Scary Stories For Dark Dreams - Volume 04 | ATRD Podcast 03:13:01

I was just a young, curious child at the time of this event. My parents were going to be taking us five kids to a fair of sorts. They held it in our county every summer. I remember going there the previous years, and I remember it just being a time where we could run around and play games, ride the rides, and eat sugar until we crashed. And this year wasn't going to be any different.

As we got our tickets and went through the gate, the smell of funnel cakes and popcorn hit my nose. I looked around to take in all the activities and could hear others screaming and laughing in excitement, and I couldn't wait to dive in and try everything. Since there were five of us to two adults, we all had to go together around all the stalls, games, and rides. We took turns in the games, trying out the ones that we wanted, and then we went to the

I typically sat out the smaller child-oriented ones like the tiny fishing game or the one where you just picked up a rubber duck. I wanted to play the ones where I threw the ball at the bottles or even used the hammer to hit the bell. I may have been a little girl, but I also thought that I was a lot stronger than I actually was. There was also one activity that they had every year that I always enjoyed and that was the sand art.

My poor parents probably had a full shelf of just my little jars of sand, but they always encouraged our creative side, so I was thankful for that. I had just celebrated my birthday a few weeks prior to this fair, so I also had my own spending money, and was hoping to make a special art for my parents. They gave me permission to go to it, as I was within their sight and ran over to it.

I picked out the perfect glass vase shaped like a heart, and I began to fill it with what I thought were my parents' favorite colors. While I was waiting for a different color, I would look around at all the movements surrounding me when a man caught my eye. He was standing near a trash can, smoking, and just staring right at me too. When we made eye contact, he smiled and winked at me.

I don't know why, and I couldn't explain it as a kid, but something about him made me feel overwhelmed. At first, it was like when I hear my dad call my name in a stern voice. And you know you're in trouble at that point. But this was fear. I wasn't afraid of my dad, so I quickly looked back down at my art and tried to just rush through finishing it.

When I got close to being done, now just waiting for the cork to close it, I looked around for my parents and saw them nearby at another stall. I grabbed my vase and hurried over to show them my work. While they were complimenting me, I sighed in relief when I looked around for the man and couldn't see him. I just shook it off, thinking it was just me being paranoid, and I continued to have fun with my family.

After walking around some more and trying out the other games and crafts, we stopped for a brief moment so that my mom could take my baby sister to the restroom to change her. I started looking around all the stalls, and I saw one that I wanted to check out. They had some large stuffed animals, one of those being an elephant, which was my favorite. My dad told us that we could go shortly, so I impatiently waited.

Once I spotted my mom, I walked up to her and told her about the stall as well. Again, I was a very excited child, and as soon as I heard the word okay, I darted over to it to see what I needed to do. While standing in line, I looked back at my family, and I saw that they were still there trying to get my sister back in her stroller, so I turned back to wait.

I finally reached the front, and I learned that the elephant I saw was a prize for the game where you had to shoot the targets. I don't think I even got close to winning the elephant, but I did get something else, equally as fun. I turned back ready to show my parents my winnings, when I realized that they were not by the restrooms anymore. I thought to myself that it wasn't a problem, that they were probably just nearby at another stall.

But as I continued to look around and not see any familiar faces, a slight bit of panic started to set in. So I walked back over to the restrooms, and I began shouting for my parents and older siblings, inside and out. However, my efforts seemed meaningless, because I still could not locate them. I walked around the nearby stalls and even stood on one of the benches, but the fear had already set in.

I was officially lost, and I didn't know what to do, or who to turn to. As I stood by the bench, watching all these other people carrying on with their evening, I finally did spot a face that I recognized. But it was not one that I wanted to see again. It was the smoking man. He was, again, standing, or more so leaning, against a handwashing station, but still staring right at me.

At that moment, the sense of dread washed over me, and I realized how vulnerable I was. He started walking towards me, and something in my ten-year-old brain told me, "'Do not let him get close to you.'" So I immediately started walking away as quickly as possible, and hopefully without alerting him.

Desperate to lose him in this maze of people and festival attractions, I ducked under people as I passed them, cut through lines and went behind stalls. But every time I looked back, he always seemed to be close by. He may not have been looking directly at me every time, but knowing that he was so close was overwhelming. I couldn't seem to lose this guy. I stood by one stall trying to figure out my best course of action.

I remember telling myself that I needed to either find the entrance, or find an adult that looked like they were in charge. I then recalled the ticket booth near the entrance, and when I spotted the same neon light, I knew I needed to get back there. I didn't immediately see the man, so I ran out of the stall in the direction of the light. I was proud of myself, thinking that I was going to finally lose this guy.

I was going to get to the front and tell the ticket booth people that I was being followed, and then they would track down my family. Problem solved. But then I ran into another person, which caused me to get turned around and slowed me down. While I was regaining my thoughts and figuring out where to go, I felt a yank on my arm. To my horror, it was the same smoking man. At that moment, fear consumed me.

paralyzing my body and clouding my thoughts. I felt... defeated, and I didn't know what else to do. What else could I do? But then he smiled at me, the most sinister smile I think I've ever seen, and said, I'll help you find your mommy and daddy. I was never more terrified in my life, and as I stood there with him tugging on my arm to follow him, something finally kicked on in me.

My fight or flight triggered as a last attempt to get away. I threw myself to the ground, almost like a ragdoll, and started screaming as loud as I could. I threw the biggest tantrum that I possibly could. I screamed, I kicked, I flailed until everybody was looking at us. The whole time this guy still had a tight grip of my arm, so I added to it. I started screaming that I wanted my mom and dad.

I screamed "Let go of me!" I screamed "I don't know you" until he finally let go. Of course, when he did let go, he backed away from me a few steps and said that he was going to help me find my parents. But almost everyone around was now staring at this guy, so he just threw his hands up and nonchalantly walked away.

Being older now, it actually frustrates me that no one ever questioned this man or thought to stop him. After he was completely out of view, swallowed by the crowd of people, I stood up and started walking the opposite way of him. Someone approached me who was wearing one of the vests for the staff and asked me if I was lost. She at least looked kinder, and she didn't scare me.

She led me right to one of the ticket booths I was looking for, and I helped give a description of my parents. However, my parents actually heard my tantrum and immediately started trying to find where it was coming from. I later learned that, while I was at the game, my family had started walking to a different stall, the one that they thought I was talking about.

and within the time of me finishing the game, I had walked the opposite direction of them while they were just circling back. It was kind of silly and crazy that we never ran into each other. In the end, I did shortly meet back up with my family, but that guy was long gone. They never saw him or caught him. My parents said that I was very brave and smart for doing what I did, and it definitely could have gone a lot worse.

We still joke about how my tantrums even then got me what I wanted, but I also can't help but think about that awful smile and why he chose me. And even worse, what his plans were if I would have gone with him. I've got a plethora of high school memories. Some great, some terrible, but there was one memory that has always stuck with me because of how different it could have gone.

In one of my classes, I was paired with someone during an assignment that I don't normally associate with. I gave a quick grimace to my friend in the class, wanting to be able to choose who I was paired with, of course, but then moved over to the seat next to my new partner. Let's call her Kayla. I'm going to try to make this short, but I just wanted to give a little backstory on Kayla and I that led up to the incident this story is about.

I didn't have any problems with Kayla, as I didn't really even know her. I also can't really recall her hanging out or talking with anyone else. She usually kept to herself. She went to classes on time, packed up right before the bell rang, but never earlier, not even in the last period. She rode her bike to and from school, and during lunch, she usually sat on the window ledge closest to the entrance.

Sometimes I saw a girl sitting with her at lunch or talking with her in the hallways, but that was it. At least for most of the interactions that she had. She didn't really do anything odd in class either, so as harsh as this is going to sound, she kind of just blended in with everyone else that I didn't associate with. So, when I moved over to her, she didn't say much.

We started discussing different topics to cover, and she typically just agreed with anything I chose, or said things like, yeah, whatever, works for you, whatever you want to do, that's fine. I couldn't really decide if she was easy to work with at the time or more difficult, because I had to make a lot of the decisions. But then, when it came time for the actual work, she was on top of it.

We had a week to gather our materials for the first part, but she came in the next day with her information completely put together. It was impressive. I made a comment about it to her, and she seemed upset or maybe embarrassed, and I asked her what was wrong, and she mentioned something about me being sarcastic. I wasn't, though. I was being genuine with her. Over the course of the assignment, we worked better and more thoroughly together, but she still really didn't talk much."

I was used to at least some small talk or goofing around, but every time I tried, she would shut me down. I won't get into it, but I will say that there was an incident at school involving Kayla where she tripped coming into the school, and I went over to help her and ask her if she was okay, and it seemed to surprise her that I did this. I don't know what shifted, but from then on, she began talking and opening up more about herself."

I even invited her over to my place to finish up our assignment and to hang out, wanting to get to know her better. Not only was she highly intelligent, but she was also very kind and pretty funny. So as we grew closer, so did Prom. I mentioned going, and she always shied away from the topic. She said that she wasn't planning on going, but I wasn't going to take no for an answer.

I may not have known why she was so reclusive, but she really was a fun girl, so I convinced her to go. My mom and I even took her so that we could get dresses together. We had all these plans as we put it all together, and I could tell that she began to light up more and more to this idea. So, cutting to the actual night of the prom, I offered to have my mom pick her up, but she declined, saying that she would have her mom bring her and we would just meet up there.

I got ready to go, my friend stopped by my place to take some pictures with me and ended up taking me to the school instead. When we arrived, I immediately started looking around for Kayla, but I didn't see her. I wasn't too worried about it, as it was still early. It was probably about half an hour into the dance though, and I still hadn't seen her. I forgot to mention that this was also back when cell phones weren't really a big thing that most kids had.

Like, they existed, but it was more so adults, if anyone, that had them. My family wasn't broke, but we weren't really wealthy either, and the only person in my family that had one was my dad, and it was more for work. So I didn't really have a way to call and ask where she was. All I could do was just wait for her to show up.

I'd been talking with my other friends, dancing, enjoying the festivities, but still kept in mind that I hadn't seen Kayla, now several hours into the dance. I was disappointed, but assumed that maybe she had just decided not to go after all. It was getting pretty close to the end, and my friend offered to take me home, but I actually wanted to check on Kayla, so I declined and explained why.

She understood, and we parted ways as she left. My mom had planned to pick me up at a certain time, so I decided to use the restroom and take my heels off while I waited for her. While I was washing my hands, I noticed something in my peripheral vision. I was in the school restroom, so I knew it was just someone else using it, and I didn't even bother looking up. That was until I heard a familiar voice say my name.

When I looked up, I saw Kayla standing behind me. She wasn't wearing her dress though, but jeans and a zip-up jacket. She had makeup on, which she normally didn't, but you could tell that she'd been crying because it was running down her face. I was happy to see her at first, but then immediately became concerned when I saw her state. I asked her what was wrong and went to approach her when she stepped back.

She then told me that she didn't understand why I was being so nice to her because she didn't deserve it. She said she was supposed to just fade into the background and never be in the way again, and that I had ruined that. I was confused at first with her saying this. I thought maybe that I had done something wrong. She reached into her jacket pocket and pulled out a folded up piece of paper. She held it out and asked me not to read it until I got home because she didn't want to ruin my night.

She thanked me for showing her kindness, and then walked out of the restroom. I just stood there confused for a while, and then walked out as well. I kept fidgeting with the paper, wanting to read it, but also trying to follow her wishes. I had no idea what the letter could say. I knew that my mom would be there soon, based on the time, and since I was waiting out front, my curiosity got the best of me, and I decided to read it.

I don't have it memorized, nor do I really want to go into the detail of what all it said, but to summarize it, I learned that the girl that I saw her with was her older sister. She was a senior and we were juniors. She did not get along with her sister, due to how differently they were treated by her parents. In the letter, she confessed to some pretty dark things that she wanted to do to herself and her sister.

But then, when I started talking to her, she was conflicted. She was convinced that I was just doing this to embarrass her, or out of guilt or something, to get her to go to prom. So she was going to include me in those plans, but then she decided that I was a lot more genuine than that, so she fell back into feeling like she was the person in the wrong, and she didn't deserve to be alive, making hints on what she was going to do instead.

My heart dropped when I read all this, and I knew that I needed to find her. I didn't want her to be alone in such a dark mindset, so I went back into the school to see if I could find her or if anyone else had seen her. No luck there. Then I saw my mom walking into the front doors. Now, I was really close to my mother, and I told her just about everything, so I told her my concerns and then showed her the letter.

She was thinking a lot more clearly than I was, and took me back inside to tell someone of the faculty that was there. We then drove to her home, my mom talked to her mom, and asked if she had seen her, explaining the situation. It hurt my heart to see how little care her mother had for the situation. We just told her that her daughter, who was currently missing, had confessed to wanting to end her life and possibly her sister's.

and she just seemed more annoyed, and treated it like she was just being dramatic. My mom had more concern than she did, so we just left to continue searching. We did call the cops and report it to them as well, and they also agreed to look around, but couldn't do much since her own parents didn't report it. We went home, me completely distraught and thinking that that may have been the last time I'd ever see this new friend that I had made.

That night was intensely restless for me. My mom came into my room that morning and told me that we had a message on our machine from Kayla's mom. She said that Kayla was at the hospital and gave us the room number and that was about it. My mom, of course, offered to take me up there and I didn't hesitate. I didn't know what I would see, but I didn't expect to see her sitting in a room drawing in a book with music playing.

"'This wasn't a normal hospital that you would go to when you were sick. At least, not physically. However, she looked happy. "'We got to talk while my mom waited outside, and she explained her thought process more, and I learned a lot more about her and how her brain worked. "'I had no idea about her home life, and how deep her thoughts went.'

Overall, her parents touted how perfect of a child her older sister was, and neglected Kayla a lot. She always got great grades, but it was never good enough, so she tried acting out instead. But because I saw her for Kayla, and not her academics or her sister, she thought that once again she was the problem. I can't help but think what could have happened if I didn't keep interjecting into her life.

