People Are Confessing the Creepiest Person They've Ever Met

There's a dude who lives on my dorm floor currently who wins the contest, for me at least. He spends all of his time not in class keeping track of what people on the floor are doing and cataloging it mentally. He has this vast database in his head of where everyone is at all times.

One day I had no idea where my roommates were until he overheard me expressing my confusion and immediately informed me that "John is the library until 7, then he is getting dinner with his girlfriend and coming back. Ben is currently working out and will probably be back in an hour or so."
The worst is on thursday nights when the bros and bro-hos go out to their respective frats, and he keeps track of every fucking greek letter. "Sophia is at Alpha Chi, Jason is at Sigma Chi but will probably leave to go to Zeta Tau, Joy is at ..." He just lists them off at the slightest provocation. Anyways, I'm scared of him.

/xaperture/

I was hanging out with this boy for a bit, but then I realized he was crazy and not all there. (We were friends, before.) After a few months of hanging out with him, only slightly romantic, he started talking shit to me about the people I hung out with. So I stopped hanging out with him.

I ignore him when he tries to talk to me and he stops. I did give him 2 more chances, because I did like him as a person, but those didn't last. He talked too much shit and never listened to me. Then I find out he went to rehab for me, because he thought he pushed me away by being an alcoholic.
He comes back, thinking I'll be with him, now. I explain to him nicely that I'm seeing someone. He seems to understand, but then, one night, starts sending me awful texts about how I'm a cunt and how I ruined him. I'd always only been nice and never led him on.

He blamed me for making him break his sobriety for the first time in 2 months. After that, he started calling me and texting me all the time. He'd call me 30 times a day, sometimes 10 times in a row. He'd fill up my text inbox every day. He also texted my sister, as well.

He'd send me creepy messages trying to show how well he knew me, because I think he thought it was endearing. Like "Cute ass Violentlyshy mc-toast face with her cute little red shoesies." (I like toast and wear red shoes?) And "love you and your cute lil pointy shoes!" And then really awful messages like "FUCK YOU I HOPE YOU DIE IN A FIRE" and threatening to kick the ass of every boy I knew. And just a lot of weird creepy messages.

I asked him so many times to stop bothering me and my sister but he'd be like "I'll never stop until you give me a chance." I told him that him being insane when I was only ever civil is a HUGE indicator that I'd not be able to be with him. I finally had to pretend to delete my number (found a soundclip for disconnected service and recorded it as my voicemail and would just forward it whenever he called.)

Then he started harassing my little sister, telling her how perfect I was and when she started being mean to him because he wouldn't leave her alone, **he said he hoped she got raped by 40 men. **

He also emailed me all the time and it was just insane how he could not understand how crazy he was. He even had a girlfriend and she knew about me and tolerated him calling and texting me all the time. He found out I was going to a bar with some friends and showed up with her.

They just sat in a corner, necking the whole time. But later texted my sister, "Violentlyshy looked beautiful tonight." And I tried telling his girlfriend to warn her, and she said, "Duh. I was there when he texted that."

/violentlyshy/

Not a single person has believed this story, but I swear on my life that it is true. A buddy and I were playing a large game of chess and enjoying some brew last fall at Balmer's hostel in Interlaken, Switzerland. About half way through our game, a man dressed in what looked like exquisitely hand-made and heavy black everything (boots, pants, shirt, trench coat, hat) with greasy, wavy, shoulder-length, jet black hair and beard sat down in a chair nearby, facing the board.
Once in a while he would make a sort of "hmm... interesting, I am amused" sound under his breath after a move. We attempted introducing ourselves to him several times, but he did not look away from the board and did not say a clearly intelligible word. Before we finished the game, he stood up and quickly left.

That night, we were in the hostel's bar, which was underground and had a unique vibe. Almost like it had been a dungeon prior, but now had 2-for-1 drink specials of the local brew for several hours every night. It was around midnight when we both went out into the courtyard (near where the chess board was) and sat down at a table under an awning. It was raining.

From the shadows on the far side of the courtyard, the same man walks confidently up to us and sits down. He was completely dry and had an indescribable, but not unpleasant scent about him. He begins regaling his tale in a low tone that was barely audible above the sound of rain falling on the cedar roof above us.

I do have to paraphrase, as I had a nice buzz going, but remember the gist of his story. He was from a small country, not far from Switzerland, that no longer exists. He and his family had survived for "millennia" there before being driven out. By Vampires.

He said he came from a line of infamous slayers who held back the vampire onslaught, but just barely. In the mountains of his home country, his family did battle against the vampires, intentionally provoking their ire to hold their focus, sparing the world at large.

He went on to say that after the latest battle, their fortress had been over-run. He was in the field, keeping an eye on one vampire in particular that they believed to be top ranking. After the defenses fell, the vampire he had been watching began to flee. Our new friend had been following him for two months.

At this point, my buddy and I were moments away from calling his bluff. I started to say, "Really..." in that condescending, 'you are full of shit' way that people do, when he hushed me and turned his head, obviously in attempt to hear something. We heard only the rain. He then grabbed my arm. His hand was ice cold. He looked into my very soul and said, "Get up. Get inside. Now." That moment is still burned into my mind as the single most horrifying of my life.

Words cannot describe the intensity and sincerity behind his words and expression. Before I could even think another thought, he stood, pulled a shotgun from beneath his trench coat and ran silently around the building to the locker area, which has only one entrance. I sat there frozen, mouth agape, while my friend stood and followed him. But he was already gone.

/volatile_ant/

An old guy who would frequent the bars in my home town of Derry. He had the nickname 'Mad Maurice', so you can probably see where this is going.
He looked like a normal late-50s past his prime guy who had nothing better to do with his time than to sit in bars all day sipping a few pints and placing a few bets. Except that he had a permanent grin on his face and deliberate boss eyes.

The problem with Mad Maurice is that he would occasionally approach people and do very odd or aggressive things. He would approach groups of young people on a night out and say he had damaged their car brakes because he wanted them dead.
Sometimes he would scream obscenities at bar staff for no reason. Most creepily he would sometimes stand or sit close to a group and listen to their conversation - he wouldn't try to hide it. 

If asked to mind his own business he would complain and say he had every right to listen. If people went quiet on him, he would ask them to speak up.

My most direct encounter with Maurice was around the time my mother had her bad stroke. A few weeks had passed and my best mate dragged me out for a few drinks to try and cheer me up.

I wasn't really in a fun mood that night and I was more drowning my sorrows than getting cheered up. Maurice had been listening in (we hadn't noticed) and when he got up to leave he came up to me and shouted in my ear:

"YOU ARE TALKING SHIT. SHE FUCKING DESERVED WHAT SHE GOT" and left. It took my mate and three barstaff to stop me from chasing after him.
That encounter was fairly typical of Mad Maurices encounters with people in Derry. I think he's barred from most pubs by now.

/grundie/

I was riding the school bus home a few weeks before I graduated from high school and this cute freshman girl sat next to me. She seemed a little hyper and we started chatting a little (mostly her because I was trying to listen to music.)

She asked to look through my ipod because that was one of the way she learned got to know people. She then proceeded to tell me about how she lost her hand-virginity and her mouth virginity and how her and all of her friends were fighting over this guy who wasn't to pretty but had a really big dick.

It was really disturbing to hear a girl who looked like she had barely hit puberty talk about sex. She asked me what bus stop I got off at and I told her. Then she started asking me about guys and how far I had ever gone and when we got to my stop she got followed me off.
We both stood at the stop and she started to walk the other way but stopped and turned around when she saw I was walking up the hill. She asked me where I lived and I pointed vaguely ahead of us, down the street. 

She kept asking me about guys and I finally told her I'd never really dated. She seem surprised and then asked for my number.

She began excitedly telling me she had a 24 year old friend who went to college down south that would be perfect. I evaded the question by saying I was graduating soon and had exams to worry about.

As we were walking by the local elementary school she told me that she had gotten in a fight with one of her friends there over a guy and how she had smashed the girls head into one of the brick walls and her subsequent run in with the police.
I turned onto the street where I lived and she kept talking to me. Thankfully a blue car honked at us and turned around to pull up to us. 

She was really excited because it was apparently her friend and her friend's mom. I ran away while she was distracted.

/this_isnt_happening/

I had the pleasure of meeting this guy. I only met him once two years ago after buying some pot off of him, but I've been following his achievements on the internet since then. He is a former medalist in the Pizzalympics; here is a video of him on youtube trickspinning a pizza while hanging out with teenagers.
Furthermore, he owned a serval, which is a type of African wildcat, named Mr. Bigglesworth. The cat escaped and eluded its captors for several weeks by hiding in the city parks of Pittsburgh.

He was pretty creepy when I bought pot off of him. I remember him wearing a red leather vest and a beret. There were rumors that he liked to have sex with younger guys, and he bragged about having sex with various local celebrities.

He was racist and really arrogant, so my friends and I made fun of him until he sold us a pre-rolled joint for ten dollars and left. He threatening to sick his goon, the Hook, on us, on the way out the door.

I was younger and ruder then, so I prank phone called him occasionally. One day he called me sounding really sad and said that he was gay and had no friends, asking if I would hang out with him.

I felt bad for what I had done then, so I said that he could come over to my friend's house sometimes when I was there, pretending like I lived there too. He never came around though, and I traveled abroad for awhile a month or so later.

After I got back, I was visiting my parents and heard his name on the news. They said that he was caught oral sexing with a kid; I forget the nature of the sex act exactly, but apparently they had met off of craigslist and decided to go do it in a local park. There were a few uncertainties; I believe that I heard that the boy allegedly lied about his age or something.

I investigated his life a little bit on the internet when I saw the news and found his myspace, wherein he had lied about his real age by over ten years, and most of his friends were kids in their early teens. Ever since then, I've followed his life story on the internet out of entertainment.
I think he is genuinely mentally ill, not that that excuses what he's done. I know that he's very educated and intelligent, but he seemed to have absolutely no social skills. 

[redacted]

Quite the coincidence that I happened along this thread as I was just thinking about him the other day. I try not to at any rate, but it always finds a way to creep back into my subconscious. Anyways...here it goes.
Back in high school I worked at the local (now deceased) Hollywood Video close to where I lived. I really liked working there but had to quit due to college. I met a lot of good people there but there is one person in mind who was especially creepy.

For this point on, I will name him as Dale. Now, Dale had been working there for quite a bit when I got hired on as a movie rental lackie. He was really short, probably 5'2/5'3, had tanned leather looking like skin with a dirty blonde crew cut. He also had no teeth to speak of and had a pair of dentures that he wore.

In my first week of working, I got into a tiff with him after discussing what my duties should be (I was assigned to do pre-used shrink wrapping and he wanted help on the floor). I was young and naive and he was in the right.

Afterward, I apologized to him and we were then able to be pleasant to one another and that is when I really start to get to know Dale. All the stuff was on the surface as it usually is but you always have to dig deeper to get to the meat of it all. Suffice it to say, shit got weird.

He was very professional to the customers and his job but when it got slow, shit got weird. He told me about how he was in the vietnam war and some of the stories he had from that. (I wish I remembered in detail but this was many years ago) He told me about his drug addictions but that now he was a couple years sober.

His favorite was rubbing cocaine into his gums which I could presume why he had no teeth. Also, whenever an attractive woman would come through, he would whisper to me the size and 'perkiness' of her breasts, chuckle, and punch me in the arm until she came up to check out in which he was the first to volunteer his services.

After I left to go to college, I'd go back from time to time to check in on the remaining crew there. Rumor had it that he had met a larger woman and married. He had invited some other Hollywood Video folks to the wedding and I guess shit went down and he later quit the store and later relapsed in his drug addictions. It was the last that I had ever heard or seen of him.
There are probably a lot more "crazier" people out there but personally, he is the creepiest I have met & gotten to know but I would also classify him in the "kick ass old guy" and/or "unique" person categories as well.

/ryguy314/

Creepiest person I’ve ever met was a woman I knew when I was a teenager. I was 14 or 15, a freshman in high school, and heavily into the hardcore scene. It was that awkward age where you’re drinking hard liquor for the first time in the woods behind the barn with the boys every weekend, and you look like a man so you think you are one, but you’re still totally a kid.
I met a strange woman at a hardcore show, she was around 24 or 25, and she almost instantly developed a massive crush on me. I have no idea why, we had literally nothing in common other than liking hardcore shows. 

