, but at the end of it, I saw something. A person wearing black clothes, pale face.
They were standing perfectly still, just watching me. I raised the shotgun, but my hands were shaking. I tried to speak, but my mouth was dry.
I raised the shotgun, but my hands were shaking. I screamed, "Don't move. " with my shaky voice.
I saw in the dark the person slowly start lifting their leg and turning as if they were about to run. I screamed, "Stop! " And at that moment, they darted out of the hallway out of my line of sight.
I heard their surprisingly heavy footsteps stomping out the front door into the dark. I ran outside and fired a shot, not into the air, but straight ahead into the darkness, low-key hoping I'd hit him in the dark. I screamed, "Don't come back.
" The shot hurt my ears, ricocheting off the walls of the house and the deck. I locked up the house, got to my truck, and drove into town. I slept in my truck that night.
The next morning, Deputy H drove out there, and the front door to the house was unlocked again. That confirmed whoever that person was had a key to my grandfather's house. Nothing was broken or missing, but Deputy H recommended I change the locks.
And he also, off the record, suggested I move out of that old place because someone out in those woods hasn't taken kindly to either my grandfather or myself being in that house. I drove out to the local home improvement store and switched the locks that day, that same hour. After that, I left that house to go to my parents house out of state for a while.
I left it to my dad to eventually sell that house. Anything of sentimental value we took out and the rest was just left in there or sold. My father of course left out the fact that there's some creep who's been stalking the house for apparently decades now.
How they potentially got a key, who they were, why my grandfather never said anything, I don't know. It all disturbs me deeply. I personally think it was some disturbed creep living in a nearby house.
I eventually moved to a more urban area. This experience left me honestly too unsettled to live in a remote location. I'm 16 and live in the city now, but I've spent the first 8 years of my life in the countryside.
For some people, it might seem weird as I was allowed from a very young age to walk around the small village without being supervised by my parents. The area itself wasn't very big and the entire population was about 90 people maximum. Basically, everyone knew everyone to the point that me and my friends remember the car numbers and whom they belong to.
It was a hot summer day. My friend and I, who I'll call Julian, were dead thirsty for some Coca-Cola. Back then, soda was very cheap at those little supermarkets, and we really needed a couple of pennies to get the right amount of money to buy two cans.
Luckily, an old woman called us from her house. She explained that she was going to make some mint tea for everyone since her birthday was coming up. The issue was she ran out of mint plants, so she told us that if we'd fill two plastic bags with mint leaves, she would buy us as much soda as we wanted.
Julian and I thought it was a great idea since I didn't want to ask my parents for any money. Soon later that day, we started digging. The sun was literally frying our foreheads and our clothes were soaked in sweat.
We searched for mints, but despite our efforts, we barely filled half of the first plastic bag. Both of us were very mad since we knew there was no way we would actually manage to gather enough leaves before the sun went down. Still, we kept walking and looking around, hoping that some miracle would happen and we would find a field full of plants.
Suddenly, two tall guys approached us completely out of nowhere. And when I say tall, they were probably like 5'7. Yet, they seemed like giants to our 7-year-old selves.
And what surprised me the most was that they were both covered in black clothes with large hoodies and tight pants. None of them looked older than 17, despite being very hard to make out their facial features. They talked to us in a very friendly, childish voice, their words carefully chosen to not raise any suspicion.
Are you kids both alone? Julian looked at me. He seemed a little worried and made a hand gesture that signed to leave.
Unfortunately, body language was never my cup of tea, so I didn't understand what he wanted us to do. I shifted my attention back to the two guys and spoke in a rather cheerful voice, saying, "Yeah, we're actually looking for some mint plants. " And then asked where we could find a bunch of those.
We've been looking for so long and we're really tired. Now, I'm not really sure, but I have a short flashback of one of the two guys smirking when they heard what we were looking for. One of them crouched next to me and patted my head.
Julian quickly came close to me, pulling me back by the arm a little when he saw the guy touching me. His expression was serious, almost a little panicked, and he asked, "Who are your parents? " You see, from where I come from, that question requested the answer to be by last name.
Since there were so few people, not many new generations were born. So asking who your parents were was a common way to identify the entire bloodline of the person. Julian was born in the countryside, so he knew the people much better than me.
I assume he was scared because he didn't recognize the two guys. And the fact that they were talking to two small kids without anyone around and even patting my head instantly sent a red flag to him. Just as he feared, they avoided the question, looking like I was their main interest.
Actually, I've seen a big field of mints. You see that hill over there? That's where we come from.
If you want, we could lead you to the field and help you fill those bags or even more. Of course, we knew that hill. Julian and I and the other kids would play hide-and-seek in its forest at night.
And it was such fun, I can't even describe it. But still, not once have I ever seen any sort of mint field. After all, the only things that grew there were corn, grapes, and some watermelons.