This was many years ago, and Kayla and I have become really close. She actually moved in with us after she left the hospital and finished her last year of high school from home. Her parents seemed to truly not care, which was heartbreaking. I know there wasn't much that may have happened in this story, but the possibility of what could have happened was pretty terrifying, especially in the moment.

That prom could have ended with multiple people dead or seriously injured. So, overall, people, just be kind to one another. We really never know what someone else is going through. Hi Raven, I wanted to share an event that happened to me and my granddaughter at the last place that I lived.

My husband died in a car accident when my daughter was pregnant, so he never got to meet her, but also being an empty nester, I didn't feel right living in our big four-bedroom home alone, and I decided that it was time to downsize. I found a cute little condominium that was only about 20 minutes from my daughter and son-in-law, and it was a good price, so I moved right in.

The only thing about it, however, was that it definitely needed a more homely and... me touch to it. So, while I made some changes inside with the help of my kids, I also wanted to start up another garden like I had at my old home.

My kids helped me put it together when they were younger, which made it all the more special to me. And now, my first granddaughter was at the age that they were, and I wanted to have her help with it. If she wanted to, of course. Maggie is like my little mini-me. I helped my daughter and son-in-law take care of her when she was born. I watched her a lot so they could sleep or even just to get out for a bit alone.

and she loved staying over with me too. So, when I brought up the garden, she was more than willing to help, and my daughter loved the idea. At the time of this event, I was 49 and my granddaughter was 8. She came over with some stuff that they had bought, including a small gardening kit, a sun hat, a mat, all the stuff that she needed.

My son-in-law helped me with lining and digging the top part of the dirt, since it was pretty hard, and then we went and did most of the rest. On the day that Maggie and I were out back deciding what we wanted to plant and where, my neighbor Howard had come out back and greeted us. The fences weren't very tall, it came up to about my chest, and seemed to more so just to be to separate the properties, rather than for privacy.

But I didn't mind Howard. I think he was close to my age, maybe a year or two younger, but he seemed like a nice guy. He introduced himself when I moved in, and he even helped my son-in-law fix one of my windows. He stopped and asked what we were up to, and then we started talking about the garden for a bit-

I noticed that he kept looking down at Maggie, and I realized that he hadn't met her yet, so I introduced them, explaining that she was my granddaughter. So we talked about her for a while, and then we continued on with our plans for the day. Now, Howard also has a small dog. I think he's a corgi, and there were a few kids in the neighborhood that liked to go over to his place to play with the dog, or I've even seen some kids walking the dog.

So, he was definitely not unknown to the community, and he never gave off any weird feelings. In fact, the way he talked to me was very kind and playful in a way, and when he asked if I was single, I honestly thought that he may have even been flirting with me. It had been some time since my husband passed, so I didn't dislike the attention either.

I started catching Howard outside on multiple occasions when Maggie and I were out there and we would start chatting for a while while we work. The conversations were always friendly and innocent, and we all had a good time. Maggie even offered him some lemonade when we were taking a break. I didn't start to notice something was off until a little further into our gardening work.

Howard was starting to show up every time we were out there, and it was fine at first, but he would start talking to Maggie, distracting her, which caused her to knock some things over before as well. There were also a few times where Maggie wasn't with me, and I had gone out back to Moe or D-Weed, and he would show up again. The conversation at that point, though, would be brief. It was a quick, "'Eh, how's it going?' And then he would ask me about Maggie."

and when I would mention that she wasn't with me, the conversation would pretty much end right there and he would leave. I started catching on to this, and I wasn't really a fan of it. I felt bad because I started limiting how much Maggie would do. We didn't have much left, but we were planting the last of the seeds when he came over. That's when I instructed Maggie to go inside and clean up.

I could see his attention shift to her as she walked in, and our conversation became pretty dull, and he eventually walked off. This happened a few times, and I don't know if he caught on to what I was doing, or if he just gave up but he started coming around less and less.

"'There was one weekend that Maggie was going to be staying with me, "'and she was enjoying the sprinkler that I had set up to water the garden. "'So I bought something similar to set up for her to play in. "'While she was changing into her swimsuit, I went out front to get the mail. "'On my way, I saw my neighbor across the way was out there, "'and we had begun talking about random things.'

At one point, I turned back to look at my condo when I saw Howard walking back from his driveway and into his house. My first thought was, "Great, he's going to ruin something that I had planned for Maggie." I knew that she was still inside waiting for me though, so I finished my conversation with my neighbor and then started walking back towards my door.

I don't know what it was or how to explain it, but I felt the need to walk over towards Howard's side and to see if he was outside. While we had the wall-like fences out back, they went as far as the condo. The front of them either had a small half-bricked wall or nothing separating them, so I could easily walk over on his side of the property. I could hear him laughing, so I knew that he was out back.

This immediately made me feel uncomfortable, because I had a feeling that Maggie was probably already out back as well. Even though I told her to wait for me, kids are still kids, and she was excited. So, even though I shouldn't have, I went to open his gate, and, to my disgust, I saw him standing at the fence, looking into my yard, with his pants down.

I immediately yelled at him, none of which were nice words or words that Maggie probably should have ever heard me say, but it was enough to make him stumble and trip as he tried to pick his pants up and go inside. I immediately ran into my home to find Maggie out back, looking around confused. I asked her what she was doing, and she explained that she was trying to bring the sprinkler outside for me to help when Howard showed up.

While she was grabbing the hose, he told her how to hold it up in the air to make it look like it was raining, to which she did. I was disgusted and was trying to keep calm in front of Maggie, but she could already tell that something was wrong by the way that she was talking to me. Unfortunately, I had to lie to her and tell her that we just couldn't play in the sprinkler because it was going to storm.

and instead suggested that we make homemade popsicles inside, which seemed to cheer her up. While she was getting started, I called the police and the leasing office to tell them what I had just witnessed. The police came over and took down the information, however they said they couldn't do much since he was on his own property, and I had opened the gate.

but they said that if it happened again and anyone else witnessed it, to call them back so they could try to get him for indecent exposure. The leasing office apologized and said that they would talk to him, but they said they couldn't keep him from being in his backyard. It was like they missed the entire point. He was invading my space by looking over and doing what he was doing. So I asked them if I could put up a taller privacy fence, and they refused.

They said that it had to stay uniform, and that there would be too many steps to try and get the people or businesses that actually owned the place to pay for the changes. They told me that they weren't even willing to try. I had just moved into this place a few months ago, and now no longer felt safe there. Or, at least, I didn't feel safe having my granddaughter there. I told my daughter and my son-in-law about the incidents, too. They were torn.

None of us wanted this guy anywhere near Maggie. It broke my heart, and I know that Maggie was upset about it, but when she came over, she wasn't allowed to go out back, and she could only go out front if someone was with her. I didn't even like her staying the night, so, if anything, I stayed the night with them when they needed a babysitter. Howard didn't even try to show his face around after that, and it wasn't even just around me.

People saw the cops at my house that day, and I wasn't going to keep that information to myself. I told anyone and everyone, and just from word of mouth, he was shunned pretty hard. The other kids were not allowed to be around him, and when he went out front, you could see other parents or grandparents pulling their kids to the other side of them.

It must have eventually gotten to him, because within that same year, he moved out. I saw the moving trucks, and I couldn't have been more relieved. Once he was gone, I let Maggie stay the night, have friends over, and even play out back and enjoy the hard work that she put into that garden. I lived there for a few years, but over time, I learned the leasing people were not as nice as they appeared to be when I moved in.

and they weren't giving me any reason to make me reconsider. But now I live in a small house with my own yard and a big privacy fence, and I will never let something like that happen again, because next time, Grandma might have to use something other than her words. I think a lot of people would probably say that their freshman year of high school was pretty rough.

And I'm sure a lot of those people are right and had valid reasons as well. I'm definitely not one to say that they were just being dramatic because I too had a pretty bad freshman year. I didn't like to talk about it for the longest time because I had some pretty bad self-esteem issues as is, but I've healed and have become a lot nicer to myself since then.

Also, I've come to understand that I also didn't deserve or warrant any of this. So, I have no reason to blame myself. As my story goes, I was going to be a freshman at our local high school. New school, but it was the same school district, which meant that I would at least have friends there so that we could all be nervous and stressed together. I was a pretty normal kid growing up, or so I thought.

I was the oldest of four, so I was the first to go to high school. I wasn't outgoing, but I wasn't reclusive and shy either. I had a good amount of friends, and I did fine in school too. I always passed my classes with minimal issues. I hated math, but I got through it, and I turned in a minimal amount of homework late. I didn't stand out in class or make myself known either. I was just there.

But then things went a bit different in high school. Most of my classes were fine, except for my chemistry class. Science was one of my favorite subjects, so I typically didn't have any issues. But chemistry, at least in depth as we went into this class, it seemed to be more of a challenge for me. Not to mention, the teacher did not help either.

When I first started attending the class, I immediately got the feeling that Mr. Pendleton was going to be a hard ass. He was very curt in his speaking. He didn't really joke around, and was always on a very specific schedule. He would get upset very easily if someone interrupted him during a lecture, including slamming his hand down on the desk or the whiteboard. He would do this ear-piercing whistle to get people to pay attention.

He was always just very intimidating. I always thought it was weird to the point that if kids bothered you so much, why even be a high school teacher? Anyways, I did my best in that class, but I admittedly struggled with locating the elements on the periodic table and remembering their symbols. I knew some of the common ones, but struggled with the rest.

I tried asking him for help, like if he had any suggestions on making it easier, but with a dead stare he looked at me and said, "Just memorize it. It's not that hard." I walked away from that conversation thinking that I was truly in the wrong, as if I was the only one that ever had issues with it and that's how I took it. Over time, I did not get better in that class.

I continued struggling with some of the topics, and Pendleton did nothing to make me feel better about it. When I got my assignments back, he didn't just mark things as wrong, he would put some mean comments next to them, making me, again, feel like there was something wrong with me. We had a monthly quiz that we took going over all that we learned that month,

and when he was passing out the graded quizzes, he would hand it to some saying things like, "'Do better. Study next time,' but never encouraging or optimistic words. Then he got to me. He flipped open my quiz and asked a question out loud, calling out a specific person to answer. He confirmed it was correct, and then pointed out my incorrect answer."

He tossed my quiz at me and let the whole class know that I had the worst grade, singling me out. Everyone was staring at me, and I had never been more embarrassed. I felt incredibly stupid at that point. I put my head down, feeling the eyes burning into me. I remember actually going to the restroom and crying.

My parents did ask me about school and weren't dismissive, but they also didn't think the situation was that bad. I do blame myself for part of that, as I didn't really tell them how bad it was or how much I hated that class. I told them about how I didn't like the class, how the teacher was really unnecessarily mean, and how I seemed to be singled out. I showed them my assignments with his remarks,

I told them about being embarrassed in class and how I seemed to be the only one affected by it. They agreed that he seemed pretty mean, but said that they would talk to the principal about it. I even spoke to my friends and others that were in his class, and they all agreed that he was a complete jerk, but didn't understand why I was being picked on so much. Except one friend that usually excelled in a lot of classes.

He basically blamed me saying that I needed to study more, and that he was just trying to push me to do better. I wasn't friends with that person for much longer either. So, while I waited and hoped that my parents would actually be able to make a difference, I tried to push through the harsh words and embarrassment, and really worked my ass off to at least pass the class. I had friends that helped and devoted a lot of time to get through it, but I didn't.

When we took our quarterly test, I passed it with a low B, and I was very proud of myself. Apparently, Pendleton was not impressed by this, though. As he slammed my test on the table and he made sure to ask out loud, ''Did you copy off of X's test?'' X being the person that sat next to me. They looked at me funny, too, and actually started sitting somewhere else. So, yeah. That didn't make me feel better, either.

He said because he couldn't believe that I miraculously got better overnight. I was pretty upset and quite frankly fed up with being treated like this, so I defensively told him no, and that I had studied more and he wasn't willing to help us. The room was silent, and the tension was thick, but I felt pretty good for saying it. Pendleton, however, was not amused, and told me that I needed to stay behind after class.

I was not looking forward to that, and in fact, I tried to blend in with everyone and leave at the same time, but he definitely noticed. He called me out with his booming voice halting me in my tracks. I waited by the door, and once everyone left, he told me to go over to his desk. He then asked me why I told the principal that he was bullying me.

I replied that I didn't say anything to the principal, which was true, and he yelled at me again, saying that I was lying. He said some other unpleasant things to me, but for some reason, I was just over all of it, and I yelled back at him that I had told my parents that he was being a jerk and that he shouldn't be a teacher. He responded back by slamming me against the whiteboard, holding me by my shirt, and once again yelling some pretty hurtful things at me,

I was honestly expecting him to try to hit or strangle me. His face was beet red. I could see the veins in his temple bulging out. I was terrified. Thankfully, Ms. Stewart in the class attached to the right knocked and opened the door to see us in this position. I wish that she wouldn't have knocked because the knock was enough time for him to let go of me. But judging by the look on her face, she knew that something was wrong.

I was in tears and I walked towards her to leave. She asked me if I was okay and I said no, and Pendleton just sat back down at his desk. I went to the nurse and asked her to call my parents, as I'd gotten sick, so she did. When my mom came to pick me up, I told her what happened, and she immediately took me back to the school and to the office.

She went to talk to someone about it, and I just remember sitting there worried that Mr. Pendleton was going to show up in the office. After that day, my mom would take me to school after the second hour, which was when I had his class, and I just collected my work for those first two classes. Ms. Stewart also reported what she saw, so I guess having a witness was what gave the principal, or whomever, the authority to suspend Mr. Pendleton."

I was entirely relieved that he was gone, and I could tell that I wasn't the only one. The first couple of days without him were weird, but the sub definitely helped lighten the mood. By the end of it, though, we were all able to be less formal and actually had a little fun in the class. I still had a hard time turning in tests and assignments, fearing that I was going to be made fun of or called out, and that anxiety bled over into my other classes as well.