She wanted to be introduced to my parents, she talked to me every night on AIM for like six hours, she’d find out which shows I was going to and then show up there and spend the whole time trying to hug me or hang on my arm, or wait for me outside the bathroom.

I’d never received any kind of female attention, so I wasn’t sure how to feel about it. She was more attractive than anyone we went to school with so my friends thought I was a stud, and my parents thought it was a cute silly thing that I had an older friend. I told a guidance counselor at school about it and he gave me a high five, but the whole thing made me feel kind of nauseous.

Just like a gut feeling of “there’s something not right happening here”. Anytime I had a crush on a girl, or a dude for that matter, she’d bother my friends until they’d tell her who it was, then throw a tantrum and yell about how other girls were whores and she was the one listening to me and all my problems.

And also when was I going to wake up and see that true love was right in front of me the whole time, and when that didn’t work (because it never worked, I thought she was scary and unstable) she’d cry and say nobody loved her until me or another of my friends would comfort her.

This went on for years. She never tried anything physical with me outside of the hugging; what she wanted was a guy who was wholly devoted to her in an Edward Cullen kind of way, but who never wanted anything sexual or physical. She believed all sex was ‘disgusting’ or ‘something that evil men do to women against their will’, and from my adult understanding of the situation, what she liked about me was that I was old enough to have all-encompassing crushes/limerence on people, but too young to have a sex drive.

Eventually when I was around 18 or 19 she lost interest, and from what I heard she started dating a guy around my age with Downs Syndrome. I ran into her when I was in my early 20s because we were hanging out with some older friends and she showed up, and she called me a ‘dark hearted psychopath’ because I had the audacity to grow up.

Haven’t seen her or heard from her since. Good fucking riddance.

/NightOnFuckMountain/

I was about ten or so. There was a dirt alley behind my house, and diagonally across the alley was my best friend's house. Next door to my friend and directly behind me was an old scraggly-looking lady who lived alone. Her house looked run-down, and she rarely left except for her regular grocery runs.

Her face was perpetually angry, and she never spoke to us, but she would routinely stare at us from her kitchen(probably) window. She always looked like a sinister old witch. My friends and I would say so loudly, but we generally left her alone.

Thinking back, it was probably more of a - "these kids are on my last fucking nerve" kind of look. Which, honestly, is fair. Now, I would probably hate myself at that age too.

So I'm alone in the alley one day. I had what I will generously call a tree fort, which was a couple 2x8 boards laid on top of convenient branches. I was testing out a poorly engineered rope pully system that I was going to use to bring things(including myself) up to the "fort."

The test was a failure. One foot got stuck in the rope loop, and I ended up hanging helplessly upside down a few feet from the ground. I physically couldn't do anything. I wasn't strong enough to bend myself up and relieve enough weight from the loop to free myself. All I could do was hang there like an idiot.

This all took place in the alley directly in front of the old witch's house. Before I could even call for help, I looked over and saw her marching toward me like a woman on fire. In her hand is one of those flimsy steak knives that are in every 1980s/90s granny kitchen.

The crappy serrated ones that look like tinfoil and fake wood but are still sharp somehow. I barely had time to panic, and I probably squeaked out a feeble 'help' before she got to me. I think to myself, whelp, you had a good run. Ten years of livin’ in the books, but we’ve reached the end of the line.

Without missing a beat, she cut the rope, and I flopped to the ground like a dumb fish. She stood over me for a fraction of a second with her grim witchy face, then turned on her heel and marched back to her house.

In maybe 18 years of living there, that was my only interaction with her. It was scary in the moment, but now it’s clear that our negativity towards her was made up in our minds. She was probably a sad widow, fed up with these idiot children trying to get themselves killed with poor engineering.

/Dominick82/

Halloween night I want to say 2014 or 2015. Either of those years because I was living with a now ex-gf in an apartment in Boston, and we had both gone out to see "Pink Talking Fish" in Cambridge. She decided to bail a little early - we weren't fighting or anything, but it was a weeknight and she said stay and have fun, plus we ran into some friends there anyway so I kissed her goodby and kept rocking.

I was pretty into the sport of getting insane blackout drunk in those days, deciding to drink neat scotch with beers on top of a prescription for Klonopin that would always seal the deal. But because I knew I was going to be commuting back home by myself, I just chilled and nursed a few PBR tallboys and stayed alert. GOOD FUCKING THING. Now, I'm not a complete idiot (anymore), but sometimes I would just think about connecting two different subway lines PLUS a bus and immediately order an Uber, even if it was a rush, like 1am on Halloween, and I would've paid like $90 in surge pricing.

But I couldn't even get an Uber. The map - like right in Central Sq. Cambridge, was all quick ghosts of cars that would be available for a millisecond and then get snagged. There were literally like 300 people just standing on the sidewalk because anyone who couldn't take the subway was kinda just "trying to make a plan" and blowing up their cheeks. It was a shitty place to be standing around in.

So as soon as I saw a white Crown Victoria pull up and sort of half double-park, I just pushed as many women and children out of my way and jumped right in the backseat. I did not care that this was the shadiest vehicle I'd ever gotten into. My objective was to exchange money for safe passage back to my apartment, and the Jamaican sounding dude seemed legit chill.

So I tell him the address, and of course there's no meter, and of course he has fuckall idea where my address is, so now it's like me just trying to figure out every turn for this guy to make to get me home. Which was a challenge. At one point he yelled out the window at a couple walking on the sidewalk, asking them if they needed a ride, and I just kept my mouth shut, because if I said "Dude fuck those people just get me home", that'd be kinda rude.

But right after he passed that couple he pulled over. When the car stopped he said "Why don't you get in the front in case I pick up other people, and also you can tell me where to go," Okkkkkkaaaaaay. I hop out, get in shotgun and he takes off again, never driving wildly or too fast, but as soon as I was in the front I felt really, really vulnerable.

And not 1 minute after I felt that way, we get to a red light, and this dude, out of fucking NOWHERE, opens the back door and climbs in the car. Not a word to the driver, just a guy who looks similar to him getting in the back seat, right at a point in the road that might be a good place to lay low before your partner pulls up with their next victim, after he's got him in the front seat. I looked at both of them, and looked at the traffic light, still red, and knew I had to make a decision instantly. I just opened the door and got the fuck out, and as soon as I did the driver started yelling at me about "get back here you gotta pay me for this far", and similar things.

At that point the random guy got out of the backseat, and as soon as I saw that happen I just booked it down the street back in the direction of the music venue, and I could feel my body definitely looked like the way Tom Cruise looks when he runs in movies. I was fucking FLYING. Adrenaline is really fucking cool to get high off of occasionally, and the comedown once you realize you're safe and probably escaped a mugging, or potentially worse, makes for great Halloween scares.

It was a situation where I didn't think anything of it, and within 3 minutes I felt like I could've potentially been murdered. Took the Subway home and didn't give a fuck that it took almost an hour because I was experiencing things with a different brain, after such a jolt like that.

/SumBum09/

One day after school, I was hanging out with my then-boyfriend and we watched one of the SAW films while lounging. He ordered pizza, so when we heard a knock on the door and the doorbell 30 minutes later, we assumed it was the food. He opened the door to find nobody there. He told me to promptly get to his room and stay there till he called me down.

I did. After 10 minutes, the doorbell rang again, and it was the food, so I went down because i was hungry lol. During that time, my boyfriend shut all windows and drapes, and although I assumed it was a prank, he claimed that this never occurred in his neighbourhood. We quickly forgot it.

On my way to school two days later, I receive a call from an unknown number. Considering that it was 6:30 a.m., I assumed it was an emergency call. I answered the call and all I heard was interference. A few seconds later, I received another call and said hello once more.

I heard a woman in the background of the call, and it became apparent that it was the audio voice of the bus announcer; which means the individual was on a bus. I peered everywhere, but only I was on the phone; a few others were using their devices, but I disregarded them because i didn't think it was any of them. At this juncture, I assumed I was dealing with a stalker.

The following week, at 2am, I received another missed call from a private number, and I thought it might have been my boyfriend because he couldn't sleep. I answered the phone without speaking; I heard static and heavy breathing. I turned off my phone and realised I have to change my number immediately. When i turned it back on i had a few voicemails and it 3 of them were complete static. Creepy. But i did change my number.

After a week, the situation had calmed down. I was, however, too optimistic. Because i got a private call on my new number around 3am. I just stared at the screen and thought, there is no way. No absolute way its the stalker. Ive changed my number. It stopped ringing and then they called again. I was so annoyed at this. But i answered the phone and a man spoke. He sounded like he was in his mid-20s (I was about 15 at the time). He inquired about my previous number.

I was shocked and couldn't think rationally. I gathered myself quickly and asked him his name, to which he responded that i already knew (lol tf?). I then inquired as to how he knew me, and he stated that he had seen me at a party. I suppose that's plausible, but how in the world did he get my number? He claimed that I gave it to him. I obviously didn't and i wouldn't because i was seeing someone.

I began recording the conversation using my mother's phone so that I could capture his voice. He then began to tell me I was very attractive, that he liked me, and that we should hang out one day after i finish school. He said he will pick me up and he knows a few spots. I was so disturbed by this. I asked him why he pranked me so much, and he responded, "do you mean the knocks or the calls?" I had forgotten about the incident involving the knocking.

As soon as i heard that shit, i cut the phone and immediately woke my mum and went to the police station to report everythinggg. This man knew me, where I attended school, and where my boyfriend lived, but still to this day I have no idea who he was. I have many, many more stories. I wish i didn't.

/ScifiGirl1986/

I used to work as a party princess (going to kids birthdays and making balloon animals etc.) I was outside my car parked a ways down from the house where the party was at, finishing up prepping all my stuff and getting my costume on, when a guy walking his dog stopped and started talking to me. This isn’t unusual, since a lot of people have approached me asking what I do, if there’s a party going on in the neighborhood, what company I worked for and stuff like that, which I’m always happy to answer as it’s good for the business.

He started off asking the usual questions, but things started to get weird. He kept asking me what house the party was at (I said, oh just somewhere down this street) and what the kids names were (I told him I forgot lol). He wasn’t happy with these answers and kept repeating the questions. He didn’t ask who I worked for, and when I asked him if he knew anyone looking for a birthday party princess, he told me no.

I eventually told him I had to get going, so he started walking down the street. I got in my car and called the line my work had set up for ‘party emergencies’ and explained what was going on. I only had two mins before I was supposed to arrive at the house, but something didn’t feel right. I look down the street and the guy isn’t walking anymore. He was standing behind a parked car with his dog and watching me. I stared back at him in that ‘i know you’re watching me’ kind of way and he started walking again.

The person on the phone (love her, saved my butt many times) told me to go ahead and get to the party and give the host a heads up about the guy. So I get out of my car, grab my stuff, and head for the house, walking the same way as the guy. Except he had stopped AGAIN behind a parked van. I stared him down again, and I think he thought I was going to confront him cause he started walking again.

When his back was turned I ran for the house and checked to make sure he wasn’t looking before opening the side gate and making it to the backyard where the party was at. I found the host right away and told her about the guy and how he kept asking about her kids and what house the party was at and if there were a lot of people here etc.

She asked me what he looked like and if he had a dog with him. I told her yeah and she told me she knew exactly who I was talking about. He was one of their neighbors and apparently had a mental disability, was known for walking his dog and making conversation with the neighborhood kids.

She apologized for the trouble, but said she didn’t think it was anything to worry about and chalked the whole thing up to his tendency for asking a lot of questions. Now, I’ve met quite a few people with special needs, and I could tell that there was something going on with this guy, but the people I’ve met have never given me the weird creepy vibe that he was. I rarely get that gut feeling to gtfo, but this guy had really set it off.

The party went smoothly, though I started off a little shaky (thank you, adrenaline) and at the end the host’s husband walked me back to my car. No sign of guy anywhere and they gave me $100 tip. I called the work emergency line again to let them know I was ok and they were super relieved.

I told my sister about it when I got home and she agreed that there were some major red flags. Maybe the guy was actually harmless, idk, but the whole thing never sat right with me.