Again, I was a very idiotic kid, and all of those red flags meant nothing serious to me. I nodded eagerly, pulling Julian by the arm to come with me. The guys seemed satisfied and began to lead the way.
We were walking further and further away from the village, and I could feel my friend's hand tremble in mine. At that point, I felt a sudden shiver down my spine as the village was now completely nowhere to be seen. The forest was right in front of us, and I could see that there was no trace of any field of mint.
I tried asking the guys where we were going, but they gave very vague answers like, "You'll see. " Or, "Just be patient. " I began to sweat as well and slowed my steps a little.
Panic was rushing through my veins, and I quickly realized something bad was going to happen, but for some reason, I couldn't stop walking. I knew for sure that if either of us tried to step back, something really, really bad would happen. Then very discreetly, Julian came close to my ear, and I still get chills remembering this so vividly.
He whispered as silently as he could, "There's something wrong with these two. Run. " That was the last thing I heard when Julian began sprinting downhill like crazy, his hand not breaking contact with mine for a single second.
I was running as if my life depended on it. And it probably did, actually. I could hear the two guys curse and eventually they started chasing us from behind.
I started crying loudly with fear, not stopping in my tracks. I'm sure I wasn't even breathing. And I can't understand how in the world I ran for almost 2 km back into the village without a break or a breath.
The woman who asked us to look for the mint saw us both full of tears and sweat. Our faces were pale, as if all the blood left our bodies in that very moment. At some point as we got closer to the village, those guys must have stopped following us.
She calmly took us inside and gave us some chocolate to feel better. She asked what had happened and Julian was the one to tell her since my mouth was completely paralyzed. As soon as he finished, the woman gave us a worried look and scolded us for being so stupid.
Well, scolded Julian as he lied, saying I didn't want to follow them and he insisted on trusting the guys. After that incident, he wasn't allowed to come outside and play for a month. While I needed lots of time to recover from the small trauma, I never found out who those guys were or what they wanted from us.
Looking back now, much older, I can likely guess, and that doesn't sit well with me. While we were running, there was a huge chance I could have tripped and fell since running downhill at that speed was very risky. If it wasn't for Julian, who is now my boyfriend, I don't even want to imagine what those guys would have done to us.
[Music] My parents used to work a lot when I was little. They both had to work two jobs because they needed extra support for me and my older brother Cameron. Their jobs kept us on our feet, but still required them to be gone most of the time.
So, they hired a babysitter for us on some website. It was a young white girl, maybe early 20s, named Michelle. For about four to five months, Michelle came over every weekday to babysit us.
Me being seven and Cam being eight, we both loved having Michelle around. She was young, polite, and very energetic, which meant we could have a lot of fun playing with her versus some old lady that's always tired and in a bad mood. Cam and I did online classes because school would be too hard for my parents to keep up with.
Michelle also helped with that a lot. When summertime came around, my parents told Michelle she should go relax for a bit. You know, they wanted her to have a nice summer vacation, especially after all she'd done for us.
But that also meant that we didn't have a babysitter for the summer. My parents didn't want to go through the process of finding a trustworthy babysitter, so they decided to just take Cam and I to our grandparents house. They lived in Texas in the countryside, which is a little far from our house in Oklahoma, but it would be worth a drive given we'd be there all summer.
The weekend came around and on Saturday we started our drive. The ride was beautiful, but obviously to little me, it was the most boring, nauseous experience ever. We finally made it to their house after what felt like forever.
It was a medium-sized cabin looking house in the middle of a big open field and woods around the back. A little off to the side was kind of a barn style building with an area for animals such as cows, goats, chickens, and other cool stuff. We all said our hellos and right away my grandpa wanted to take Cam and I on a little tour around the place.
My parents stayed inside talking to my grandma as she cooked dinner for us. The night was amazing. We got to catch up with grandma and grandpa and we played a little bit with their dog Kora.
When it was time for bed, my brother and I shared a room with a bunk bed and a TV. The room next door was another bedroom where my parents slept. My mom and dad fell asleep very fast because they were tired from the drive and they had to be home the next day for work on Monday.
Cam and I stayed up a little bit longer watching some cartoons on TV. After a bit, we finally went to sleep with the TV on. Around 2:00 a.
m. , I was woken up by the sound of footsteps outside my window. Heavy footsteps.
I couldn't see what was out there because the window had blinds over them. The footsteps didn't wake up Cam because the TV was still playing, but I could still hear them. I then heard a weird noise coming from the window, and after 2 seconds, I heard a grunt.
Someone was trying to open it. I went to my parents' room to wake them up and tell them. They didn't really believe me and thought it was my imagination, of course, but when they went to check, nothing was there.
