Sometimes strangers aren't always strange. Whether it's the person sitting next to you on a flight, or someone who strikes up a conversation while you're waiting in line at the grocery store, there's plenty of opportunities throughout the day for people to show their true colors. And sometimes, they show themselves to be total creeps.

He Had Some Strange Ideas

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For context, my dad is the second youngest of 15 children. My oldest aunt has a son who is around the same age as my dad, we’ll call him Vince. Vince and my dad knew each other growing up, and always got along. Vince was even one of my dad’s groomsmen.

A few years after that, Vince became very openly religious, and would try to get family members to go to church with him. Except then my family started to notice that Vince would change which church he would go to after about a month. Fast forward to when I was a kid.

There was a family get-together, and Vince and his girlfriend show up. It takes a dark turn. They start making people uncomfortable with their religious talk. Not the normal day-to-day stuff, but actually telling people they are going to heck for drinking.

They were also telling people that Vince is becoming a preacher and they need to attend his services, or else damnation, etc. According to my mom, I was really sick at this time and she took me to another room to give me some peace and quiet and hopefully I would stop fussing.

She overheard Vince and the girlfriend in the next room talking about who they can single out and who would go along with them. My mom freaked when she heard my dad’s name, and Vince saying that he would be easy to convince, and his job should be able to fund things.

My mom immediately went and got my dad and told him what she heard. Dad confronts Vince, and a huge argument ensues. Vince ends up leaving and saying everyone is damned, they are Satan, etc.

The rest of the family then talked about what happened, and it all came clear. He was not a good guy. His sister had kicked him out because he was mooching off her, refused to get a job, and she found him taking money from her purse. My aunt had to do the same for the same reasons.

The same story over and over. Basically, they realized Vince was just a scam artist trying to live off others. Fast forward to the late 1980s, and not many people have heard from Vince recently.

There is a huge family get-together again, and two aunts and a few cousins refused to attend because Vince was not welcome at the party. They were saying that Vince was the “Lion of God” and we were wrong to reject him.

Another fight ensues, and the two aunts and handful of cousins don’t end up attending. Fast forward to the mid-90s when my grandma passed. One of the two aunts comes to the funeral (the other had passed a few years earlier), with Vince in tow.

Vince was warned that he could come pay his respects, but to behave himself. My aunt was timid and repressed near him, and was open and nice when he wasn’t around. It was really weird.

My parents didn’t want to talk about it. Later that night, I did some internet searches and found out the chilling truth. Apparently, Vince was now the leader of a religious cult. He sucked in my two aunts, about seven of my cousins, and about 30-40 various people through the years.

All the same M.O.: They must give up their money and belongings to join and “serve God.” He especially preyed on immigrants who came over by themselves. Basically, he bought some farmland, his disciples work the land, he sells what they grow/make, and he keeps the money.

He is still active to this day, and many people who have left him have their own websites against him. It’s honestly head-spinning thinking about this guy. Story credit: Reddit / aesoth

She Gave Me the Heebie Jeebies

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I worked at a daycare. One of the mothers gave me the heebie jeebies. She would show up randomly and be like “my baaaaaaby, I neeeed my baaaaby.” Like, moms love their kids and miss them, but her obsession with her daughter really made me feel weird.

She ended up killing her daughter so that she could be an angel. It really messed me up when I found out. Story credit: Reddit / ZombieBoobies

Not a Second of Hesitation

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I was on vacation in Ithaca with my boyfriend at the time. We had literally, I’m talking ten minutes, just gotten into town and stopped at a suspension bridge near Cornell’s campus. I’m terrified of heights, so my boyfriend was coaxing me step by step over the bridge.

It was gorgeous and we stopped in the middle to take a picture. On the side we had come from, there was a parking lot with steps leading to the bottom of the gorge. But on the far side, there were hiking paths with no barrier. A woman walked past us and offered to take a picture for us.

We declined. What she did next was absolutely chilling. She smiled and walked quickly to the far side of the bridge where she smoothly jumped off into the gorge.

There was not a second of hesitation. It was almost like she expected the path to keep going. The sound of a person hitting the ground from a jump like that sticks with you. Story credit: Reddit

Re-Entering the Workforce

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My boss at the time made the mistake of hiring an older woman who was re-entering the workforce. He wanted to fire her the first day because she couldn’t even complete the basic hiring paperwork, which takes maybe 20 minutes for the slowest readers, in eight hours.

He quickly lost his patience training her so he pawned her off on me. Before the end of the first day, I was training her and she simply failed to learn anything that I explained to her. Also, she cried and called me mean for trying to “train her too quickly.”

So then she reported me to the boss and she wanted to report me to human resources for creating—get this—a hostile environment.

I was actually out of town when she was complaining to my boss, but he managed to spook her enough by asking if we should just call this hiring a mistake and have her and the company mutually part ways. She straightened up pretty quick apparently.

When I came back a few days later she was better and more eager to learn. Well, the nightmare was actually just beginning. As we are leaving for the day, her husband is waiting for her in the parking lot with her teenage son in the back seat.

I pull out in my car after they do and the entire time, her son is turned around in the backseat smiling at me through the rear windshield. The following day she tells me her son has a huge crush on me now.

Apparently, her teenage son thinks I’m so hot that he’s going along for the ride tonight so he can see me again. Then this crazy woman, who I have known for literally three days, tells me all of her teenage minor child’s physical stats—including how well-endowed he is.

How the heck his mother knows this, I do not wish to know. I actually had to remind this woman that I was more than a decade older than her minor child. This made her laugh and said he’d be older soon enough. She did not end up working with us for long. Story credit: Reddit / Camp_Express

She Pretended Not to Notice

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I went through airport security with my mom, my two oldest kids, and my son who was a baby. After we got through taking the shoes off and such, I immediately set up the stroller and put my son in while we put our shoes on and gather our belongings. I’m sitting at the very end gathering my belongings.

The place was covered with security, so I felt safe facing away from my son to get my shoes and jacket on. In that split second, he was gone. I hustled around looking for him and couldn’t find him or the stroller.

Security looked at me like I was mad and somehow my child disappeared while they were all milling around. There was no sign of him in the airport, I saw a store and ran in there.

Mind you my mom is rushing around with the older two and we are completely frantic…no help from TSA because they just seemed to not care. Then I see a weird older lady with blonde hair pushing him around, at first, I thought she may have been senile.

However, she ends up pushing him to an older man and younger women and walking along fine… the three of them with my baby! I ran up to them and grabbed the stroller and asked them what they were doing. They pretended not to know English.

I reported them and nothing was done. I’m still shaking just remembering it. What I find extremely off was the fact the people she’s with pretended not to notice she’s pushing a child around that wasn’t with them before.

If she happened to be senile anyone would say, “Where on Earth did you grab that baby from?” and try to find the parent… Nope they all stole my baby and nonchalantly walked away with him. Story credit: Reddit / ChineseChaiTea

My Fake Birthday

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When I was in school, aged 14/15, I used to get the bus back home at the end of the school day. There was always this creepy old guy who would sit in the same seat, on the same bus as me, every day. I never really thought much of him apart from that he would often stare at me.

One day, there was an empty seat (a rarity as it was a busy bus more often than not). It was on the aisle next to his. He began a conversation with me over the empty seats about my school work and started asking me when my birthday was; year included.

I found this pretty weird so I just lied and got off the bus a little sooner than my stop. A few days later, I rushed past him when I got on the bus to sit at the back so I could escape his stares and not be noticed.

He hadn’t noticed me so I felt a bit more at ease. When getting off the bus, I looked over at his notepad—and my blood ran cold. He was drawing a picture of me. The fake birthday date I gave him was also noted on the page. I stopped getting that bus from then on. Story credit: Reddit / gl0wwbaby

I'll Never Forget What He Said

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When I was only 16 years old, my stepfather said the most creepiest thing—it still haunts me to this day. I’ll never be able to look at him the same again.

We were alone in the car together on an hour-long drive when he randomly said, “Your pheromones smell good.” I’ll never forget it. Story credit: Reddit / Throw09876543away

They Were Harmless

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I was once driving in through the country and it was pouring rain in the middle of the night. I had to drive very slowly as I couldn’t see any of the signs on the road (this was before GPS).

At one point, the rain fell so hard that I even had to pull over to the side of the road to read the signs and figure out if I was going in the right direction. I didn’t get out of my car due to the rain, so I just craned my neck forward, trying to make out where I was. That’s when my passenger door suddenly opened. 

When I looked over to my right, my blood ran cold. This random man got inside my car, sat down, and looked at me. I instinctively started yelling and screaming at the top of my lungs.

I flailed my arms around in case the guy tried to attack me. He started screaming as well and then jumped out of my car as quickly as he had come in. I quickly leaned over, closed the passenger door, and sped off down the road. I was breathing so heavily trying my best to calm down, nearly in tears.

I kept replaying that moment in my head for the rest of my drive and I suddenly remembered that the man had smiled at me. That’s when it dawned on me. That guy had probably been a hitchhiker that I hadn’t seen who thought that I was pulling over to give him a lift.

Only, once he got in my car, I greeted him by screaming and trying to hit him. It was probably the scariest encounter with a stranger I’ve ever had—his too. Turns out, we were both harmless…I think. Story credit: Reddit / AndFinrodFell

On a Remote Island

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I was on a boat with a male friend and his two buddies. We were anchored off a remote, uninhabited island, just relaxing and drinking. One guy, apropos of nothing, stared straight at me and said, “we should rape and murder Peux and throw her body overboard.” 

I was so shocked—I didn’t even know how to respond. I wasn’t exactly scared of him and I wanted to wipe that smirk off his stupid face more, but it was so random yet so specific. And my friend didn’t immediately say anything so that made me feel uneasy.

It was an uncomfortable boat ride home and after that whenever I saw that guy around, I headed the opposite direction, which isn’t easy when we lived on a tiny island. Story credit: Reddit / peuxcequeveuxpax

Hidden in His Pocket

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I was 15 years old when I went on a school trip to London. Some shady guy walked up next to me on the subway. He was staring at me intently for some reason. He pushed his thigh up against my leg and I felt a little sting. When I looked down to see what had stung me, I froze. 

I noticed that he was hiding a knife in his pocket. He stood there for another few seconds before he walked away, presumably to terrorize someone else. Story credit: Reddit / Familiar_Paramedic_2

24-Hour Service

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Worked in a 24-hour service station which was locked after 10 pm or so. We served customers through a hatch thereafter. Halfway through the night, a man appeared from nowhere, with no top or shoes on.

He was covered in blood. He leaned against the glass and asked for a packet of cigarettes. I got his order and asked him if he was okay or needed help?

He said he needed no help because it wasn’t his blood, and wandered off into the night. Spooked me right out. Never seen him again. Story credit: Reddit / tethys_ocean

He Was a Good Man

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I had a step uncle who has since passed. I didn’t know him too well but he wasn’t a bad guy. However one evening when I was maybe thirteen, my parents were having a small party with a few family members having drinks. I had been sent to bed but had gotten up to get a drink from the kitchen.

Said uncle was standing in the kitchen in a kind of stupor and he said, “wouldn’t you stab somebody if you had the chance?” I think I replied, “what?” He gives me a super intense look and just goes, “aren’t you curious to know what it would feel like? Pushing that blade into somebody?”

I honestly think I laughed and said, “yeah” but I had never felt more uncomfortable in my life. That’s the only awkward encounter I had with him and though I hadn’t seen him for years when he passed, by all accounts, he was a good man. That definitely creeped me out though. Story credit: Reddit / Jordanc369

A Total Nut Job

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I was staying at my now ex-girlfriend’s place and woke up in the middle of the night to grab a glass of water to find her ex-boyfriend watching us sleep from the doorway. When he made eye contact with me, he ran and I followed.

