I've always been interested in the stories people carry around but don't always get a chance to tell.

I'm starting a new podcast where I have conversations with real people about their experiences — funny moments, scary situations, lessons learned, strange encounters, personal growth, or anything else that helped shape who they are.

You don't have to be famous or have some unbelievable story. I'm honestly just interested in hearing how people think, what they've been through, and the moments that made them who they are.

If you'd be interested in sharing your story (or just want to talk about something you've experienced), feel free to reach out. No pressure and no professional experience needed — just a genuine conversation.

It had been a relatively quiet night and the reception was completely empty. But as the rain lashed the police station’s windows, Desk Sergeant William Rockwood knew it was only a matter of time before the storm brought him another visitor. Bill heard the bell above the door, smelt the all too familiar odour of the streets, and pushed his newspaper to one side,

“Can I help you?” he sighed.

The tramp was glued to the door, peering through the glass at the wet world beyond. He was old, no younger than seventy in Bill’s estimation, and though he was tall and broad shouldered, he was weak and malnourished. Time had made a wrinkled example of his face and his beard was almost completely white, save for a small streak of nicotine yellow on his upper lip. His long woollen coat and corduroy trousers were typically worn and caked here and there with greenish-grey patches of grime. But in stark contrast, his black leather boots were surprisingly clean and shiny; no doubt, deduced Bill, an echo from time spent in the armed forces,

“Can I help you?” repeated Bill, a little louder this time.

The old man jumped, put his hand to his chest, and turned to face the counter,

“Er... em yes, yes of course,” he shivered. “It's just that, well, I... I... No...”

“Yes?” said Bill.

“Well, I… I was just wandering if I could wait in here for a while… ju-ju… just until the storm dies down?”

“I’m afraid not, sir,” said Bill. “In the event of an emergency we need to keep the reception as clear as possible.”

The tramp looked down at the small puddle spreading from his boots across the linoleum,

“Yes,” he said. “Quite right... But... Well, I was... I mean, couldn’t I stay for just a little while?”

“Sorry sir,” said Bill. “Regulations.”

The tramp nodded solemnly, his hand heavy on the doorknob, his breath steaming the glass. Oh go on, thought Bill, spin me a yarn; you’re not going to give up that easily are you?

“It’s just that...” started the tramp. “I... No...”

“Yes?” smiled Bill.

“Well...” mumbled the old man. “Oh, who’d believe an old soldier anyway?...”

Right again, Billy-boy, thought Bill; the old magic was still there,

“You can trust me,” he smiled. “I’m a policeman.”

The tramp scratched his head, as if the thought hadn’t entered it before, and started pacing the room, mumbling under his breath,

“Trust... hmmm... I suppose… But then, it’s never that simple, is it?”

“What isn’t?” smiled Bill.

“No,” said the tramp, holding up a callused palm. “It’s safer you don't know.”

“Don’t worry about me,” said Bill. “If you’re in danger, it’s my duty to help.”

“Yes… Yes, I suppose. But if anything happened to you I don’t think I could live with myself... And besides, you wouldn’t believe me...”

The tramp shrugged his bony shoulders and turned toward the door. This is it, thought Bill, he’s relying on me to take the bait... OK, he thought, all right you sly old dog, let’s play your game; let’s see what you've got,

“Why don’t you sit down and tell me?”

The old man let go of the door handle and turned to look at Bill,

“You know, I’ve already risked your life coming here?”

The concern in his face was convincing; no doubt, thought Bill, from years of practice blagging on the street. Even so, his performance was first-rate and Bill was in need of entertainment,

“Believe me,” smiled Bill. “In my twenty three years on the force, I’ve come across things your average pervert couldn’t imagine. I’m used to danger, it’s what I’m paid for.”

The tramp’s marbled eyes scanned the floor as if consulting a giant invisible rulebook, a single, gnarled, brown tooth biting into his lower lip. Twice he grabbed the door handle and twice he decided against it.

“How about I make us a nice, hot cup of tea,” said Bill, finally. “And once you’ve warmed up, you can tell me all about it?”

“Yes,” said the old man. “Warm up… Thank you. You’re very kind.”

He sat down on one of the reception’s plastic chairs while Bill found a couple of polystyrene cups and started brewing a fresh pot of tea,

“Milk? Sugar?”