/imactuallyadragon99/

My mom has a friend we lived in the same neighborhood as for several years. She had 3 kids around the age of my little brother. I don’t remember if they bought their house or built their house they were originally in but eventually they bought the house next door and their culture is very family oriented so they had family in and out living next door as needed.
When I was maybe 10 years old they had a cousin or uncle who was living next door who also had a child around the same age as my little brother. sometimes when we'd go to my moms friends house to see if they could play and we could see no one was home, we would hang out in their front yard on their swing set. one time, she was home and just didn't come to the door until she heard us hanging around outside. 

I was about 11 when she called me over to her door and told me if her and the kids weren't all outside with me, i didnt need to be there. specifically said this about me, not me and my brother. i kinda brushed it off because there was a little bit of a language barrier but I went home. Maybe a few weeks later, the family member next door needed to go run errands and would be gone for a few hours and asked me to watch his kid. Said that my moms friend, her husband, and all the kids next door would be there the whole time if I needed anything so I said sure.

He brought me thru his house to show me where everything was and when he want to leave, he wrapped his around around my waist and pulled me to him and he said “what no kiss goodbye?” And I froze. I kissed his cheek and we stayed outside the entire time I was there watching the kid so they could all play outside. I refused to be in that house ever again. A while later, he moved from that house to another house in the neighborhood, and things got weirder. It was a house we had to walk past when getting off the bus and a couple times he’d whistle at me from his back door and gesture for me to come over.

I always ignored him or said my parents were waiting on me. Eventually we moved from that neighborhood but still kept in touch with my moms friend and her kids bc my brother was best friends with the kids. At one point my mom started babysitting this guys kid and taking him to school. Every time he came to the house, he would linger for way too long and he was almost always drunk. I refused to go to my bedroom when he was there because I didn’t want him to know where I slept. My moms my best friend but she didn’t think too much of my worry.

So I made sure to tell my dad I didn’t like him, the way he looked at me, and how I wouldn’t go to my room when he was around. Soon after, something happens and mom stops watching the kid. Then, it’s thanksgiving weekend and her friend wants to learn a more American dish for the holiday right before we leave to go out of town. So my brother and I hang out at her house while my mom takes friend to get ingredients. Her oldest child is a girl who looks up to me, super sweet, and was over hanging out with her brothers and mine so we sat in the living room.

Her dad was next door working on the house renovations because they were moving there soon. It was her dad, the family member, and a few other guys. I told her I wanted to make sure the doors were locked because I didn’t like him. She was a little younger so didn’t fully understand but she helped me make sure they were all locked. Our moms get back, we leave to go out of town about two hours away. And about an hour into the drive, my mom gets a call from her friend. She talking very quietly on the phone, and then repeats the story to my dad who starts freaking the fuck out. I’m like “what’s going on?” And my dad said “you have to tell her when we get there”.

So we get to my grandpaws house, get settled, and later on I’m like wth happened. Moms friend called her to let her know that her husband beat the absolute dog shit out of that creepy family member after we left because he saw me leave but didn’t see me when I got there. He looked at her husband and said “man, look at her. One way or another, I’m going to have her” and the husband said “what the fuck. She’s a child” creep said “yeah but LOOK at her. She doesn’t look like a child” (I was 13 at this time I think) and the husband said “well, what about my daughter? She’s also a child” (she was about 10-11 at this time) and he fucking said “if she looked like that I’d say the same thing” dude got beat within an inch of his fucking life.

Then, a year or so later, he skips out of the country allegedly due to sexual assault allegations of a YOUNG female child. My moms friend ended up adopting his kid and the kid has never looked back on who bio dad was because he was so shitty. That guy did so much weird and fucked up shit. I’m so glad they took his kid in.

/Pdidz96/

A teacher at my school. This guy had to be at least in his late 60's or early 70's. He was the stagecraft teacher. Really thin lanky guy with a face that just looked like he was going to be trouble. I fought off my initial bad feelings, because hey, don't judge a book by its cover.
Well, Christmas time rolls around. We have a big play and I'm on a team that is building Christmas Future. I'm one of the hand puppeteers. We all form a semi circle, myself , another girl (referred to as A), another boy, a female teacher, and the male teacher (I'll refer to him as H).

Well, as we are talking, we are the only people on stage. Nobody else in the building. This guy slowly runs his hand down my back and touches my butt. Not just a little brush or anything, he really gets in there if you know what I mean.

I quickly back away, stunned at what happened. I'm a junior and have not a clue as what to do. After, I go and talk to A, who is frantic, telling me she saw the whole thing. I go home and tell my dad. Well, as you’d imagine, he is pretty upset. I brush away some of the more ragey ideas he’s got going on in his mind and guide him back to school.

We go and talk to the principal. He nods, saying that he will take our concern seriously. Then he says that he will go and monitor the teacher. Sounds good in my book. Well, by this, he means that he will tell H that hes going to watch what he does. No firing, because I'm just one student and they don't have enough evidence.

Flash forward and now girls are walking in pairs, as well as some guys. H continues to stare me down and watch me. I'm grossed out. Then comes to dress rehearsal. He walks into the female changing room. He takes a few glances around, really drinking in the scene. A little too long but...

Thankfully we are all dressed, but this went up and over the top. Multiple people reported him. But he didnt get fired. Because H was a friend of the principal. Really is no limits to corruption in bureaucracy and what have you. We were all upset but barely surprised to tell you the truth.
I decide to do some of my own research now. After googling this guys name, turns out he has a small cult revolving around him. Yes, a cult. Not unlike the ones you’ve seen on the news with one guy abusing a bunch of girls with some accomplices and it all coming out years later and you can’t even image how it even got that far. 

Reported it to my therapist, teacher and a few others. He gets fired by a higher up in the district. Thank goodness, it really didn’t seem like anything could touch this guy with all we went through. Grossest I've ever felt and by far the creepiest thing to happen to me.

/New_Leaf1333/

So due to my job I encounter a lot of "creepy" people, and angry people and people suffering from mental health issues that may come off as creepy. But one guy stands above the rest.
I responded to a domestic call. I arrive on the side of the roadway and find a woman and her three kids. Come to find out her boyfriend attempted to run her and her children over with hi car, circling back around and making a secondary pass. Eventually, she decided she didn't want to press charges, she just wanted to go to her mother's house. So, I give her and the kids a ride.

As she is ushering the kids inside, a shitty little car pulls into the driveway behind my patrol car. The car pulls in at an extremely high rate of speed, and the door flys open before it's even totally stopped. I've been on my fair share of domestics, so I already know this is shitbag boyfriend. But, as soon as he exited the car I knew something was different.

I figure it was some primal thing deep in my head, but immediately every hair stood on end, my vision came into sharper focus and my whole body tensed up. The way he moved, the way he looked, the way his eyes looked through me and locked on to his girlfriend. There was something wrong with this man.

More wrong than the usual domestics, or assaults or what have you. This man had an aura of evil about him that I have only felt one other time in my career. And I hesitate to use the word evil; most people made a bad decision, or a series of bad decisions. Some are even just bad shitty people. But evil is rare. Evil is not a common thing, but I firmly believe this man was evil.

He and I exchanged a few words. The way he spoke was like a barely contained feral animal, foaming and itching to attack its prey. However, girlfriend had no injuries and she did not want to press charges, so I couldn't arrest him and end it right there.

I stepped toward him, got in his face and told him that I knew exactly who he was and where he lived. I told him that if he came back to this house for any reason I was going to find him and take him to jail, for trespassing if necessary.

He locked eyes with me, dead flat eyes with a little ember of hatred in them, and got back in his car and drove away. He didn't come back to that house that night, lucky for her.
The entire encounter is seared in my brain I've been in way scarier situations, faced down way more physically imposing people. But that was the first time I ever encountered someome who radiated evil in that way.

/KayTeePerry/

When I was 17, we moved to this house on a lake in Florida, where a bunch of people owned boats/kayaks/canoes, etc. My grandparents also lived on the lake, across from us, which was part of the reason why we moved there. Anyway, we’re outside the first day at the new house with my grandma, and this older guy comes up on his boat. Maybe mid-60s, early 70s. He introduced himself, pointed out where he lived, ya know, neighbor stuff.

The entire time, I was getting bad vibes, but he was being friendly enough to my mom and grandma I just stayed. He asked me if I’d ever gone surfing, I said no, and he offered to teach me sometime.

Now this wasn’t a big lake. It was small enough that even a shitty pair of binoculars in our living room would be enough to see my grandparents’ house. As soon as he said that, my brain clocked out and not long after we went back inside.

A couple weeks later, I was home alone during a day off from school, and I looked across the yard to see him paddle-boarding around near our dock. He didn’t go far, maybe one or two houses down, then he would circle back. I moved from the living room and went into my room, and watched a neighbor walk over to talk to him before he paddled away. Again, not entirely creepy, just bad vibes.

Another couple weeks later, I started dating this guy and he came over to go fishing with me. Boat guy comes over on one of his boats, and starts talking to us. At some point, he gets out of his boat, comes onto the dock, talks with my boyfriend and generally being friendly. A third time, not creepy, but this time he pulled us both into a sort of side huh thing, that made me incredibly uncomfortable. My boyfriend eventually makes an excuse and we go inside, and he mentions he was drunk.

Finally, just before finals, at the beginning of summer, I notice a boat Ive never seen before sitting out in the lake just inside the no-wake zone. Whatever, people like to spend nights on the lake, none of my business. The boat stays there for five days. I mention it to a friend of mine who lives in the neighborhood, just deeper in and off the lake.

He asks me to send him a pic, I do, and he responds ‘Oh that’s one of [Boat Guy’s] boats.’ At that point I get worried, this is a retirement-aged man who has no problem drinking and driving(boating?), so I go online and submit an anonymous tip to the local PD. ‘There’s been a boat on X lake for four days now.

It hasn’t moved or even turned, and I haven’t seen any people on it.’ The next day it gets pulled from the water. I asked my friend about it, and he goes ‘My mom heard from the police they found an attempted fire on board and two dead bodies.’

I never looked into this, to be fair this is a shitty corner of Florida and I’m not gonna shove my nose where it doesn’t belong, but for the rest of the time I lived in that house, I never saw Boat Guy again. I think about it every once in a while.

/TrannyBitchBoy/

Honestly, my brother. He has severe mental illness that's incredibly unpredictable. Months go by with him seeming fine, and then there's a day that he just completely shifts. Having dealt with it for over a decade now you'd think you'd get used to it, but you don't, you just get smarter about seeing a break coming. There's no countdown timer though and half the time it doesn't end up being anything, but saying something about it can trigger that break. The reason it's terrifying is because he's almost always around either myself, my mom, or my dad, and it goes from 0-200 in the blink of an eye.
The first violent episode it was just me, we just fought intensely for a while, and then he went around smashing everything he could find until cops came and had to tackle him. People joke about "crazy-strength", but it's no joke.

Since then, he's been stun-gunned, tased, flash banged, and bean-bagged by police. Mostly separate incidents, some multiple times. He violently threw my mid-60s mom to the ground. He cornered my dad with a knife when he came to check on him at his apartment, which my dad did because someone who knew my brother called him to let him know that he was sitting in a public park in the city repeatedly stabbing a knife into the ground. That fiasco ended with my brother taken down by SWAT.

He's been involuntarily admitted to mental health facilities more than a dozen times, but they have a catch and release policy unless you've got insane money, which neither he nor us do. I've learned a frightening amount about both our legal system and mental health system throughout these years, and there are holes big enough to drive a bus through.

At this point, my dad has moved out of the country so the only option was for my brother was to move in with my mom or be homeless, and she couldn't begin to entertain the idea of making her son homeless. After years of never owning a firearm, I do now, and I have a different perspective on why it might be necessary for some people. Some people just love guns, but some people have a legitimate reason for needing one.

Thankfully, for now, he's not a threat to either of us. Our relationships with him seemed to be going better, but then he got it in his head that we were part of a conspiracy that was seeking to kill him. So he went to the police station to report it. They know both myself and my mom (at this point they've met us several times) so they called EMTs, but that spooked him. So he pulled out a knife and stabbed one of the cops (went through the Kevlar).

Thankfully the cop was okay after some stitches but because of what happened, he's now passed the requirements to be kept in a mental health facility for a while. No idea how long though, and once he's out, he'll be going back to my mom's.