When I made it out the complex door he was getting in his car and quickly drove out of there. After this happened, she ended up moving into my place with me—but the nightmare was only beginning. From there we had even more run-ins with this guy.

I would leave for work and he’d be parked out front of my apartment just to pull off when I’d come out. We’d be taking our dog for a walk and he would just so happen to be walking the same trail.

He’d even call the authorities on us while parked out front because we were smoking weed. Dude was a total nut job. Unfortunately, it turned out that so was my then-girlfriend. Story credit: Reddit / DJGumDrop

In a Suggestive Tone

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While I was working, a man came in and  asked for help finding some CDs. He gave me the names and I didn’t see it on the shelf so I decided to check our understock under the shelves. I went on my hands and knees to look and found the CDs of the albums he wanted.

I stood up and said, “Here you go, that should be all the ones you wanted.” And before I could say anything else, he said something so creepy—it sent shivers up my spine. He goes “I bet you spend a lot of time on your hands and knees huh?” in a rather suggestive tone.

I had no idea what to do so I just awkwardly giggled and asked if he needed anymore help finding things and he said “no” so I quickly ran into the back and waited for five minutes for him to check out and leave. Story credit: Reddit / urbanlulu

Lo and Behold

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I was running through the woods one time. I took a breather then started walking. There was another guy walking behind me, but he was speed walking and getting closer to me. It gave me the creeps, so I started speed walking as well, but the guy sped up too. Finally, I broke out running, as did the other guy.

I turned a corner, he did as well. I turned another corner to see if he was following. He turned again. At that point, I booked it to the exit and ran out of the woods and then straight out of the park.

As I was running out of the entrance of the park, I heard a car screech from behind me and come racing by. I was out of sight by then, but lo and behold, same guy. Story credit: Reddit / lVlzone

Released From the Asylum

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About ten years ago, I was taking my girlfriend home around midnight. We were driving on a very rural backroad in northern Georgia. I was half asleep at the wheel when this lady ran out from the woods in front of my truck, screaming, “Help me!”

I slammed on my breaks and rolled my window halfway down. That’s when I saw the shocking sight—she was covered in blood and mud. She reached her hands into my cab and grabbed my neck as hard as she could. I took off just a little down the road and found a crowd of distraught people outside their house.

I figured it was probably related. They asked if I had seen anyone and I told them that I nearly ran over some crazy lady just a few moments ago.

Well, turns out she had been released from an asylum that day and had attacked her mother (she showed me the knife wound on her shoulder). Later, I drove back and there were a dozen squad cars lit up at the house. Creepy. Story credit: Reddit / patricktownsend86

Review the Footage

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In the UK, my mum and dad had just rented a house. I live with my mum, dad, brother, and grandad. We have been going to school as usual, one day I had to go home early (due to covid-19).

As I was about to unlock the front door, I hear someone running up and down the stairs on the top floor (we have three floors btw). I unlocked the door quietly, went into the living room, and closed the door. I set up a camera in my room a few months ago and only I have access to it.

I went on my phone and checked my camera. Luckily my bedroom door is open—what I saw scared the heck out of me. On the camera I see my grandad walking up and down the stairs over and over again, he was smiling and it really scared me.

Then he stood in front of my bedroom door and continued to smile, he was just standing there. I was so scared I ran out of the house through the backdoor with my bike.

I quickly called my mum and dad about what I saw and they quickly come home. I showed them the footage, I found out a few days later that he has been taking drugs. Story credit: Reddit / Gacha-YMS

A Bit Eerie

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When I was either 14 or 15, I was walking my dog in a forest. I ran into a large guy who told me he had failed to report back to his mental hospital but that I should not be afraid. He told me about visiting purgatory and how painful that was.

He then went on to explain to me that Hades was specifically one thousand times more painful. Not more, not less. He gave me colorful details. It sounded like something out of Bosch or the Hindu book of the dead. He begged me to pray for him which, not knowing what else to do, I said that I would.

Incidentally, my school’s gym in those days was located on the opposite side of the road from a mental hospital. They’d release them for a walk every now and then. I was pretty used to running into mental hospital patients on my way to and from the gym.

It was a bit eerie, but we were always in a group and it was in a city, so I felt safe. Being outside of civilization and alone with that guy was terrifying. He wasn’t harmful and let me go, but it was deeply uncomfortable. Story credit: Reddit / M1ckey

Used Merchandise

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I was at a store once and thought I had just seen this teenage boy shoplift something as I was walking past an aisle. I thought he had shoved something down his pants. When I looked back, he was actually feverishly rubbing pantyhose on his crotch.

The package was hanging out of the front of his belt line as he rubbed himself like a crazy horn ball. As I looked on in horror, he finished what he was doing and threw the pantyhose on the shelf and ran away. Story credit: Reddit / ames_54

Just Making Sure You're Okay

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Back when I was at university, I was living in halls. I shared my dorm with 5 other people and the guy in the opposite room from me was giving off weird vibes. Once I fell asleep with a movie on in my room and left my door open.

Around 2 a.m., I wake up and find him standing in the corner of my room watching me sleep. I ask him what he’s doing and he replies, “Making sure you’re OK.” I asked how long he’d been there and he told me he’d been there for about an hour watching. That wasn’t the weirdest part. 

We ordered Dominos once and I was eating my garlic bread, I left it on the table whilst I went to grab something, there were 3 pieces in there. One slice was half-eaten because I’d started it, and the other two were untouched. When I came back, he’d started eating the one I’d already started.

Instead of the others. I told him that if he wanted a slice, he could have had one of the others that weren’t touched. But he said he really wanted to taste the one I’d bitten. Story credit: Reddit / No-Low-409

I Doubt He Was Joking

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I was sitting in the cafeteria at a table by myself once when some random guy approached me. He asked if an empty seat at my table was taken. Out of all the tables he could have gone to, he chose the one I was at…but I let him sit anyway. He then proceeded to make conversation with me.

He asked me for my name and major. I didn’t want to be rude so I responded politely, thinking that would be the end of the conversation. But then the guy asked me if I was married. At first, I thought I just heard wrong, but then he repeated the question.

I responded with a firm, “No.” The guy then asked me why—that’s when things got really weird. He asked, “Would you like to [be married] with me?”

His expression was totally serious, so I doubt the dude was joking. He kept asking why I wouldn’t marry him and then just left. Weirdest encounter ever. Story credit: Reddit

Make Your Own Sub

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In high school, my buddy’s girlfriend worked at a sandwich shop. This place had no camera at all. So, we would go there right before closing and be able to eat whatever subs we wanted.

One night, another co-worker’s friend was there while we are making subs. We look over and see this guy putting his own special meat into a toasted bun. Story credit: Reddit / 84TechNoire

He Had Us Trapped

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When my daughter turned one, we went on a trip to Hawaii. We were sitting in the airport waiting to check in with our tickets. A man approached me and started commenting on how beautiful my daughter was. That was fine, but it didn’t stop there.

He stood over me and continued to ask about her age, birthday, favorite things, where we were going, etc. I wasn’t born yesterday, so I refused to answer his questions, but he refused to move and kind of had us trapped. My husband came back and the man stepped away pretty quickly.

I told airport security but they didn’t do anything. We got to our gate and a few minutes later, the same man was there. But the chilling part was yet to come—he positioned himself where he could watch our daughter. If we moved seats, he kept her in his sight.

I mentioned it to the gate agent who brushed it off again. We got on the plane and he managed to also be on the plane in a seat he could keep an eye on her. He kept smiling at her and getting up to walk the aisles and pass her.

My husband got up and he came in, saying, “I found out where you’re going, didn’t I?” I reported it to the flight attendant who was not messing around. They forced him to switch seats and barred him from getting up again.

Upon landing, there were people waiting for him (security or airport staff, I’m not sure). We didn’t see him again and enjoyed the rest of our vacation. Story credit: Reddit / raisethemkind

An Unwelcome Guest

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When I was around 14/15, I was in a situation with my mom where she invited her “friends” to live with us. One guy was homeless (before he moved in) and had his gf move in too. Over time, one more moved in, then another.

They even gave me a prison tattoo (they made the machine with a motor from a CD player and guitar wire), used natural inks and onion paper. I thought it was cool back then.

At one point, I came home from high school and officers were swarmed in front of my house, my mom handcuffed to one of the patio posts, screaming at the officers. They removed the “friend” she was sleeping with as he’d knocked over a 7-11. And that’s not even the creepy part.

The creepy part was when that guy was living with us, I remember being awakened by the covers on my bed sliding up my legs. I stayed very still. It stopped. I must’ve fallen back asleep because I didn’t think about it until the next day, and I questioned whether or not it had been a dream.

But I did tell my mom, and she confronted him. He said he wanted to see the tattoo he’d put on me. Story credit: Reddit / prima_facie2021

Animal Instinct

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When I was 19, I was sleeping with the window open. It was a hot summer night. My boyfriend and I were both exhausted. Regardless, for some reason, I sprang awake (I just opened my eyes but didn’t get out of bed) because I had a horrible gut feeling.

It was like an animal instinct telling me the creepiest thing ever—someone was watching me. I turned to my side and I saw someone’s head sticking in from the window. Needless to say, I practically had a heart attack. As soon as they heard me get up, they left. Story credit: Reddit / jessica-iv

I'm Warning You

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There was a girl in my class in junior year who was really good looking who was also my acquaintance. Many guys had a crush on her. One day a socially awkward guy who I didn’t know just sat beside me and struck up a conversation, asking about how I know that girl, how did you meet her and so on.

Then after some time he pulls out a crumbled paper and her name is written on it, then he goes on to tell me, it contains her discarded chewing gum that missed the garbage can and he picked up.

I just told him that he was being incredibly creepy and left. Warned that girl about him afterward. Story credit: Reddit / Altruistic_demon

I'm Still Waiting

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I was sitting on a train in the Bay Area and some guy dressed in a 3-piece suit walks up to me and sits directly across from me. I had my headphones in as we west coasters don’t want to be bothered and he taps my leg gesturing to ask me something.

He looked me dead in the eye and said “you’re going to have a terrible, terrible life.”, then got up and walked away. That was 4 years ago so I’m still waiting for the terrible thing to happen! Story credit: Reddit / Far-Description

I Left Him in the Dust

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I was walking home from the bus stop after school one day. I was about 15 years old at the time. It really wasn’t a far walk, but there were construction workers drinking on the side of the road. Things immediately took a turn for the worst when one of them got up and started following me home.

The worst part of it was that he was yelling out suggestive things the whole time. His intentions were pretty clear. I got to about 200 meters or so from my house and just started sprinting.

We had an automatic gate and I realized that he would catch me if I waited for it to open…or, worse, he would follow me in. So I climbed over that gate like an Olympic athlete and left him in the dust. Story credit: Reddit / Vonnybon

She Looks Right Through You

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One of my cousins is super weird and gives off super creepy vibes. She has these dead eyes and she looks right through you. Everyone in the family finds her creepy.

One of the first times I remember her properly freaking me out was when she came around with her family for my grandma’s birthday lunch at my house. The whole family was there. I don’t remember what she did but someone upset her by asking her to stop.

About half an hour later someone found her on the stairs with a pen and paper having written some family member’s names on a bit of paper. She then wrote die next to each of their names.