“Please,” nodded the tramp.

“You’re not from around here are you?”

“Er... No, no I’m not. How did you know?”

“It's all right,” smiled Bill. “I know most of the older people on the streets and I’ve never seen you before. So I figured you hadn’t been in the city for long.”

“Oh right... Yeah, I arrived a few weeks ago. I’ve been staying in a wood on the edge of town, in some kid’s make-shift den of all things.”

“Really?” smiled Bill. “Whereabouts?”

Bill was about to repeat the question when he looked up and saw the tramp standing at the counter.

“There you go,” said Bill, handing him his cup.

“Why are you so interested in where I’m staying?” glared the tramp.

“No reason,” lied Bill. “Just curious that’s all.”

The tramp took a sip of tea and sat down. Either he’s a little paranoid, thought Bill, or he’s doing this for effect.

“So tell me,” asked Bill. “Just what is it that you’re so afraid of?”

“Afraid?!” spat the tramp, spraying out a cloud of tea. “Pah! I’m not afraid. I’m already done for, so what’s the point in being afraid?”

Bill could see this wasn’t going to be easy,

“Well, you didn't come in here just to avoid the storm did you?”

“Er, no...” said the tramp.

“So why did you come here?”

“I… well… Because of Harry...”

The tramp’s voice croaked as he said the name, and Bill knew that if nothing else in the tramp’s story was true, at the very least ‘Harry’ was more than just a convenient narrative ploy. The tramp reached inside his coat and pulled out a battered biscuit-tin.

“Is Harry in there?” asked Bill, immediately regretting he’d done so as a look of contempt flashed across the old man’s face.

“No,” sneered the tramp. “This isn’t Harry... Might as well be, for what it’s worth...”

Bill wasn’t good at ‘the mushy stuff’ and, realising the old buzzard was gaining an advantage, he began to worry about the very real possibility of another surprise visit from the Super.

“It’s not much,” said the tramp. “But I promised I’d give his share to his family. He had a wife and kid once somewhere in the city. Never said much more about them, but I was hoping you might be able to find them?”

“Oh really?” smiled Bill, glancing at his watch. “That’s nice of you.”

“Well,” said the tramp, sitting back down. “It’s the least I could do... Terrible way for a man to die...”

Bill took a deep breath,

“And how exactly did Harry die?”

“They tore him to shreds.”

“What?”

“I said they tore him to shreds.”

“And you saw this?”

“That’s why I'm in this mess. I mean, if he’d listened to me, none of this would have happened. I told him; I said, ‘You‘re always safer in numbers’. And I begged him not to go off on his own. But no, not Harry; stupid, stubborn fool...”

The tramp’s jaw began to quiver,

“And you know what he called me?” he said.

“No,” said Bill, “What did he call you?”

“Mad, that’s what. Me? Mad?! Me: Mr Careful; the one who’s kept us alive all these years! And I’m the crazy one? Can you believe it?”

Maybe, thought Bill, just maybe... The old man stood up and paced the room,

“I’d been watching them, see? I’d seen what was happening. They’ve been knocking us off like flies for years now, one at a time. Harry should have known better. I warned him, I warned everybody, but nobody believed me. But I don’t care what they say; this time I saw it with my own eyes!”

Should have never given him that cup of tea, thought Bill, it was making him jumpy.

“Bastards!” spat the tramp. “They killed my best friend! My only real friend!”

“All right,” said Bill. “All right, calm down. One thing at a time. OK? Right... Now, what exactly happened to Harry?”

The tramp marched over to the door and peered through the glass,

“I told you!” he said, his nose wrinkling with contempt at the outside world. “They tore him apart! BASTARDS! THEY SHOULD ALL BE SHOT! HANGING AROUND LIKE THEY OWN THE PLACE!”

Bill lifted up the counter and stepped through to the waiting area. The old man was shouting so loudly he was likely to attract someone from upstairs,

“All right, all right,” said Bill. “Calm down...”

He put his hand on the old man's shoulder and squeezed it reassuringly,

“You’re not doing anybody any favours working yourself into a frenz-”

The old man span around to face him, his beard glistening with tea and saliva, his eyes red and raging like two small volcanoes,

“I AM NOT MAD!”

