I grew up in Ohio and in the' 70s my childhood friend Joe and I were outside all the time Joe lived on a farm that barded a pretty large forest and my parents would drop me off in the morning and we would pretty much play in the woods all weekend we'd build shelters traps practice making fire with sticks the whole nine yards when we got to be in high school we got this notion to pull a stand by me this was based on the movie of the same name that came out around the same time
the idea was that we would walk on the railroad tracks out in the country but instead of looking for a dead body we would find a bridge to fish from and maybe set up camp a little ways off the tracks of course we knew this was dangerous and we would likely be trespassing on somebody else's property but we were kids we had a lot of fun on our journey we did locate the river and discovered old bridges that no nobody seemed to go to and did some fishing at night we camped in the woods near
the tracks and would build small campfires nothing crazy ever happened it was ideal in fact it was so much fun that we did this multiple times and we never had a problem after graduation Joe and I went our own ways we both left our hometown but always stayed in touch and always tried to coordinate visits one summer in the mid '90s we both happened to be in our hometown for about a week we spent some time with our families in the day and at night we would either stop at the local bar or sit outside
Joe's house around a fire and talk about the good old days one night Joe and I got to talking about our standby me trips well Nostalgia and beer is one hell of a mix it was decided that we would take a day before we left walk on the tracks and maybe camp out in the woods for one night the day came and we set out in the morning we had my wife drop us off at our old starting point just outside of our hometown she thought we were absolutely nuts and made sure to mention it
when she pulled away Joe suggested that instead of walking the usual route that we would go in the opposite direction just to change things up we knew the surroundings pretty well and we had a m so I said what the hell why not and we set off the day went fine it was fun and a bit sad but in a good way we found a bridge and sat on the edge smoked a joint talked before moving on we had no fishing gear this time around but we did bring some canned food and other stuff before
it got dark we picked a spot to set up camp it was a thick forested area trees bordered the train tracks so we felt like we were in a tunnel we had brought some small hammocks to sleep in but before we could set them up we decided to do a bit of scouting on the perimeter this is what we used to do back in the old days we would walk around the area for a bit just to make sure we weren't intruding on somebody's property we walked for maybe 100 ft or so into the woods
and up a small incline we figured if we didn't see anything at the top of this short Hill that we would be fine however when we reached the top we saw an old building down at the bottom about a 100 yard into the woods it was barely visible we pondered over what to do next we both assumed it was just a Sugar Shack or something because there didn't appear to be a clear path to it from where we were it did not look like it was was occupied no movement could be seen and no lights
we decided to move a bit closer just to be sure we came down the hill very slowly and as we neared the building we saw it wasn't a Sugar Shack it appeared to be an old church it looked like it had been abandoned for years the building was sagging with wooden planks nearly black from all the years of moss and Rock a crucifix still stood at the top of the place and was also weathered black none of the windows had glass and there were no doors just an open doorway we got close enough to see
inside there were still those rows of benches and a builtup section near the back where the preacher stood we didn't go all the way in nor did we want to beyond all that there was no sign of anyone else no footprints no Pathways leading to this place no nearby roads it was just an abandoned church sitting in the middle of the woods we quickly left and climbed back up the hill to the spot we had chosen to camp at having the hill between us and the church made us feel better but we were still a
bit creeped out we chocked it up to the Natural creepiness of seeing an abandoned building sitting in the middle of the forest besides at this point it was near Dusk and we had hung hung up our hammocks and we're ready to go to sleep and we'll be moving on early the next morning night fell and As We Lay in our hammocks making small talk we began to hear something in the direction of the church our conversation about it went something like this did you hear that yeah what the hell was it it sounds like people
singing that was what I said at the time but it didn't actually sound like singing we both got out of our hammocks and hunkered down and carefully listened for the next minute or two the singing continued finally it was decided that we would creep back down the hill and see if we could spot where the sound was coming from we could still move very quietly in these Woods it was second nature to us at this point the moon was barely visible and provided just enough light so you could make your way through the trees but