Oh, and the cop is suing my mom and trying to go after her homeowners insurance. Which could very well make them drop her, even if it doesn't go anywhere, and she would have an extremely difficult time finding a new company that would cover her based on all of this. So there's that.
He will get out eventually, he will go back to my mom's, and then it's just a matter of time until the consistent escalation of this reaches the next level. He's only gotten worse over the years, and I'm terrified of what the next manifestation will be.

/caangus/

A little less than a decade ago, two of my buddies and I descended from the mountains during the night because of a massive storm that flooded our camp spot. We arrived into the small town at the base around 2 am and checked the established campsites, but they were also all muddy and flooded.

We noticed a tent setup in there though, and as we walked away we all realized at the same time that a man with a large white beard and wearing all black was walking at the same pace as us out of the campground area. As we walked closer towards the main road we eventually lost sight of him.

Since we had parked my friend's car in the next town and had taken a bus back several towns to start our hike, we had never planned to come to this town and therefore had no means of transportation out of there. We decided to get some rooms for the night and head back on our hike once the storm passed the next day.

So we walked to every hotel in this town, but they had no rooms available anywhere. After about an hour of walking in the rain, we stood under an awning at the gas station and the worker came out to tell us that the post office building was open all night and sometimes stranded hikers spent the night in there and it was fine. So we went there.

We threw our sleeping pads on the floor and tried to get a few hours of sleep now that we were sheltered. At some point I hear my friend say, "Someone is watching us outside". We all get up and look and it's the white beard ninja creep looking guy. He is just standing there with his nose on the window staring at us. Then he slowly walks away after a few minutes while looking back at us a few times before vanishing.

We all agreed to leave this building before getting murdered in it or that maybe that man's campsite was flooded and he might have been trying to sleep there as well. Either way we decided to sit in a covered bus stop bench and drink the last of the warm beers in our backpacks while watching an incredible lightning show.

Not too long after though, we saw white beard ninja guy sit at a bench across the street from us outside of a restaurant. We just sat there doing our thing while he distantly looked at us and sometimes laid his head down on the table. This went on until about 6 am, when the rain stopped. He just walked away and we left shortly after.

We later found out that he is in fact a homeless person who lives there. He probably just wanted a place to sleep. I have seen him several times over the years as he is always hanging out outside that same restaurant. I bought him food and offered him beer but he declined the beer. I asked him about his life but he speaks so low and mumbled that I cannot understand anything he says. He seems really sweet in a way but obviously mentally ill also. The locals say he is harmless and just a bit lost.

Anyway, I'm not sure what to think of him but when I saw him standing in the rain, staring at me as I woke up, it freaked me the fuck out!

/AlpineMind/

Years ago (1998ish), I was a 19yo single struggling mother of a 3-month-old, and my car broke down in the middle of December on the interstate. The exit was not too far, just a mile or so, but I had a baby with me, the wind was atrocious, and it was starting to snow. Not only that, but this was after midnight, since I'd just picked up my daughter after working a late shift.

A kind couple pulled over and gave us a ride and I was so eternally grateful that I wanted to help others whenever I got the chance. And yes, I still realize it was stupid. But that was my naive mindset at the time. I STILL feel guilty to pass hitchhikers, but this experience made me never offer again, no matter what.

One day a few months later, I passed a broken down semi on the interstate and assumed the man I saw walking toward the exit was the driver. I was a fuel desk supervisor at a local truck stop then, and cell phones were not yet in every pocket. Figuring that he was just on his way to call his company or whatever, I pulled over and offered the ride. The next exit was just a couple miles down the road.

The guy gets in my car & asked me how far I could take him. Of course I immediately understood there was potential danger. If he were the driver seeking help, he'd ask me to take him to the next exit. But I thought I would be rude, and didn't want to insult him if he was just simply a struggling person. Again - STUPID.

So I just said I could take him to that exit anyway, and decided to just get on with it. He was immediately setting off my alarm bells, which I kept ignoring. He was sort of leaning back and forth, keeping his eyes straight ahead and his hands on his legs. I made some small talk, asked where he was going.

He said something about walking to Alabama (we were in central Kentucky), to pick up his car from someone. Obviously that's really weird. Got to the exit and was thankful it was about to be over, I could drop him off and hope I helped him at least a little.

Back then, I was a smoker, and he'd taking one of my cigarettes when I offered him one. So after we get to the first gas station, I gave him all of my remaining cigarettes and all the spare cash I had on me. It was extremely pitiful - just a cup full of change. But it really was all I had, and I wanted to truly help him out.

My relief & rebound desire to help him quickly died, because he did not open the door. He just sat there, now completely still and stiff, gripping that cup of change and pack of cigarettes, staring straight ahead. I became terrified. Not sure how long this happened, but I was shaking when I was trying to reach for my door handle & praying I could unbuckle my seatbelt and leap out before he could grab me.

Just as I touched the handle and reached for my belt buckle, he finally looked at me. He said I was too sweet for what he'd planned, and told me never, ever pick up a stranger again. Then he simply opened the door and walked away. And I still look at caught killers to see if any of them match my memory of him. I also followed his advice. I feel like shit, but I've never picked up a stranger again.

/ScribbleMuse/

Before I got my own laundry machines, I used the shared laundry room in my apartment complex. The building for the shared laundry is separate from the units and you have to go outside to get to it. Tenants all have our own keys to get into this room which they keep locked at all other times to avoid vandalism etc.

One night I was coming back from the laundry room with my dry clothes and I heard someone say “excuse me” from behind me. I turn around and there’s this guy standing there who I’ve never seen.

He stared at me silently for a second with a stoic face and narrowed eyes. I don’t know what it was, but the second I saw him every alarm bell started going off in my head. This was a regular looking guy, there was nothing about his posture or anything else that would outwardly suggest danger. The conversation went like this:

Guy: I just moved in and don’t have a key to the laundry room yet. Can you open the door for me?
Me: (paused for a second as I was trying to remember if someone had moved in recently, and I did recall seeing a moving van a couple days before) Oh ok, yes I can open it for you.

Guy: Can I just borrow your key?
Me: Uhhhh...
Guy: It’s cool, just tell me which unit you’re in and I’ll put it in your mailbox when I’m done.
Me: No. I will open the door and there’s a wedge inside you can use to prop it open.
Guy: ....Okay. Thanks.

I opened the door for him and started heading back towards my unit. Then I got the feeling I should look back, and I did and saw him standing in the doorway watching me.

I was pretty uncomfortable about that, so I turned and went the opposite way that I would go and went behind the building and through a different entrance that I didn’t use since it took me the long way around.

I just had a strong, strong feeling that I shouldn’t let this stranger know which unit I was in. Despite him saying he now lived in the complex, I never did see him again.

I can’t prove he was up to no good, but I’ve never had that kind of internal reaction to seeing a regular person before or since.

/Amockdfw89/

I was hiking in a remote area to get to an abandoned church that was rumored to be used by a satanic cult. I needed footage for a project for a video production course I was taking in my masters program. I was about an hour in to the hike when two people walked around the bend in the trail. Please keep in mind that I had hiked about two miles from the closest semi-public parking lot to get to this point.

The first person looked to be at minimum 70, was relying fairly heavily on a metal cane, and had on a hospital-type blue and white mask. This was in October 2019, so it wasn’t too hot, but this was also pre-Covid and far from anywhere I would ever expect to see a medical mask. I’ve felt a lot of anxiety around unknown people in masks since, and I attribute a lot of it to this interaction.

The second person was following closely behind him and looked to be their wife of similar age, but she didn’t have a cane or mask. I was immediately freaked as soon as I saw them. Masks weren’t normal then, and were the farthest from normal you could get considering it was 2019 and a mile deep into a wildlife management area.

We all paused for a minute and just stared at each other warily before I kept walking forward until we were about ten feet from each other. To this day, I’ve never felt so closely scrutinized by anyone. I felt so closely watched: every facial expression, every subconscious body movement. Their eyes were sharper than most people I’d ever met, and far beyond the sharpness I would ever expect to see in the average 70+ year old person.

I could immediately tell that something was not right. My dad made me read “The Gift of Fear” when I was growing up, and despite being on a daredevil kick, I immediately knew I had fucked up going there alone. I had goosebumps, I felt like I couldn’t stay still, and I couldn’t stop the word vomit coming from my mouth. Upon thinking about it after, I realized that I learned not a single thing about them including who they were or why they were out there.

However, by the time I walked off, they knew my name, my college, my dorm, my major, why I was there, what I was doing, where I was planning on going, where I had parked, and that people were expecting me back at home before nightfall. They had asked specific questions to get that information from me, and I honestly answered 100% truthfully because I felt I had to.

By the time they finished questioning me, they seemed more relaxed, but I knew without a shadow of a doubt that I needed them to realize that I wasn’t a threat. I think that’s why I overshared so much. I can’t put my finger on a single thing that did it, but I know I was in danger with them and it’s probably THE sharpest memory I have to date, bar none.

I tried to take unexpected and more difficult to travel paths once I got past them. I ended up getting my footage for my project, but I also ended up stranded in a 26,000+ acre wildlife management area after nightfall with no cell service and a dwindling battery.

I made it out, but it really changed my perspective on fear and reset the wild streak I had going at the time.

/TheSameButBetter/

When I was a child, it was my Stepdad. If you've ever witnessed someone in the midst of a cocaine fueled rage, you know what I mean.
My Stepdad always had a temper, but cocaine took his repressed anger from 3 to 10. As a six year old, I watched him stomp around our house, turning over furniture, tearing, ripping, smashing any inanimate object that was in his path, yelling at the top of his lungs in a stream of white hot anger.

If you made the mistake of making eye contact with him during the height of his rage, he'd stomp over and stoop down, bringing his face within inches of yours, barely pausing to breathe before continuing on yelling, almost screaming, about whatever it was that made him angry and there was a lot that made him angry.

Splatters of spittle would land on your cheeks and you didn't dare move to wipe the spit away. After the initial terror subsided enough to allow you to disassociate, because what he was yelling about didn't really matter any more at that point, you could watch a vein in his forehead pulse and follow the path it made all along his face.

You know that scene, from the 1993 Jurassic Park, where the kids are in the car and the T-Rex stoops down and looks into the car? Jurassic Park (1993) T-Rex Scene That is a pretty accurate representation of what it felt like, being present during one of my Stepdad's rages, except it wasn't as calculated, it was just white hot, uncontrollable rage.

I'd already been through quite a lot with my own biological Father by the age of six, living with my Stepdad was like living in the sequel of a horror movie, but instead of it being a cheesy follow up, it was a fresh take on an old horror. The only difference is that I wasn't raped in the sequel.

As I aged, my Biological parents got help, but my Stepdad continued to self medicate and go into rages, breaking furniture, even going as far as to lay hands on some of my siblings, (something, remarkably, he didn't do when we were younger).

Nowadays, my Stepdad has mellowed out, he still self medicates, but he's had two heart attacks and enjoys his role as a Grandpa to the one biological grandson he is able to regularly spend time with.
I encountered and met quite a few individuals who scared me quite a bit, as I grew up. With one exception, I was able to avoid being in complete danger because of what I experienced at the hands of my parents. Family scared me more, (with one exception) than any stranger I ever met.

/princesscorncob/

I used to work at a liquor store and while I was on a smoke break a guy came up started small talking to me in bad English. He was 40 something Latino guy and he just had this look like he was not right in the head.

He said he wanted to buy something so I went in and he got nude magazines and cleaning products. I didn't say a word but he looked at me and raised his eye brows and said "my house is going to be fun tonight you should come by" I said no and gave him a really disgusted look.

He leaves and I shake it off. A few minutes later a teenager on a skateboard comes in and gets a coke. He leaves and I hear talking outside but I had customers so I couldn't see what was going on. After a little bit the older guy comes back in and buys beer and duct tape. This time he's looking away from and not talking.

I ring him up and demands a black bag. I bag his stuff and he leaves then the talking ensues. I poke my head outside. He was talking to the teenager. He goes over and quickly puts the bag in the truck but pulls out the beer. Heads over to the passenger side opening it and putting the beer in it then waves over the teenager.

I ran up and ask the kid what he's doing. He tries saying "none of your business man" and I very clearly explain "I don't care about the beer if he bought it for you, this dude bought duct tape, cleaning products and nude magazines. The beer is the least of my concerns. I'm about to call the cops on this guy don't go with him."

He gives me a shocked look and says "what the fuck... he just offered me a ride I'm not into that shit." As he's getting on his skateboard the man gets really upset with me and pulls out a knife saying something in Spanish.