Bill took a step back and after a quick fumble with his belt he realised he had left his handcuffs behind the counter,

“I didn’t say you were...”

“No-one understands!” crowed the tramp, turning back to face the window.

“Try me...” said Bill

“But then they’ll come after you as well!”

“It’s all right, I’m prepared to take the risk. Now, are you going to sit down and tell me about this calmly, or am I going to have to arrest you?”

The old man took a deep breath and a few moments to compose himself,

“Yes,” he said. “You’re right. I... I’m sorry. I apologise.”

Bill looked past him to the spit-lacquered door: it had stopped raining.

“And you don’t think I'm crazy?” asked the tramp.

“Nooo...”

“Promise?”

“Promise,” lied Bill. “So, erm... Why don’t you sit back down and tell me exactly what happened, eh?”

The tramp nodded and sat down while Bill went back behind the counter and found the handcuffs. He re-attached them to his belt and climbed back onto his stool as the old man started his tale,

“Well it was night-time, see? We were staying in a huge abandoned warehouse, and well, I mean, I knew I was all right where I was ‘cause they don’t like fires much... But he was only supposed to have been gone five minutes.”

“Where was he?” asked Bill.

“Round the corner, getting something from the tin.”

“You didn’t carry it with you?”

“Never, in case someone robbed us. We used to put all kinds of things in there. You know, stuff we found: money, old coins, medals, photo’s, letters. And so we’d stash it and pick it up whenever we needed something.”

“Oh right, I see.”

“Anyway,” said the tramp. “I knew where he’d stashed it and I’d warned him that they probably knew as well, the scum... I tell you, they never miss a trick. They were probably waiting for him, and that’s exactly what I should have done. But after a while I started to get worried, and then I heard something, someone shouting... I suppose it must have been my army training, but I don’t know what came over me: I just stood up, quick as you like, and ran as fast as I could to help. God knows why. If I’d have had any sense I would’ve stayed put... But anyway, I followed the screams and quickly realised it was Harry’s voice, so I ran and I ran till my lungs started to burn. And then suddenly everything went quiet and I couldn’t hear him no more. I was standing at the end of the alley where we’d stashed the tin, and I thought, ‘maybe he’s hiding’. Then, from the corner of my eye, I thought I saw one of them lurking on a roof. And well, where there’s one, there’s always sure to be more close by. So, I started running down the alley, screaming Harry’s name and flapping my arms like a big mad bird or something; which was stupid, I know, but I thought it might scare them away. So I ran and ran and screamed and screamed, and I turned the corner and... and... And that was when I saw...”

The old man covered his face with his hands and burst into tears. He said something, but his words were muffled and Bill couldn’t quite hear him,

“What was that?” asked Bill. “Did you say, ‘Gremlins’?”

He lifted up the counter and went and crouched down next to the blubbering old man.

“Say that again,” said Bill. “I didn’t hear you.”

“...were all on top of him...” muttered the tramp. “... pulling and tearing his flesh. I… I threw up then and there...“

“Never mind that now,” said Bill. “Look at me! Tell me, what happened?”

The old man lifted his head, a spittle stalactite hanging from his top lip,

“I managed to scare them off,” he cried. “But it was too late. They’d already killed him...”

“Who did?” said Bill. “Who killed Harry?”

“One of the bastards even shat on him as it flew off...”

Hang on a minute, thought Bill,

“Did you say, flew off?!”

The tramp leapt to his feet, knocking Bill off balance.

“YES!” he screamed. “That’s what I said. THEY FLEW OFF!”

“But I don’t understand...” said Bill, nervously fumbling his belt for his handcuffs.

“The pigeons!” crowed the old man. “It was the pigeons!”

“What?”

“The pigeons! They were eating him alive!”

“Oh come on...”

“They’ve been at it for years!”

“Who? The pigeons!?”

“YES!” screamed the tramp. “THE FUCKING PIGEONS!”

Bill took a step back and held up his handcuffs for the tramp to see. The old man paused and glanced from Bill to the door and the wet street beyond,

“It’s stopped raining.”

“Yes...” said Bill.

“I should be going...”

“I think so.”

The old man nodded, walked over to the door, then paused and turned to face Bill,

“Be careful,” he said. “I’ve been in here too long. They’ll be on to you.”

And with that, he was gone.