When asked what it was, she said it was a list of people she wanted to die. She was 6 or 7 at the time. Genuinely freaks me out to this day to be around her. Story credit: Reddit / b_turtlewhispers

She Didn't Say a Word

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I was babysitting a few kids, a 12-year-old, 7-year-old, and a one-year-old. They were all well-behaved kids, although the 7-year-old refused to say a word, the entire night didn’t say anything. Hours pass and it was late and everyone was asleep upstairs. I was downstairs watching TV after cleaning up.

All of a sudden I look up and I see the 7-year-old girl looking down at me on the stairs with her long black hair in her face. I thought I was seeing the girl from the ring and I nearly screamed.

Once I realized I wasn’t in a horror movie, I asked her if she couldn’t sleep. Still didn’t answer and just stayed there. Story credit: Reddit / Endonna

I Can Still Picture Him

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I will never forget this horrible experience I had with a stranger. When Ghostbusters 2 came out, I really wanted to see it, so my mom took me to the local theater. I think I was around nine. I needed to use the bathroom so I ran down the small hall and turned the corner.

I saw a much older man come out of the bathroom just then. When he saw me, he stopped and went back in. When I didn’t move, he opened the door peeking his head and arm out. At one point, he motioned for me to come towards him. I probably looked like a deer in headlights.

I didn’t move. I was frozen until he said something that shook me to my core: “Come on, come on in.” I was really young but I knew that it was a bad situation.

Panic rushed over me and I ran back towards my mom who said I was pale white. She quickly left the theater with me and went home. I can still picture that creepy old man. Story credit: Reddit / butters991

Shortcut Through the Woods

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On nice days when I missed the bus home from high school, I would walk home. Like the dumb, first person to die in a horror movie, I would take a shortcut through the woods.

It saved me a mile of walking to go this way. One day, I was walking along the path and suddenly a man who was crouching behind a bush jumps out.

He stands up and sheepishly looks at the ground in front of him while I pass. I made sure to keep him in peripheral vision until he was out of sight. I can’t think of any reason he would be crouched behind a bush in the woods. Story credit: Reddit / Allure843

Let Me Cut Your Hair

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I was in the middle of a retail shift and it was probably late at night when this middle-aged woman came through my line. She stared at me for a solid minute or so before asking me to remove my face mask so she could see my face.

I was super confused but did it anyway. She then handed me a card and told me she wanted to cut my hair and then left. It literally was the most bizarre thing that ever happened to me.

She has come through my line a few more times after that and all she does is stare at me while I’m cashing her out and at the end she’ll mumble about when I’m going to let her cut my hair. Story credit: Reddit / xxzaif

Glitch in the Matrix

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A pair of 40-year-old or so absolutely identical twins. Very tall—over six feet. Brown hair down to the sidewalk. Identically dressed right out of 1975. Bell bottoms, button-downs. Bandannas on their heads.

Walking together in perfect unison in a fast, totally unnatural swinging gait, next to the road in a very boring suburban town. It was like witnessing a glitch in the matrix. Story credit: Reddit / brownthorne

Secret Admirer

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When I was in elementary school, I got a new phone and was super happy about this. It was a small Samsung, oval-shaped, that you had to slide up to reveal the keyboard.

I took the bus home after school and played some games on my phone when two older guys who were probably in their early twenties started talking to me, saying how cool my phone was and if they could have a closer look at it.

I very proudly handed them my phone. But their intentions were not good. After a couple of minutes they gave it back to me and I went off the bus because I arrived at my stop. My parents were divorced, and I spent the weekend at my dad’s. I had my dad’s contact saved with his number and email address.

Suddenly my dad, sitting in front of his PC, called me over to look at something. It was an email, sent to his account, directed at me talking about how they met me on the bus and that I was so nice and fun and if I would like to meet them again.

My dad laughed and mocked me about how, “I have an admirer”, but I clearly remember my heart sinking to my feet as I remembered those two guys I encountered some days prior.

Some pedophiles sent me an email to my dad’s account, trying to meet me again and my dad mocked me for having admirers. I clearly remember feeling so vulnerable and hurt and I am still traumatized by this. Story credit: Reddit / Beanibean248

Taking Notes

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A guy in my program at university took normal notes in class, but one day I looked at his notes and saw he also had notes about the girls in the class.

I watched him add a few, they weren’t overly mean or anything, but they were incredibly creepy. It was stuff like, “hot blonde answered a question, Catherine is chewing gum again.”, etc. Story credit: Reddit / Billbaprophet

Seeing Red

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I was 16 and sitting in a train station with my mother. Some man came over and started talking to her. He seemed pretty nice. After a while, I looked at the clock and informed my mother that we needed to go because our train was about to arrive. 

That’s when the guy she was talking to took me by total surprise—he flew up from his seat and started screaming at me, saying he wanted to fight. My mother was confused and tried to explain to him that I was her daughter and that we really needed to leave.

He just continued screaming which, of course, made me scream back at him. She had to pull me away from there. I never understood what made him see red like that. All I did was inform my mother our train was coming and we needed to leave. Story credit: Reddit / WrestlingWoman

I Put in My Notice

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I had a regular that used to come in and was always very pleasant. One day he was telling me that a city that he used to live in used to have a problem where dead prostitutes would be found on the shores of the river.

The way he said it and the look on his face came across as if he was bragging about it. His whole face lit up when he was telling me about it. I didn’t see him after that day.

I think I had put in my notice, but it was an unnerving experience with a guy who if you saw on the street, you wouldn’t think twice about him. Story credit: Reddit / TheDeadGunslinger

Creeping Around the Hotel

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I was staying at a hotel and I was coming from the parking lot and saw a guy creeping around the ground-floor rooms that had sliding doors onto small concrete patios. He was going from one door to another and peeking inside.

I stopped, poised to call the emergency line, when the guy realized he was being watched. He apologized for being creepy and showed me that he had a parking pass but the security office had neglected to write his room number on the pass and he had become separated from his family.

They’d checked in the night before very late and had left the hotel early to go out to the islands. He said that he’d dropped them off to run to the store and he now couldn’t remember what room they were in but that they were on the ground floor of the building he was creeping around.

He said he was taking a shot in the dark that maybe he’d see someone he knew through a gap in the curtains. I didn’t believe him for even a minute. I asked him why he didn’t just call someone on their cellphone and have them help, he said he’d called about six times and texted, showed me as such.

Finally, a door down the building opened and a little girl came out and called for him as “dad” and I realized he was actually telling the truth.

I urged him in the future not to go peeping and just take a hike to the front desk because you never know when someone has a weapon and it would be a shame to have someone get hurt over something so simple and silly. Story credit: Reddit / carmelacorleone

She Had a Plan All Along

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Back in middle school a girl asked me if I had a peanut allergy, and being the dumb 7th grader I was, I said no and didn’t think much of it. Turns out, she had a diabolical plan along, and was intending to give someone an allergic reaction.

My friend overheard her talking about it and told a teacher before telling me. It’s one of those scenarios where it isn’t creepy outright, just a little weird without context, but when you know the context, it becomes disturbing. Story credit: Reddit / The-irs-open-up

Home Alone

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When I was a kid, I was home alone with my older sister. Living on either side of us, there were two girls that I was friends with. They rang our doorbell and begged to come in because two guys in a car were staring at them.

We let them in and the car peeled out. We could have prevented a double kidnapping that day. That was probably around 1990. Story credit: Reddit / CaptainAwesome6

Now You're On the List

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My brother had a friend with a creepy tag-along little brother Gideon. This family was ultra religious and Gideon was creepy as a teenager. He went into the military and had served two tours as a truck driver. While he was there, he had a roommate that beat him up a lot.

Gideon supposedly stood over the roommate when he OD’d on drugs and watched him die pleading for help. He came home after that and worked on the family farm. He is an angry incel. On a holiday we were all home again and Gideon tagged along, as usual.

We were all having a conversation and with nothing to do with any topic, Gideon just drops, “I have a kill list, some of those names have a star next to them.” That ruined the conversation completely.

After a long pause, I just piped in with, “How different is that list, from the list of people you ever met?”. I think I got myself on that list that night. Story credit: Reddit / DarrenEdwards

Fresh Meat

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My mom just recently told me the story of her friend’s creepy dad. One night when she was younger, she stayed over at this friend’s house. The friend’s creepy dad offered them “fresh venison” for dinner.

My mom had never had venison, but of course, she ate it so as not to be rude. Well, the friend later tells my mom that her dad is not a hunter. The truth was so much more gruesome than she was prepared for.

Years later, we learned that creepy dad had cannibalized several women over the course of his life. Mom is pretty sure she ate human meat. Story credit: Reddit / nottaclevername

You Should Change Your Hair

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I was walking over to my friend’s house on the last day of eighth grade. All of a sudden, this old lady pulled her car next to me, almost cutting me off my path.

I backed away because it immediately seemed like a bad situation. She called out to me saying that she liked my hair. She said that she missed her old hair color and that she changed it after she had been attacked one day.

You’d better believe my little chunky self ran to my friend’s house and told her parents. Story credit: Reddit / tsunamichaser

He Didn't Really Want to Know

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Back when I was 16, I used to work at a hardware store. Some customer who was an old man walked up behind me and whispered in my ear, “Do you know where I can find the hoses at?”

He said that so close to my ear that I could feel his warm breath while he was caressing my shoulder. My whole body froze. All I could say was, “I think they’re in aisle five.”

Shortly after that, I found out that he never even went to that end of the store where they were. Story credit: Reddit / virginianhillbilly

It All Happened So Fast

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There I was, a young man in a crowded Chicago bar. It was 2 am, and I was slightly tipsy. I had just been denied by the girl I foolishly spent the whole night talking to, and I “celebrated” by taking a couple more shots.

Suddenly, all the drinks from that night came rushing to my bladder, so I decided to head to the bathroom before calling it a night. After stumbling through the crowd, I finally made it to the dilapidated bathroom that was located downstairs. When I walked in, I was met with a shocking sight.

There, standing in the middle of the men’s bathroom in a dive bar at 2 in the morning, was a blonde breastfeeding what looked like a newborn babe. Whether I was too far gone or just in shock at what I was seeing, I couldn’t seem to move or speak.

The silence was broken when the woman, clearly appalled that I was staring, yelled, “Do you mind?” and proceeded to squirt her breast milk at my face. The woman’s attempt to hit me was successful. Without saying a word, I walked out of the bathroom, wiped the milk from my face, and exited the bar.

Since it all happened so fast, it wasn’t until the next morning that I was able to process the absurdity of what had happened the night before. Story credit: Reddit / Jesters

Before School Hours

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Arrived early one morning for class and the door was locked, lights off, so I just waited until my lecturer arrived. Suddenly, the classroom door unlocks from the inside. It’s the lecturer, wearing nothing but his underpants.

I’m speechless, but without missing a beat he says, “Sometimes I just love standing in the dark looking over the city.” Then he turns on the light, pulls on his clothes, and quietly sits at his desk. Story credit: Reddit / JomatoSoup

What Was He Planning?

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I was walking to the store late at night, probably around 11-1 am. I don’t fully remember, but the streets were isolated.

I live in the Bronx in a not-so-nice area, but I’ve grown up around the “not-so-nice” people in this neighborhood all my life, so I’m not afraid that anything will happen to me because a lot of them actually look out for their neighbors.

Anyway, while I was walking, the streets were completely empty—until I heard footsteps behind me. Being the cautious person that I am, I turn around to take a good look at the man for a long minute just in case I had to identify him later. I’m a short girl (5’1) and this man was twice my height.

I was a bit creeped out now but kept walking like normal. After a while, he caught up to me and asked if I was Dominican. I sternly said yes and kept walking. He then asked if I was 18 (I was 17) and I replied no. I was ready to cross the street because he was freaking me out.