truth be told in certain spots it was almost Pitch Black for obvious reasons we did not use our flashlights as we slowly crept up the hill as we made our way up the hill we didn't chatter when we got to the top we saw a light in the distance it was coming from that old church and the strange noise was resonating from inside Joe and I put our heads close together and had a very hushed conversation that boiled down to can you believe this [ __ ] the light that we saw appeared to be coming
from candles by the way it flickered and though we tried we could not make out what was being sung rather chanted it sounded like church music but in another language we sat and watched for a while trying to see what was taking place inside having absolutely no intentions of getting any closer we had about a football field length between us and we aimed to keep it that way the singing continued for a bit longer and then suddenly stopped after that a booming male voice began to [Music] chant this voice thoroughly scared the [ __ ]
out of me it sounded like some Old Testament preacher you see in the movies but again he was speaking in a different language I couldn't understand a single word he said eventually he got to where the single male voice would say something and then a bunch of voices would answer in song this lasted for a while and then they all broke into this long sustained [Music] wailing that just kept getting louder and [Music] louder it got so loud and disturbing that I had to cover my ears until it finally stopped at this point I was
just getting ready to say that we needed to get the hell out of here when Joe put a hand on my my shoulder and hissed look they're coming out we were far enough away that we couldn't make them all out but we did see a line of figures walking out of the open doorway all of them were holding hands single file we could see that they had flashlights they were beginning to sing again as the flashlight beams began moving toward the hill toward us we B it back to our campsite grabbed our [ __ ]
and ran to the tracks once we were there we ran down the tracks in the direction that we had come from after a few minutes we stopped and looked back to our horror we saw the lights moving down the hill they were moving erratically like whoever was holding them was running we continued to run in short bursts and walked fast as we catched our breaths and we eventually stopped seeing the lights according to our map we knew a small town was about 15 minutes away from here we walked down the road and got to a
24-hour gas station and called my wife to come pick us up my wife and other friends that I have told the story to think that it was probably just kids messing around but I heard those voices and they sure as hell didn't sound like kids to me I'm not entirely sure who those people were but this was definitely the creepiest experience that has ever happened to me out in those woods near where I live there is a glorified gravel path through some Woods called rubbe Hill it runs for about 3 miles only half a mile
of it is paved on the South End is pavement with a few old but otherwise normal houses dotting it deceptively average at that point then The house's end along with a pavement and the gravel road shoots up a steep hill it's not taken care of at all so unless you're driving a off-road vehicle you would want to be very careful so since you would need to drive slowly you would get a nice clear view of the homemade signs nailed to the trees with messages like no trespassing and we are watching you scrolled with a permanent
marker at the top of the hill the road winds lazily for almost a mile before driving back down the other side of the Hill the gravel is in equally poor condition on the other side as well once you reach the bottom the road cuts straightish for about a mile through corn fields before intersecting with another road the reason I'm so familiar with the layout is that I have often taken friends on Late Night drives to this road just to scare the crap out of them it was never much of an elaborate prank I would just
slowly drive up the hill and play creepy music to get them amped up and paranoid I always made sure to bring up the meth heads and their nearby labs and how the sheriff's try to avoid going here because it's dangerous these are things that I heard before as well I figured it was all [ __ ] just madeup stories but now I think there's an element of Truth to some of these [Music] rumors one night I was with my friend Aaron and we decided to go on a late night drive to rub Hill just to
freak ourselves out so we took off drove down the various country highways and back roads and turned on to it and eventually reached our destination I made sure to play extra creepy music Since Aaron and I had made this trip several times before it honestly lost all of its creepy luster on me by then but I still enjoyed these long drives and scaring my friends we were almost across the hill about to make our descent down the other side when Aaron freaked out I checked my mirrors to see what he was [ __ ] his
fist over and saw the headlights of a truck the truck truck was under the only street light on top of the hill it was a really dim orange light and I could see that it was kicking up a ton of dirt as it was speeding towards us I paused the music and sure enough with the windows down I could hear the gravel crunching and flying as the vehicle accelerated keep in mind that I have driven down this road many times both day and night and in all this time I have never encountered another vehicle so