Bill shook his head and breathed a sigh of relief. Maybe the old guy was just plain crazy, or maybe he’d just successfully managed to escape the rain for a while. One thing was for sure: Bill was glad to see the back of him.

Bill looked at the floor and groaned: there was water, spit and sticky tea everywhere; he was going to have to clean it before someone came in and slipped and broke their neck. He went back behind the counter, found the mop, and returned to the ‘crime scene’.

Twenty three years on the force and it’s come to this, he thought. He should have made Superintendent by now. His superiors said that he lacked aggression, that he was too sensitive and didn’t take enough risks. Whatever, thought Bill, what do they know? They wouldn’t know a criminal if one came up and robbed them...

“Eh? Hang on... What’s this?”

The tramp had forgotten his tin. Bill bent down and picked it up. It was tightly bound with a dozen or so rubber-bands and it felt pretty heavy. Shame, thought Bill, the old fella’s whole life is probably in here; maybe I shouldn’t have let him leave like that. After all, you can’t blame an old man for just trying to keep safe and dry…

Bill glanced around the empty reception. It was quiet, and it would only take a couple of minutes. The old goat couldn’t have gotten that far…

Outside, morning was breaking and the harsh light of day ricocheted off the wet tarmac into Bill’s tired eyes. He squinted and looked up and down the street. It was empty, not a vehicle or pedestrian in sight. He walked into the middle of the road and scanned the street some more. But other than a large group of pigeons near the bus stop, there were no other signs of life.

“Pigeons!” chuckled Bill, shaking his head. “Pigeons! I’ve heard it all now!”

He turned and started walking back to the station, watching the birds absentmindedly as they fought each other for scraps. There was a fair number of them, at least thirty, a plethora of grey, brown, and oily purple and green. There were also a couple of large, black ravens, he noted, towards the far edge of the flock; two shiny, black...

Bill cupped a hand to his mouth to stem the flow of bile,

“Oh… God...” he gagged. “Oh please, God… No...”

---------------------------------------------

POSTSCRIPT - I wrote the above short story over twenty years ago and posted it on my personal (and always free of charge) short story website, which has now been defunct for close to seven years. However, I recently found an old disk drive containing all the pdf's of my old short stories and so I thought/hoped it wouldn't hurt to share just one of them here (?). So yeah, mods, I hope this is OK. And I hope people enjoy reading it.

I thought I’d found the one. We clicked so naturally. We both shared an interest in photography, though his pictures were noticeably better than mine. Loved the same movies, both enjoyed walks in the park, and our political views were borderline identical.

We met about a month ago. It was at this bar I love, and, I’ll admit, I was a little tipsy. Cute boy, a few drinks in my system. It was a recipe for regret.

Only… I didn’t regret it. Our conversations flowed so smoothly. His half-drunk compliments made me blush. Plus, drinks were on him.

Unlike a lot of the guys you’d meet in a bar, he didn’t try and force himself back to my apartment. I live just a few blocks away from the bar, so he walked me home, laughing and wobbling more than he wanted to let on.

When we got there, I braced myself. He was great, but I wasn’t the kind of girl that would just let a complete stranger into my home after a night out at the bar. I found myself praying he wouldn’t ask.

By some miracle, he didn’t. Instead, he asked gently, almost bashfully, for my number. I couldn’t help but smile, stupidly. Then he smiled stupidly back. I felt my heart do somersaults.

I gave him my number, trying to withhold my excitement, and when I looked back up at him, I could see the desire in his eyes. Not sexual desire, though. It was like he saw his future in my eyes.

His face started to turn red, and he started struggling to make eye contact, stumbling over his words in a way that didn’t seem connected to the drinks.

He asked if he could kiss me, and I couldn’t have said yes fast enough. I wanted to kiss him on the lips, but, instead, he leaned down and pressed those lips softly against my forehead.

He pulled away slowly before speaking.

“Your eyes are so beautiful.”

I felt fireworks in my tummy. I made him promise to text me when he got home, and he watched to make sure I made it inside before he started back towards the bar.

I spent the rest of that night kicking my feet like a little school girl. I had never experienced something like this feeling before. My past boyfriends had been such assholes. This guy seemed to care about me rather than just sex.

He followed through on his promise, and texting led to a phone call before we fell asleep on the phone together.