My freshman year was very difficult, and I struggled with my self-image, as mentioned. It slowly got better over time, but I think I really had Ms. Stewart to thank for that. She helped me build my confidence again and really assured me that it wasn't me, but Mr. Pendleton. She actually confided in me, saying that she had heard him shouting on many occasions and even at students from other and past classes.

but that she had never seen him put his hands on any other student. I still wonder today if I was the only one, or if there were others that just were never caught, or never said anything. Hell, I still don't understand why I was singled out so hard. I know I wasn't the only one that wasn't doing well in the class, but I was the only one that seemed to be targeted, and I don't know why.

He never did return to our school, and I did much better after that. I just hope that he was never able to teach again, if that is how he treated students. I have family members that live in the middle of nowhere, way outside of any major town or anything, and of course, they are the family that I tend to go see during the holidays.

Thanksgiving is one of the major holidays for my family, as it was my grandmother's favorite day, and we get all the extended family on her side together to have a lovely meal, and it's always been a good time. This story isn't about the get-together, though. It's about something that happened after the fact. Most years, I would stay at my aunt's house and leave early the next morning, but on the year that this happened...

I was working for a company that was doing a merger with another organization, so they pretty much had shut off all time-off requests, only the specific holidays. And because of this, I had to get home that night so that I could get up at 6am and get to the office early the next day. If nothing else, it was a pain in my ass, as I hate driving late at night.

especially for the full hour that I have to drive to the north to get home, and the fact that they live out in the middle of nowhere means that there are literally no streetlights. I tried to leave at a good time, but it was hard to leave my family that night as they wanted to continue talking and spending time together, so by the time I got out of there, it was around 10.30 at night.

I get out of the driveway and out onto the really dark roads, trying to keep my eyes open and my mind focused on the trip. I was definitely struggling, like, really struggling, to keep myself awake. I think that digesting all that food and the hard spike in my blood sugar had really started to take its toll on me. I could feel my eyelids starting to drop as I was going.

The longer I went, the harder it was to keep myself going. So, I figured that the best course of action for me was to put on some music. Unfortunately, I do have an older car that doesn't have any sort of wireless connectivity, so when I listen to music, it has to be on a CD. The disc that I had in was not going to be enough to keep me awake. I needed something heavy and aggressive.

So, I ejected the CD and slowed down a bit so that I could reach down onto my floor to grab my CD folder, which is something that I will say was incredibly stupid. I was taking my eyes off the road and focusing on reaching down to grab my CD holder. Like I said, stupid, but it's what I did.

I reached down, grabbed my folder, and grabbed the disc for some metal band. And when I looked back up at the road, I noticed a figure standing there in the middle of the road. I panicked, and I slammed my brakes to do my best to avoid hitting whatever or whoever this was.

Thankfully, despite the car being old, it did have a good braking system, and I was able to stop pretty quickly without flipping my car or driving into the trees in the shoulder. When I came to the screeching halt, I was gripping the wheel and just trying to breathe through my excruciatingly painful heartbeat that was pulsing in my head.

I honestly thought that I was about to have a heart attack, considering how high my blood pressure was over those couple of seconds. After a few moments of taking deep breaths and just staring at my dashboard, I finally was able to get my mind back to reality, and then realized that I needed to make sure that I actually didn't hit whatever that was.

I looked up and out all of the windows and in the mirrors, trying to see if I could see anything, but there was nothing there. I was confused, panicked, and trying to not literally pass out. Where the hell had this thing gone? And what the hell was it? I pulled the car over to the side of the road and parked it so that I could get out and look around to see what was going on.

I stepped out onto the road and walked a bit back, looking out into the shadows of the road that was lit only by my taillights. I stared at the darkness, squinted, trying to see if there was anything there, when I did finally see something. In the darkness, I could see what looked to be that same figure, still mostly shapeless, but almost human-shaped.

just standing in the darkness and looking in my direction. I lifted my hand and waved and shouted back to see if this was a person, and if they were okay. I shouted, Hey, is everything alright? And as I did, this figure just stood there completely motionless. I was starting to get freaked out thinking that this wasn't a person, that it was something else, something supernatural.

I started to walk backwards toward my car, keeping my eyes on this figure, and as I got to my car and reached toward the handle, I heard what sounded like laughing, like a high-pitched giggling voice in the distance, out in the direction of whatever that thing was. That was all that I needed to hear. I threw my door open, jumped in, and I took back off down the road to continue my trip.

I drove the rest of the way in silence, my heart keeping up its stupid fast rate, staring in my rearview mirror every ten seconds to see if this thing was following me somehow. Obviously it wasn't. Whatever the hell that demonic thing was, it stayed there in the dark, a fact for which I was very thankful. I got home and struggled to go to sleep that night.

just kind of staring at the ceiling with my heart pounding like hell. Honestly, I don't think my BPM dropped below 120 until the next morning. Like, my body was reacting intensely to this whole thing. Like, my instincts knew that whatever this was, was truly dangerous, and it would have been much worse had I not taken off. To this day, I still can't explain what happened on that drive home.

I've tried to rationalize it as my imagination, just running wild or some sort of prank, but deep down, I know that something truly terrifying was watching me. I've since avoided that stretch of road. I actually found another way to get home from my aunt's house, and the memory of that night haunts me. For anyone that has any sort of name for this thing, or a better explanation, please do let me know.

I really can't physically describe it, other than it seemed to just be a living shadow on the road that stared intently. It looked like a person, sort of, but it was mostly shapeless beyond that. It was just intensely dark and creepy. I know that this doesn't help much, but it's the best that I've got for it. Anyways, that's my story, and I hope that I never experience anything like this again.

for the rest of my days. Back when I was fresh out of high school, I used to be a pizza delivery driver for a certain pizza place that is open really late. Like, way later than it needs to be. I admit that delivering pizzas at like 1 in the morning is a genius way to get business from drunks and stoners, but I also have to say that the pace sucked, and I was never more tired than the nine months that I worked at that place.

This experience was a few months back, but thinking about it and how it could have gone, it seriously makes me feel like I want to get sick. I won't. I'll push through getting the story written out, but it really does cause a bit of panic in me. It was a pretty typical Friday night.

I was nearing the end of my shift and was actually on my last delivery from a triple that was thrown on me by my jerk of a manager, who knew that I was about to leave. This being my last delivery, it was the furthest out of the three, and it was definitely in a more spread out and remote part of our town.

I don't live in a big city, but it's fairly concentrated with houses that circle the epicenter, and then there are the neighborhoods that are spread out in every direction. This delivery was in one of those out-on-the-edge neighborhoods.

I pulled up to the house after circling the neighborhood a couple of times trying to find the numbers, which, tangent, if you order pizza delivery, please turn on your lights so that we can see your house numbers. Anyways, I circled a couple of times, found the house, and grabbed the pizza to walk it up to the front door. The house looked decent. It wasn't run down or anything, it was just really dark.

Like maybe the occupant was in bed, or not home. Which, yes, did make me feel a bit uneasy about this delivery, though it wouldn't have been the first time that I had taken a delivery to a drunk person that had passed out after putting it in. I knocked a few times, but no answer. I pulled out my cell phone, and I called the number on the order, but it was disconnected.

At this point, I assumed that the delivery was either a prank or the aforementioned drunk person. I sent my boss a text message saying, "'Knocked. No answer. Phone disconnected. Heading back.' And walked back to my car. I tossed the pizza bag into the back seat on the passenger side and started to walk to the other side of my car to get in, when I started hearing footsteps come up from the side."

My dumb self thought that maybe it was the customer coming out to say, "'Hey, sorry, I fell asleep. Can I get my pizza?' But of course it wasn't. No. Instead it was a man wearing a pink hoodie, dark jogging pants, and walking straight towards me with a gun pointed in my direction."

I put my hands up and immediately braced for him to rob me, but after a moment, he finally spoke up and said, "'Keys, now.' I nodded, reached into my pocket, and handed the guy my keys. And after a few moments of my heart racing and my face being drenched in sweat, he motions towards the car and says, "'Get in the passenger seat.'

At first I was thinking I was about to die, and then I was thinking that I could try to run as I got around the car, but again, where was I going to go? I was in the middle of a mostly empty cul-de-sac, nowhere to go but open fields, and he could easily put a round in my back if I ran. At this point, I realized I had no choice but to follow what he wanted me to do.

I quickly complied with his demands, and I got in the passenger seat of the car, thinking that this was seriously going to be my final few moments. He got in the driver's seat, started the car, and started driving down the side roads. I just sat there helplessly, silently staring at the streetlights as we passed them, thinking about what I could say to plead for my life.

My hands were seriously shaking, and my mind was racing as it occurred to me that this man, he wasn't wearing a mask, which meant that he didn't care if I saw his face. To me, this meant that he didn't plan to leave anyone to identify him, so I was definitely going to die. As we drove in silence, the carjacker seemed to become more and more agitated,

glancing around nervously, muttering things to himself, and staring at the clock and the road randomly back and forth. It felt like several hours were passing, though it was honestly only a few minutes. I actually started thinking about whether anyone would notice that I wasn't back after a while. I assumed that my manager would notice after a while, since I had cash that belonged to the store and had texted him, but that was about it.

A lot of strange things go through your mind when you're in this kind of situation, because really the only thing that I could think about was how I was going to get fired if I got killed. Again, not logical, but it was all I could think about. After another few moments, the carjacker pulled over to the side of the road and started breathing really fast.

I didn't look at him. I didn't turn my head, I just shut my eyes, thinking, well, this is where he cracks. After a few moments, he screams, this wasn't what I effing planned, and then punches the steering wheel. I jumped, and I couldn't help but look in his direction, and he was seriously crying, like, sobbing. His eyes were filled with a strange mix of anger, desperation, and regret.

and he turned to me and just said, "I'm sorry, I'm sorry that we had to meet under these circumstances." His voice cracked as he said this, and he just shook his head like he was seriously upset. A couple more seconds pass of this awkward silence, and then he turns, reaches behind me, grabs the pizza bag and exits the car, walking off into the woods on the side of the road.

For a moment, I was too stunned to move, but as the feeling in my arms and feet slowly started to come back, I realized that the danger had passed. I hopped over to the driver's seat and sped away, eager to get the hell away from that man and this place. The entire time I was driving, my lip was quivering, my teeth were chattering, and I was shaking, thinking that it wasn't actually over.

that someone else or something was going to jump out at me and attack me. Obviously nothing did, and I was able to make it back to the store. I got into the safety of the building and... I broke down. I was bawling my eyes out trying to explain that I was carjacked by this man, trying to explain everything that I had just gone through. Thankfully my co-workers were able to get me settled down, but then after a few moments...

My manager asked me why I hadn't called him or called the police. Honestly, at no point did it occur to me while I was driving away from the situation to grab my phone and call anyone. Stupid, I know, but panic makes it hard to think clearly. They did call the police, and they took my statement, but I couldn't tell them the exact location that he had gotten out of my car, only where he had actually carjacked me.

I doubt that he was ever caught, because all I could tell them was what he was wearing and a vague direction of where he could have gone. I'm thankful that he didn't decide that I was a threat to him, or that he needed to do worse than he had, and I honestly think about that night a lot. The fact that I got out unharmed, that he apologized and then stole the pizza, what kind of situation does one have to be in to do that?"

I don't work there anymore, as mentioned, and I don't do anything related to driving my car or working with the public. I work in a warehouse now, and I love it, because there's literally no opportunity for anything like this to ever happen again while I'm at work. This was something that I witnessed a few years back while working at a landscaping company.

We received an order or job to almost completely redo someone's front yard. It was kind of sloped, so he wanted it to be leveled out. He wanted a rock bed around the house and a garden of some sort surrounding a tree in his yard that is bricked off, as well as a couple of other small details here and there. I was actually assigned to go out to the property with one of our leads to get an idea of what he wanted.

to plan it out and make sure that it was achievable. I remember the guy being very polite at the time. He explained things well, like he had some experience in landscaping too, judging by some of the verbiage that he used. Once we got it all plotted, we showed him the details of the, basically the blueprint of his yard, and our plans, asking if it was good.

This is a good time to correct anything that he felt was wrong, not quite what he wanted, etc. However, he said it all looked good and thanked us for our time. We scheduled the actual job, and we were out there about a week later. There was a decent-sized group of guys out there, including myself and the manager, or lead, that was with me when we did the draft."

We were all updated as to what to expect and what the job was, not to mention the lead was always there to direct us with what we had to do, so we definitely were not going into it blind. As we started the work, we did some basic outlines and still tried to involve the owner to have him check off the work along the way. He greeted us when we got there and began, but then was in his home for the most part, which was fine.

Most of the time, if they were home, they stayed inside, but occasionally looked out the window or came out to see how it was going. He did not. He only came out if we requested him to, so when we did, he would check off the outlines and say that it all looked good, so we would continue the work. The yard wasn't huge, so we were able to get most of it complete in a single day, other than a few things to top off the yard the next day.

As we were picking up our supplies and equipment, the customer, let's call him Rich, came out of his house as the lead requested to check the work and get his thoughts. He looked pissed. He walked around the side of his house, picked up a rock, and threw it back down. He walked over to the flower bed and ripped up one of the flowers. He then proceeded to yell at us about how it was all wrong.

He said we got the wrong rocks. The flowers were supposed to be a very specific color. Like he wanted bright red tulips and we had gotten him red orange. He even claimed that he could tell by standing on the ground that it was still at an angle. We dug a line as to where to level it and had him check it off and he agreed that it was good.

However, the customer is always right, so we apologized and told him that we would get it all corrected tomorrow. We even had him write down the very specific rocks that he wanted so we knew to bring the correct ones. Later that day, we had a quick meeting with the owner of the landscape company that turned into a bit of a lecture. He talked about how he was disappointed in us due to the job that day, and that Rich had called him personally to complain.

