[Music] I'm a 21-year-old female and this story took place when I was around 11: I remember this day clearly because it was the first time I was ever allowed to walk to school went back by myself up until the age of 14 I lived in what we thought was a safe place in Chaka County New York everyone knew everyone if you thought you'd get away with something then you better be prepared to have your ear abused by the time you got home there was this one day though it was a cold winter day and school
unfortunately was still open so all the neighborhood kids had to walk through kneehigh inches of snow just to get to school it took me longer to leave the house as I was used to walking with my older sister to school since she knew the routes better than me I always used to make fun of her for being paranoid and taking a different route every day from school but I learned that was what saved my life as I was waiting by the door to leave my mom came up to me and told me that I should
ride with her to drop me off because my sister was too sick to go today being a Brad I made a big deal about walking by myself because I'm almost 12 years old and all my friends parents let them walk alone she looked at me for a long while and then told me to make sure I pay attention to cars I got hit by a car and almost died when I was nine so the worry that showed on her face was well warranted I hardly nodded and headed out the door to go to school my
sister didn't like to dilly dally so she was always in a rush to get to school early but seeing as it was just me I thought it would be a good idea to take my time I would play in the brown slush that was on the left side of the road and even make funny looking snowballs to see how far I could throw them halfway to school I noticed a white van fallowing behind me being the playful child I was if I had not been bending down to make another snowball I wouldn't have noticed it
slowly creeping up the street I told myself I was just overreacting but I continued more hurly to school once I got there I took a quick glance over my shoulder and saw that the van was a few feet behind me it wasn't until I was on school grounds that it drove away fast by me I thought that would be the end of it but throughout the day when I would stare out the window the van would be there I assumed that I never really left just parked many adults would try to convince me years later
that maybe if wasn't the same one but I knew that it was this F had a bright yellow smile Emoji sticker on it I couldn't see who was in the van but through the tinted glass I knew they could see me it was now the end of the day and I wasn't ready to go home it was too late to call my mom because she was at work and my sister was homesick I had to suck it up and start walking home I tried to blend in with a group of kids but most of them
were car riders and the others didn't live near me remembering what my sister told me I took another route home I didn't memorize this route clearly but I decided anything was better than being spotted by that van I made it to my main street but realized my mistake too late the route I took LED back to the main street where I walked to school hidden behind a row of cars was the white van with a smiley emoji sticker I tried to stay calm and walk past it but once I heard the van door slightly click
open I ran I could hear the rush of two pairs of heavy footfalls behind me they were getting closer so I did what any normal kid would do I cut Corners I cut into someone's backyard until I was directly inside of my house and forced myself into the thick snow to make it to the door my heart was racing not because I was running but because I could still hear them behind me I made it to the door and banged with all my might until someone came to the door my sister looked confused but one
look in my face and she pulled me inside and locked the doors the van was still outside truthfully it stayed out there until my brother got home my and I don't talk about it but we both knew how close it was to me going missing I haven't thought about this incident in years but one of my hometown friends showed me an article that came out in 2013 apparently some men kidnapped and sexually assaulted a girl my age it wouldn't have scared me as much if it hadn't mentioned the white van this happened in 2013 when
I was around 12 12 my mom moved me and my siblings and with my grandparents because we didn't have enough money for rent at the time and she needed to save it wasn't a big deal though they had plenty of room and I got to spend a lot of my time jewelry making with my grandma which in my little eyes was such a win that I didn't even realize we were that poor it was our little Pastime after school and one of my favorite Parts was the trips we would take to Michaels to get beads
and materials occasionally Michaels for those of you who are unfamiliar is a craft store similar to Hobby Lobby and walking around in it is a little girl's dream when it comes to DIY stuff one day in the late fall we realized that we had run out of wire for a bracelet that I was making for my mom so we headed out to our local Michaels to get some this particular day was in the winter so it had already begun to get dark by 5:00 p.m. my grandma having vision problems in a bad hip and trusted
little me to run in and grab the wire and pay for it as we had done so many times together before I was stubbornly independent so she wasn't very worried about me she parked right in the handicap spot in front of the store the sun was setting and the light from the big storefront windows Illuminating her car behind me as I walked inside as I was standing by the display at the front entranced by some Christmas decor or something a man walked in through the sliding doors I noticed him immediately it was hard not to
he was tall I think I mean I may have just been short probably in his mid-30s with dark hair and wearing all black from head to toe his clothes were a bit dirty and I distinctly remember a big red D1 logo on his hoodie he had his hand shoved in his pockets and walked briskly into the store almost frantically I just watched him he made eye contact with me for a bit too long and then continued deeper into the store I was immediately weirded out but thought nothing else of it and I went off to
find the wire I found my spool of wire but getting distracted in the toy section was where I [ __ ] up that's when I noticed him start to follow me around aisle to aisle I would be browsing and he would just appear at the other end fake looking at stuff he was muttering to himself constantly you know when someone says something out loud expecting a response but they aren't really directly looking at you like that as a kid you don't really realize what's happening immediately so I just awkwardly walked away from him each time
pretending to not notice him in my little brain I reasoned that he wasn't following me and I walked all the way across the store to the wedding aisle to look at some stuff I had seen when I first walked in I figured there'd be no way he'd follow me there but sure enough while looking at the invitation cards I get a spine chilling feeling I turn around and there he is right behind me back to me doing something messing with something in his pants doing something really vile to himself I had never seen anything like