As soon as I said “no,” he looked at me, disappointed, and said, “Oh never mind,” and ran away from me. It was such a small thing, but it really creeped me out thinking about what may have happened if I had told him I was 18 and what exactly this guy was planning. Story credit: Reddit / NoImDominican

My Jaw Dropped

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Once in high school, I was in charge of cleaning the men’s locker room and there were also 3 freshmen kids working with me and I had to make sure they did their job. Anyways, they seemed very weird and awkward but they all knew each other so they wouldn’t stop talking the whole time.

At one point I got fed up with it. Since the locker room was already pretty clean and there was nothing to do, I just went to the female’s locker room. I was there for a while and then I decided it was time to go check on the boys. When I opened the door, my jaw dropped. 

I saw two of them on their knees with their tongues out and breathing heavily as if they were dogs, and the other kid was in front of them with a twinkie in his hand and holding it above their heads. Story credit: Reddit / LuigiPV255

Play Along

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When my aunt was in college, she took a night lab class that would let out late. One night she was walking back to her car and someone came up behind her, pressed something into her back, and told her to keep walking.

Suddenly a man coming toward her who she had never met before looked at her, threw open his arms for a hug, and said, “How are you? I haven’t seen you in so long!” He then whispered, “play along. He has a gun.” My aunt immediately played along, hugging back and acting excited to see this stranger.

The guy who was behind my aunt quickly backed off and walked away. This hero then took my aunt to the nearest emergency alert post, pushed the button for her, and told her to stay put while he went to get help. He never returned. Story credit: Reddit / pegasusthebicycle

Nope

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I was walking home after a late shift. It was around three or four in the morning. The streets of Seattle were mostly empty except for a few homeless people milling around. All of a sudden, a guy came out of an alleyway and asked me to help him out with his car.

I told him, “Nope,” explaining that I wasn’t mechanically inclined anyway. He persisted, but I just kept reiterating that I couldn’t help him. It was starting to get pretty uncomfortable…until the best thing happened. 

A huge homeless dude came around and got in his face, telling him that I had already said, “No,” and to leave me alone. I recognized the homeless dude as a “local” whom I’d seen around the neighborhood a bunch of times.

I gave the homeless guy a nod and continued on my way whilst he still berated the other guy. I’m not sure what his intent was, but it wouldn’t have ended well for either of us. Story credit: Reddit / FogDarts

Yard Sale

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In the late 90s, I went to a yard sale about 6 blocks from my house. I found this silver cigarette case that I thought would make me look stylish and uber-sophisticated at the bar.

I bought it for $2 from a guy that was at least 85 years old. I took it home and immediately dropped it on the sidewalk and dented one corner, but it was still good-looking so I used it for a while.

After a couple bar trips, it became a pain to carry around, as it only held 8 smokes, so I tossed it in a nightstand drawer and forgot about it. A few months later I saw another yard sale at the same place and stopped to look since I found good stuff last time.

I found a case just like the one I bought and picked it up. It not only had the same dented corner but I opened it up and there was a cigarette that was my brand inside.

For some reason, I felt the need to buy it again for $2 from the same old geezer. When I got home the case was not in my nightstand. I will never forget the smile that old weirdo gave me when I bought it the second time. Story credit: Reddit / sonikaos

Breaking, But Not Entering

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I was at a friend’s house spending the night when I was in middle school. As expected, we’d stay up to all hours, which didn’t matter most of the time except the bathroom was right near his parents’ room. About the only time we’d get in trouble was when someone would wake them up when nature called.

To avoid this, we’d go out the basement door and just pee in the woods. The door stayed unlocked most of the time because we’d managed to lock ourselves out more than once. This was also compounded by the fact that we’d all wander out and find something to do in the woods on a regular basis.

This night, his older brother was home and kept barging in the basement door and raining chaos from above, so we decided to lock the door just to deter him. Not that it really would have kept him out, but at least he’d have to use the key and that took the “barging in” fun out of it.

About midnight, we heard the handle jiggling and didn’t think much of it, figuring it was his brother. After about five minutes of off and on handle fondling, we finally hit the door and yelled for him to stop. Quiet.

No response, and no more clattering of the handle. Great, we can move on right? Wrong. About 10 minutes later it started again, and the process repeated. This went on for about two hours, until finally after telling him to stop we just said, “screw it” and ignored it.

He continued for about 30 minutes after our last attempt for him to stop and then just gave up. Well, fast forward to about 9 am. We were just stirring and one of my friends had to go to the bathroom.

If you’ve ever had a sleepover like that, there are bodies strewn wherever there is space, and once the first person starts walking around it kind of stirs the nest. We all started stretching and making our way to relieve ourselves of all the soda we’d binged on the night before.

As I go walk outside, I grab the door handle to close it behind me and noticed it felt rough. After looking at it, I saw that the space around the keyhole was all but destroyed. There were giant scratch marks on every surface and the metal guides were bent and skewed.

I asked my friend that lived there what had happened, and he said it was the first he’d noticed it. Not really wanting to get blamed for something his brother did, we went upstairs and told his parents about the night before.

After his dad went down to see what we were talking about, he went completely white and ran upstairs to call the authorities. Evidently someone had been trying to force the lock open while we were all inside.

That’s actually happened to me more than once on different occasions, but what completely freaks me out about this time was that this person knew we were in there and that we knew someone was trying to get in.

Even so, he REPEATEDLY tried to force his way inside, heedless of our complaints. God knows what sort of person that was. Story credit: Reddit / MicMcKee

I Thought I Dreamt the Whole Thing

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My friend and I decided it would be fun to sleep outside in my friend’s parent’s camper. In the middle of the night, I woke up to the silhouette of some guy standing in the doorway.

He stands there for about a minute and then walks out. I was still half asleep and wondering if that really happened when I fell back to sleep.

The next morning my friend tells me about a “dream” she had about someone coming into the camper. Of course, freaking out ensued. Apparently, someone (a hobo perhaps, she lives right next to the tracks) had been sleeping there without anyone knowing. Story credit: Reddit / Stardust7

My Strangest Memory

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I went to a yard sale with my aunt when I was like five or so. A little boy, about the same age as me, approached me and told me to come inside to meet his dad. I wandered off with him without my aunt noticing and he brought me into the house where the yard sale was taking place.

I was young and naïve so it didn’t seem that odd to me. I thought the kid wanted to play, but I was so, so wrong. Anyway, we went down to the basement and I got the shock of a lifetime. The kid’s dad was lying on a couch in the basement…completely unclothed.

Not only that, but he looked “excited” to see me. He greeted me as if he’d been waiting. I actually don’t remember much after that. I just got out of there as fast as possible.

It’s been a strange memory of mine ever since. Story credit: Reddit / Pale_Strength_7916

The Only Thing He Bought

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I am at the grocery store standing in front of the French bread. I notice this strange guy standing there, staring at the food. About 40 years old, jean shorts, a little overweight, handlebar moustache, tight shirt, flip-flops. I pick up one loaf of bread and he turns to me with a strange smile.

I couldn’t deal with the creepiness so I walked away with my bread. Once I’m safe and have calmed down a bit, I change my mind on my selection and go back to the bread aisle and that dude is still standing in the same spot…just staring.

So, I put the bread back and he immediately grabs it, the one I just put down, and storms to the cash register. Pays and leaves. That is the only thing he bought. Story credit: Reddit / MrFromEurope

We Didn't Realize the Potential Danger

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I was six and was walking down the sidewalk with my cousins. Some homeless man grabs my arm and holds me. My cousins kept walking and didn’t realize at first. The old homeless man points to some building across the street and says to me, “your daddy’s in there.” 

My mother, brother, and I went down to the shore to spend time with my mom’s side of the family. My dad didn’t come because he wasn’t able to get off of work. I was confused. I was like, “what? My dad is not there. My dad is at home.” 

And this man held me tighter and kept repeating the same creepy thing—“your daddy’s in there.” A few minutes later my cousins realized I was missing and came back for me. They asked me what that was about and I told them.

We were all pretty young at the time and didn’t fully understand, but I think I almost got kidnapped. We didn’t tell our parents or anything because I don’t think any of us realized the potential danger I was in. It was wild. Story credit: Reddit / spiritfae

No Thank You

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I was volunteering at a hot dog sale outside of a grocery store. It was Halloween so we decided to all dress up. I borrowed a doll costume from a friend that included a chunky yarn wig. Part way through the day I noticed an older man and two small children hanging around.

I assumed the kids liked our costumes. They stood out because the kids looked super creepy, vacant-eyed, like you could barely see their faces. They were both incredibly pale and their hair was long and dark. Almost like weird little aliens. Eventually, they left.

Later in the event, the guy is back with his grown daughter. She comes straight to me and asks if I am married. I said no and she said her father would like to have me. Excuse me?

I am wearing bright, chunky yarn on my head, dressed like a children’s toy with what basically equated to clown makeup all over my face. I declined and walked away. I never got to find out exactly what “have” meant. Story credit: Reddit / buttercream73437

Non-Threatening, At First

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A very cheerful guy approached me and my friend in a park one day. He was very non-threatening at first—even friendly, I’d say. He was holding a frisbee and explained he was putting together an impromptu game of Ultimate Frisbee.

It actually sounded like it would be quite a bit of fun…but his demeanor changed as we mulled over his offer. Out of nowhere, he did something I could have never prepared for—he tried to grab me by the throat. It was such a sudden change of mood that it took me completely off-guard.

My friend (an athletic dude, fortunately) got between us and just stared him down as he ran away. The whole thing was just bizarre. Story credit: Reddit / Jabberhakke

Just Joking

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I was at a club once when I was nineteen and some loser kept following my friend and I around, despite us repeatedly asking him to leave us alone. We were at the bar ordering shots and he came up behind me, put his hand on the back of my neck and said, “let’s not turn this rape into a murder.”

I absolutely flew into a rage, to which he obviously said, “it was just a joke”. I punched him in the face and then a bouncer threw me over his shoulder and kicked me out because I started a fight. Story credit: Reddit / lydviciousss

There Was Nothing More We Could Do

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I was at a popular beach by a lake with some girlfriends. While my friends were in the water I stayed with our things and sunbathed in a bikini. I noticed a guy who was with a group of men a couple of meters away from us pointing his phone at me.

I first thought he was just checking his phone but then I heard his phone camera click.

He did it a couple of times. I ran over to my friends and we debated what to do. Eventually a friend and I worked up the courage to confront him. He pretended not to speak German but finally one of the guys from his group handed us his phone and we did find multiple photos of me, mostly zoomed in on my butt.

Of course, we deleted all the photos off of his phone before handing it back. We were all furious, but there was not much more we could do so we just left immediately. Story credit: Reddit / burble_10

We're Still Dealing With Him

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My creepiest thing will forever be the man who watched me at my window. It’s nothing paranormal, but honestly. I was texting my girlfriend, playing a game, and I heard rustling outside my window—keep in mind I live in the basement as an “apartment” at my mom’s house.

I don’t have any curtains, and I turned off my iPod. I could see someone actually staring at me. This went on for about 10 minutes. I texted my little sister to get the bat and turn on the lights upstairs. After he saw the lights, he ran off. I have never been more creeped out…except for the recent occurrence.

I thought I imagined the “FWOOSH” and “PLOP” sound in the middle of the night, but I brushed it off. The next morning, my stepdad was cleaning the yard and found the A/C cover in the other window well.

I went upstairs to get ready to wash my mom’s car when they told me. They asked me if I heard anything, and I told them about the strange sounds I heard. I now keep a knife and an aluminum bat with me.