That's when he shared with us that Rich was a good friend of his and that this friend had a lot of money. That's why it was so important to get this job right tomorrow. Because if we didn't, then we would all be reprimanded or potentially fired. A little annoyed that this guy was getting special treatment, we all just agreed to do better the next day and headed home.

So now the same team of us are out there the next day, redoing and completing the work. We clarified with him when we started that we had the right rocks. He agreed. We confirmed the flowers were the right color. He agreed. We got it almost all the way done when Rich came outside, looked at the flowerbed, and immediately complained that it was wrong. Arlene questioned him about it because he said the flowers were good, to which he snapped back, saying that it was the shape.

He was angry because the garden was supposed to be in a bricked circle, but he claimed that the circle was more oval and lopsided. There was one very small part that went out a little further than the rest because of a raised tree root. He said that it looked trashy and half-assed. So, our lead again apologized and explained how we could correct it, and he finally agreed.

Rich went back in, and while a few people finished up the rock bed and picking up, I helped our lead and a couple other guys on the bed. It was probably only about 20 minutes or so. We had leveled out the area with the root, causing us to also raise the bed a little when Rich came back outside, but he looked much calmer this time. He wasn't smiling and he didn't look happy, but he at least didn't look like he was going to scream at any moment.

He started walking down into the yard when he asked, "'Who's in charge of this job?' Our lead, Ed, raised his hand and started walking out from the other side of the tree. He started explaining, saying that he was in charge in a completely friendly manner, apologizing for all the issues, but was then quickly cut off when Rich pulled out a gun and shot Ed. I know it's cliche to say, but it seriously happened so fast.'"

I was still standing by the tree but was watching at the time. He pulled his arm up, aimed right at Ed and pulled the trigger. Ed fell backwards on the ground and I immediately ducked. After a few seconds of no follow-up firing, I looked up to see Rich calmly walking back into his house. I shouted for Ed and quickly ran over to him to see if he was still alive. He was, thankfully, but there was a lot of blood.

I was terrified, worried that he could have hit something major, but I at least knew that he didn't hit his heart as the guy shot him around his right shoulder. I was also worried that he could come back out and start firing on the rest of us, so I told them all to leave as quickly as they could, leaving anything that we still had out. One of the other guys called 911 as I held a shirt, a towel, and whatever else we had on us on the wound.

EMTs and the cops showed up pretty quickly, and to my surprise the guy still had not come back out, not even with the police in his driveway. They took Ed to the hospital, but I stayed behind to explain every last damn detail on what happened to him. Two other guys were there and explained what they saw too. They then approached the house with their hands on their guns as well, knocking on the door. I felt like I was holding my breath as I watched them enter.

I tried to remain calm, but seeing how unaffected Rich was as he walked out the door with the cops infuriated me. I yelled something at him, and one of the officers told me that I could go ahead and leave, and that they would contact me if they needed anything. I immediately went to the hospital to see about Ed's condition, and hopefully to be able to keep his wife calm, as I'm sure that she was probably told by now. As for the update, Ed did live.

It messed up his shoulder pretty bad, and being that he's right-handed, he definitely has difficulties doing things like he used to, but he doesn't let it bother him. He retired early, and is having a great life now. I've never seen a more optimistic man. Rich was cooperative with authorities, admitted that he shot him because he was upset with how he kept getting the work wrong, and was ultimately charged with aggravated assault with a deadly weapon.

And, of course, the owner was mad at us for messing stuff up. And while we weren't fired at the time, a few of the guys there that day were conveniently fired for other reasons shortly after. I, as well as Ed and a few others, also decided to walk out on the bastard, since he didn't back any of us up. He could have pressed charges on him for doing this to us, but he didn't, and instead blamed us. Screw that.

I know that this is one of those freak experiences that I would hope no one else has ever gone through, but I didn't like the thought of it happening again, so I didn't do any more landscaping jobs. Unless it was my own stuff or for family. It's still something that always sticks to me, though, and I wonder when I see someone get irrationally angry if they could do something so extreme.

So, there's my story, and I hope that Rich lives a very lonely rest of his life, so that he doesn't do this to anyone else, and most importantly, I hope that we never meet again. Hello. I used to be a teacher for many years, and for multiple different grades. It was my career for a good chunk of my life, and I enjoyed it.

I loved children, and I always loved being able to teach them something new, and I hoped I could do at least one thing to spark something in them to challenge themselves, ask questions, and follow their passions. I would like to believe that I made an impression on quite a few, but I know that I wasn't everyone's favorite, and that's okay too.

Of course, even though I looked for the best in all of the kids that walked into my classroom, it wasn't always easy. I did have some challenging ones, but I still showed them as much patience as the next student. My story is about one of those kids. I'll refer to him as John. John was a pretty troubled boy, if it wasn't obvious just from his home life. He had been held back a year, so while he watched his friends graduate, he was still sitting in school.

I knew he just had his dad around, not sure what happened with mom. I don't want to say his dad wasn't good, but maybe more so that he just wasn't around much. There were times that he had been called to the office or had to leave due to fighting, and he would have to wait for someone else to come get him because his dad was always busy. John's words, not mine.

I was used to seeing John in the halls and other classes more, but due to the changes in the curriculum and his free study hour, I now had him in my classroom twice. His demeanor was like some of the other kids. He would lose focus during the lecture or do something else. He would try talking to others or even try to be disruptive, but I didn't humor it. He was treated the same as the other students.

I might tell the class to keep quiet or something similar, or I may even involve him in the discussion. I never did it in a way to try and call him out specifically to embarrass or punish him, but if someone else asked a question, I may tie it into a previous discussion and ask someone else their opinion or take, including him. His answers started as just an "I don't know" or "agreed with the previous person"

and then he started giving some wise, aleck answers. To those, I would keep going with it. I was an English and a debate major, and I could clap back, if you will. The class found it amusing, and quite frankly, I could tell if I was getting to him. Whether it was a bad thing or a good thing, I'll probably never know. Over time, I felt like I was really breaking down some barriers with him, but he still had his bad days, such as everyone else.'

I think we pretty much had some unspoken rules between us and even my classroom that everyone was aware of, which helped in cementing the idea that they were responsible for their own actions, work, and time management. I bring this up because there were a few occasions where John was having a bad day and was obviously in a bad mood because of something that happened.

I've told them that they're allowed to have bad days, but my classroom was to be used as a safe room. Do not start or plan fights in my room, don't take it out on me or other classmates, and to respect the property of the room, i.e. don't punch my bookshelves, kick other people's backpacks, etc.,

In fact, it may sound silly for some high school students, but I had a small desk that sat next to mine in the back of the room so that no one could look at you as a safe place. I had books, exercise sheets to help you keep calm, coloring sheets and blank paper, tissues, all kinds of things for the kids. They were allowed to go over there anytime they needed their own space.

There was even a sign they could use indicating that they wanted to be left alone or wanted someone to talk to. I had a lot of kids, even ones that didn't have me as a teacher that used that desk. I wanted a place that they could go that wasn't just wandering the hall or skipping class and getting into trouble. To my surprise, John had just had an argument with another teacher. It was just words, and as he made his way to my classroom, his fists were clenched.

I watched as he walked in the classroom and he paced like he was about to throw a punch. However, he took a deep breath and actually went and sat at the desk with his arms crossed, tapping his foot. He had the do not disturb sign up, but hey, I thought this was an incredible improvement. He stayed like that for most of the hour, other than writing something, but he then took the paper with him. Anyways, this was how he started behaving in my classrooms.

I found him paying more attention, participating in discussion, and when he wanted to be left alone, he sat at the desk. He even greeted me and would say goodbye for the day. But there was one day that was entirely different. I saw him while he was at lunch, where he looked angry and, again, got into a shouting match with another student. They were pretty close to each other's faces, and I feared that a fight was about to start.

Now, I'm a pretty small woman, so there's no way that I was going to be able to stop anyone, but I did approach and try to deescalate. Another male teacher noticed and he stepped in as well, which broke the two up. I didn't see John again until his class with me. He walked in, very angry, and immediately went to the back desk and sat there tapping the table.

We continued with class as normal, but at some point during the lecture, John abruptly stood up, causing the chair to make that loud screech, and stormed out of the room. I got a bad feeling, so I excused myself and tried to follow him out of the room. I saw him heading towards the front of the building and call out for him, but he didn't even turn around. I went back to my room and called the security desk to let them know, and they told me that they would walk around for him.

I finished that class and the rest of the day, actually, with no information on where he went, and no one else had seen him either. It wasn't until the next day that I got some information. The day started as normal, but my class with John wouldn't be until after lunch. I didn't see him anywhere in the halls, and no one else that I knew that he associated with had seen him either. Then, right before lunch, I received a call on my desk phone during class.

When I answered, it was the security officer asking me if I was okay. I kind of laughed because obviously I was, and I asked why. He told me that he would explain soon, but then advised me to lock my classroom and to not let the students leave either, even if the bell rang, until he arrived. A bit concerned and curious, I agreed and hung up the phone.

It was about midway through the hour, so the students were just working at their desks at this point, and I was left thinking about this call at my own desk. I had a horrible gut feeling that this had something to do with John. The security officer made it to my room and said the kids would be free to go to their next classes at that point. He then asked to speak to me, since it was my lunch hour, and I agreed.

He told me that they had found someone walking around the back of the school, but they were wearing a hoodie so they couldn't see their face. When they went to stop him, he had tried to run but didn't get very far, as they had already called for the police. It was John. They brought him into the principal's office, called his dad, and were questioning him why he was there and not in class.

The more alarming part was that they found an airsoft gun in his backpack, as well as a knife and a folded up piece of paper in his pocket. The paper had a list of names on it. My name was on that list, but it was the only one with a question mark next to it, and then was crossed out. They were worried that something had happened, causing my name to be marked off, which is why they called me first.

Everyone else on that list, including the teacher, were people that he did not get along with in some way. I was shocked and heartbroken. He obviously struggled with some inner demons, and I honestly felt that because I challenged him or maybe stood up to him, I was added to that list. But I think he realized that I didn't challenge him in the way that he normally expected.

I challenged him because I saw through the bullying, or maybe I'm completely wrong in that thought, but something changed his mind. I never learned what that could be as he was expelled for the rest of the year. I fought to at least be able to let him finish the year as he was almost done, but the school board wouldn't allow it.

They didn't inform us teachers of this prior, but they said that it was because he had been kicked out of previous schools for similar outbursts, but not like what we experienced. I never heard about John or what happened to him after that, but I also never saw or heard anything in the news, so I guess that's important. All I know is that I'm now a very strong advocate for mental health.

I was before, but this whole event with John really made me see that there are people out there suffering through things that are hard for others to imagine. If you know someone that is struggling, please reach out to them. It could honestly save a life. This happened to me and two of my friends back when we were in high school.

It was nearing the end of our school year, which meant not only were our last finals around the corner, but so was prom. We were seniors, and I unfortunately missed going to my junior year prom due to a family emergency, so I was not going to let anyone or anything stop me, or ruin my night.

"'My friends Marissa, Heidi, and I all went and picked out dresses together "'and not only coordinated colors with our dates, but with each other. "'We all met up at my place to get ready "'and then our dates met us at a local park to take pictures "'and hang out shortly before the dance started. "'While we were there, Heidi pulled out her purse "'and showed us that her mom had bought her a few shooters.'

"'In case anyone doesn't know what that is, it's those mini bottles of liquor. "'She was supposed to keep them at home. "'Her mom let her drink occasionally, but only when she was at home and within her sight. "'She passed one out to all of us and quickly took the shots and got rid of the evidence. "'Afterwards, we were headed to the school. "'The prom itself was a blast, with your normal teenage fun times.'

We danced, took pictures, made my ex mad, all stupid fun. It was probably close to the end of the dance, so I think it was just a combination of people being worn out and teenage angst that some people started getting a bit more rowdy. Some girls started shouting at Marissa, so we all joined in to try to get her to leave with us so we didn't get into any trouble. Thankfully, she went pretty easily when Heidi bribed her with more shots.

She said that we could all go back to her place and have some more to drink and just hang out. So, that was our plan. The three of us girls piled into my car and the guys said that they would meet us there in their car. After they went home to change. We left the school probably feeling a bit too invincible. Again, we were stupid teenagers doing some pretty stupid stuff. Physically, I felt fine though.

I know I shouldn't have, and I don't condone our actions that night, but we'd only had the one shot before the dance and nothing since, so I wasn't even buzzed. We all got in the car with me driving, Marissa in the passenger seat and Heidi in the back. We expected a nice ride as close friends celebrating our high school years, but that wouldn't be the case.

I stopped at a four-way intersection at the same time as a car that was coming from the opposite direction. I flashed my lights at them so that they could go, but they continued to sit there. After flashing my lights again in no movement, I decided to go ahead and turn left. They didn't have a turn signal on, so I assumed that they were going to go straight, which is why I was trying to let them go first.

After I turned, I then noticed that the car had turned behind me, too. I was more focused on my friends and driving, however, so I made a sort of a mental note and continued talking and singing. It didn't last long, though, as I noticed the car was following pretty closely, so I pointed it out to my friends. Marissa, being the aggressive type, told me to tap on the brakes to get them to back off.

and normally I would, but for some reason I kept telling myself that I shouldn't. Now, it was pretty dark at this point, so I couldn't make out much of the car other than the front of it looked dark, like maybe black or dark blue or even grey, maybe. We quickly learned why they may have been tailgating me when the lights kicked on.

Again, between it being dark and not really paying much attention, I didn't notice that there were lights on top of the car. In a slight panic, I pulled over and told the girls to just keep quiet. I turned off the music and immediately went to reach for my purse that was in the back passenger side. I had already rolled down my window by the time the cop approached my side of the car and immediately shined his bright flashlight right into my front seat.