So I pull out my phone and pretend I'm recording him cause my POS phone had super cracked screen and only used it for receiving calls. But I memorize his license plate as he starts getting in his truck.

He leaves and I call the cops immediately. Lucky he paid for the cleaning products and magazines with a credit card but paid cash for the duct tape and beer.

The cops tell me that truck and license plate has a warrant for arrest... wouldn't tell me what for but said they would find him and thoroughly thanked me for warning the teenager though. I wonder what he's done.

/Wild-Crab1900/

Couple creepy ones like the time a dude claiming to be Jesus tried mugging my father, brother, and I in a Dicks parking lot. Though the creepiest I ever felt wasn’t tied to any inherent danger, it was only creepy because I was the only one that noticed.

My friends and I were out in the neighborhood, maybe around 7 pm or 8, driving around because we had just gotten our licenses and had nothing better to do. I was driving my friends massive F350 made even more absurd by the fact that we lived in an affluent suburb fairy close to D.C. One of my friends was sitting shotgun and the other three were in the bed of the truck.

All the houses are situated like a typical suburb in which there’s maybe 10 ft. of lawn between houses. However there’s this one spot on a blind turn that’s just a sort of empty space of grass and a few trees. When you make that turn your headlights point directly onto the empty space.

Anyways, I take the turn as I had done countless number of times. However as the headlights shone onto the empty space, they illuminated a mother and her two daughter on either side of her hand in hand.

They were standing completely straight, dressed up as though they had gone or were going to a Quinceañera. I locked eyes with the mother throughout the whole turn, she didn’t blink once and seemingly stared into every fiber of my being.

I was pretty creeped out. There was no reason I could think of why’d they be standing in that spot that I’d never seen someone standing before especially at that time of night. There aren’t even sidewalks in the neighborhood so the only time you see people on the streets like that is when they’re walking their dogs.

I brushed it off though. However, I brought it up to my friends when we were sitting around talking. I said something a long the lines of “dude wtf was with those people standing along the side of the road, kinda creepy”.

All of my friends responded with “what are you on” we didn’t see anything, which makes complete sense cause they weren’t driving and paying attention to the road.

I ended up trying to find out if anything sinister had happened in the neighborhood but besides a murder suicide that I had already known about nothing has happened there Anyways, that experience still sits pretty uneasy with me today and I’m still creeped out to drive by that spot at night.

/borislav1997/

Used to live in a upstairs flat in a nice enough area. A few years in, some -questionable- folk moved in five doors up. I heard from the neighbours that there were drugs involved and it was a bit of a halfway house for random lodgers.

ANYWAY. One night, I remembered I needed to take the bin out of the back garden as it was rubbish collection the next day. Unfortunately for me it was about 12AM, which just makes all this worse.

Went down the stairs, opened my back door and the garden gate was wide open. Now this is odd because the gate itself is made of hardwood and incredibly stiff to open (especially in winter time) so I know it didn't just open of its own accord, and I certainly didn't do it. I waited for a couple of seconds and talked myself out of the scaries.

No sooner than I took a step out into my back yard, a man popped up out of NOWHERE. He was dressed like a homeless person. This is not to sound prejudiced, he just looked a lot like the homeless population that reside in my area.

I kid you not this man stared at me for 2 whole minutes without saying anything. Neither did I say anything bc I was literally frozen with dread.

All of a sudden he says "I'm looking for number 68?" I preceded to tell him with all of a wisp in my throat that this is number 58, he needed to be five doors down (halfway/asbo house). The guy walked out of my yard, but still stayed in the way of the gate. He was just fricken standing there staring at me. It was the most terrifying thing.

He asked me again where he needed to be, I told him, five doors down, and pointed that way. He said thanks and left. So I put the bin outside, yanked that back gate shut and legged it back up into the flat. I was on window watch for about 2 hours after that.

Not even a few days after, I came home from work at around 12AM to a raging fire in the back lane (my back garden lead out to that back lane) and when I tell you it was THIS close to burning my fences and gate down.

The people moved out a couple of days after that.

/No_Recording7878/

In 1998 I was 22 years old and I was driving alone in rural Missouri outside of Kansas City with no cell phone. I am female and white and it was dusk. I also had a slight build, so I could not defend myself. I came to a complete stop at a stop sign. There was a police car behind me that turned on its lights. I thought they wanted to drive past me, so
I pulled over.

But they pulled up behind me, and the officer that came to my window seemed very surprised that I was a young white college student, maybe because my car was quite old and janky and the local college is a private institution, so many of the students there have a nice cars. He asked me if I knew why he had pulled me over. I said I had absolutely no idea. He said “Well, why don’t you get out of your vehicle right now and I will show you why I pulled you over.“

Something about the way he said it and stepped back from the door made my blood run cold, and I instantly became terrified, and my heart started racing. I thought this man is going to assault me at the side of the road in the middle of nowhere in the dark, in the mud, and he’s a police officer with a gun.

I felt like I had to open the door. I was shaking. My chest was hot and my airway started to feel tight. I got out, and I thought my knees were going to completely buckle and he’d have to drag me, but my knees held.

Then he takes me to the rear of the vehicle and he positions me so that I am between the bumper and him with my back slightly to him and he pointed the tail light and he says “You see this? Well, you’ve turned off your engine and your lights but if you hadn’t, you would see that this tail light ... is burnt out.“

I mumbled piteously that I would have that tail light fixed immediately and then I had no idea that it was out. He had a partner who ran my ID, and I have no idea what their arrangement was, but the guy was staying pretty far away from the interaction his partner was having with me.

At first, I thought that this man must’ve been clueless about making me feel that he could and would assault me at the side of the road, but later I wondered if maybe he knew exactly what he was doing, that he was doing it on purpose, and then he enjoyed it. It seems like that is more likely.

The guy was a dick about an old license plate I had in the backseat that belong to the former owner of the vehicle I was in (the state had changed plate design recently), and he was a dick about me putting on my seatbelt, making it seem like he thought I hadn’t been wearing my seatbelt when he pulled me over even though I had, and he was just really throwing his weight around.

I get my ID and insurance and registration info back and he let me go. By the time I realized that I should report him, the police department had “no record“ of me having ever been pulled over by the Liberty Police Department. I hope other people reported him and I hope he was disciplined because of it, but knowing police departments, I doubt it.

/NeedThleep/

Many years ago when in my early 20's , my friends and I went to a house party. with people we did not know but had a great time until the cops raided the house for the noise and weed use. After leaving, as we were walking to the car, around 12am and me being somewhat drunk, some girl who looked familiar walked next to us with her friends and, she too bwing drunk, leaned into me and whispered "I want you". She was not bad looking, I was horny, my friends egged me on and her friends were giggling.

So we into a nearby gangway where she blew me and I eventually doggy fucked her, much to the drunk chears of our friends. We parted ways, only remember ing her mae was either Lisa or Liza, we did not trade numbers either.

Two days later, she showed up to my work. I never told her where I worked. She did not talk to me but kept looking at me. When I got off and got into my car, she was on the corner in the rain looking at me, smiling.

Now, having my own personal stalker is not cool since the only place that dawned on me where I had seen her before the party was at my work: I used to work in a Fashion Under $10 store. I would meet a lot of girls through here and had a few one nighters so it did not click in on me how she knew where I worked. Anyway, a week later, I was working alone and she came in. No one else was in the store and she came up to me and asked me why I have not called her.

I was like "We did not trade number and besides your first name and our little suck and fuck there was nothing more to come out of this, you knew that ." Her eyes got misty and she screamed at me saying I was an asshole. A week later, I saw her by my house.

Forget the fact she was pissing me off, she was also creeping me out like was she tailing me all this time or something. I had enough so I called the cops and they got there right before she started to leave. She told them we were boyfriend and girlfriend. Obviously we were not and the cops warned her to back off and not come back.

Finally, almost a year later, an ex of mine came into my store, we talked a little and we planned to meet up after work. So we had a friendly date and told me she was a bit sad since her cousin had recently passed away in a car accident.

Trying to chear her up, I asked more details like her name and what happened. She told me she was diagnozed bipolar and with attachment issues and her name was Elisabeth. She showed me a picture. Guess who it was?

My ex never knew I had that one night stand with her cousin but it started to make sense where else i had seen her.

/fauxcanadian/

So, a few years back, I was on a bus at night going home after seeing my boyfriend, sitting almost at the back, next to the window (this is important later) and the bus was packed.

A few stops after I get on the bus, a dude gets on and immediately starts to stare at me, he was at the front so he was staring pretty intensely for me to notice right away. He wasn't discreet either, even when he got a seat he was turning his whole body only for him to be able to see me and I started to feel really, really uncomfortable, so I went into alert mode.

At one point the bus started to empty out a little, and the guy that was sitting beside me eventually got off. I felt a prickle forming on the back of my neck like a Spidey sense going off.

The creepy dude immediately stood up and tried to sit next to me, luckily another man sat in the empty seat so the creep couldn't but he stood by him to keep watching me.

As my stop was getting closer I started feeling more and more uneasy, since I was going to have to ask him to move so I could get off, and my gut feeling kept telling me that something was very, very wrong.

I decided to get off a little earlier than I usually do to see what he did, and the creepy dude got off too!. So I just stood right there, next to a few open shops and I pretended to text like I was waiting for someone.

The guy took off in the exact direction where my house is and was constantly turning back to see if I was going behind him, even waiting a little, but since he saw I wasn't moving he eventually left.

I waited a few more minutes and phoned a friend to talk while I walked home, when I arrived I texted another friend about what happened since I was pretty freaked out.

A few weeks later I was watching the news and they start talking about a serial rapist that was active in my town and how he had attacked several girls in my area.The details were horrific and I think about them fairly often as a matter of fact.

Then they show a drawing of the suspect... and I shit you not, it was the creepy dude from that night. I don’t think I’ve been so freaked out in my entire life. There goes sleeping...

/MsAshyCatSnark/

When I(F) was around 12 years old I was at the skatepark with a few male friends. We were skating around until we decided to have a break. So we all sat under the tree and we talked. A few minutes later a man in his early thirties biked up and sat a few feet away from us. (Keep in mind he sat right beside my bike) we didn't think much of him and we continued to mind our own business.

This was some years ago, so I don't remember exactly what he said but it was something along the lines of "Well, aren't you a pretty young girl" I was a very people-pleasing kid so I just awkardly laughed and said thanked him. After that he continued to stare at me.

One of my friends caught on and yelled at him to fuck off. He then started asking me questions like how old I am, my name, where I go to school, etc. I felt really uncomfortable and was ignoring him while my friend, the one that told him to fuck off, he was giving him a death glare.

Then he turns to my friend and asks him the same questions, but in a more threatening tone, like he was angry. At this point we were all scared shitless and we decided to move away from him. Now, my bike was right beside the man and I need to grab it to move away. So I slowly inched towards the bike, the man said "Awh are you scared of me~?" I was freaked out and grabbed my bike quickly and followed my friends away.

A few days later, my friends went back to the same skatepark, this time, another girl was with us. We come up to the skatepark, and the same man was there, again. He notices us and starts talking to us like we are old friends.

He notices the other girl in particular and says something like "Oh, she's new~" I explained to her what happened last time before we came here and she was clearly uncomfortable, but she was more outspoken and confident then me and she told him off. We were doing our thing at the skatepark when he started to skate, and tried showing me and the other girl his tricks. We got fed up and decided to leave.

Weeks later, me, my parents, and my brother who must have been 4 at the time went to the park, where the man was. I had told my parents about him and they recognised him right away. My Dad went off on him, yelling and cursing at him the moment he spoke to me. We left. We live very close to the skatepark, like a five minute walk. So we were walking home, and we saw that the man was following us. We walked another route away from our home, and around a corner, until we ran and lost him.

When we veered into our street, there was an officer in his car patrolling the area. My parents went up to the cop and told him what happened, and a description of the guy. They said this was likely the man they were looking for who was wanted for sexually harassing young girls.

I still go to that skatepark with those same friends often, we never saw him after we spoke to the cop, but we still wonder what could have happened if the events played out just a little differently.

/Lime_Katt/

Back when I was in high school, it was common for me to go to the next town over after school as that’s where most of my friends lived. I’d take their school bus there and either stay at one of their houses or have my mom pick me up later at night since no public busses could take me back to my place.