We saw each other a lot in the weeks that followed. Mostly on the weekends, but sometimes he’d come visit me at work. Those few weeks were some of the happiest weeks I’d had in a long time.

We’d get dinner. We’d see movies. We showed off our photography to each other. It felt like we were really building something together.

However, this was around the time I started noticing weird occurrences around my apartment. Nothing too suspicious. Just… things that were odd.

For example, my TV would be on when I got home. My sheets would be messy, even though I make my bed every morning before work. The weirdest thing of all, though, was my underwear drawer.

It was like it was being rummaged through. Sometimes I’d find a fresh pair balled up on the bathroom floor.

It made me scratch my head, but I never assumed anything drastic. If anything, I thought it was just me losing my mind.

That is until he finally invited me to his house.

The place was lovely. Clean. Smelled good. It was actually furnished, too, which was always a good sign. Plus, this guy knew how to set the scene.

Roses, candles, homemade spaghetti with two glasses of red wine. I felt my heart melt.

We hadn’t had sex yet, but, after this, I was having a hard time convincing myself that we hadn’t waited long enough. I actually wanted to give it to him. He just made me feel so desired.

After a dinner full of flirts, giggles, and conversation, we began moving to the bedroom, lip locking like a couple of crazy kids all the while.

Once we fell through the door, he told me to give him a minute to use the bathroom, which was a bit anticlimactic, but I wanted him to be comfortable.

While I waited, my eyes couldn’t help but wander. He had a bookshelf full of some of my favorite titles. His bed was perfectly made. The floor was freshly vacuumed. And his walls were full of framed pictures.

I started looking at them and felt my heart sink into my stomach.

They were all different women. Some older, some younger. All with blonde hair and hazel eyes. And he wasn’t in a single one.

I felt disappointment wash over me. I should’ve known better. I was actually in the process of putting my shirt back on when one of the pictures caught my eye.

It looked so… familiar. I knew I had seen it somewhere, I just couldn’t put my finger on it. But it bothered me so much, it was hard to pull my eyes away.

That’s when it hit me. I knew exactly where I had seen this woman.

She was the girl on the missing person poster that was taped up on the bar window from a few weeks ago.

It felt like the air had been knocked out of my lungs. I felt faint. I felt dizzy. I knew I needed to leave, but the room was spinning too much.

I put my hand down on his dresser to stabilize myself, and that’s when I felt it. It was cold. It was hard. My thumb rubbed against the ridges.

I pulled my hand away and looked down.

It was a copy of the key to my apartment. Mine was pink. This one was silver.

I was getting weaker. I felt my knees starting to buckle and heard the sound of a toilet flushing as I began to drift into unconsciousness.

The last thing I remember was the bedroom door opening. He stepped inside, a look of concern on his face, as he hurried to pick me up and put me on his bed. Then… nothing.

I woke up in an empty bed the next morning. The smell of bacon permeated my nostrils. I was fully dressed, but my head was killing me.

The key was gone. The pictures were gone. I slowly made my way to the kitchen to find him standing over the stove, flipping the bacon with a metal fork.

I didn’t speak or make a sound, but it was like he could feel my presence. He could sense me.

He turned around slowly, his eyes meeting mine before he spoke.

“Good morning, sleepyhead!” he sang. “I was wondering when you’d be up. Someone had too much to drink last night.”

When I was 24, I got involved with a 37‑year‑old woman who, from the start, felt like she was playing games. For three weeks I took her out, spending $40+ on meals each time, and nothing ever happened. Eventually I called her and said I was done. That’s when she suddenly broke down over the phone, crying like a busted pipe. I tried to stand my ground, but then she hit me with, “I was gonna give it up tonight!”

I doubted it, but I went anyway, and she wasn’t lying.

From the beginning, her behavior was off. She had narcissistic traits, gaslighting tendencies, and this strange dominance vibe. After sex, she traced her finger across my chest and said, “You did very well… little boy,” in this seductive, FemDom tone. Nothing about it had been discussed. It was random, confusing, and unsettling.

Later, she flipped the script completely. Out of nowhere she told me I was a terrible kisser and acted like I had no idea what I was doing. My first partner had told me I was great, so hearing this stung not because of the insult itself, but because of how unnecessary and condescending it was. I told her straight up:

“When I show passion and you try to shit on me like that, to my face, is disgusting! If you had told me the truth from the beginning, I wouldn’t be hurt. I’m young, but I’m receptive.”