We called the authorities the first time it happened, and they said they couldn’t do anything. Short of breaking into the house, we’re stuck dealing with this person (or people) until they do break in. Story credit: Reddit

He Always Kept to Himself

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Worked at an ad agency years ago. We had a middle-aged IT guy who was nice enough but kept to himself. If you needed help you either sent an instant message or walked back to his office. Now the entire office of this place was an open bullpen. Think typical office set-up.

But his office was in the back, around a corner and down a hallway. He was isolated. One day I walk to ask for help. I round the corner of his office (WIDE OPEN DOOR BTW) and walk in on him leaning back watching FULL-SCREEN adult movies.

The kicker was that he had all his monitors facing the open door! Like dude, if you’re going to even try this, arrange your private viewing room to not have your monitors facing your one weak point.

He made an embarrassed weird noise and I immediately turned heel and walked back to my desk. He got let go a few months later, I have a good idea as to why. Story credit: Reddit / epatrickUA

I Ran All the Way Home

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I was walking home once when I was 18. It was late at night, so it was really dark outside. I was walking past a bus stop when the bus pulled up. A man—he appeared to be in his 40s—got off the bus.

When he saw me, he opened up his coat and said, “Like what you see?” He wasn’t asking me whether or not I liked his outfit—beneath his coat, he was in nothing but his birthday suit.

I ran home so fast. Story credit: Reddit / TattedAngel71

Be Careful Where You Hide Things

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I’m a musician, and one day I was looking through a stack of tapes (yes, I’m an old musician) for a song I wrote. I was just popping them into the tape deck and listening to a few minutes before ejecting them. I put a tape in and pressed play only to hear our rhythm guitarist talking to himself on tape.

Evidently, he had been stalking some girl and was talking about driving past her house and how beautiful she was and how he wanted to be her boyfriend. It was intensely creepy. 

How did that tape ever wind up in my studio, in a cabinet with my tapes? I would think that if you’re going to make something creepy like that you would be more careful with where you leave it.

So when some other members of the band showed up for practice, I played it for them while we hung out and we all laughed and got creeped out. He wasn’t there at the time, but I left the tape sitting out for him to see. It was gone by the end of practice. Story credit: Reddit / Thephilosopherkmh

Encounter At the Library

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I had a deeply disturbing encounter with a stranger once. This random dude at my local library accosted me while I was enjoying a new sci-fi novel, but the reason was more disturbing than the action.

This guy was absolutely convinced that I was his son. He kept telling me he was sorry and that he never meant to “off” my mother who he kept calling “Pink.” He said a bunch of other heinous stuff that I won’t describe.

He was obviously off his rocker, but the scariest part of it all was that while he was saying all of this creepy stuff, he actually sounded so rational and calm. That experience gave me the creeps for a long time after that. I’ll never look at the library the same way. Story credit: Reddit / roguechimera

What Was She Doing?

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When I was in high school, me and a couple friends took some acid and went to a nature preserve.

We were sitting on a bench in a covered area that was kind of remote and this lady probably in her thirties jogs right up in front of us and starts stretching and each time she would arch her back and turn her head to look at us.

She even looked at us from between her legs, now she was about 5 feet directly in front of us very close, just bizarre. This went on for what seemed like forever and I couldn’t tell if I was just tripping but we all saw it, I have no idea what she was doing Story credit: Reddit / monkey_robot_ninja

He Fell Through the Ceiling

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A friend and I used to go urban exploring when we were in our teens—basically just exploring derelict buildings. My friend was really into it and would take plaques and paperwork home with him, and was even a part of this online forum all about urban exploration in our area.

One day we were exploring an old manganese bronze factory. As we were walking down this hallway, we heard some strange noises coming from one of the many rooms around us. Pretty shook and not wanting to engage with anyone, we climbed through a broken window to get outside.

My friend went first, then I went second. My friend turned around to speak to me and screamed. I spun around 180° a saw a skinny, pale man with short ginger hair standing 3ft away from me. He asked us for a smoke and we declined (because we didn’t smoke).

He replied, “Thanks anyway” and climbed back inside. We didn’t find out until a couple weeks later, but that man’s body was found the following day.

He supposedly fell through the ceiling trying to strip copper from the wires along the roof. It was a deeply unsettling feeling, especially being around 13-14yrs old at the time. Story credit: Reddit / JackOBear

I Thought I Was Dreaming

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I was sleeping in bed with my wife (then girlfriend) at this apartment she had years ago. I popped up out of sleep in the middle of the night. I was completely out of it and there standing at the foot of our bed was the old lady landlord, staring at us.

I thought I was dreaming but the lady apologized to me the next day. Story credit: Reddit / MrBroBotBrain

Open to Experimenting

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Not long before he passed, a guy I know made the most shocking confession: He said that he wanted to kidnap someone, tie them up, and experiment with cannibalism. But that wasn’t all.

In particular, he said he was so curious about how someone’s cheek tasted. I was freaked out then, and it still freak me out to think about it now. Story credit: Reddit / 89koalas

The Kindness of Strangers

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I was in Paris, at the train station that takes you to the airport. My flight was very early in the morning, so I planned to stay at the station until five in the morning and then go to the airport. This dude that I didn’t know started talking to me. He was very friendly at first. He even praised my French and made small talk.

Then he asked me where I was from and I totally lied because I wasn’t about to give a total stranger all of my information. He asked me if I was going to the airport and I said that I was, early in the morning. At some point, I realized another guy was kind of circling us, keeping an eye on our conversation. 

For some reason, this gave me a bad vibe. I was kind of far away from the other people because I was using a machine to buy tickets and several of them were not working. I started walking towards the entry where there were more people, but this guy followed me and was still trying to talk with me.

The other guy continued to follow us and that’s when I knew that something was wrong. The guy talking to me said, “Do you know that the station closes in like 15 minutes?” I wasn’t able to hide my surprise. He told me they didn’t close before, but due to the number of vagrants, they started locking up at night.

He tried to touch my arm but I pulled away. My situation was getting really dangerous really fast. He said, “You don’t want to spend the night here. It’s a dangerous neighborhood and a pretty lady like you…one can only imagine what is going to happen to you.” He offered to go to a hotel with me.

I was looking at the reflection of the glass wall and realized that the other dude was getting closer to us. At that moment, I was certain that they were going to abduct me. Then, my guardian angels intervened. I heard this Spanish-speaking lady somewhere nearby (I’m Spanish-speaking).

I looked at her and she was with her two adult children. I almost cried. She was Mexican and for some reason, I was convinced she was going to help me. I walked towards her and said very fast a low in Spanish that those guys were harassing me.

She seemed to understand exactly what my situation was and said that we should stay together. I spent the rest of the night with her and her adult children until the train station opened again the next morning. I’m forever grateful to her and her family. They saved me. Story credit: Reddit / sapheless

Crossing the Line

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When I was sixteen, I had a male therapist completely cross the line: He told me that men can’t help feeling attracted to me because my eyes and lips make me look like I’m aroused. I was speaking to him partly because I had been harassed by an adult male that year.

I was so embarrassed that I never told anyone about this and I am still mad at myself for not saying anything then. Story credit: Reddit / Westcoast_pixie

Her Phone Wasn't Missing, It Was Stolen

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When I was in middle school, I was on the girls’ basketball team. Before practice, some of us girls would take our cellphones and hide them around the gym so they wouldn’t get stolen while we were practicing.

The middle school I went to had a really bad history with guns and drugs so they banned backpacks and any type of bags from campus. We would literally just carry our binders around and lock our gym stuff in P.E lockers.

So, after practice I went to grab my phone and saw that I was sent an illicit pic from my teammate (who I was texting right before practice). I asked her why she should text me that and she had no idea what I was talking about. Her phone was missing.

That’s when I noticed the janitor, who was taking out the garbage at the time, run out the side gym door. I didn’t think anything of it at the time. The next day, I got called into the office.

They took my phone and later told me that the janitor was responsible for the photo. It was the first time I ever saw a male’s parts. I was 13. Story credit: Reddit / lopeeezyy

What Started It All

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As a child, there was a girl that was friends with my cousin who developed an obsession with me. She found my number and would call my house phone asking about me daily. In 8th grade, she got my phone number and would send me voicemails and call me at super late hours. 

One night, she left the most disturbing message yet: “If I can’t be with you, I will pluck your eyes out with a fork and keep them in a jar.” I have very light hazel eyes and that’s what started it all. Story credit: Reddit / BleachedPorkGrind

My Nightmare Was Far From Over

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I was in a store picking up some items for my house when I noticed a man was literally peeking at me from around a corner. I brushed it off at first and continued my shopping, but I was aware that this man was following me around the store. He then came up to me and said I looked familiar.

He asked if I went to the local university. I told him that I didn’t and at that point, I got creeped out, so I checked out and went to my car. I heard footsteps behind me and knew he had followed me, so I just jumped in my car and locked the doors. 

But my nightmare was far from over—it was dark, so I hadn’t noticed when he went around the back of my car until he banged on my passenger’s side window. I ignored him as he banged on the window and just started the car.

That prompted him to run around the front and start banging on my driver’s side door. I was terrified and just pulled out of the parking space as fast as I could. The guy literally chased my car until I rounded a corner.

I have no idea what his plan was, but to this day, I am nervous being in dark parking lots at night. Story credit: Reddit / southside_best

Chicken For Dinner

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I was living at a halfway house and we had chicken for dinner one day. Later that night I went in the kitchen to get a midnight snack.

There was a guy in there arranging the chicken bones from earlier into weird patterns on a table. I asked him what he was up to and he looked at me very seriously and said he was summoning a demon.

I had never seen a demon before so, obviously I had some questions and hung around to see the show. Long story short…no demon showed up. It was both creepy and disappointing. Story credit: Reddit / VanquishedFoeofMetal

The Late Shift

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I used to work at a restaurant when I was 16. I was working a super late shift when we had this weird customer come in. The guy just wouldn’t leave. He was like 30 and just stared at me the entire time as he ate his food. It went on for two whole hours.

When he finally came up to the cash to pay, he was super weird about it. I said, “Okay here’s your price,” and he paused and said, “Do I get a discount?” I was like, “No. Will you be paying cash or card?” He replied, “Cash.” Then he just stared at me while I waited for him to hand me his cash.

After like two minutes of this weird interaction, I gave him his money and the receipt, but he didn’t leave. So, I said, “Have a good night,” to make him go away. Super awkwardly, he blurted out, “Can I go now?” and I was like, “Yup!” That’s when he uttered the words that finally made me lose it. 

“Am I pestering you? Why don’t I take you home and pester you there?” I knew I had to get out of that situation, so I walked to the back room where I got my co-worker to deal with him.

Apparently, my co-worker scolded that guy and said it was shameful he would say that to a minor. The guy managed to creep out my co-worker when he said, “Well then, can I take you home?” What a creep. Story credit: Reddit / usernameemma

Off-Trail

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I was hiking with my boyfriend and we decided to go off-trail. We were about three hours into the woods in the middle of nowhere when suddenly there was a man in a suit standing about 30 feet away staring at us. We were like “what?”

After a few seconds, he just turned around and walked away. We checked the map and there was nothing but woods for miles in the direction he went. Story credit: Reddit / lisa111998

The Old Guy in the Aisle

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I dropped my son off at school one morning and then went to the grocery store with my infant daughter. It was so early that there were only a few other customers in the store.

There was an older man with a walker that I didn’t really pay too much attention to, except that he kept popping up in the same aisle as us. I got out to my car and put my groceries in. Then, when I was putting my daughter in her car seat, the man came up behind me.

He asked me a question and when I turned to answer him, he did the most unimaginable thing—he shoved his walker into the back of my legs pinning me against my car inside the open door. I tried moving around but couldn’t go anywhere except forward.