I turned quickly to look at them and greet them, but they then put the flashlight right in my face. I squinted and put my hands up, as a bit of a force of habit when there's something bright in your face. But the cop immediately got aggressive and yelled at me to put my hands down. It startled me, but I did as he said and tried to apologize and mentioned the light. He then pointed it towards the back at Heidi and then kind of laughed.

claiming that he was just messing with us. I looked over at Marissa really quick and saw the WTF look on her face, and quickly looked back at the cop. He asked if we were leaving the ball and laughed again, and I told him that we were actually headed home from our prom. At this point he was still shining his flashlight around in my car, so I couldn't quite see his face.

I could see a slight outline, and I could see his teeth, so I could at least tell that he was smiling. He made some kind of back-in-my-day comment. I don't remember it exactly, but then laughed again. We all just sat there awkwardly, and I really wanted to ask him why he pulled us over, but I didn't have it in me, and since he seemed to be in a good mood, maybe he would just forget or let us go.

I wasn't speeding. I used my signal when I turned, and none of us were, like, hanging out the windows or screaming either. As he cleared his throat, he leaned down to have his head closer to my window and asked, Have you ladies been drinking? Okay, now, I know how some people may respond to this, but I was an 18-year-old girl at the time. I was underage, and we definitely had had something to drink.

It was literally one shot, each of us. And it was several hours earlier, so I felt fine, but between the nights so far, being pulled over, the adrenaline and anxiety was high, I was beginning to freak out. However, my response was immediately, no. He leaned in closer, and his voice became a bit more stern, and he said-

Don't you lie to me. I'm not stupid. I could smell the alcohol in this car. I began having an internal meltdown, worried that I was going to go to jail and that my parents would find out, but I immediately started pleading. I fessed up. I told them that I had just had one shooter and that it was earlier that night, and that we were going straight home so there wouldn't be any more, and I kept apologizing.

Marissa tried telling me to shut up, but once I started, I couldn't turn it off. After a few minutes of my pathetic pleas, the cop stopped me and told me that, while he appreciated me telling the truth, he was going to have to arrest all of us, and have the car towed. Heidi then began begging with me to let us go with the tickets, and Marissa was more seeming to argue with us. Then, he did that ear-piercing whistle.

making us all stop and look back at him. He then leaned down, putting his arms on my window, and said, "'I would hate to ruin your girls' nights, so maybe we can work something out.' I was expecting him to just give me a ticket, which still would have sucked, but at least I was much more willing to tell my parents about that. However, he had something else in mind."

He mentioned an empty building with a pretty empty area. It was where an old mall had closed, and he asked us if we would follow him there and just have some fun for a bit. Forget the ticket or going to jail. I was even more terrified at this point. Was this cop really suggesting what I thought he was suggesting? I was frozen at this point, not knowing how to react. What would happen if I told him no?

Would he then arrest me? But, of course, Marissa, being her normal, aggressive self, took over. She leaned down pretty far to look at the sky and pretty much challenged him and started going off. Some of the berating from her included, "'You know we're minors, right? We just told you we were coming from prom. I'm recording this, so why don't you explain in detail what exactly you were wanting us to do? Why did you even pull us over?'

"'Don't you have to give us a breath test before you can do anything? Ash, don't get out of the car. Don't do anything unless he makes you take a test. You know, what's your name anyways? I want your name and badge number.' The cop got pretty quiet at that point, and then tried laughing again and said that we were pretty smart girls. He tried to play it off about testing us or something and then said that we were free to go, but to just be careful and to go straight home.'

He never told us his name nor his badge number. We waited for him to get back into his car, and when he didn't drive off, I decided to go. Part of me was worried that he might follow, but I just wanted to get home at this point. The guys obviously beat us to Heidi's, and we told them what happened. They thought that it was really suspicious too, but other than them, we never told anyone about this interaction."

I myself was too worried my parents would be mad at me or something. So, fast forward a few months after we graduated. There was something on the news about someone impersonating a cop, and when they pulled over women, they would make suggestive comments and threaten them with erroneous charges unless they agreed to his demands. One lady dared to challenge him, much like Marissa did.

but he actually grabbed her by the arm, leaving marks, and tried to open her door. They said that she was able to drive away, and she immediately went to a police station to report it. But when she explained everything, the officer she talked to wasn't convinced that it was a real officer. Then, they started getting more reports, and they all lined up. Someone also was able to see the vehicle, and it was all dark with no markings. Like, it was an unmarked cop car,

But the problem is that the state that I live in, those are prohibited. Which led them to believe even more that it wasn't real. Unfortunately, he must have realized that they were on to him, because the reports stopped and they never caught the guy. I told Marissa and Heidi about this, and Marissa was confident that it was the same guy.

The scheme, the location, it all matched with what we experienced. So, I'm also pretty confident it was the same person. The situation alone freaked me out, but when I saw that, I was even more terrified that this was real. This happened to many women, but then I wondered how many more it happened to that didn't report it. And even worse, how many poor women fell for it.

and followed through. I'm an adult now and much smarter, so when I do have an interaction with someone of law enforcement, I make sure to note as many details as possible, and to get their name. You just never can be too careful, no matter who the person may appear to be. This happened towards the end of my senior year of high school, and unfortunately,

is something that was just as memorable as the rest of the year. I will not be sharing my location or school, and any names I use will be fake because, technically, I was not the victim here. So, I don't want to invade their privacy any more than I already have. I still feel it's important to share this story as a way of helping others and to stress the importance of "If you see something, say something."

I don't know if it's the same for other high schools, but it was quite common for the seniors to pull some kind of massive prank on the school as a whole. They were supposed to be harmless. It was like a universal rule so that no one got kicked out or suspended. It was also typically done around spring break, giving them time to execute it. So, to keep with tradition, several of us seniors, including myself, started plotting our scheme.

The school was going to look like a glitter bomb went off in it. We had tons of glitter and confetti that we had bought from random party stores, and a few bulk bags on eBay for a stupidly cheap, possibly shady price. One of my friends, called Jesse, was our golden ticket as he was the teacher's aide, which meant he had access to the rooms that had all the spare keys to the classrooms. We started the day before spring break started.

There were a lot of teachers and faculty there, as they were probably wrapping things up for the break, so we waited outside in one of our cars while Jesse went in to look like he was working on some last-minute things for a teacher. After a few hours, people slowly started leaving, so he led us in through the south door and ushered us into different rooms to fulfill our plan. It started out completely smooth.

We got through several classrooms, almost ran into one teacher but managed to hide from them. We all even got a good laugh about it too. Then we came across the classroom of Mr. Jackson. Mr. Jackson was the media teacher, and he was actually pretty cool. I guess when it's an elective we tend to like those more anyways, right? The class was awesome.

We made different media related projects, such as our own radio broadcasts, recorded and put together a new session, including local/national news topics, sports, and weather. It was actually a lot of fun, and interesting as Mr. Jackson used a lot of his own equipment. So we were working with some very expensive and high-tech cameras, microphones, and even the software was pretty advanced.

Mr. Jackson was laid back, and easy to talk to when it came to anything from the assignments to more personal things. He was even a bit of a prankster himself. When he caught someone sleeping, he would do something harmless, such as having us all leave the room, turn the lights off, and have them wake up confused. Like I said, pretty harmless.

So when we came across his room, I didn't want to do anything to the equipment, but I wanted to do something additional or extra to his room, knowing that he would appreciate the prank. I started looking around the room to get ideas of what to do when I started going through his desk. In the bottom drawer, I found several tapes similar to the ones we used for our projects. In fact, I recognized the names of some of my classmates on them.

However, I also found two tapes that only had a label of "Class of '92". This caught my attention because, at the time of this event, it was not the year of 1992 or '93, or even in the 90s for that matter. My curiosity now peaked. I decided to take one with me. Thinking I could use it for the prank, or maybe it was a memorable class and could do something special for him,

as a farewell or a graduation gift. In regards to the prank, I just covered his desk with glitter and filled one of the tape cabinets with it too. I had two friends with me in that room that saw me with the tape and wanted to know what was on it as well. So I agreed to let them know or watch it with them if they wanted. We left the school that evening, mission successful, and agreed to watch the tape the next day at my place since I had a VCR in my room.

However, I couldn't stop thinking about the tape and what could be on it, or what could be so important to keep that specific year. So, I decided to watch it that night and would just let my friends see it the next day. I know you all have probably already figured out where this is going, but to this day, I still fight myself if taking that tape was the right thing to do.

The tape started during what appears to be a graduation ceremony and then cuts to that same classroom. The room was almost completely empty. A few people walked past the camera and you could hear the door close. What was still on the camera was a girl in the second row from the front. Then, I watched Mr. Jackson walk by the camera, towards the door, and then started talking as he walked towards the girl.

There was some innocent conversation occurring at first. He asked her how she was doing, how her older sister was, and even what her plans were for winter break. Then, the conversation changed to the homework or projects. She shyly asked him about how to do something, and he pulled out another camera as well as a sheet and started explaining it. But while this was happening is where my stomach started to drop.

I saw Mr. Jackson place his hand on her knee, and then said something quietly to her. I could see their faces, and she definitely did not seem interested in this, nor reciprocate in any way. There was some more one-sided conversation while his hand moved from her knee to her thigh. I was frozen with fear and disgust. After about 20 minutes, the tape cut back to the ceremony, and there was nothing else after that.

It was pretty obvious what this was, and the ceremony was used as a mask. I was... terrified. I knew Mr. Jackson, and, in fact, I knew the girl in the video. We had a different class together, but I was only an acquaintance with her, really, but I did have a friend that was pretty close to her. I didn't know what to do or who to show this to, since we technically shouldn't have been in the school at the time.

I was still a kid, so I didn't know if I would get in trouble if I told them. Instead, I tried to ask my mutual friend to talk to her, but I tried to be vague, not wanting to talk about the situation. My mutual friend, Katie, did not take the media class, so I asked her to ask the girl about the class, ask her if she had troubles and how she felt about the teacher or assignments.

The next day, Katie asked me if I was having troubles in the class because of the girl's reaction. She said she thought the class was okay, but when Katie asked about the teacher, she got quiet and didn't want to talk about it, so she assumed that she wasn't doing well in it. The feeling of something being very wrong only got heavier in my mind. It was still spring break at the time, so I could only dwell on it.

I even admitted to my friends that I tried watching it, but that something was wrong with it, and it didn't work. I didn't want them to see it for their, and more importantly, her sake. When we did return to school, I found myself watching him more closely, and realized that he was the same as I remembered him. Except, I saw him glance over at the girl many times throughout the hour that we were in class.

That night, when I got home, I told my parents everything. I told them about how I found the tape and what was on the tape. I gave it to them, but I don't know if they ever watched it. I assume they did because what I was accusing a teacher of was very real and very serious. I can be quite the jokester and always tried to keep the conversation light-hearted. This is not something I would ever bring up in a joking manner."

So, I'm sure my parents trusted me on that front too. They told me that they would take care of it, and that I needed to just go to school as normal. The rest of that week, I tried my best to act normal, but it was hard to not want to go off on Mr. Jackson. It was hard to not want to go to that girl and tell her that I was sorry for what she went through, but I didn't. Thankfully, I only had to go two days like that.

The third day, we had a substitute teacher. Everyone took it at face value that we were just getting a free day, but I think I knew the real reason. The rest of the week continued with that same sub, and then we were told the next week that Mr. Jackson wouldn't be able to finish the school year. I was so relieved, but also concerned as the girl wasn't in the class that next week either. The rumors started to spread pretty fast in the school.

Someone claimed they actually saw the police at Mr. Jackson's home, and then they tried to determine why. Then, many of the students started talking about how Mr. Jackson was pretty creepy, or how something about him was off. Then there were rumors that some student came forward with certain claims, and then the local news and letters sent home to our parents confirmed that this wasn't a rumor, but the truth.

The rest of this was information that I either got from the news, my parents, or people around the school. He was charged with multiple things and went to prison. That I knew. But then I learned that when the girl was confronted, she told her parents and authorities what happened, and several other girls came forward with claims as well. They also mentioned that there were multiple tapes found with not only similar things to what I saw, but others where he seemed to stalk the girls.

I was also friends with a guy whose sister actually came forward, which made me feel like all the other claims were probably true too. I mean, there was physical proof of at least one, and he was brave enough to keep it at school, so I absolutely believed there would be more than just the one. The first girl that I saw in the video stopped going to our school, and I learned that she was homeschooled.

Sometimes I went to stop by her home to see how she was doing, but I didn't want to worry her or her family when a strange guy showed up. Obviously, this has been many years ago, and we've all since graduated. I don't know whatever happened to that girl, and I don't think she even knew that I may have been the one that put the whole thing in motion, but I hope that she's doing okay.

So, I know it wasn't exactly me that was affected, but it was still pretty terrifying to see, not to mention knowing that I had to have had some impact in changing some people's lives. Who knows how long he may have continued with this horrible act if I had just kept that to myself. So, I'll start this off by saying that when this happened, I was a senior in high school.

and was just shy of turning 18. It was prom night, the night that everyone had been waiting for from the first day that the plans for the night came to be. I had a sparkly dress, one that I thought was the most gorgeous dress that I had ever seen, all my guy friends were in full suits, and we were all feeling like we were on top of the world. I mean, why wouldn't we? This was the peak of our last year of high school.

We were all dressed like we were upper class, all while living in pretty much the middle of nowhere in the Midwest. The night was young, the music was loud, and everyone was having a blast. The school had gone all out, transforming the gym into a fairytale ballroom, which was actually the theme that our class had agreed on. Everything was pastel pink and blue, there were balloons, the tables were all decorated...

The entire room was like this bubble of pure bliss and excitement. And through all of this, we were all completely unaware of what was brewing outside. The weather forecast had mentioned that there could be some nighttime storms, but this was the Midwest. Thunderstorms in the spring are as common as a trip to McDonald's. It happens more or less once a week. No one really thought much of it. Least of all me.

especially while I was getting lost in the moment with my girlfriend. We were all enjoying the night, having a lovely time, when the power kind of flickered. It wasn't anything major, just a bit of a dim and then back up. A couple of girls jokingly screamed to add to the drama of the moment, and we all laughed, until the lights dimmed again.