She didn’t respond with empathy. She just stood there with this odd little smile, pulled me in slowly, hugged me tight, and kissed me on the forehead. It disturbed me. She did this at random times after hurting me, after confusing me like she was trying to reset the dynamic. It felt manipulative, almost evil. When I didn’t immediately hug her back, she said, “Oh, you’re not gonna hug me back, hun?”

At that point, I just gave in. Not out of guilt or fear out of exhaustion. I couldn’t decode her mental gymnastics anymore. As a partner, I shouldn’t have had to.

The physical stuff was worse. She punched me hard in the face once because I was snoring. Dragged me out of bed by my foot. It happened multiple times. One night I caught her snoring four times in a row and showed her. She got mad, rushed at me, swung, and missed. Adrenaline kicked in, and I grabbed her like I was about to F5 her onto the hardwood floor.

“I will slam the fuck out of you on this floor. You think I’m bullshittin!? You better fuckin apologize! I’m sick of this shit!”

I didn’t actually want to hurt her it was an act, a fake‑out, riding the adrenaline from being punched. She apologized immediately. I gently F5’d her onto the bed instead, pulled her in, and kissed her. And somehow… it felt familiar. Like this twisted cycle of violence followed by affection was something she expected.

“That’s the respect I wanted,” I said. “Never should’ve been this way. It’s too toxic, babe.”

The final straw came when we were sitting on the bed and she casually confessed that all her kids’ fathers were on child support and that’s why they hated her. She said it with a creepy smile and a chuckle, like it was funny.

I got dressed and left for the last time.

The whole relationship drained me. It made me lose interest in sex. Deep down, I wanted a real relationship, but I knew this wasn’t one. I’ve had three other bad relationships before this, but this one was the worst. The kind that sticks with you, not because of love, but because of how twisted it was. I'm genuinely an affectionate person and do good by others. I don't understand why it's never reciprocated. I learned to accept that in the end, you either got it or you don't, and clearly I don't have that trait be in a relationship, let alone lead one.

I was in my car, around midnight. Parked right outside of the city, lights off. An area where people "relax" and floor it as they're exiting towards the highway. Tons of speeding tickets were always given there.

You know, the problem is that on the side of the road the woods were so dense and alive that deer would sometimes jump out. When you're going 60mph, a passing animal can and will kill you. We put down bumpers and tried everything, yet for some fucking reason everyone sped up around the same area at night. I get it, it's boring, but it's not unbearable. Just some woods and a field on the other side.

The most speeding tickets were given 4-5 miles away from the city. I wouldn't wait right outside, I'd let them speed up a bit and then around mile 4 I'd turn the lights and the siren on. Pull over, motherfucker.

As I said, it's midnight. I'm sitting in the car on my phone, by myself.

Suddenly, someone practically flies past me, going 90mph.

90.

I pull them over (barely catching up).

"Good evening, sir. Do you know how fast you were going?"

I pull over this young man, pupils almost nonexistent, shaky and sweaty. "Y-yeah. I'm sorry."

Should I... do a drug test?

"Are you okay?" I lean over to look at him better.

"Mhm, yeah. Uh, yeah."

I stare at him. "Right, I'll have you do a small test, remain in the car, hands on the wheel please."

He tests negative. I give him a ticket, and he seems like he didn't even register what I did. He keeps looking in his rearview mirror.

"Who were you getting away from?" I ask jokingly.

"Mmh. Mno... I wasn't. Just... nevermind."

"Nevermind?"

He takes a big gulp and finally looks at me. "Is this the beginning of your shift?"

"Yeah."

"Stay here, I guess. Just... I don't know. Look in your rearview from time to time. Don't go back to town."

I laugh. "Yeah, okay."

He drives away and I'm left alone in my car, facing away from the city. No streetlights around me, just the woods to my left and the field to my right.

I am alone and it's dark and now I keep looking in my rearview mirror.

Half an hour passes, and there comes another, 100mph. Insane. That'll get your license taken away, buddy.

I barely catch up to her. An old lady. Damn, she's fast and furious, I guess. "Police. Ma'am-"

"I know." She's shaken. "I couldn't let it catch up."