He then started pushing me down to the floor of my car. I was so scared that he was going to go for my daughter, so I threw myself over her so my whole upper body was in her car seat and wedged myself in tight trying to cover as much of her as possible.

He grabbed me by the hair and was trying to pull me up when someone started honking their car horn. Another mom had been sitting in her car with her own baby asleep and had seen what was happening.

Another car pulled up behind mine and the man ran over getting in quickly, obviously never needing the walker. We called the authorities but when the officers ran the plates on the car that he left in, they found out that the car’s owner had reported it missing.

I never found out who that guy was. I’m not even sure if he was actually an old guy. Story credit: Reddit / lostmyshade

Toxic Relationship

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I had a co-worker tell me something so disturbing—I didn’t even know how to respond. He said, “I could probably just kill someone and not feel anything about it. Especially if they had it coming.”

Who says something like that?? And mind you, this was after we got done chatting about his mutually toxic relationship. Whoever she is, I hope she’s okay… Story credit: Reddit / ElectricKettleGoBoom

It Played Out in Slow Motion

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I was serving at a soup kitchen in high school and something shiny caught my eye out the window. I looked and saw a guy holding what looked like a knife and polishing it. 

It was creepy as heck—then it turned horrifying. About five seconds later he lunges out of the bush and stabs a guy minding his own business who was waiting in line for the kitchen to open.

No idea what happened to the victim but the whole thing played in slow motion, it was awful. Looking back it seems obvious what was about to happen, but I was like, 15 at the time? Story credit: Reddit / SliceUnited

Not My Proudest Moment

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Oh man, this happened in my junior year of college. Not my proudest moment. Me and maybe half a dozen friends are hanging out on Saturday night and we are just crispy baked. Then there was a knock at the door. Serious knocking. Panicked knocking. What do we do?

Gotta be officers, and we are so screwed. Like, I’m getting kicked out of housing this time. So one of the girls goes to answer the door. A guy with insane Ted Kaczynski hair and no pants is SCREAMING at the door to let him in. The girl screams and tries to shut the door, but the guy is forcing his way in.

He is bleeding pretty bad, and is suddenly basically draped over my friend in a heap. He is totally incoherent, just keeps yelling PLEASE and making no sense otherwise. My friend runs down to help the girl. I could muster precisely zero courage. I was terrified.

I stood at the top of the stairs like a housewife who had seen a mouse in an old cartoon. WHAT DO WE DO, WHAT DO WE DO!? OH GOD WHAT DO WE DO!? We have to call the authorities! Right? I CANT DO IT I’M FREAKING OUT MAN. I DON’T KNOW WHAT TO DO WITH MY HANDS!

Someone finally calls and tells the authorities an old, possibly homeless man is trying to force his way into the apartment. I remain totally panicking at the top of the steps, helping in no way whatsoever. My friend has now wrestled the guy out of the apartment and is trying to calm him down.

Eventually, officers come and they take the disheveled, pantsless homeless man away in an ambulance. We close the door and sit back down in the living room. “Is anyone else not baked at all anymore?” someone asked. We were not.

We’d go over the series of events a hundred times over the next few weeks. I tried to downplay my role as the guardian of the stairwell.

Like a week later, though, we’d find out it was neither an old guy nor a homeless guy, but rather a friend of a friend on a really bad acid trip who had lost his pants and ran through a field in a panic. Story credit: Reddit / soomuchcoffee

Frosted Doors

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I was in Germany with my wife, we decided to take a break from sightseeing to just have a pastry and go to the bathroom. We go to this nice restaurant in the city square, my wife orders for us and I run to the bathroom.

The stall doors to the bathrooms were clear glass, but when you closed the door and locked it the doors would frost over so you couldn’t see into the stall but you could see out. Anyway, a guy hadn’t locked his stall door, just closed it.

The dude literally just made bizarre faces at me while he pooped, making direct eye contact the entire time while I was at the urinal. He had no idea I could see him through the glass and it took my entire being to not laugh hysterically. Story credit: Reddit / The-loon

I Should Have Paid More Attention

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I was eleven when this happened. I was at the park with my cousin who was three, and being a stubborn three-year-old, he told me to just leave him be so he could play with the other kids. So, I sat out on the bench and kept a watchful eye on him.

I should have been paying more attention to who was watching me. I was reading my book and occasionally looking up to check on my cousin. Out of nowhere, some fifty-year-old man sat down next to me and started talking. I didn’t make much of it at first because he seemed harmless.

He kept asking me which kid was mine and that started to creep me out because I was obviously too young to have kids. I made it quite clear to this guy that I was uncomfortable, but he just kept talking to me. 

And then he tried it—he got really close to me and was like, “Do you want another one?” That’s when I really started to freak out. Just then, this homeless guy—who would later become a pretty good friend of mine named Marty—pulled me off the bench.

He must have seen that something wasn’t right. He said the creep was lucky that he didn’t “pop his jaw.” I’m still friends with Marty today and I’m grateful that he showed up when he did. One stranger saved me from another. Story credit: Reddit / UrDadTxtMe

Hitchhiking Tales

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I was hitchhiking home from high school (I know, I know) and got picked up by a really weird guy with stereotypical creepy thick glasses. For the record, I am a guy. It was really hot in his truck—he probably had the heat on in retrospect—as we drove along a main road.

At one point he mentions the heat and said that it was OK if I wanted to take off my shirt. I had the perfect response. I said, “No thanks” then opened the door and rolled out into traffic when the truck was coming to a light. Thank God the door handle hadn’t been removed or anything.

Bonus: I hitchhiked around a year later and the exact same guy pulled up and asked me if I wanted a ride. He didn’t recognize me and I said no, then realized at that point that he must do this kind of thing often. I never hitchhiked again after that last day. Story credit: Reddit / Skeptic1222

She Heard Me Scream

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I was taking a shower in the bathroom of my walkout basement. My three-year-old son was upstairs with my mother eating breakfast. I heard him open the door and told him, “Mommy is in the shower, you have to wait.”

The door didn’t close but he didn’t respond either, so I asked him to go back upstairs and ask grandma for whatever he needed. Instead, I saw a shadow and the outline of a hand touching the shower curtain. I got chills up my spine—I suddenly realized that there was an adult in the bathroom, not my son.

I screamed and punched through the shower curtain. I don’t think I connected, but I heard the man run out anyway. As fast as I could, I jumped out and grabbed a towel to check on my son and mom.

At the same time, my mom was coming downstairs to see if I was OK—she had heard me scream. The man never went upstairs and they didn’t even know what had happened.

The walkout basement door and window were wide open. I called 9-1-1 but they couldn’t find whoever it was who had come into my home. They did, however, find my empty wallet about a block away.

They came back to me a few weeks later to let me know that they caught a guy in the area accosting women and they think it was the same guy. I’d never been so scared in my life.

The most visceral part for me was knowing he was just standing quietly in the bathroom while I talked to him like he was my son. Honestly, I don’t know why but that creeps me out the most. Story credit: Reddit / like_big_mutts

Don't Mind Him

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I have a neighbor who lives on the same floor as me and his apartment is right next to mine. He’s over seventy and blind, and every now and then he enjoys walking down the hall, while feeling the walls around him, because he has no strength to actually go outside anymore.

Last year in August, I was locking my apartment door and getting ready to leave and meet a friend, when I noticed him walking slowly down the hall towards me. I politely said hi to him, as usual.

As I fumbled with my keys, he approached me slowly and then he did the most demented thing ever: He leaned in and started fondling my butt. I took a step away in shock, but he came after me and said, “Let me kiss your pussy.” I felt my blood freeze.

I then said in disbelief “What the? You should be ashamed!” but he replied by repeating the exact same phrase. I pushed him away and left quickly. I still live here, and he still takes strolls in the hallway.

I have told a few friends, but not my landlord or any authority, because I’m sure they won’t take me seriously or say something like “Don’t mind him, he’s old and senile, he doesn’t know what he’s doing.” My friends were concerned though and asked me if I was ok. I wasn’t. Story credit: Reddit / Arkana009

In the Middle of the Night

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When I was in college, I was staying the night at my boyfriend’s house. He had 2 roommates, and one of them had this weird girlfriend, but she was nice so we got along well enough. One night, I woke up randomly at 3 a.m. and decided to go smoke outside.

The previous night the roommate broke up with the weird girl for the 100th time. The window to his room faced the courtyard, the area I would be in. So, I go outside and it’s dark but I heard branches cracking. I turn on the light on my phone and see the odd girlfriend sitting by her ex-boyfriend’s window.

In the middle of the night. I called out her name and asked what in the world was she doing.

Mind you this is a gated courtyard. She would have had to scale the 6ft wooden fence just to even get in. She didn’t answer, just stood up and scaled the fence like a creepy human spider. Story credit: Reddit / I_am_dean

I Barely Dodged Him

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I survived a kidnapping attempt in the 1980s. This was in a Sacramento neighborhood late at night, when I was visiting a friend when I was maybe 9-10 years old. Three of us walk out to go play at this park at an elementary school several blocks away. It was around 10:00 pm at night.

We were playing Frisbee in the street in front of the school, and our Frisbee lands in the street. Just as it touches on the pavement, a white van pulls up and stops, as if to allow us to get our Frisbee. I walk toward the van and grab the Frisbee, then move to the side to allow the van to pass.

As the van passed, the most terrifying thing occurred. The sliding door opened and a guy dressed in black like a ninja came flying out and tried to grab me.

He had a harness on and the van had been rigged with a telescoping mechanism that allowed him to come out around five feet while hanging from this harness. The harness was operated by another person inside, also dressed in black.

So there were at least three people involved in this attempt, including the driver of the vehicle.

I barely dodged his attempt to grab me and all three of us ran toward the elementary school and hopped the fence, ran along the fence through bushes, and then hopped a second fence that allowed us to be inside the school.

We were scared as heck and could hear the van driving around and assumed they were in hot pursuit of us. We found a way to get onto the roof of the school from inside, thank God, and proceeded to observe the van driving around the school for at least 30 minutes in an obvious attempt to find us.

This scared us even more because one would think the would-be kidnappers would flee, but I suppose they thought we couldn’t identify them. This was before cell phones, so we stayed up there until around 45 minutes after we last saw them.

It appeared that some of them were searching for us on foot also, which added to the fear. We eventually escaped and went back to my friend’s house, and never told anyone in our family out of fear of being punished for being out late playing. Story credit: Reddit / Skeptic1222

Why Didn't You Say Anything Earlier?

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When we were about 18 years old my friend Rich was telling me he was being followed by a strange dude with long hair, beard, and mustache. He said he would turn around and see the guy following him from a distance.

At night Rich would look out his front window and see the guy standing in the middle of the road staring at his house. Two weeks later we finished up our band practice in our lead guitarist’s backyard and Rich left to put his amp in his car. A few moments later Rich came running back terrified.

He said the bearded guy was out front and that he was coming through the gate to the backyard. I saw the creep come in and he asked for Rich a few times. Rich asked who he was and he said “Doug.” They had been schoolmates but Doug had moved away for a few years and grew his hair long.

Rich asked him why he didn’t say anything earlier and Doug said he was nervous about approaching Rich because he wasn’t sure it was him. So he just stalked him for two weeks and Rich was terrified the entire time. Story credit: Reddit / Resident_Attitude_43

It All Fell Into Place

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A few years ago, I went to a language school abroad that had sister schools in different cities so you could start in one place and if you wanted a change, you could just up and go to one of the other cities for a while.

The school had low-grade apartments that housed four or five people located near the school. So, it was normal for roommates to come and go and reappear again. One day a new roommate arrived called Amy who had been in another city for a few months already.