So, they just brushed it off as an animal sound. We were in the middle of nowhere after all. and maybe my kid brain really did think it was something it wasn't.
I fell back asleep after 5 minutes of just laying there. In the morning, I woke up to the delicious smell of my grandma cooking breakfast as my parents were packing to go home. We all ate together.
Then my parents were off. Once they left, my grandpa took Cam and I to go feed the animals while taking Kora on a walk. I wanted to have Kora's leash, so my grandpa handed it to me, saying to hold on tight.
As we were walking along the trail, I found myself having to pull Cora a little bit every 5 seconds. When I finally looked to see why she wasn't walking, I saw her staring at something. She was staring in the woods.
I was a little scared to look in the direction, but when I did, I saw a black figure standing there staring at us. Even though it was all black, I could tell he was looking at us. He was half behind a tree with his hands on the wood as if he were trying to peek over, but with his whole body.
I turned to my grandpa to tell him, but him and Cam were already like 15 ft ahead of me. I ran to catch up with them while having to pull Kora a little bit, but once I told my grandpa about the man in the woods, the man vanished. It was like he was never even there.
I thought I would have been able to see him if he ran off, but where could he have gone? My grandpa heard about what happened the night before, so me telling him something like that couldn't be me playing tricks on them. I could tell in his face that he was concerned, but he just told me that it was okay and that it was probably a deer in the distance and that when I ran, I scared it off.
After we fed the animals, we went back to their house. We enjoyed the rest of the day watching movies and playing outside in the sprinklers. That night, my grandma made the best dinner, too.
There was a lot of food, so after eating, I was really tired. I took a quick 10-minute bath and headed right to mine and my brother's room again. We watched cartoons for a bit and fell asleep.
Around 1:00 a. m. , I was woken up by the sound of humming outside the window.
It was humming to the theme song of Cyberchase, the show that was playing. Cam, being the heavy sleeper he was, didn't wake up to it, and as I said earlier, the blinds were over the window, so I couldn't see what it was. But I knew for sure at this point it had to be a person.
At first, I thought it was my grandpa outside smoking. And for some reason, he started humming the intro cuz he heard it through the window. Of course, that was a dumb explanation, but me being the kid I was.
I yelled out, "Grandpa. " The humming stopped. After 30 seconds of no sound, I then heard, "Hey, it's Grandpa.
Come out here, kid. I want to show you something cool. " I then proceeded to put on my shoes and went outside.
There were no lights, but I remember how beautiful the night sky looked. I finally got to my window where I saw my grandpa standing. He reached out his hand for me to grab it.
I took his hand and he started leading me towards the barn. I tried talking to him, asking where we were going, but no answer. I started to rethink what was happening.
Why would my grandpa be outside at 1:00 a. m. showing me something cool?
Why was he wearing a sweater with the hood up? Then I looked at my grandpa's hand and really paid attention to it, only to realize it wasn't my grandpa's hand. It was the hand of someone much younger.
I tried to pull my hand away, but his grip only got stronger. I didn't want to let him know I knew something was wrong, so I stayed quiet, even though my heart was pounding. Then I looked behind him and noticed a long handle sticking out of the back of his pants.
That's when I really panicked inside. Suddenly, I heard my grandpa's voice calling from the house. I didn't say anything back, but the man turned his head toward the sound.
In that moment of distraction, I yanked my hand free and started to back away. The man stood there for a second, then suddenly bolted toward the woods. I ran straight for the house, yelling for help.
By the time I got inside, my grandpa was waiting for me with his arms wide open, and my grandma had the phone to hurry, talking to the police. Not long after, the cops showed up and started searching the area. They found the man hiding in a ditch not far from the house.
In that ditch was some stuff he' taken from the barn. And most disturbingly of all, they said he had an axe tucked into the back of his pants. After further investigation, they found that the lock on my grandpa's shed had been broken off, leaving it open for anyone to get anything they pleased.
In the shed were a lot of tools that could have caused more trouble. After a couple of days, my grandpa found out that that man turned out to be Michelle's ex-boyfriend, who I'll just call Dave. Dave admitted to have been stalking us and planned to take me that night.
He figured it was easier to take a little girl, so he went after me. He said he wanted to take me because he knew Michelle cared about me a lot and if he had threatened to hurt me, he could make Michelle do anything. Dave stated he mainly wanted to use me to get back with Michelle because he wanted to start over and live a happy life with her.
He claimed he was never actually going to hurt me. After this whole incident, our parents picked Cam and I up a week later and started looking for better jobs so they could be home with us more often. They also let Michelle go, which is understandable.
I'm so grateful that the police station wasn't that far from my grandparents house. But most importantly, I'm thankful my grandpa had woken up that night to use the bathroom. Even after 20 years, it still gives me chills to think about what would have happened to me that night.