The music stuttered and then all the lights just completely shut off before the emergency lighting kicked back on. The entire room was filled with this sickly greenish hue as we all just kind of looked around confused, like, are we really going to lose power on prom night? The room slowly did grow quieter as we waited for things to come back, but that silence was broken by that disgustingly loud piercing wail of the tornado sirens.

That first blast of sound was enough to make me feel like my heart was going to stop. It's not that I hadn't heard them before, they were just always so loud and unanticipated. Our vice principal, Ms. Haig, came over the intercom. Her voice was normally stern and kind of aggressive, but when she came over the speaker, her voice actually sounded slightly shaken.

She told everyone to remain calm and to proceed down the stairs and into the south hallway, which was basically the band and drama hall. We all looked at each other, and after a few nervous laughs, we realized that this was pretty serious. That change in atmosphere was jarring. From a night of celebration, we were suddenly plunged into a night of uncertainty and dread. We all made our way down the stairs and into the band hall.

The teachers that were helping with the night were guiding us down and into the specific places down in the shelter. We all huddled together, an uneasy silence settling over the group. The air was heavy, filled with a palpable fear of what was happening. I didn't realize how freaked out I was until my girlfriend asked if I was okay and mentioned how tightly I was squeezing her hand. This was supposed to be a night of fun,

A night of us all just letting loose and spending quality time with those that we'd come to know, but there we were, wondering if this night could be our last. As the storm raged on, you could honestly feel the building shake. You could hear the deafening roar of the wind. Time seemed to slow down and minutes stretched into what felt like hours, and there were moments when the whole building felt like it shuddered with this intense pressure, followed by several moments of quiet.

We all held our breaths, praying, holding each other, and just waiting. After a bit, the all-clear did come over the intercom, but that dreadful feeling definitely stuck around. Going back up and emerging from the school, it felt like stepping onto a movie set from some post-apocalyptic film. The once familiar parking lot was unrecognizable.

♪♪

Just a town full of shaken and distressed people, and a high school full of teenagers trying to piece together how this night that was supposed to be a moment of youthful innocence could turn into the most terrifying night of our lives. All of this was a harsh reminder of how things can quickly take a sharp turn, how life can take that sudden turn when you least expect it. Even now, years later,

I can't really think about that night without getting that anxious feeling that I felt in those hallways. It was meant to be a night of celebration, joy, one last hurrah with everyone before we graduated, and yet it was a night of devastation and stark reality. I'll never forget that moment when my mom pulled up to the school and saw me, and how she started bawling when she wrapped me in a tight hug. We were one of the lucky ones in that our house was mostly untouched.

There was minor damage to the roof shingles, and we lost half of a tree in our backyard, but most weren't so fortunate. Some lost cars, some whole houses, and we all came together as a community offering hospitality to those that lost their homes and hoping to clean up and rebuild as quickly as we could. It may sound dramatic to some, but that night honestly felt like a clear line had been drawn.

A line between life before, and life in our town after. After all was said and done, we did still have a graduation ceremony, we all still had to apply to our colleges, and we still had to finish out our finals. Yet, it all seemed so trivial compared to what we had gone through. It's been years since that night, and our town has completely regrown and rebuilt.

Thankfully, we haven't had another tornado rip through our town like that. Plenty of harsh storms and several tornado watches, but nothing like that night. I'll finish this out by mentioning that the only reason I thought about typing this story up is that my daughter is now in her senior year, and her prom is coming up. Even worse, the class actually decided on Fairytale Ballroom as the theme.

So, that hit a bit close to home for me. Now, odds are, it'll be a night like any other and it will go off without issues. But part of me is still a bit paranoid that something could happen. I have always been an avid gardener, or at least I think that's the word for it.

I'm not one that actually does things like fruits or vegetables, but I've always had a green thumb when it comes to flowers and bushes and such. I've always found joy and peace in cultivating plants and spending time outside during the early days of spring. When I lived in the apartment complex that I lived at, my mother was actually a property manager for the location, and I worked with them to create a flowerbed for the main office.

I used my own money and took two weeks to actually get everything built and planted. And in the end, the landscaping could only be described as award-winning. Yes, I'm talking myself up, but also it was that damn good. When I bought my first home, I couldn't wait to personalize my front yard and create this beautiful and welcoming atmosphere for everyone who passed by. My house was quite small.

I was the only one living there, and it was perfect for me. The yard was big and open, and there was a huge spot open on both sides of the porch that I knew I could make look really good. Little did I know that my green thumb dream would lead to a nightmarish encounter with a neighbor that I can only describe as an absolute nutcase.

I will say that the day that I moved in, I had encountered a few neighbors that were great, and one neighbor that was a bit off. The first encounter I had with that neighbor, I was moving my boxes and furniture into my house, my brother helping, and it was around noon, and we were dutifully moving stuff in. She came over to the yard and just stood there watching us.

After a few moments, I waved and went to introduce myself, and instead of shaking my hand, she asked if we were almost done, because we were making too much noise. At this point, I knew for a fact that she was going to be just another Karen that I'd seen on the internet. This may not seem important, but it helps to demonstrate who this neighbor was.

Back to the house and the gardening, I decided that I wanted to plant some bushes in front of the windows on both sides of the porch, like I mentioned. I decided that they could add charm and character. After a bit of thinking on it, I opted to plant a beautiful mix of azaleas and hydrangeas, opting to mix the warm colors of the azaleas and the cools and white tones from the hydrangeas.

These bushes were, in my opinion, eye-catching, and they would look gorgeous as they bloomed. Of course, what I thought would be gorgeous were a blight to my local Karen. One weekend, I had spent most of the morning planting the bushes and had gotten through about half of them, when Karen walked over to my yard and again just stood there staring at me. I noticed her, looked back and waved, and then went right back to it.

assuming that not engaging would be enough to get rid of her. Of course, it wasn't though. She walked right up into my yard and asked, "Why are you planting those hideous bushes?" I paused, looking at these cute little unassuming plants, thinking, "How are they hideous?" I mentioned that I liked them and that when they were grown and bloomed, they would have a ton of really pretty colors. She told me that they were ugly,

and I asked her why she would judge them before she saw what they looked like when they were fully grown. She stared at me angrily for a few silent seconds, and then said, "'You need to get rid of them.' I laughed. Like, literally laughed at this suggestion. I asked her if she knew how much money I had spent on these bushes. Sarcastically, of course. And then went immediately back to pushing dirt around the bush."

She scoffed at me and then said, ''If you don't get rid of them, I'll get rid of them for you.'' I stopped, stood up and looked her face to face. At this point, I was pretty upset and I was done dealing with this woman. I looked her square in the eyes and said, ''You know what? I'd like to see you try. Now, get off of my property before I call the police and have you trespassed. And I really don't want to do that my first week living here.''

Apparently, this was the worst thing that I could have said to her, because try and, well, succeed, she did. It was about a week after the incident with the Karen in the front yard, and would have been within the first three weeks of me living in the house. I was lying in bed completely passed out, when I was tugged out of my slumber slightly by a beeping noise.

I instinctively reached over to smack my alarm clock, but after hitting it probably a dozen times, I noticed that the beeping was not stopping. It was then that I realized it wasn't my alarm clock that was waking me up. It was my upstairs smoke alarm. As this clicked, the smell of burning wood crept its way into my nose, and it all came together.

Panic set in as I stumbled out of bed, fumbling with my phone to call 911. Disoriented, confused, and slightly choking on the smoke, I ran out the back door just in time to see that the smoke was on the front of the house. I ran through the gate of the front yard, and sure enough, the front of my house was burning.

As I was explaining this to the 911 operator that my house was on fire, I glanced over across the street and who should I see but Karen, sitting on her front porch and sipping on a cup of coffee while smiling and waving at me. My heart dropped when the realization hit me. She had deliberately set my house on fire, all because of a few bushes.

Thankfully, the fire department arrived in time to put the fire out, and the damage wasn't as extensive as it could have been. But my sense of security was gone, replaced by this deep-rooted fear that someone so close to my home could harbor such malice over something as simple as not liking the bushes that I was planting. As I was standing there talking to the firefighters about the whole thing, I was approached by another neighbor.

Specifically, the neighbor that lived directly next to me. He asked me if I was okay, and I told him that I was, and then explained that the damage wasn't too bad. And he followed that up with, "...I called the police to come out already, but I wanted to show you something." I was a bit confused at first, but why he approached me became very clear, very quickly."

He showed me his phone, and mentioned that he had a security camera that faced out the front window, and that it actually picked everything up. Right there, on his screen, I could clearly see Karen walking across the road with a gas can towards my house.

You couldn't see her actually pouring the gas or starting the fire, but you could see her approach, and then could see the fire start lighting up the street, and see her running back towards her house and standing there watching it burn. The look on her face was horrifying, even in the slightly pixelated footage. You could tell that she was laughing, and see that she was actually clapping and jumping up and down as she celebrated her victory.

She then ran back to her house and came back out a few moments later with her coffee and just sat there watching her handiwork. Thankfully the footage was pretty clear and she was wearing the same clothes as she was sitting on the porch. The cops arrived and asked a few questions and we showed them the footage. The whole situation was pretty straightforward. She'd committed arson.

When the police went over to talk to her about things, she tried to claim that she had been home all morning and that she had never left. And when she was questioned about why she smelled like gasoline, she literally told them that she liked the smell and that that wasn't a crime. They arrested her for what she had done, determining that there was enough evidence to actually take her in for arson.

The repairs were costly and took a while, and I had to move back in with my mom for a bit until it was all done. I couldn't live in a house that was partially charred like that. Obviously, my bushes were lost to the flames, as they were the main target, but I took solace in knowing that Karen wasn't going to be a threat to myself or anyone else.

When I was able to move back into the house, I did install a ring camera, and actually went ahead and planted new bushes in the same spots. And now, when they bloom, I'm reminded of that image of seeing Karen cuffed and shoved into the back of a police car. Hey all, I wanted to share something that me and a few friends experienced in high school. I think I was a bit of a weirdo in school, but I wasn't alone.

I had plenty of friends that accepted my weirdness and were probably just as equally goofballs. We were the ones using paper clips and safety pins as earrings, drawing creepy stuff, and other probably edgy things. I cringe at the thought of my teenage years now.

Anyways, while we may have been odd, we still wanted to enjoy the events that our school had, such as fundraisers, parades, and yes, even prom. A couple of my friends and I all agreed to go to prom together, and one of my friends even tried to hook me up with this girl that I'd been interested in. He'd asked her if she was available, well, actually he told her that I was asking, and she said yes.

So our first date would be prom, I guess. I actually gave a little more care as to how I looked and even got a matching tie for her corsage. I picked her up from her place and we met our friends at the community center where they were having the dance. My date was stunning and it was hard to believe that she was with me. She said that I looked good and even some of the teachers that were there told me that I cleaned up well and joked that they wish they saw me more like this.

I wasn't the best student, but I wasn't really a troublemaker either. We were all having a great night, between dancing, flirting, eating some of the food, and just BSing with each other. At one point while we were talking, I noticed a guy that seemed kind of out of place. Even the teachers and adults were dressed nicely, and this guy was just in jeans and a suit jacket.

I watched as he walked along the wall, looking around, almost like he was trying to find somebody, but it was the way that he held himself and looked around that had me on edge. There was an eerie intensity to his gaze at everyone that made me feel like he had no good intentions. Now, while he looked very off-putting, no one else was looking at him or watching him, so I was starting to think that maybe it was just me.

I tried to brush it off as just being prom jitters and thinking maybe I was just on edge due to the circumstances. So, at the time, I just let it go. I continued dancing and talking with my friends and, at one point, we found a table and about six of us were sitting at it. My date had her legs on my lap, complaining that they were hurting as she'd been wearing heels. While talking, I spotted the suit jacket guy again.

and also noticed that he was walking towards us. I looked back at my friends, trying to find a time to ask if they recognized him, but he stood next to my date's chair and greeted us before I had the chance. He asked us if we were enjoying ourselves, and we all said yeah. He brought up a few things like the music and one of the drink stations, and we conversed for a few.

As the conversation died down, the guy then asked us what we were going to be doing after the dance, which I thought was kind of an odd question. One of my friends mentioned that we'd probably just go chill somewhere, and then the guy asked us if we wanted to go with him to go smoke. Now, I know everyone at the table, including myself, did, but it was really weird to have an adult offer this to us.

We all kind of side-eyed one another, and I spoke up first and said, "Nah, we're good. Thanks though." And no one else said anything. He then pushed it, again offering. He said it wasn't a setup or anything, and specifically pointed at me and said, "I know you like grass, boy. Don't lie." And started laughing. This accusation did not make me feel more comfortable about him either.

In fact, the way that he looked at me and pointed at me, it made me think like it was more about intimidation, like he had something on me. So without looking away from him or smiling like I did the first time, I just said, ''No one's lying, man. We're just not interested.'' I was hoping that he might get the hint, and I wanted him to leave us alone. He didn't. He then focused on my date.''

He complimented her on her looks, and she seemed a little standoffish, but was being polite to the guy, until he started making more explicit comments to my date and the other girls. She'd put her legs down and seemed to push her back more towards me, as if she was nervous that this guy was close to her. Nobody was saying anything. Being that I was already suspicious of this dude, I was now annoyed that he was not getting the hint.

So, I stood up, called him a few names and told him to leave. I also very loudly made a comment about him hitting on teens and stood there, hoping he would finally get the hint, or at least maybe another adult would come over. The guy again laughed as he stood up and said that if we changed our minds, we could meet him at a certain park. I watched as he walked away but also noticed our gym teacher starting to walk over to us.

He asked us who that guy was, and I basically asked him the same thing. I thought he was another staff member, or part of the faculty chaperoning the dance, since he was obviously an adult. The gym teacher then hollered for the creep and started walking toward him, and he took off. Our gym teacher then ran after him too, and we were left wondering who that guy was."