Basically, once I was there, I was there until my mom could get me or I could catch the school bus the next morning. With that, it became fairly common for me to be wandering around town late at night by myself, and aside from the occasional cat calls, I never had any issues. Except this one time.
I usually went to this youth center, where most of my friends would hang, and that placed closed at 9. After it closed one night I was walking from there to a 24hr coffee place where I’d be meeting another set of friends to hang out for a while before heading back to one of their places to spend the night. 

It was about a 15 minute walk, and 5 minutes into it a car very suddenly pulled over and an older man (at least from a 15yo’s perspective) walked out, and started walking behind me. I tried to dismiss it as some sort of coincidence, and avoided looking behind me at him. But he kept following me, and I was getting more and more creeped out. I couldn’t call my parents as since I was meant to be staying there that night, they went to bed early.

In a panic I didn’t think to call anyone else, so I just pretended my dad was calling me. I talked to nobody for the rest of the walk, saying where I was, that I’d be home soon, and I made sure that when I got to the coffee place I “ended the call” with “Okay, see you in 5 minutes.”

He followed me into the coffee place too. It was empty except for me, him, and the workers. I sat where we usually did, and he sat in a booth across the room, just staring at me.

Every time I looked up he was still just staring at me, and as soon as 5 minutes passed and my dad had clearly not shown up, I went from creeped out to terrified. Luckily, my friends showed up not too long after that.

We may have all been teens but there was a good chunk of us and the one I was going home with later was very tall and very strong so I wasn’t scared anymore. I ended up getting wrapped up in what we were talking about and didn’t even notice that he left at some point until we went to leave. Maybe it was nothing.

Maybe he just hated the parking lot for the coffee place, or he was trying to get his steps in, or playing Pokémon go or something. Or, maybe it was something more sinister and I’m lucky to still be here today after that. Either way, probably my creepiest encounter with a stranger.
/deaddlikelatin/

I've always had a fascination with amusement parks, especially the more vintage, quirky attractions. In my college days, I landed a part-time job at a local amusement park. One of its main attractions, and my personal favorite, was the mirror maze. It was this old, slightly run-down structure, but it had a charm to it, a sense of stepping into another world.

This maze wasn’t your typical modern flashy affair. It had an air of a bygone era, the mirrors slightly tarnished, the frames ornate and old-fashioned. I often found myself volunteering to close it up at night, enjoying the quiet, eerie atmosphere once the visitors had left.

One evening, I was performing my usual routine of walking through the maze, ensuring no one was left inside before locking up. The park was quiet, the laughter and screams of the day’s excitement a distant memory. As I walked through the maze, the only sounds were my footsteps and the faint echo they produced in the mirrored corridors.

That's when I first saw him - a man, reflected in one of the mirrors. He wore a tattered old suit, like something out of a 1920s movie, and his face was unsettlingly gaunt. His eyes, though, they were the most unnerving part; they seemed to pierce right through me, following me as I moved.

At first, I thought it was a trick of the light, or maybe another staff member playing a prank. But as I continued, I kept catching glimpses of him. Always in the corner of my eye, always just a brief flash before he disappeared. I called out, but there was no answer. No sound but my own voice echoing off the mirrors.

Feeling a mix of fear and responsibility, I tried to find him. But every time I thought I had reached the spot where I had seen him, he wasn’t there. Instead, another mirror, another reflection of myself, confused and starting to panic.

Then, things took a turn for the bizarre. I heard a whisper, like a voice right next to my ear, but at the same time distant, ethereal. It said, “You’ll never leave.” The words sent a chill down my spine. I tried to rationalize it, to tell myself it was just my imagination, the stress of college and work getting to me.

I quickened my pace, trying to navigate my way out, but it felt like the maze was reshaping itself around me. Paths that I thought I knew led to dead ends, reflections seemed to twist and warp. It was like a nightmare, the kind where you run and run but never get anywhere.

Finally, after what felt like an eternity, I stumbled out of the maze, gasping for air. I locked the gate and didn’t look back. I reported what happened to my supervisor, but when we reviewed the CCTV footage, it showed only me in the maze, no sign of the man in the suit. I quit soon after, unable to shake the feeling that something unearthly had been in that maze with me.

u/MirrorMazeMystery

I have always been a library enthusiast, drawn to the smell of old books and the silence that blankets the rows of towering shelves. Our town's library was a place of solace for me, a grand old building with stained glass windows and a history that dated back centuries. I spent countless hours there, lost in the world of literature.

But my peace was disrupted by an eerie presence - a woman I only came to know as the 'Whispering Woman.' It started subtly, with faint whispers that I initially mistook for the rustling of pages or a distant conversation. However, as days passed, the whispers grew more pronounced, more persistent.

She was always there, in the quietest corners of the library, her eyes never focusing on anything tangible, her lips moving in a silent murmur. Her appearance was as haunting as her presence – disheveled hair, clothes that seemed as old as the books surrounding her, and a gaze that felt disconnected from the present.

The first time our eyes met, she stopped whispering. There was a chilling moment of silence before she resumed, her gaze never leaving mine. I felt a shiver run down my spine, an instinctual warning that something was not right.

Driven by a mix of curiosity and concern, I eventually approached her, my heart pounding in my chest. As I got closer, her whispers became clearer, fragmented phrases and names that seemed to hold significance only to her. Her voice had a haunting melody, like a lullaby sung in a forgotten language.

I asked her if she needed help, but she only smiled cryptically and whispered, "They listen, they always listen," before drifting away into the maze of bookshelves. That encounter left me deeply unsettled, the library no longer felt like a sanctuary but a place imbued with a mysterious sorrow.

I did some digging into the library’s history and uncovered a tragic story. Years ago, a woman who was a regular visitor had a mental breakdown following the loss of her entire family in a tragic accident. She believed that by reciting their names and important dates, she could somehow keep their memory alive. The description matched the Whispering Woman.

The library's ambiance changed for me after that. The whispers seemed to echo in my mind long after I left its walls. I found myself constantly looking over my shoulder, half-expecting to see her standing there, her eyes locked onto mine, whispering her endless litany.

I eventually stopped visiting the library, the place that once brought me so much peace. The Whispering Woman's presence, her unresolved grief and haunting whispers, had woven themselves into the fabric of the building, turning it into a monument of her sorrow.

u/LibraryWhispers

Living in a bustling city, I was no stranger to the eccentricities of public transport. But nothing could have prepared me for the series of events that unfolded on my daily subway commute. It began one seemingly ordinary morning when I first noticed him – a man sitting across from me in the subway car.

He was a nondescript man, dressed plainly, but his smile was what caught my attention. It was wide, unsettling, and seemed almost painted on his face. Most disturbingly, his eyes were fixed on me, unblinking, unyielding in their stare.

At first, I dismissed it as just another oddity of city life. However, the man was there every morning, always in the same car, always with that same eerie smile directed at me. It didn't matter which train I took or what time I boarded; he was always there.

Feeling increasingly unnerved, I decided to confront him one day. As I asked him about his strange behavior, his response was chillingly calm. "I'm just on my way to work," he said, but the unchanging smile and the intensity in his eyes suggested something far more sinister.

The situation escalated from there. I started noticing him outside the subway as well – near my workplace, on the streets I frequented. He was always there, at a distance, always with that same disconcerting smile. It felt like a silent threat, a constant reminder that he was watching.

I reported him to the authorities, but they said there wasn’t much they could do as he hadn’t committed any crime. This lack of action only served to amplify my anxiety and fear. I felt like I was constantly being monitored, my every move watched by those unrelenting eyes.

One day, I decided to change my routine completely, hoping to evade his gaze. For a while, it seemed to work, and I didn't see him. But just when I started to relax, there he was again, his presence looming like a dark cloud over my life.

The fear and stress became too much, and I began working remotely, avoiding the subway and public places where I might encounter him. For months, I lived in a state of heightened alertness, always wary of that smile appearing in the crowd.

Then, as suddenly as he had appeared, he vanished. I never saw him again. But the psychological impact of those encounters lingers. To this day, I find myself involuntarily scanning crowds for his face, that haunting smile. The fear he instilled in me has never quite faded.

u/SubwaySmileStalker

Living in a small, picturesque town often gives one a sense of safety and community. That sense of security was what I cherished until I encountered Mr. Hemlock, the gardener with an unsettling aura. He was a new face in our tight-knit community, a solitary figure who quietly took up gardening jobs around the neighborhood.

Mr. Hemlock was an older man, always seen with his gardening tools, tending to the plants with a level of care that seemed almost obsessive. His work was impeccable, his knowledge of plants extensive, but there was something about him that made me uneasy, a feeling I couldn't quite place.

Our interactions were sparse and strange. His gaze lingered a little too long, and his conversations, though rare, were filled with odd, sometimes dark botanical metaphors. He once said to me, "Plants, like people, need the right environment to flourish. In the wrong conditions, they wither, or worse, they can reveal their true nature."

The most unsettling incident occurred when I was out for an evening walk near the woods at the edge of town. My dog, usually calm, suddenly started barking furiously and darted into the underbrush. I followed, only to find Mr. Hemlock standing there, motionless, holding a shovel, staring at a specific spot on the ground.

His presence in the secluded part of the woods, especially at that hour, was alarming. When I questioned him, he mumbled something about checking soil quality and quickly left. His response did little to ease my growing suspicion and fear.

Driven by a mix of curiosity and concern, I returned to that spot the next day. What I discovered sent chills down my spine. Partially buried under a layer of leaves were bones. I couldn't tell if they were human or animal, but the sight was grisly.

I reported the discovery to the police. They conducted a brief investigation but found no conclusive evidence linking Mr. Hemlock to any wrongdoing. The bones were identified as animal remains, but the mystery surrounding their presence and Mr. Hemlock's odd behavior remained.

Rumors started spreading through the community. Some said he practiced black magic, others speculated about a dark past. His isolation grew, and soon, he stopped getting gardening jobs. The cheerful gardener had become a figure of suspicion and fear.

Then, as mysteriously as he had arrived, Mr. Hemlock disappeared. No one knows what happened to him or where he went. The spot in the woods became a place of eerie legends, a reminder of the gardener who might have harbored a grisly secret.

u/GardenerOfGloom

In my early twenties, I moved into a large apartment complex, a place buzzing with life and the comings and goings of its many residents. It was in this bustling environment that I first encountered my neighbor from Apartment 404, a man who soon became the source of my deepest unease.

He was a reclusive figure, rarely seen in communal areas, and when he did appear, it was always with a quiet, almost ghost-like presence. There was an air of mystery about him that piqued my curiosity initially, but this curiosity soon turned into alarm.

The first sign that something was amiss came in the form of phone calls. Late at night, my phone would ring, and when I answered, there was only silence on the other end, followed by a faint, disturbing sound of breathing. Initially, I dismissed these as wrong numbers or pranks, but they persisted, growing more frequent and unsettling.

One evening, after receiving yet another of these calls, I decided to confront my neighbor from 404. He was a tall, gaunt figure, his eyes sunken and his demeanor unnervingly calm. When I accused him of making the calls, he denied it with a smirk that sent a shiver down my spine.

From that day on, the calls became more personal, more targeted. Sometimes, I could hear my name being whispered, a faint, eerie sound that seemed to come from a place of malice. It felt like he was watching me, studying me.

My privacy shattered, I started seeing him everywhere – near my workplace, on the streets, always at a distance, always with that same, unsettling smirk. His presence was like a shadow over my life, a constant reminder that I was never truly alone.

I reported the incidents to the building management and even involved the police, but without concrete evidence, there was little they could do. The situation left me feeling helpless and paranoid, constantly looking over my shoulder, jumping at every phone call.

The stress became unbearable, and I decided to move out. The day I left the apartment complex, I saw him one last time. He was watching me from his window, his expression unreadable, yet filled with a chilling sense of finality.

Years have passed since those disturbing events, but the fear they instilled in me lingers. I still get anxious whenever I receive calls from unknown numbers, haunted by the memory of those whispered words and the eerie presence of the man from Apartment 404.

u/CallerFrom404

I've always enjoyed the quiet solitude of early morning jogs, especially through the foggy streets of my seaside town. There's something eerily beautiful about the way the fog rolls in, blanketing everything in a hushed mystery. That was until I encountered the figure in the fog, an experience that turned my peaceful routine into a haunting memory.