We got along great and one night after a few drinks she told me the craziest story I’ve ever heard. In the previous city, one of her roommates kept to himself, didn’t interact with them, ordered takeaway, and ate alone in his room.

Each to their own. He went away for 2 weeks for reasons unknown to Amy, he just mentioned when he would be back to another roommate and went. This happened to coincide with a heatwave. After a couple of days, there was a bad smell coming from his room.

A couple of days later, they agreed they are going to have to go in and get rid of whatever it is because it’s overwhelming. They open his room, and an instant retching smell hits them. Against a wall is every takeaway carton from months of daily meals stacked up, but they’re clean.

Rinsed clean, not just empty. They aren’t the source. After a brief search, they find a boot nearby. Inside the boot is filled with pieces of cooked chicken. It looked like he was getting chicken stews or curries or similar every day and had licked the sauce off these pieces and stuffed them into a boot.

They chuck the chicken, wrap the boot in several bags, and put it back where they found it. A couple of days later it’s clear the smell is still getting worse. They have to go back. So they go. They look around for the other boot, but when they find it, it’s chicken free.

They are going to have to dig a little deeper. Nothing could have prepared them for what they discovered… Under the bed was something large in black bags and it definitely was the source of the smell. They pull the whole thing out from under there into the center of the room and it’s heavy.

They all stood for a moment trying to register what it was. It was roughly person-shaped, made of black bags with tape used to create the neck and to attach the ‘arms and legs’.

Amy noticed a small split in the bag at the join of the ‘legs’ but it didn’t look accidental as the split was reinforced with more tape. She leaned closer to see what was in the bag.

It was more cooked chicken, a lot of cooked chicken. Then it all fell into place. The boot was a homemade fleshlight, this thing was the next level up. Story credit: Reddit / Alex9Andy

Listening From the Basement

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I was once in a hot tub with some friends late at night, and we were all telling some stories. One of the guys told us this one, a story of a girl he knows—the people he was with verified it was true. So one day, this girl was called over to babysit. She did it a lot for these people, so it was routine for her.

Anyways, she was told to put the kids to bed at 9, and she did. After she put them to bed, she started watching TV and doing homework, waiting for the parents to come home. But then, she started hearing some noises coming out of the basement, like pans falling and stuff.

She just ignored it, and thought it was the washing machine or something. Anyways, a little later, she starts hearing the noises again. She decides to call the authorities. The lady at the station told her there’s a patroller in her area, and that he’ll be at the house in about 20 minutes.

Anyways, in about five minutes, she hears a knock on the door. She answers, and it’s a full SWAT team. She asked, “I thought they were just sending a patroller…” One of the guys told her, “After you hung up the phone, we heard a second phone on the line hang up.”

Apparently, there was a man in the basement listening to the conversation. The lady in the station waited and heard him hang up, then immediately sent the SWAT team to help. They went downstairs and caught him; he was wanted for multiple cases of assault. Story credit: Reddit / bondmaxbondrock

I Have Her to Thank

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I’m a female, first of all. I’m 21 now, but when I was four years old, my sister had just turned 16. She had just gotten her license and was so excited. It was probably only September, and she got her license in July.

My sister is from my dad’s first marriage, and she lived with her mom and stepdad while I lived with our dad and my mom. We lived about 30 minutes apart.

My dad worked late hours, and my mom frequently traveled for work, so I had to spend a lot of time at a babysitters (which was costly) until my sister got her license. My dad finally gave her permission to pick me up after she got out of school and take me to her mom’s until he was off work.

She was so excited to finally be able to use her license! I know I said I was only four, but I remember this event so vividly. It took years for my sister to even ask me if I remembered it, but when I told her all the parts I remember (about 80%) she filled in the rest for me.

It was one of the first times my sister would get to pick me up from my babysitter, which means it would be one of the first times she’d been allowed to drive with me alone.

Almost as soon as we pulled onto the main road, a white pick-up truck swerved behind us. Weird, but whatever. After a few turns, my sister noticed that the truck still followed her. Even when she would just switch lanes, he was right there switching behind her.

My sister, being a bit of a paranoid person, tested it a little and switched lanes several times. She said she heard his tires squealing by his quick cuts to get behind her again. She told me not to worry, and I remember being an oblivious little kid. She looked scared, but I had no concerns.

The man started to get really angry. I don’t remember anything about what he looked like, but I do remember that he had this look of pure hate on his face. It’s strange that you can sometimes remember expressions but not the faces they were on. He wasn’t only angry, he was full of hate.

He was honking the horn repeatedly, just laying on it, and he was very close to our car. He was swerving back and forth, trying to get our attention. He would pull up beside us occasionally, flip us off, and honk.

The first big event came about when we pulled up at a four-way stoplight. It’s a bigger one, so there was a lot of room in the intersection. We were the first ones at the stop light in our lane, and nobody was beside us. The man used this lane to pass us and pull his car in front of us almost in the intersection.

He was now blocking us. I so perfectly remember that white pick up truck. He got out of it, and started storming towards our car. He was screaming so hard I remember thinking his face almost looked purple.

Neither one of us remembers what he was saying, but he pulled up his shirt to reveal to us that he had a gun. He pointed to it and at us, threatening us and closing the gap between us. My sister put her hand over my body, told me to close my eyes, and floored it through the intersection.

She said she was worried we were either going to hit him, or get hit in the intersection, but it was a better chance than sitting there and waiting for the psycho to shoot. But that was just the beginning of the nightmare. He hopped back into his car and followed us.

My house was closer to where we were than my sister’s, so for some reason, she decided to go to my empty house. Obviously, he followed us and blocked us into the driveway. He got out and walked towards my sister’s parked car.

Once again, she had to think fast and swerve her way across our lawn back out onto the road. This was before cell phones, and she had just started driving and was still young.

She had no idea what to do, really. He followed us back onto our neighborhood road, pulling up next to our car and hitting his truck against us, trying to make us skid or wreck.

There is a smallish area of grass between my neighborhood road and a major busy road, and it was obvious he was trying to push our car hard enough to send us into the traffic beside us. I remember him doing that little gesture where you drag your finger along your throat, like you’re slitting it.

His face was still purple. There was a gas station nearby and my sister decided on the last Hail Mary move she could think of. I remember her talking to me so seriously and sternly.

She told me she needed me to be a big girl and the second we pulled by the door of the gas station, to undo my seatbelt and jump out, and run inside so fast that I shouldn’t even worry about closing my door.

I was to run inside and go directly to the person behind the counter and tell them to call 9-1-1 because a bad man was following us. We pulled in and she threw the car in park and I jumped out and did as I was told.

She was only a few seconds behind, but she had to actually stop the car, park it, turn it off, whatever. She closed her door and mine for me, and just ran inside with me. The man came into the parking lot behind us, and when we were inside, he went through my sister’s car.

By the time officers arrived, he was gone. They never found him, and we never knew what provoked him or what his plan was. The only thing he took from the car was my sister’s ID and the cash she had on her. I can still so vividly picture what was happening, but I don’t remember being scared.

I don’t remember my sister ever showing that she was freaking out, although later at her mom’s she did lose her mind, sobbing her eyes out and yelling, understandably.

I think the way she handled it really prevented it from being a really traumatic experience for me. It’s still scary, but it’s not something that haunts me, and I have her to thank. Story credit: Reddit / sparty_party

The Crowd Turned On Him

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I caught a dirty old man doing something creepy on my way to work along a busy footpath in Sydney.

He was up-skirting three office girls. I caught him doing it while a big group of people were all waiting to cross the street, there were about 20 people, I screamed out, “Hey, this dirty old man is taking pictures up your skirt!”

And the crowd just turned on him, I hurried away but I looked back and he was on the ground getting kicked and punched by at least five people, I saw the camera go flying. Mob justice was probably not the kind of footage he was hoping to get that day. Story credit: Reddit / watsgarnorn

Always Protect Yourself

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A few years ago, I was in desperate need of a job and a friend helped me get on with his company doing home health. I became a home health aide where I’d just go house to house, doing light housework and helping the client wash up.

Most of these people were out in the boonies where I couldn’t get cell service and there wasn’t another home for miles. This one client lived in such a place. He gave me weird vibes from the get-go. I showed up at his requested time, cleaned up his house, and helped him wash up.

I asked if he needed anything else before I left—that’s when he turned on me. He grabbed me quickly, pulled me to him, and said, “Yeah, you can make love to me before you go.”

This man, who supposedly was too weak to even shower himself, had a very tight grip on me and I couldn’t get away. It probably only lasted between five and ten seconds but it was terrifying.

I was alone with this man in his home, with no cell service o landline. I was thinking that he could have done whatever he wanted to me. I walk with pepper spray now. Story credit: Reddit / bluegrassmommy

I Wouldn't Be Surprised

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My wife and I had to travel to San Antonio for my PRK/LASEK surgery. When we arrived in town, we found out our initial hotel plans fell through, and we had to find a last-minute motel to stay at. We get everything situated around noon and get our key for a second-floor room.

We load back into our car and drive to the other side of the motel to park our car near our room and start unloading our luggage. As we were unloading our car with our two suitcases and a couple of backpacks, my wife and I noticed a disheveled man walking parallel to the motel.

He turns towards us and starts approaching us. In our mind, we figured he was just going to ask for cash and go on his way. I mean, the majority of my encounters with homeless and/or drug users are that, but we’re still on guard because we don’t know this area.

After he approached us, he asked if we needed help unloading our stuff. He has a 40oz in one hand and another 40oz halfway out of his cargo pocket, and at this point, I can smell the booze coming off of him. We politely tell him no and that we don’t need help as it’s only a couple of things.

He stumbles to put his opened 40oz on the brick ledge next to us and states he would like to help us and it’s the least he can do. He firmly takes my suitcase out of my hand and starts to introduce himself as, “Reuben.”

I’m obviously on guard here, I mean the man has my suitcase in his hand and I don’t even know him. He starts walking to the stairs, continuing his life story. He seems pretty harmless, but still gives my wife and me those vibes.

I explained to him that I don’t have cash on hand and that I wouldn’t be able to tip him for his generosity. Reuben says that it’s fine, and again, this is the least he could do. At this point, he’s following my wife and me on the outside balcony to our room. Again, my bells are ringing and so are my wife’s.

I restate that I don’t have cash. My wife hurries into the room and I’m with Reuben with my stuff. He hands me my stuff and I put it in the room right behind the door. I’m starting to close the door, my thigh pressed against it as well as my wife.

As I’m thanking him for his help, he extends his hand out in the form of expecting a payment. I again tell him that we don’t have the cash to tip him. 

In an instant, Reubens’ facial expression underwent a radical transformation: it changed from an “I’m glad to help you” happy face to an, “I will hurt you and your wife and won’t think twice about it”-soulless look.

My hand is on my knife and at this point, I am pushing the door shut, but before I shut it, he utters a bone-chilling warning, “You better keep your windows and doors locked.” I slammed and immediately locked the door and ensured the windows were in fact locked.

We moved some of the furniture in front of the door and windows in a way to barricade them and kept them there for the remainder of our stay when we were in the room and finally notified the front desk of him.

Even returning to the room, we would look under the bed and in the bathroom for him in case he broke in.

Each time we left the room for my medical appointments, we would always be on the lookout for Reuben and even to the point of parking in different spots and taking different ways to our room so we wouldn’t bump into him again.

This was 4-5 years ago and my wife and I still get shivers down our spine by the way he just changed so suddenly and uttered those words to us.