We all tried to loosen up again, hoping that wouldn't completely sour our night, but we then had another teacher approach us saying that we needed to follow them because they had more questions about what had just happened. After we explained it all to them, they told us that they were handling it and to go back to the dance and enjoy our time.

Thankfully, we were able to have a good rest of the night, but when we separated afterwards, I was still left wondering about this guy. Who was he? How did he end up at the prom without any of the other teachers or other students feeling like he didn't belong? I spotted him pretty quickly, and I knew that something wasn't right.

I was kicking myself for not reporting him sooner, but I didn't know all the people that worked for the school or the district, so I just assumed I was being paranoid. That was until the following week when I was called into the principal's office, where I saw one of my other friends from that night and a police officer. The principal said the officer wanted to know more about the incident and asked for a description of the man.

After explaining all this, the officers showed us a picture of a guy. It was an obvious mugshot, and it was the same person. They thanked us for our explanation and sent us off back to class. That day, my mom picked me up from school and asked us about the cop at the school and what all he said. I told her about the incident at prom, and so she was already aware-

but she said that she had also gotten an email that the school sent out to everyone about this guy. It mentioned that they had a suspicious and unidentified person in the area that was also reported by students, and that they reacted quickly by calling the authorities. Later that night, a cop had actually stopped behind a car that was parked near our school with all their lights off and questioned them. Our gym teacher saw the guy leaving in a car and gave them the details as well.

The car and the guy matched the description, so they detained him. They sent the email letting them know that he was still in custody after being identified by witnesses, and that if they had any other questions, they could call the school, or the officer that was handling the case. It was a relief to know that this guy wasn't out walking around, but also creeped me out just that much more, knowing that he was still nearby.

Like, he was waiting. I wanted to include this, but of course I can't confirm the validity of it, as it was all from word of mouth. One of my friends said that their parents called the officer, and they told them that they searched his car and found a rope, duct tape, and a knife, as well as condoms and some weed. The weed at least matches up to the story that he was feeding us that night, but if that information was true...

Then what the hell was he planning? It sends shivers down my spine thinking what could have happened if any of us had gone with him that night. For the most part, it was a fantastic night, but it was also pretty memorable for us. From then on, I promised myself that if anything ever seemed off, especially when it comes to another person like that, I would tell someone immediately.

I'm glad that no one went with him that night, but it's always in the back of my mind of what could have happened. About a decade ago, I had an honestly chilling experience while I was out driving at night. I used to work a really weird shift, and I got off the clock at 2am, so my drive home was incredibly boring and empty. For the most part, the highways were completely dead.

and I was typically able to get from point A to point B pretty easily. It's one of those stories that kind of shook me. As mentioned, I was driving home that night just taking my usual route and enjoying the summer breeze as it blew through the windows. It was a really nice night. There was no one else on the highway, and I was just cruising at a bit above the speed limit with some chill tunes playing way too loud through the car speakers.

About halfway through the drive, I was rounding one of the curves and started on a downhill portion of the highway. My eyes sort of landed randomly on what looked like a person a bit down the road. I slowed down, thinking that there was no way that this person was walking on the shoulder of a highway with a speed limit of 65, but sure enough, it was.

Thankfully, with it being as late as it was, and the highway being completely open like this, I was able to slow down to see if the person was okay, or if they needed help. As I slowed down, I noticed that this person kind of looked disoriented and stumbling, like they were either drunk or he didn't know where the hell he was. I had a point of being concerned for this person's well-being, and I immediately hit my flashers and stopped next to him.

I approached the man cautiously, and as I got closer, I could see that he was a much older gentleman. He looked disheveled with unkempt hair, wearing what looked like a dark red bathrobe and house slippers. What bothered me was the fact that his stare was empty, like his eyes were completely vacant. I rolled down the window and asked him if he needed help.

He paused for a moment, looked at me, and started saying a few things that honestly did not make sense. I remember two things that he specifically said. He was looking for his house because it kept disappearing, and that he couldn't ignore the voices in the shadows. I was starting to get pretty worried about him at this point. I knew that I couldn't just leave him there or ignore this, as it was pretty clear that something was wrong with this man.

After a bit of back and forth, I was able to convince him that I could help him find what he was looking for, and he actually did get into my back seat. I figured, if nothing else, him being in my car was safer than him walking on the shoulder of the road, and I could probably just get him to a nearby police station so that he could get help. As we drove, his ramblings kept going, and it was making me feel a bit anxious.

I didn't think that he would do anything to me, but part of me was kind of getting this weird feeling that he could do something, and he wouldn't be fully aware of what he was doing. After a bit of driving, though, I was able to get to a police station, and I told him to stay in the car while I went in to explain to them what was going on. Thankfully, they didn't ask too many questions about why I had let him in my car or who I was to him.

I think my panicked demeanor helped them to realize that I wasn't doing anything malicious. The officer came out and tried to speak to the man, but he kept saying the same things about the house disappearing and the shadows talking. The officer glanced at me, and I shrugged like, I don't know man, I'm just trying to help. The officer helped the man out of the car and asked me if I could stick around the station to fill out some paperwork, and maybe answer some other questions if they have them.

I agreed, and I sat there on the bench for something close to an hour. I was actually starting to doze off when the original officer finally came back out and asked me to go over my story again. I told him that I was heading home for my shift, saw the man on the shoulder of the highway, and explained that I stopped because he seemed like something was wrong, and I explained that he was saying a lot that didn't make sense.

The officer nodded and wrote down what I had said, and then mentioned that he had found some information in the wallet that the man was carrying. So, to explain what exactly had happened, this man was in danger. Apparently, he had actually lived at a retirement home almost three miles down the highway.

The officer confirmed that he had gotten a hold of the retirement home and spoke to the employees, and they confirmed that this man lived there. At some point, after everyone had gone to bed, this man had managed to get out of his room and through one of the exits, and he walked the full three miles down the road. Unfortunately, he did have dementia.

So why he got out and where he was going and what he was thinking and walking down the highway like that, it's anyone's guess. He was adamant about the disappearing house and those voices in the shadows, so maybe that had something to do with it. I don't know, honestly.

The officer told me that they had someone from the facility coming to get him, and then mentioned that the facility was likely going to be doing an investigation into how he got out. So, at least that made me feel a bit better about him being safer from then on. They let me go, and the whole time I was driving home, I was seriously staring at the shoulder of the highway and making sure that there wasn't anyone else out there,

I knew that there wouldn't be, but I was feeling anxious about it for some reason. About a week or so later, I actually got a card in the mail from the retirement home. I'm guessing they got my information from the officer when they picked the man up. It was a card with a photo of the man and a few of the nurses. He was smiling and wearing a little birthday hat, and it mentioned that he was celebrating his 89th birthday.

There was a short note on it, thanking me too, so that was nice, and I was glad that he was back with people that could help him. Now, this was a long time ago, so it is likely that he's no longer with us, but I do hope that he was able to live out the rest of his time comfortably, and I hope that they were able to keep him secured in their facility after that night."

I am, and always have been, a very creative person. I enjoy being able to find something, anything, and see potential to turn it into something better or renew it to good use again. I make jewelry, clothing pieces, hair accessories, and art pieces.

My roommate slash partner and I even started our own business selling our products, as well as other items such as gems, minerals, and tarot cards. All that fun witchy stuff. One thing we like to do is buy a booth spot at our local summer fest that we have in our state.

It's a celebration of our county, specifically. I also make sure to make an excess of items to buy and bring even more supplies to customize items, and make more on demand if needed. The event that I would like to share with you took place one of those days that I was at my booth. My partner was working the last day of the festival, so I had to handle it myself.

I teased that it was planned to get out of not having to break down our stuff, but that's neither here nor there. So the last night of the event was always a grab bag. You could spot the people that practically lived here through all three days that it was there. You saw people that were just trying to catch a glimpse of the festival joys, and those people that were just there because someone dragged them to it.

I sat behind my booth displaying an array of handmade treasures while I was working on another piece, just taking in the energetic atmosphere and the aroma of various homemade sweets. I've always been very social, so it was easy for me to strike up a conversation with anyone, and it seemed to draw people towards me too. So, when I saw a couple approach my booth, I thought it was just business as usual, at first.

They both walked up, smiling at first, but the woman quickly looked disinterested, with her eyes wandering elsewhere. The man greeted me and I started to go into the different items that I offered. He asked me how I made the pendulums, and as I explained the process, he actually seemed interested. I would glance over at the woman while speaking, and notice that she was not paying much attention to our conversation, if any at all.

She was looking at some of the things on my table, but also seemed to be looking around at the other nearby booths. I tried to involve her in the conversation, but I would barely get a side-eye from her. Then, the guy asked me about one of my crocheted bralettes that I had out, motioned to his partner about how she had one like it, and she just gave a half-assed fake smile and said, "'Eh, cool. I could see where this was going.' Or so I thought."

I tried complimenting her, saying that the color would look really good with her complexion, and even offered an earring and necklace set that would match it. She still wasn't interested, but the guy was, so I started showing him the pieces. While he was looking them over, he would hold them up to her and ask if she liked them, and she would give very abrupt answers.

However, I did notice that she was looking at my hair sticks, so I tried asking if she used them or if she wanted to try them at that time. I didn't mind giving away some items, especially if it meant getting my name out there or making a potential purchase in the future. Not to mention, if I could get her to loosen up or be in a better mood, it would be a win for everyone.

but she immediately made a comment about how the idea seemed... odd. The man quickly apologized and asked what was wrong with her, but she didn't answer. Part of me was beginning to think maybe this wasn't about me, and something had happened prior to them approaching my booth. I gave a lighthearted laugh and said that it was fine, joking about how it took me some time to figure them out myself.

The guy decided on a purchase and handed me a card, so I went to grab my card reader from my tub behind me, as well as a freebie. I like to give the little stuff away as a thank you. As I went to stand back up and turn back towards them, I suddenly felt a very sharp pain and pressure in my arm. I looked over at it, and I saw one of my hair sticks protruding from it, and that's about when things started going in slow motion.

I heard the man yelling, ''What did you do?'' and then the two began arguing. The woman made a hand gesture and started walking away, as the guy seemed conflicted on what to do. Then, the last thing that I remember was all the sound around me slowly getting muffled, my vision tunneling until I blacked out. I was never good with blood, especially my own.

When I finally came to, there was a different man at my side wearing a reflective vest, talking on a walkie. I immediately looked over at my arm and saw the stick still protruding from my flesh, and my first instinct was to pull it out. The man stopped me, telling me that I needed to wait. I still wasn't fully conscious, so I let my head fall back down until I was awoken again.

This time it was an EMT who was working on my arm, holding pressure, but the stick was now gone. I was awake at this point, as there was no blood, but the pain was pretty excruciating. I called my dad since he lived nearby to grab my stuff, because the guy said that I was going to need to get stitches. They allowed me to stay there since it wasn't life-threatening, and that way I didn't have to take an ambulance, but...

The police were more than willing to stay by my side. They took a lot of information from me. They asked me what happened, how it happened, and I gave them a description of the couple. When my dad arrived, he helped me pick up my items and was going to take me to the hospital, but before we left, I noticed the same guy looking at me from a distance. I immediately pointed him out to my dad and the officer that was still standing nearby.

I didn't think anything else would happen, but one of the officers said that they would stay with me until we left since they hadn't found the girl. They immediately called it in and began looking for the guy. I guess he had a conscience and felt he needed to do the right thing. He didn't run or try to lose the cops, and when confronted, he explained what happened. He even gave a description of the woman, her name and which car she was driving.

She'd actually left without him. He never approached me about any of this, but explained this to the cops and asked them to tell me that he was sorry about the incident. I got to the hospital and left with a few stitches, and now I have this cool-looking circular scar on my arm. I didn't press charges, because I feel like even if she was that angry at him, or jealous even...

She needed a different kind of help, but it did happen out in a public place, so the state took care of the charges, I guess. Overall, I guess I learned a few things from this. I learned that my sticks are probably too sharp, so now I've rounded them off a lot better and they're coated better to prevent such a point, and I don't make metal ones at all anymore, just wood or glass.

But I also learned that while you can look for the good or the best in other people, try not to turn your back to someone who's exhibiting erratic behavior or just radiating hostility. But also, don't let that ruin a good time, friends. May your encounters be filled with light rather than shadows or crazy jealous people.

I want to start this story off by saying that it isn't necessarily a horror story, though it was absolutely scary for me. Some people may come out of this story thinking that I'm preachy, and I don't really care if that's how you feel by the end of it. This story is one that is a necessary, cautionary tale for anyone that may put themselves into these kind of situations. This happened when I was 21.

And honestly, it wasn't that long ago. It was in the early 2010s, actually. Back then, I was the type of kid that thought that I was invincible. I ran on Red Bull more than sleep, and I know that there are a lot of people out there that seem to do the same. I hope that this story does get through to some of you. And again, preachy, I know, but it's an important experience that needs to be put out there.

I was driving home from college on a Friday night, trying to get out to my parents' place to spend a few days so that I could get away from campus. I'd made this drive numerous times, always late in the evening, and I had never had any issues with it. It was a long, monotonous drive, one that was partially main roads and partially winding side roads."

On this night, I had been on the road for a couple of hours, and it was pitch black out, and I thought that I was doing okay. I had just chugged a second Red Bull for the drive, and the caffeine was causing my heart to beat fast and my mind to race. I was getting jittery, my left leg bouncing on the floor and my right foot holding the gas pedal down. My eyes kept frantically wandering onto the dull glow of the headlights as they passed,

and despite the fact that I was starting to feel a bit light-headed, I was determined to make this drive without stopping. As the next hour wore on, I started feeling my eyelids grow a bit heavier, which was actually making me angry, as I was running on the caffeine of the energy drinks, yet I was starting to feel tired. My brain was focusing way too hard on how I was feeling, how tired I was starting to get,

I started to think that I should pull over and take a minute to take a breath, that me getting lightheaded was something serious, but the stubborn guy that I was, I was telling myself that I only had about half an hour left to go. It was probably the rush of adrenaline that was kicking my ass at the same time that my brain was begging me to sleep, but I was arguing with myself inside about stopping.