It started one misty morning when the fog was so thick, it was like running through clouds. The streets were deserted, the only sound my footsteps echoing off the damp cobblestones. That's when I first saw the figure – a silhouette, barely visible through the dense fog.

At first, I thought it was just another early riser, but something about the way they moved was unsettling. They seemed to glide rather than walk, their movements too smooth, too silent for a normal person. Each morning, I saw them, always at a distance, always watching.

Curiosity and a sense of unease drove me to alter my route, trying to catch a clearer glimpse of the figure. But no matter how I changed my path, they were always there, a ghostly presence just out of reach.

One morning, driven by a mix of fear and determination, I decided to confront them. As I approached, the figure seemed to dissolve into the fog, only to reappear farther away. It felt like a macabre game of cat and mouse, me chasing shadows in the mist.

Then, one day, the figure was closer than ever. I could make out details – a tattered coat, a hat pulled low over their face, and hands that seemed unnaturally long, almost claw-like. Their face remained hidden in the shadows of the hat, an enigma that chilled me to the bone.

I called out, demanding to know who they were, but there was no response. Just a chilling silence that seemed to swallow my words. The figure just stood there, motionless, before fading back into the fog, leaving me alone on the empty street.

I stopped my early morning jogs after that. The thought of encountering the figure again filled me with an inexplicable dread. The foggy streets no longer felt serene; they had become a haunting ground for a presence I couldn't understand.

Even now, on foggy mornings, I can't help but peer out my window, half expecting to see that figure standing in the street, watching, waiting. The memory of those encounters lingers like a cold whisper, a reminder of the mystery that once walked the fog-shrouded streets of my town.

u/FogboundPhantom

I've always been a fan of those quaint, out-of-the-way diners you find on long road trips. There's something comforting about a hot meal in a place filled with local charm. That's why, when I stumbled upon a small diner on a deserted stretch of highway during a road trip, I thought I'd discovered a hidden gem. Little did I know it was the beginning of an inexplicable mystery.

The diner, 'Molly's Highway Haven', looked like it was straight out of the 1950s, with its neon sign flickering in the twilight. Inside, it was warm and welcoming, with a few locals enjoying their meals. The waitress, an older, friendly lady, served me the best apple pie I'd ever tasted.

After my meal, I chatted with the waitress, learning about the diner's history. She spoke of it with a kind of pride that made the place seem even more special. I left feeling content and promised myself I'd return on my way back.

A week later, on my return trip, I eagerly anticipated stopping at Molly's again. However, as I approached the spot where the diner should have been, I found nothing but an overgrown field. Confused, I checked my map, thinking I'd made a wrong turn, but I was in the right place.

I asked around at the next town, but no one seemed to know about a diner in that area. It was as if Molly's Highway Haven had never existed. Refusing to believe I'd imagined the whole experience, I did some research but found nothing – no records, no mentions, nothing.

Months passed, but the mystery of the vanishing diner stayed with me. I made several more trips down that highway, always stopping at the spot where the diner had been, but there was never any sign of it. It was like a mirage that had vanished into thin air.

The most unsettling part came when I developed the photos from my road trip. In every picture I had taken of the diner, the space was empty. Just an open field, no sign of a building, no neon sign, nothing to prove that Molly's Highway Haven had ever been there.

I've since heard stories from other travelers, tales of restaurants, gas stations, and motels that appeared when needed most, only to vanish without a trace. These places, these fleeting havens, seem to exist in a realm beyond our understanding, appearing only to those who need them.

The memory of that warm diner and the taste of that apple pie still haunt me. In my travels, I've come to accept that there are mysteries on the road that are beyond explanation, places like Molly's Highway Haven, that exist somewhere between reality and imagination.

u/RoadTripMysteries

As an artist, I've always found solace in the quiet hours of night, working alone in my studio. There's something about the stillness that fuels creativity. However, that tranquility was shattered when I started noticing something – or someone – that I came to call 'The Shadow in the Studio.'

It began subtly. I would notice odd things out of place in my studio – brushes moved, paints not where I left them. Initially, I brushed it off as forgetfulness, but the occurrences became too frequent, too deliberate to ignore.

Then, I started seeing the shadow. Always out of the corner of my eye, a fleeting glimpse of something moving, a wisp of darkness that seemed to watch me. At first, I thought it was just my imagination, a trick of the light, or perhaps fatigue.

One night, while engrossed in painting, I clearly saw it – a humanoid shadow standing in the corner of the studio. It was motionless, just an outline against the wall, but its presence was palpable, almost oppressive.

I tried to approach it, my heart pounding in my chest, but as I drew nearer, it faded into the darkness. This encounter turned my sanctuary into a place of unease. The studio no longer felt like my own, but shared with something unseen.

I set up a camera to capture whatever was haunting me. Each morning, I would eagerly review the footage, but there was never any sign of the shadow. It was as if it existed only when I was there, a specter invisible to all but me.

I spoke to a few artist friends about my experiences. Most were skeptical, but one suggested it could be a manifestation of my own creative psyche – an artistic muse or a harbinger of inspiration. This idea was intriguing, yet it did little to ease my apprehension.

As time went on, I noticed a pattern. The shadow appeared most frequently when I was deeply immersed in my work, almost as if feeding off my creative energy. I began to wonder if it was somehow connected to my artistic process, a tangible representation of the creative spirit.

Despite the initial fear, I've grown accustomed to my silent observer. It remains an enigma, a shadowy presence that lurks in the periphery of my vision. Whether a figment of my imagination or something more, it has become an integral part of my nightly ritual in the studio.

u/StudioShadowSeeker

I've always been an avid reader, drawn to the magic of books and the stories they hold. That's why, when I stumbled upon a quaint, old bookstore tucked away in a forgotten alley during my city wanderings, it felt like discovering a treasure trove.

The bookstore, 'Chronicles and Tales', was like something out of a dream – shelves upon shelves of books, some ancient and dusty, others new and pristine. The owner, an elderly gentleman with a kind smile, welcomed me as if he had been expecting me.

I spent hours browsing the collections, finding books I had never seen or heard of before. The owner seemed to have an uncanny ability to recommend exactly what I was looking for, even before I knew it myself.

On one of my visits, I found a book that captivated me completely. It was an old, leather-bound volume, its title etched in gold but unfamiliar. When I opened it, the words seemed to dance and change before my eyes, telling a story that felt strangely personal.

I asked the owner about the book, but he just smiled mysteriously and said, "Some books choose their readers, not the other way around." Intrigued and a little unsettled, I decided to buy it.

Back home, the book consumed my attention. The story within it seemed to evolve each time I read it, revealing new layers, new twists. It was as if the book was alive, a living story that adapted and grew.

After a few weeks, I returned to the bookstore to learn more about my mysterious purchase. But to my shock, the alley where it had stood was empty. No sign of 'Chronicles and Tales' or the old man who owned it.

I asked around, but no one seemed to remember the bookstore. It was as if it had never existed. I scoured the city, searching for any trace of it, but found nothing. The only proof I had of its existence was the enigmatic book in my possession.

The timeless bookstore remains a mystery, a memory etched in my mind. The book still sits on my shelf, its story ever-changing, a reminder of the magical, transient place that once seemed a haven for a book lover like me.

u/BookboundMystic

I've always been fascinated by lighthouses, those solitary sentinels guarding the coastlines. So, when I heard about a volunteer opportunity to maintain a historic lighthouse for a summer, I leapt at the chance. What I didn't expect was to encounter the story of the lonely lighthouse keeper.

The lighthouse, perched on a rugged cliff, was as picturesque as it was isolated. The first few days were peaceful, filled with the routine of maintenance and the soothing sound of the waves. But soon, I started noticing peculiar things.

It began with whispers in the wind, so faint I thought I was imagining them. Then, objects in the lighthouse seemed to move on their own – a book left open on a page I hadn't read, a chair facing the sea in the morning.

One night, I saw a figure standing at the edge of the cliff, looking out to the sea. At first, I thought it was a trespasser, but as I approached, the figure vanished into thin air. That's when I learned about the former lighthouse keeper who had died many years ago.

The locals told me he was a solitary man, dedicated to his duty, but plagued by loneliness. One stormy night, he ventured out to the cliff's edge and was never seen again. Some say he fell into the sea; others believe he was claimed by the loneliness.

After hearing the story, the lighthouse took on a new meaning. I could feel the presence of the old keeper, his loneliness permeating the walls. The whispers in the wind seemed like his attempts to communicate, to share his solitary existence.

One evening, I saw the figure again, standing by the lighthouse beam. This time, I didn't approach but watched from a distance. The figure seemed to be gazing out at the sea, lost in a moment of eternal longing.

As my summer at the lighthouse drew to a close, I felt a strange connection to the lonely keeper. I realized that in some ways, we were alike, seeking solace in the solitude of the sea and the lighthouse.

I left the lighthouse with a sense of bittersweet nostalgia, carrying with me the tale of the lonely keeper. His story, a blend of sadness and duty, left a lasting impression on me, a reminder of the human stories hidden in these beacons of light.

u/LighthouseEchoes

In my small town, there's an old, abandoned factory that has always been shrouded in mystery and rumors. As a local journalist, I've always been curious about it, so I decided to investigate and uncover its secrets.

The factory, once a bustling hub, now stood desolate, its windows broken and walls covered in graffiti. The local lore was filled with stories of strange noises and ghostly sightings within its decaying walls.

One evening, I gathered my courage and entered the factory. The inside was vast and eerie, with remnants of its industrial past scattered around. The silence was oppressive, only broken by the occasional drip of water.

As I explored deeper, I found old documents and photographs, evidence of the factory's once-thriving existence. Among these, I discovered references to a hidden room, a place where the factory's darkest secrets were kept.

Intrigued, I searched for this hidden room. After hours of combing through the labyrinthine corridors, I found a concealed door, its existence almost completely obscured by years of neglect.

Behind the door was a small, dimly lit room. Inside, I found files and articles about unethical experiments and secret government contracts. It appeared the factory had been more than just an industrial site.

As I delved into the files, I realized the extent of the activities that had taken place here. The experiments were on humans, subjects lured with promises of money or medical help. It was a chilling discovery.

I heard a noise outside the room and quickly hid. Peering out, I saw figures searching the factory. They seemed to be looking for something – or someone. I waited, heart pounding, until they left.

I escaped with the documents and published an exposé, revealing the factory's sinister past. The story caused a sensation, leading to investigations and the eventual demolition of the factory. But the shadows of its past still linger in the town's memory.

u/TruthFinder101

I've always been drawn to music, so when I inherited an old piano from my great-aunt, I was thrilled. It was a beautiful, ornate instrument, and despite its age, it had a wonderfully rich tone. However, I soon discovered there was something unusual about this piano.

The first odd occurrence happened one night when I heard music. I lived alone, and the sound was unmistakably coming from the piano. It was a haunting melody, both beautiful and melancholic.

Initially, I rationalized it as a neighbor playing music or perhaps my imagination. But it happened again and again, always at night, always the same haunting melody coming from the piano.

Determined to uncover the source of the music, I examined the piano thoroughly. Inside, I found a hidden compartment containing old letters and a music sheet for a composition named "Eternal Lament."

The letters were from my great-aunt to a mysterious lover, speaking of a forbidden romance and a tragic separation. The music sheet, I realized, was the melody I had been hearing.

One evening, as the piano played, I sat down and followed the music with the sheet. As I played, I felt a chill in the air, a sense of longing and sadness that seemed to fill the room.

The music became more intense, and I felt as if I were not alone. I sensed a presence, a gentle touch on my shoulder, but when I turned, there was no one there.

After some research, I learned that my great-aunt's lover was a musician who died tragically young. It seemed their story was bound to the piano, their emotions etched into its very wood.

I continue to play "Eternal Lament" occasionally, feeling a connection to my great-aunt and her lost love. The piano's melody has become a bridge to the past, a haunting reminder of a timeless love story.

u/MelodicMystery

As an avid hiker, I've always loved exploring the dense woods that surround my hometown. These woods are known for their serene beauty and unspoiled trails, but local legends speak of a mysterious figure known as 'The Watcher.'

Curiosity got the best of me, and I decided to venture deeper into the woods than I ever had before, hoping to catch a glimpse of this so-called Watcher. The deeper I went, the more I felt an eerie sensation, as if I were being observed.