seeing this truck tearing down the road trying to catch up to us at midnight was pretty jarring usually I didn't relinquish my brakes driving down that hill but this time I didn't even touch them so the following night I'm hanging out with another friend of mine Chris we were just lounging about playing video games talking about quantum physics Chris's favorite topic and chipotle my favorite topic I of course told them all about Aaron and I getting chased the previous night I kind of hammed it up a bit and made it come across a bit more
harrowing than it actually was but now Chris wanted to go down the road we waited until late at night I would say around 2:00 a.m. before we set out to rubbe Hill this time I wasn't going to play my music I wanted to be alert alert things were going normal at first then I slammed on my brakes I put the car in park and said you see that too right I looked at Chris he was just as confused as I was and just nodded my headlights were clearly Illuminating a thick metal cable stretched across the
road on the right it was wrapped around a tree at what I'd guess was roughly head height for a standing adult the other end was anchored to a fence across the road at roughly chest height I had no idea what to make of this or how to react that's when I heard gravel being thrown by tires I checked my mirrors and sure enough truck headlights were hauling ass down the road behind us I begin to freak out out my breathing and heart rate were out of control and I broke out in a sweat Chris just
swore under his breath quietly I put the car into drive and pulled as far to the right as I possibly could and my low sitting car was able to slide under the cable with a loud metal on-metal scraping noise I cringe as I heard the scrape but I wasn't about to sit there and get Deliverance so again I flew down the hill and this is the creepy cherry on the Sunday for me personally because Chris didn't see it as we enter the corn fields I glanced to my right and briefly caught a glimpse of somebody
standing about 3 or 4 ft back in the corn I just felt my stomach scrunch up and floored the accelerator I then glanced into my rearview mirror and I could see the man now standing on the road behind us illuminated by the Moonlight he had a long object slung over his shoulder I couldn't tell if it was a cane or perhaps a rifle but I wasn't going to stick around to find out but the time I told Chris about it we were already around the bend and out of sight I haven't been back there since
that night [Music] there is a hiking trail near my school it's about 2 miles to the top with a wonderful view of the entire Valley my friends and I like to go there from time to time whenever we got bored one Saturday evening we set off the sun was beginning to set but as we started a 2-mile walk through the forest it was terrible timing but we all knew this Trail everything started off normal but I began to get creeped out as it continued getting darker I'm a paranoid person by nature and that didn't help
matters when suddenly one of our group says what's that I don't have the best eyesight and I couldn't really see what they were referring to I think it's a girl another friend said by this point I was thoroughly freaked out it was 9:00 p.m. on a dark hiking trail it was the kind of setting straight out of a slasher film we moved closer and my eyes eventually adjusted enough to the darkness there was a young woman sitting on a pile of leaves with her knees to her chest rocking back and forth wearing only a dirty
pink night gown she did not acknowledge us should we go try to help her uh I don't know it looks like she's having a bad trip my friend gave me these mushrooms one time and I was did you guys shut up I think she has a knife I strained my eyes to see but she did appear to be cradling a knife in her lap oh [ __ ] this I'm out of here most of our group were now thoroughly frightened we picked up our pace and headed back downhill constantly checking our phones but of course
there was no signal I think you guys are being a bit dramatic that girl back there was just is having a bad trip oh and I suppose that she brought that knife along just to pick out the dirt in her fingernails you're an idiot uh I'm just saying that she might not be a danger shut up someone's coming we soon encounter a man frantically running up the trail excuse me have any of you seen my daughter at the time my paranoia got the best of me I was thinking that we might have seen somebody who
had escaped her kidnapper the girl we saw had to be El leased in her early 20s she was not a child or a teenager uh no we haven't seen anyone out here the man then took off and disappeared down the trail as you can guess we all ran the rest of the way back unfortunately the cell service didn't return until we got back into the car but we did call and report what we saw into the police as soon as we could they searched the area but we never heard any kind of update I don't
know what was happening in those woods that night but I hope that girl got some help and that man we encountered was just a concerned father there's always a reason to be afraid [Music]