In the end, my stubborn side won, and I slapped my face telling myself that I wasn't going to give up that easily. And that is where things went completely wrong, and my life would be changed permanently. It must have only been for a couple of seconds, but in the brief moment that my eyes fell shut, my car veered slightly to the side.

The sudden jolt of the tires hitting the gravel on the shoulder snapped me awake, only for me to see that I was heading off the road. Panicking, I overcorrected, and I quickly went from correcting to trying to maintain to completely losing control of the situation. My car skidded across the road, and I slammed into a guardrail.

causing my car to flip multiple times before finally coming to a hard stop just before hitting a large tree. The force of the impact is beyond description. The glass all shattered, and the only sound alongside the metal crunching was me screaming my lungs out as the whole thing happened.

Time completely seemed to slow down as I felt myself being violently tossed around the interior of my car. When it finally came to a rest, I was nothing shy of disoriented and in shock. I could feel my breathing slow down, the world was spinning and I could feel blood dripping down on my face as the pain of the situation slowly settled in.

Despite my injuries, I was able to crawl through the destroyed door and pull myself close to the shoulder of the road. I don't know how I got as far as I did, but I had managed to get close enough to be seen. As I lay there trembling, crying, screaming as loud as I could while in excruciating pain, after what was probably a couple of seconds, a car drove by and they saw me.

I will say that after I heard him say, ''Oh my god, call 911!'' I completely blacked out. There is a huge chunk of time that is completely gone. My memory goes from hearing that to seeing doctors trying to keep me alive, and then waking up when everything was done. The aftermath of all this was a nightmare. I spent a couple of months under medical care, undergoing surgeries and physical therapy,

My body was broken in ways that I can't imagine, and the worst of it was my left leg, which was so damaged that they had to amputate it above the knee. From what I was told, it was completely destroyed, and the fact that I didn't bleed out while crawling up was nothing shy of a miracle. At the age of 21, I was permanently scarred and handicapped to the point that I now spend a lot of my time in a wheelchair.

I've had to adapt to having a prosthetic, and everything has been completely different. I have so many scars from that night, and I often find myself jumping up in the middle of the night, screaming, as the memories of the crash keep playing in my head. I have adapted, thankfully, but it hurts so much to know that, had I made a better decision that night...

Had I just pulled over and maybe taken a quick nap, I would have been okay. I would have been none the worse for wear, and I would have made it to my parents' house. And life could have just been normal, but I didn't. I didn't make good decisions. And I have to live with the consequences. Again, this isn't for pity."

but a warning for anyone that thinks it's smart to push themselves to the end of their rope, that thinks it's okay to keep going when they're tired. The consequences of falling asleep at the wheel can be devastating and life-altering, of which I am a prime example. It's not worth it. Take care of yourself, and listen to your body, and don't end up with a story like mine.

My friends and I loved going to this local festival that our county held every year in July. They had live music on an open field where you could bring your own blankets, chairs, and drinks. They had some fair games and food, drink and craft booths set up for you to shop till your heart's content. They were never really a bad time.

"'Between the single people, the groups of friends like us, "'and even the families with kids and older couples perusing the crafts, "'everyone always seemed to be in high spirits and looked after one another. "'That's exactly what we were expecting when we went there this time. "'There were five of us that went there together. "'Ashton, Nevaeh, Tanner, Paige, and myself. "'We brought a couple of blankets and a small cooler with our beverages of choice.'

We just lounged around talking and enjoying the electric atmosphere that surrounded us. The band was full of energy and everyone in the crowd was cheering them on for more, and after the band was done, there was going to be an intermission before the finale. The finale was going to be fire jugglers, so they had set up an area in front of the stage where there was a small fire pit. While they were setting up,

My friends and I walked around the booths, got ourselves something to eat, and even played a couple of games, betting on who would do the best and which of us would fail miserably. Once it started getting darker, we heard someone talking through the audio system from the stage, and decided to start making our way back to the field to settle down again with more drinks and entertainment. When we got back there, we danced to the music and waited for the show to start.

It was nearing the end of the main event, so there were already a lot of people that were drunk, or should I just say under some kind of influence. We all laughed as we watched other people being silly with their friends too. Then the lights on the stage dimmed, telling us that they were ready to start, but it wasn't dark for long. The stage came alive with swirling flames and dancers going to the rhythm of the song,

It was very impressive, and quite beautiful. We all watched in awe, and the crowd cheered them on as they landed each successful stunt, one after another. There was one particular guy that I noticed on several occasions that was absolutely enthralled by the entertainers. He was whistling, clapping for them, he would holler out wanting them to do more, all while dancing and pretty much headbanging to their music.

He was pretty obviously drunk, but enjoying himself. And he wasn't being a nuisance to anyone around him either. So no one was bothering him, of course. Then the show came to an end and many people started packing up. Mostly the ones with the kids. My friends and I were all still sitting on our blankets talking and deciding on if we wanted to stick around longer or if we should go too.

We started gathering up our stuff, but a few of us still wanted to go check out some of the booths. While we were waiting for Tanner and Paige to finish getting their stuff packed up, I was looking around, taking in the atmosphere. They had the music playing again, and there were some people laying on the grass together. I saw the families leaving with the kids excitedly talking about the day, and I even spotted the man from earlier that was next to us.

He was spinning around and dancing, slowly making his way towards the stage. The fire pit up front was still going, and I assumed since they weren't the ones to set it up, they weren't going to be putting it out either. But it was contained and people were taking notice of it to either avoid it, or they were using it as a backdrop for their selfies. I even thought that it would be nice to get a picture of all of us with it as well.

But then the happy and euphoric moment would be brutally ended. I watched the drunk man climb up onto the stage as he continued dancing and singing. I instantly knew that this was not going to end well, and I looked around for anyone that I had seen him with. There was a girl and a guy that were standing with him during the show, but now I didn't see them anywhere, not even by the stage.

I thought to myself, I need to find someone in charge to let them know so that they could get him down, but I was out of time. I turned to mention it to my friends, and the man yelled out something and jumped right into the fire. The air filled with screams and gasps as we watched him land in it, and the flames engulfed him.

Ashton, Tanner, and I ran towards the man, hoping to be able to help somehow as we yelled at our other friends to get help. Before we reached him, he'd stood up and started screaming. He managed to get out of the pit, but he was still on fire. Knowing how intoxicated he was and how he danced around with a bottle, I'm sure he had spilled it on himself as well, making this so much worse.

The man ran around screaming for help and flailing his arms. The crowd of people that was forming recoiled in horror. They were all desperate to keep him away from them, but no one was doing anything to help him. As he ran towards people, they would shove him away, or he would run into a piece of the building, causing it to begin a new flame that people were trying to put out. Tanner and I were trying to catch him to make him drop on the ground, but he wouldn't stop moving.

as one might expect. Your mind is already altered by the alcohol, and now you're in pain and don't know what to do. I thought about it afterwards, and god, I can't even imagine how you would handle that kind of situation. Tanner actually ran after the guy, tackling him, which also caused him to get burned, but we at least got him to the ground. That's when a few of us patted him down and tried to get him to respond to us while we waited for help.

We were in the middle of a field. We didn't have much that we could really help with or do. I could only pray that he was still alive as he wasn't responding. I was frozen with fear as everything around me started moving slowly. People were screaming all around, and the once lively festival grounds now looked a bit like a hellish landscape, with small fires starting everywhere.

Those agonizing screams from the man replayed in my mind until the wails of the sirens finally drowned out my own thoughts. They started checking his vitals, at least confirming that he was still alive, as they got him on the stretcher to wheel him off. We watched as they loaded him up and left, leaving the rest of us with these haunting memories of what had just unfolded in front of us. We all tried to move on and shake off the event that we had just witnessed,

but I don't think anyone could really move on from that. Tanner, especially. He probably saved that man's life by tackling him to the ground and patting out the fire. He wasn't talking much, so we all thought it was best to leave. I know it was a pretty restless night for me, but I felt bad for Tanner as well. I wanted to add that the accident was covered on the news.

The man had third-degree burns all over his body, and it also affected his eyesight. I was thankful to hear that he had survived and told Tanner about it too, but that night still makes me sick to think about. That festival was always a lot of fun for me and my friends, and now that will always be a memory of how an innocent night of fun can quickly turn to chaos and change lives forever.

This was something that my dad and I witnessed many, many years ago. I was a kid, so some of the more business-related details are provided thanks to my dad. My dad used to partially own a lawn and landscaping company with a friend of his. They went in on it 50-50.

I knew a lot of people that worked there because I often went with my dad and hung out in the back office, or I would go there with my mom to drop off lunch for my dad. My mom was a 911 dispatcher and often worked odd and long hours, so instead of leaving me home, my dad usually took me to work with him and let me hang out in his office.

He had a TV in there, and he had bought a VCR so that I could watch movies, and then I had a small chest in there with random toys and craft stuff to keep me occupied. However, as I got older, I became more curious about what he did, and I started following him around as he worked. Sometimes I even helped him when he was in the shop.

He didn't let me go to customers' homes, though, because they can use some pretty dangerous equipment, and even some harsh chemicals, so he felt that it wasn't safe, but the shop could have its own danger lurking. I was at least smart enough to avoid things and to not touch anything that I wasn't given explicit permission to. Yet, even with all those precautions, some of the adults were a little more careless."

There was a guy named Mickey that was a little newer to the company. I was young, but I think my dad said that he had been working there for around six to eight months. He was also a younger guy compared to my dad and some of the other people that worked there. I don't know if it's related or not, but he was also a bit more carefree. He never seemed to devote his attention to one project that he may be working on.

He may have been watching TV that was in the shop, he may have been shouting to someone else, like they were talking or joking around, not out of anger, and this stuff had also gotten the attention of my dad and others, calling out to Mickey to pay attention and to be more careful. He, again, would always brush it off like he wasn't doing anything wrong.

However, there was one time that I was up there when my dad seemed upset as he talked to somebody else. I learned that this was because Mickey was supposed to be working but hadn't arrived yet. He was late. About an hour or so after this, he finally walked in the door and I remember him looking a little rough. They all had matching shirts and some had vests, and they wore whatever pants or shorts they wanted.

He didn't have on either the shirt nor the vest, and when he came over to greet us and give me a high five, I could smell something sour, what I would later learn to be alcohol. He was drunk, or at least still reeked of the previous night's activities. Now, as mentioned, I didn't really know what that meant at the time. I was about 10 or 11 at this point, and my parents were far from alcoholics.

My mom didn't drink and my dad would occasionally have a beer when he had some friends over, but it was literally one or two, and he never acted differently. If I was older and understood more of what was going on, and the risk that it was, I definitely would have said something. Anyways, he seemed to try to avoid my dad being the boss on duty that day and just tried to immediately get back to work.

This was also a Tuesday, and for some reason, it was their least busy or job-demanding days. So there were a lot more people in the shop side of things. This is where they might schedule jobs, fix equipment and tools for customers, or even the stuff for the business. So Mickey had grabbed one of the store mowers because either the blades needed to be sharpened or repaired, or they could have even been stuck. So he was working on that.

I remember walking over towards him at one point to see what he was doing, and he did tell me that I shouldn't be too close, because he was working with some pretty sharp parts. I started asking him a few questions and what he was doing, so he began answering them, I think causing him to forget about telling me to walk away.

That was about the time that my dad walked over to tell me the same thing, while also getting on to Mickey about being late and then being drunk after he noticed the smell. My dad seemed pretty upset, and told him that after he finished what he was doing on that mower, he wanted him to go home. He tried to assure my dad that he wasn't drunk and that he would be okay, but my dad would not hear it. After that, I walked away to kill time doing something else.

It couldn't have been too long after this that I decided to go back into the office to play a game on my dad's computer. The office was right next to the entrance to the back area, where they do a lot of testing on mowers or weed whackers. I saw Mickey had pushed the mower out there and was using it. I remember hearing it, seeing him adjust his hat, and then I walked into the office. The door was still open so I could hear when the mower was turned off.

and not maybe a minute or two later, I then heard a blood-curdling scream. It made me jump up and run out of the office, worried that something bad had just happened. I followed the screams to the back and saw Mickey holding one hand with another, and it was covered in blood. He was just screaming, and from what I could tell and piece together from what he was saying, the blades had cut his fingers off.

I stood there frozen in fear and watched as other people ran past me trying to help him. What was even more terrifying to see and think about was that there were people walking around, looking in the grass for his fingers. I was then yelled at to go into the office and not leave, which is where I stayed until my grandma came to get me. I heard that scream for months in my head, in my dreams, or more so nightmares.

All I could see was the terror in Mickey's eyes and the bloody stumps on his hands. It took me a while to get past that, but even to this day, I still get queasy thinking about blood like that. Now, obviously, Mickey lived. He lost three fingers and part of his pinky. They were able to save two of them and even reattach the nerves or whatever so that they were usable, but the strength isn't 100% back.

The last one was too mangled to be saved. I got to see him when he came back into the shop a month or so later. The scars at least looked pretty cool, and he stayed optimistic about it. At least towards me joking how it looked like he was pieced back together with other parts. My dad later explained to me that the mower he was working on was pretty old.

and it didn't have a working safety thing on it, so when he thought it was actually off, there was still a kill switch thing he had to flip before you did anything with the blades. He apparently did not toggle that switch, and when he went back down to check them out, because they had stopped moving or something, it all kicked on, and, well, you know the rest. He said it was a pretty big eye-opener for a lot of things for them,

They replaced any outdated mowers so that they all used the same ones with all the new bells and whistles. They went through a lot more safety measures to prevent other accidents. And to this day, that was still the worst event they've ever had. I always knew that my dad worked with some pretty sharp and dangerous things, but that event really drove it home for me. And now, even as an adult with my own kids, I don't even like them being in the yard when I'm mowing.

You just can't ever be too careful.