that and the sunken eyes he looked at me with still H me to this day it took me a minute to process what I had just seen but once I did I immediately booked it out of the store as fast as I could jumping into my Grandma's car she seemed startled by my sudden appearance and asked what I got tried to explain what had just happened when I saw him appear in the sliding door in front of us and the dread I felt in that moment was Indescribable he approached our car obviously recognizing I was
with my grandma and knocked on her window I hadn't been able to explain myself in time before she cracked the window and asked him if everything was okay the man gestured to me that same crazy stare and said something along the lines of she's a thief she stole from the store I was mortified on top of everything else he just put me through thankfully my grandma got the same fibes I did because she politely told him to back away and rolled the window up while locking the door he suddenly yanked at the door handle then
swung both his arms up and started banging down hard on the car's roof causing us both to jump and me to start crying my grandma slammed on the reverse and peeled out of there I've never seen her drive so fast I don't remember much after that just the crying and holding a $177 spool of wire in my hands that I hadn't paid for we called the police as soon as we got home and luckily they immediately took it very seriously in requested the videotapes from the Michaels a few weeks later my grandma told me that
they had found him they mostly left me out of the investigation besides taking my statement as to not traumatize me further I guess she got the debt in her car fixed and that was that it wasn't until a few years later that my mom finally told me what happened to him it turned turns out he already had one battery charge and two sexual assault charges on his record one even being from a minor relative of his like his niece or something he had just gotten off work from the gas station across the street when he
must have seen me walk into Michael's alone I don't know what would have happened if my grandma hadn't locked her door or if she hadn't been in there with me vulnerable to that man so this story happened about 11 years ago I was a senior in high school at the time but it is the single most mindboggling thing that I have ever experienced it's also important to note that it happened in mid December I am from Iowa and the winters here get cold at night like if you get stuck outside you will die kind of
cold that plus the snowfall makes everything dead silent you can hear anything and everything inside the house an even immediately outside of it well my best friend and I were hanging out in my family's walkout basement just having a boring winter night playing video games we were also the only ones home the reason it was just us is because my mother went from work straight to a bar to grab a few drinks with co-workers so I and my friend thought it would be a good idea to break into the family wine and live a little
as we were sitting there opening up the first bottle I heard the door to the garage open and slam shut I immediately go Oh [ __ ] and start looking for places to hide the bottle my friend then says I thought you said your mom was supposed to be out all night she was I replied I then heard a few heavy Stomps and heard my mother yell out anyone home I yell back up the stairs yep just hanging out in the basement I hear a few more steps move from the garage door towards the stairs
and she yells out again can you come help me with something I need you up here I reply back while frantically trying to find a good place to hide the wine bottle yeah yeah give me just a minute then there was silence for about 20 seconds anyone down there with you she yelled back and a more concerned serious tone in a voice that was slightly off of my mother's this was the first thing that told me something wasn't right our family never cared if anyone was over as our house was a very open house to
all family and friends and the voice it was just wrong like it sounded like my mother's but it was missing something that I couldn't put my finger on weirded out I back yeah just Colton after I yelled that back to her I found a good place to hide the bottle and began walking up the steps to the next level now as I was walking up the steps I couldn't help but feel the overbearing Silence of the house and the slight electric twinge that something isn't right when I got to the top of the steps I
looked over to where the door to the garage is and also the kitchen right next to it and it's black pitch black all the lights were off and there was no Moonlight shining through any windows I walked over to the the kitchen yelling out mom where are you there was no reply just silence and darkness I feel the electric twin turned into full needles and with my adrenaline kicking in full force I had to get out of here as fast as possible my mother was not home I run back down the stairs grabbing my coat
along the way what's wrong Colton says my mom's not home I replied as fast as I can looking for my truck keys what do you mean you were just talking with with her I could now see the confusion in his face there's no one home we need to leave now I said I took a few steps towards the back door that opens up to the yard then I saw my dog shaking on the couch and my cat growling behind it I couldn't leave them I just knew that if we left something would happen are we
leaving Colton asked still confused as hell no I can't leave them here alone something is really off I'm going to call my mom and figure this out I PL on my phone and call my mom and she picked W up immediately she asked me what's going on mom were you just home I heard you yelling for me from the second level and when I went up you weren't there I said frantically hoping that she was playing a joke no I'm just leaving the bar I wasn't feeling very well are you okay what do you mean
you heard me I F on the whole story and she rushes home Colton and I stayed in the basement with the animals until she got home but before she did you could hear something upstairs not walking or sitting on things but a pressure in the air like a black hole was slowly moving from one room to the next in the word I would instinctively describe it as is hungry when she got home you could feel the thing leave just as quickly as it came like an overbearing predatory presence had just flown away we still have
never figured out what the hell was going on and this is just one story of many unexplainable things that have happened to us but this is the easiest to write down and one that I was happy to have a witness my mother has actually passed away now and I moved away to Arizona whenever I go back to Iowa and I see Colton he still gets creeped out by what had happened I'll never truly know what happened [Music]