Hypothetically, if someone would share a San Antonio news report of a man named Reuben murdering someone since then, I wouldn’t be surprised. Story credit: Reddit / Finally_Smiled

I Still Can't Explain It

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Lecturing teacher here. We have a piano in a large lecture hall, it was donated a long, long time ago. People come and go and play it when there isn’t a lecture going on in there. Anyway, as I’m walking about to teach my class, I hear someone hitting the keys rather off note.

Curious, I open the door slightly and peer in. I kid you not, there was a guy, pants down, hitting the keys with his junk. I literally cannot word it any other way. I was so shocked I shut the door but it closed rather loudly and I heard a yelp from inside.

I still have not been able to explain this to anyone but now when I actually hear someone playing something nice, I can’t help but think back to that event. Story credit: Reddit / SomberBlueSky

I Accept Your Apology

PxFuel

I have to preface this by stating that I am a guy. I used to run quite a bit—five miles every day without fail. One day after finishing my run, I got a knock at the door and it was a young man about my age, like 27, asking about the duplex next door, as it was for rent.

Typical questions about the neighborhood and the street and whatnot. I was cordial and informative, but I had some food cooking and needed to get back inside. I told him to call the number on the sign, but before I could excuse myself inside he interjected.

The conversation went something like this: Him: Wait…do I smell pot? Dude, do you have weed in there? Me: No, I’m cooking salmon. Him: Oh, cause if you were, I’d be totally down with that. By the way, you’ve got really nice pecs. Do you work out a lot?

Me: Yeah, I guess…look, I really gotta go. If you have questions about the duplex, call the number on the sign. Him: Cool, thanks. I go back inside the house and he drives off. I instantly call my landlord and tell her to under no circumstances let that guy rent the property, because he gave me the creeps.

Well, fast forward two days. It’s a Sunday night around midnight. I’d just finished watching a movie on the couch and I had played a lot of soccer that weekend. Generally, I’ve found that if I can soak in a hot bath for about 20 minutes, my knees feel better in the morning.

So I get up from the couch, walk by my bedroom, and notice that, since I’m kind of a restless sleeper, I must have knocked the blinds and curtains adjacent to my bed askew.

No biggie, I’ll fix it tonight before I go to bed. Then I get into the bathroom and notice that someone must have opened the window to the bathroom when I had friends over several days ago. I don’t have a bathroom exhaust fan, so it only makes sense to raise the window and blinds a bit.

I close the window and shut the blinds. I’ve got one of those nifty kitchen timers that I set to 20 minutes and I just sit in the bath, waiting for the time to expire. During this quiet time, my mind starts replaying the weekend’s events, and I start to get an uneasy feeling. 

Subconsciously, I felt something was wrong, but maybe I was just being paranoid. Then I thought about the bedroom window and the bathroom window both having blinds askew.

And come to think of it, I believe the blinds behind the TV had one little slat that was sort of peeled up, too. But, no, now I’m really just being paranoid. And I hadn’t even thought about the weird encounter from two days ago. But now, I’m sitting in a bathtub and the darn timer seems frozen at this point.

I tell myself that I’ll get up when the timer is done, put on some clothes and take a look around the house. Well, I snapped. Five minutes left and I couldn’t take it any longer. I don’t know how to rationalize what I did next. It just seemed purely instinctual. I hopped up and got a towel around me.

I turned off the bathroom light, made my way quickly through the bedroom door and then the living room area. I then cut the kitchen and living room lights. In the darkness, I pulled a pair of pants up so that I was at least wearing something. I wasn’t going to go back into the bedroom for a shirt.

The only light on in the house was my bedroom light. I went over to the front door and flung it open quickly to peer out. Nothing. Crickets. This was the middle of the summer, and the crickets were overwhelmingly loud. Louder than the sound of my squeaky storm door opening.

I decided I was definitely being paranoid, and turned to go back in. I turned, but at the last second I had that thought: I won’t be content to sleep tonight unless I properly dismiss the paranoia with a walk around the house.

So I barefootedly and cautiously make my way down the front porch stairs, and down the sidewalk to the side of my house where the bedroom windows glow. The front of the house is definitely clear. I then tiptoe to the corner of the house to get a view of the side of the house.

As I peer around the corner, not 20 feet away from me, I see the stranger from two days ago, his face glued to the bedroom window. His hand is in his shorts. I’m instantly enraged. Apparently, he is completely unaware that I have exited the house, much less flanked him.

I decided in that instant to surprise him. The following conversation was a mix between my anger, his fear, and most strangely of all, the feeling of amusement that this is actually happening to me.

Keep in mind, the conversation doesn’t really make a lot of sense because the guy didn’t really have time to think. It really couldn’t have been more than about 15-20 seconds before the ordeal was played out.

Me: YOU SICKO! Him: (Surprised and mortified) AHHH!! Me: I’m going to catch you and beat the heck out of you. Him: You don’t know me!?!? (backing away) Me: (Aggressively approaching) I know exactly who you are, and I’m going to catch you.

Him: (Transitioning from backing away to turning away and starting to run) Please don’t hurt me. I’m so sorry! I’m so sorry! Please don’t hurt me!

At this point, it’s an all-out chase across a neighbor’s yard. I’m wearing nothing but a pair of warm-up pants, but I’m gaining on him. I was playing soccer daily at the time, so I was definitely going to catch him. But he made it easy.

I chased him across one gravel driveway, which wasn’t fun, but I was on his heels by the time he reached the second one, and he took a nasty fall right into the middle of the gravel. I very nearly kicked him across the face with my shin, but I suppressed the urge. I tell him to get up.

At this point he knows he is caught, so he is completely compliant…well, kind of. I ask him where he parked, and he lied and said a few blocks down. I ask his name, and he gives me one. I take his keys from him and tell him we’re going to his car.

We walk about 30 feet and he stops and says, “Actually, this is my car.” Wow, ok, so you parked basically right next to my house. So, I open his car and he’s like, “What are you doing?” I explain to him that there’s no way for me to know who he is, since he has no wallet with him.

I open his glove box hoping to find some real ID. Bingo. I found a receipt for tire rotation or something. The car shown on the receipt matches the car he’s driving. But the name doesn’t.

I call him by the name on the receipt and he starts crying again and apologizing about lying about his name. I’m convinced I have him scared, and now I just want to go to bed. I know the authorities will take hours and it’s already like 1:00 and I’ve gotta be up early.

So, I take the little folder thing the receipt came in and I told him to write down a confession of what he did. It was only just becoming apparent to me that not only was he a peeping tom, he had come into my house when I wasn’t there to adjust the blinds in order to see in.

Now I’ve got a written and signed confession. I write his license plate down and then I decide to make sure I never have to see this guy again. I take his phone and write down numbers of obvious relatives: Mom, Dad, etc. Just a few. And then I tell him “I never want to see you again.”

I made it clear for him that if he saw me somewhere, he’d better make sure I don’t see him. Anyway, at this point he’s sitting in his car. I toss the keys and his cell phone into his car and tell him to get lost.

He sits in the car sobbing for a while as I’m walking away, but he’s got the engine started and leaving by the time I’m back in my house. At this point, I sit down and pour a drink.

And then I decide I wished I had called the authorities because I’m not getting any sleep, so I call the officer to show them the confession and all the information. The officer who shows up writes a few things down and tells me I should have detained him. Two days later, I call them and ask them about a report.

No news, and no news would come. No report. Oh well, he’s never coming back. Wrong! He knocks on my door about a year later. I open the door, and he must have seen the anger.

He backs away from the door with his hands up and says he came to apologize. He said he was very sorry. I told him I accepted his apology and to not screw up like that again. And then he said thanks and walked away. Very strange. Story credit: Reddit / deuce_bumps

A Shocking Truth

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When I was 14, I went for a walk by myself on a dirt path. I passed some guy who was just sitting on a rock in the middle of the forest. I didn’t make eye contact with him, but I could see that he was crying. I wanted to help, but my gut told me not to.

Three days later, I turned on the news and saw his picture. That’s when I learned a shocking truth about that man—he had savagely slaughtered his wife and five-year-old daughter. Story credit: Reddit / aryaveer_12

Don't Ignore Me

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When I was around eight years old, I was waiting outside the Disneyland bathroom for my dad who was in there for a while and some guy who looked like a grandfather came up to me and yelled in a shaky voice, “C’mon, Jake! I can’t stand here forever, now!” I’m a girl, so that made it even weirder.

At first, I thought he was talking to someone else, but then he came closer.

He got irritated, saying, “Jake! Don’t ignore me!” I started looking at him with a clearly confused face, trying to signal that I don’t know who in the world Jake is, so please go away, but he got even closer and grabbed my arm and started pulling me away, saying “We are GOING to sit down, Jake! C’mon!”

I was trying to stay put but this guy was strong and eventually, my legs wouldn’t stay put. He effectively dragged me out of my place.

At this point, I started screaming but it was more unintelligible shrieks and people must have thought that I really was “Jake,” and I was just resisting, not that I didn’t even know who this guy was. Luckily though, my dad came out of the bathroom then pulled me back and started yelling at the guy.

The security got involved and then they told us the most upsetting story. Apparently, the guy’s grandson was named Jake, who had a seizure and passed inside that bathroom over a year ago.

The grandfather had some form of Alzheimer’s and stayed there every weekend just waiting for his grandson to come out of the bathroom. Story credit: Reddit / SteelersObsessed

Never Walk Alone

Pexels

When I was a kid living in Russia, I would walk to school every day with my brother. One day, I had to walk alone because my brother was sick. As I was walking, I saw this lady laying in the dirt. She was dressed like a nun and was screaming something at me.

She then started digging the ground with her hands and kept looking at me and saying random things. I ran as fast as my child-sized legs could take me. Story credit: Reddit / adfiness

My Photo Was on His Wall

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A random guy once told me, “I drove by your house the other day and watched you change”. He then proceeded to tell me what I had been wearing and what I changed into. He described my clothes 100% accurately. And at the time I was 15 and he was 26.

My bedroom was in the basement, and he literally had to be hiding in the bushes in order to see through my window and blinds because there were massive and thick bushes covering them. But that wasn’t even the creepiest part.

I hung blankets over my windows immediately and have had blackout curtains in every house I’ve ever lived in since. A few months after that incident I got a random call from a woman asking if I knew this guy. She asked if anything ever happened to me and if I was okay.

Turns out he was under arrest for rape and had a room filled with photos of all the women he was stalking. My photo and address were on his wall. Story credit: Reddit / Ceerz

You Smell Horrible

My father forced me to take cold showers. He kept saying “You smell horrible, go take a cold shower and use the soap I gave you.” And I did, like five times a day, it was driving me insane. My mom never really said anything and tried to avoid me most of the time, which was very odd as we were very close. One day my boyfriend came over and I asked, “Baby, do I stink?” He just laughed it off and got up to go to the bathroom. Moments later, he comes back with a PALE look on his face, holding the soap I use to shower. “Who gave you this?! Are you taking cold showers with this?!?” My blood froze. “Yeah, why?!” He started crying, “They didn’t tell you, did they?!” Turns out my father had been giving me animal soap which actually caused me to smell even more. He didn’t really know it, and probably heard about it from someone and just tried to help me. It left some bad rashes tho. A quick trip to the doctor resolved everything.

Story credit: Reddit/ DeletedUser

The Shocking Truth

I forced my husband into a HOT SHOWER. I notice him taking a shower twice a day but still smells HORRIBLE. When I asked him what was wrong he starts SHOUTING at me, that's when I knew something is seriously WRONG. One night we were making out when I made a horrible discovery. I forced him to take a shower but nothing worked. I immediately took him to the emergency. A few minutes later the doctor came out and told me a horrible truth, he had blisters all over his body and he was using the wrong medicines for that.

Story credit: Reddit / DeletedUser