One afternoon, as the sun began to set, I saw it for the first time – a shadowy figure standing at a distance, obscured by the trees. It was tall, humanoid, but its features were indistinct.

Every time I tried to get closer, the figure seemed to move further away, always maintaining a constant distance. It never approached me, but its presence was unmistakable and unnerving.

I started visiting the woods more frequently, each time going a little further, trying to understand who or what this Watcher was. On each hike, I felt its eyes on me, a silent guardian of the forest's secrets.

One evening, I found a clearing I had never seen before. In the center stood an ancient tree, and there, beneath its branches, was the Watcher. This time, it didn't move away. Instead, it seemed to beckon me closer.

As I approached, the figure slowly became clearer. It was not a person but an intricate wooden statue, ancient and covered in moss. The craftsmanship was unlike anything I had ever seen, almost lifelike in its detail.

I realized then that the Watcher was not a person or a ghost, but a sentinel left by someone long ago, a protector of the woods. I felt a sense of peace, as if the statue had accepted my presence in its domain.

I still hike in those woods, and each time I pass the clearing, I feel a sense of reverence. The Watcher remains a mystery, its origins lost to time, but to me, it's a reminder of the woods' ancient beauty and mystery.

u/WoodlandWanderer

In our town, there's an old bridge that has been the subject of ghost stories for as long as anyone can remember. It's a beautiful yet eerie structure, known to locals as 'The Haunted Bridge.' Despite being a skeptic, the stories always intrigued me.

I decided to investigate the bridge one night, hoping to debunk the tales of the ghost that supposedly haunted it. The bridge, with its weathered stones and creaking planks, had a melancholic charm under the moonlight.

As I walked across, the air seemed to grow colder, and a dense fog began to rise from the river below. Halfway across, I heard a faint sound, like a whisper carried on the wind.

I paused, listening, and the whisper grew clearer. It was a woman's voice, singing a sad, haunting melody. The sound seemed to come from all around me, echoing off the water and the trees.

I felt a sudden chill and saw a figure at the end of the bridge, a woman dressed in old-fashioned clothing, her face pale and sorrowful. She seemed to be the source of the singing.

As I approached, the figure vanished, leaving only the echo of her song. I searched the area but found no trace of anyone. The experience left me shaken and questioning my skepticism.

I researched the bridge's history and discovered a tragic tale. Many years ago, a young woman had lost her lover in an accident at the bridge and, overcome with grief, had taken her own life there.

The locals believed her spirit remained, forever mourning her lost love. The story gave context to my encounter, and I began to view the bridge not just as a structure, but as a monument to a timeless love story.

I've returned to the bridge many times since, always respectful of its history and the legend it holds. Sometimes, when the fog is just right, I can still hear the faint melody, a lingering reminder of the bridge's ghostly inhabitant.

u/BridgeGhostTales

Hidden within the bustling city, there was a secret garden that few knew about. I discovered it by chance one day, a beautiful oasis of peace amidst the urban chaos. Intrigued by its hidden beauty, I became a frequent visitor.

The garden was always impeccably maintained, yet I never saw anyone else there – no gardeners, no visitors. It was as if the garden was waiting just for me, its vibrant flowers and lush greenery a private sanctuary.

One day, I noticed something peculiar – a new flowerbed had appeared overnight, filled with exotic flowers I had never seen before. Curious about who was taking care of the garden, I decided to investigate.

I started spending more time in the garden, hoping to catch a glimpse of its mysterious keeper. One evening, as the sun set, I finally saw a figure tending to the plants. It was an elderly man, his movements gentle and deliberate.

I approached him, and he greeted me with a warm, knowing smile. He introduced himself as Thomas, the garden's caretaker for many years. He shared stories of the garden's history, its creation, and the many people it had brought solace to.

Thomas explained that the garden was a labor of love, a tribute to his late wife who had adored flowers and nature. He had dedicated his life to maintaining this hidden gem in her memory.

As we talked, I realized that the garden was more than just a physical space; it was a living memory, a testament to enduring love and the healing power of nature.

Thomas passed away a few months later, but his legacy lived on in the garden. The city council decided to open the garden to the public, honoring his memory and his dedication.

The secret garden is no longer a hidden oasis, but it continues to be a place of peace and beauty. Whenever I visit, I think of Thomas and the love that nurtured this magical place, a reminder of the enduring power of care and dedication.

u/GardenOfMemories

In my childhood home, there was an attic that we were always told to avoid. It was said to be unsafe, but as I grew older, my curiosity about what it contained only grew stronger. After my parents passed, I finally decided to explore it.

The attic was dusty and filled with old boxes and forgotten furniture. As I sifted through the memories, I found a locked trunk. It was old and ornate, and despite its age, it was in remarkably good condition.

After some effort, I managed to open the trunk. Inside, I found a collection of items that seemed to belong to a woman I didn't recognize – photographs, letters, and a diary. The diary was what caught my attention.

The diary belonged to a woman named Elizabeth, who lived in the early 1900s. As I read, I was drawn into her world. She wrote about her life, her loves, and her fears. But there was a mysterious undertone to her entries.

Elizabeth spoke of a hidden truth, something she was compelled to conceal. The more I read, the more I realized that this truth was somehow connected to my family. Her last entries were filled with regret and warnings.

Determined to uncover the truth, I delved into my family history. What I found was shocking – Elizabeth was my great-aunt, whose existence had been erased from our family's history due to a scandal she was involved in.

Elizabeth had had a forbidden love affair that had ended tragically. Ashamed, my family had hidden all traces of her. But in her diary, she spoke of a child, a son born out of wedlock, who was taken away.

My research led me to a branch of the family I never knew existed. The child had been my grandfather's half-brother, living a parallel life just a few towns over. It was a revelation that reshaped my understanding of my family.

I reached out to the descendants of Elizabeth's son, and we shared our stories, uniting the branches of a family long divided. The attic's secret, hidden for decades, brought to light a past that changed our future.

u/AtticMysteries

As a freelance photographer, I have always been drawn to the allure of abandoned places. One such place that captivated me was an old lighthouse on a remote stretch of coastline, known locally as the Deserted Lighthouse.

The lighthouse, now a relic, stood solemnly facing the sea, its light long extinguished. The tales surrounding it were of unexplained lights and sounds, attracting both the curious and the brave.

During my first visit, I was struck by the lighthouse's melancholic beauty. As I explored its interior, I noticed that despite its abandonment, the lighthouse was surprisingly well-preserved.

In the keeper's room, I found a journal, its pages yellowed with age. It belonged to the last keeper, a man named Harold, who had mysteriously disappeared decades ago.

The journal entries were mundane at first, but as I read on, they took on a more troubled tone. Harold wrote of loneliness and strange occurrences, of unexplained shadows and whispers in the night.

One entry, in particular, stood out. Harold had written about a hidden compartment in the lighthouse, where he claimed to have discovered something extraordinary. However, the entry ended abruptly, leaving the secret untold.

Driven by curiosity, I searched and eventually found the hidden compartment. Inside, there were peculiar artifacts and an old photograph of a woman, her face hauntingly familiar.

Further research led me to learn that the woman was Harold's wife, who had died tragically at sea. It was said that Harold had become obsessed with finding a way to communicate with her, delving into the unknown.

Though the true nature of Harold's discovery remained a mystery, my photographs of the lighthouse and its hidden treasures sparked a renewed interest in its history. The Deserted Lighthouse, once forgotten, became a symbol of enduring love and the unexplained.

u/LighthouseShadows

Hawthorne Manor, a grand old estate on the outskirts of town, had always been the subject of rumors and ghost stories. As a local historian with a keen interest in paranormal phenomena, I decided to spend a night in the manor to uncover the truth.

The manor, with its Victorian architecture and overgrown gardens, exuded a sense of forgotten grandeur. Inside, the air was heavy with the scent of old wood and dust. Portraits of long-gone residents adorned the walls, their eyes seeming to follow my every move.

As night fell, the manor's eerie ambiance intensified. I set up my equipment and began to explore the dimly lit corridors and vast, empty rooms, each step echoing through the silent halls.

In the library, I found diaries and letters belonging to the Hawthorne family. They spoke of tragedy and loss, of a family torn apart by untimely deaths and unfulfilled promises.

As I delved deeper into the family's history, I heard a faint sound – the soft, distant playing of a piano. Following the sound, I came upon a grand ballroom where a figure sat at the piano, immersed in a melancholic melody.

The figure, a woman in a faded gown, was ethereal, her form barely more than a whisper. As I approached, she vanished, leaving the piano keys moving on their own. The music filled the room with a sadness that felt centuries old.

Throughout the night, I experienced other unexplainable occurrences – cold drafts, whispered voices, and fleeting shadows. Each encounter felt like a piece of the manor's tragic history coming to life.

By dawn, I had gathered enough evidence to confirm the manor's haunting. The spirits of the Hawthorne family lingered, bound to the estate by their unresolved pasts and the tragedies that befell them.

My experience at Hawthorne Manor was both chilling and enlightening. It reaffirmed my belief in the paranormal and gave a voice to the manor's silent ghosts, their stories now etched in my memory.

u/GhostlyHistorian

As a marine archaeologist, I've always been fascinated by shipwrecks and the stories they hold. One of my most intriguing projects was the exploration of the Mary Celeste, a ship found abandoned in 1872, its crew mysteriously vanished.

The Mary Celeste had become the stuff of maritime legend. When we located the wreck, it was in surprisingly good condition, resting eerily on the ocean floor. My team and I prepared to delve into its depths, seeking answers to a century-old mystery.

Inside the ship, everything was eerily preserved, as if the crew had just vanished into thin air. Personal belongings, navigation equipment, and even a meal set out on the table – all untouched.

In the captain's cabin, I found his logbook. The entries were routine until the final few pages, where the captain wrote of a growing unease among the crew, strange sightings in the water, and an unexplained illness.

The deeper we explored, the more unsettling the ship became. It felt as if the Mary Celeste was a floating tomb, holding within it the fears and secrets of those long gone.

We discovered a hidden compartment below deck. Inside, along with a stash of valuable cargo, were personal diaries of several crew members. The writings spoke of a growing paranoia, a belief that they were being followed by something unseen.

One diary entry, in particular, mentioned a mysterious artifact recovered from a recent voyage. It was described as an ancient relic, and ever since its discovery, the crew had experienced unexplainable phenomena.

The artifact was nowhere to be found on the ship, leading us to speculate that it was the catalyst for the events that unfolded. Perhaps fear and superstition led to the crew's downfall, or maybe there was something more supernatural at play.

The Mary Celeste remains a haunting enigma of the sea. Our expedition brought back artifacts and data, but the truth about the fate of its crew remains submerged in the depths of maritime lore.

u/DeepSeaMysteries

In the heart of the city stood the Galloway Theater, a once-glorious establishment now fallen into disrepair. As an aspiring playwright, I was drawn to its history and the rumors of a phantom that haunted its halls.

The theater was scheduled for demolition, so I took the chance to explore it one last time. Inside, the grandeur of its past was still evident despite the decay – velvet curtains, a grand chandelier, and rows of dusty seats.

As I walked through the backstage area, a cold breeze swept past me, and I heard the faint sound of applause. It was as if the theater was reliving its days of glory, the echoes of past performances lingering in the air.

In the dressing rooms, I found old costumes and playbills, remnants of the theater's heyday. Among them, a photograph of a striking actress, her gaze captivating. Her name was Eliza, the star of the theater and the rumored phantom.

That night, as I sat in the auditorium, the air suddenly grew thick with anticipation. The stage lit up inexplicably, and there she was – Eliza, performing a scene from her most famous play.

Her performance was mesmerizing, filled with passion and sorrow. As the scene reached its climax, she turned to me, her eyes brimming with tears, and then vanished, leaving the stage in darkness once more.

Intrigued by her story, I researched Eliza's life. She had been the jewel of Galloway Theater, her career cut tragically short by an accident on stage. Her spirit, it seemed, was tied to the theater, her final act never completed.

I wrote a play in Eliza's honor, telling her story. On the night before the theater's demolition, I performed it on the very stage where she had shone. As I acted, I felt her presence, a comforting warmth.

The Galloway Theater is gone now, but Eliza's story lives on through my play. In the world of theater, she remains an undying legend, her phantom a reminder of the enduring power of art and passion.

u/TheaterSpirits