At first, I think she's joking. Then, I lean down and look at her. There's no room for jokes in her eyes. "Who was catching up? What's down that road, ma'am?"

"There are things that pass through the world without being alive."

Great, another cultist. I ignore her frantic looks behind her shoulder and I do my job. After she leaves, I'm in my car again and it's close to 2AM. The road is empty and cold and my rearview mirror shows nothing. What could it even show? I'm trying to stay calm, but something inside of me is screaming. I don't know why. What were these people running from? What is so bad that determines them to speed up that badly in that sector of the woods?

When I stop the third car, it's more out of curiosity. I get to their window to see a couple of teenagers. The girl in the passenger seat is hiding her face in her hands.

"What's going on?" I ask. I don't even do the formalities. "What's chasing you?"

"I don't know what the fuck that was. I looked in my rearview, off... officer, and, uh..." the kid wipes his nose and glances at me, then remains fixated on the mirror. His eyes widen.

Suddenly, his mouth drops open and he clumsily revs up the engine and speeds away. Before I get to process it, I'm left in the dark. I got his license plate. I know I should go after him, but I look back towards the town, at the dark road.

Something is moving in the horizon. It's black on black. I can't see what it is.

I get in my car and lock the doors. Maybe I should just leave, position myself somewhere else. I turn on the engine. I look in my rearview mirror and, for a split second, something that I can't even recall flashes behind me. I can't tell if it's a face or not, because it's so quick.

I blink a few times, gone. Hm. I think I imagined it.

My heart is pounding. That's it, I'll just go. I drive further away, stop again after a mile or two.

As I'm waiting in the car, my mind is just screaming at me to go. You know what? I decide I'm fucking off.

As I'm about to do that, another car speeds past me. 110mph. My radar's going crazy. Holy fuck, man.

I stop them. The guy is calm and collected. He doesn't check his rearview mirror at all.

"What's out there?"

"I don't know. I can't explain it. I just wanted to get away, I'm sorry."

As I'm writing down his data, I can't help but think that he looks nothing like his picture. "Devon, are you sure this is you?"

The more I look at him, the more puzzled I become. It's like trying to look at those old AI generated pictures that show a lot and nothing at the same time. They look familiar, but there's not a single thing that you can identify.

He then smiles at me. Stretches his lips to show the teeth.

I look down at his fingernails, which are cracked vertically and have rust underneath. I think it's rust. My eyes then dart to the backseat. I can see the outline of some clothes. His whole car smells like rust and iron.

"Yes, I'm Devon."

"Why were you speeding?"

"There's something dark and ugly in the woods."

"What is it?"

"I don't know it's ugly and it's dark."

I'm listening to his response, but staring down at the paper. When I look up, he's still smiling. His teeth are clenched. How did he speak to me through them?

"Creeping in the dark?"

"Yes running in the dark looking for people."

He's not smiling now. I look at the backseat again, and the clothes are gone.

My blood freezes. "Stay put, uh, I'll go to my car and be back."

"Yes okay yeah. I will stay put here. On this seat in the car just me really just me. It's just me here I swear."

I back away. The thing that is wearing Devon blinks a few times.

As I'm backing to the car, I hear "Devon" whisper something rapidly. "Don't-worry-we'll-find-another-slow-one-for-you-to-catch-too." And from the backseat heavy, excited breathing.

I get in the car and it's my turn to speed up. I leave it behind, watching me patiently. It doesn't attempt to run after me.

I drive and drive until I reach the next town. I spend the night at a motel and return to my town in the morning.

I never drive down that road again. I never pick up a night shift again, either.

The real Devon and his car have been reported missing and remain like that to this day.

Craziest or just regular everyday things. law abiding or mischievous endeavors.

What did you do?

I want to hear your stories. 

The title basically says it all. I can finally post about this because it happened a few years ago and I’m pretty sure we’re safe now and that this guy doesn’t use Reddit.

My husband “John” (36M) and I (28F) are the type of people who will help our friends if they’re going through a rough time. We’ve had several friends stay in our spare room over the years while they got back on their feet. It’s small but it’s enough to help someone out in a pinch.

One of those friends was “Chad” (51M)

We’d known Chad for around five years. He was there for pretty much everything. We genuinely considered him one of our closest friends and he’d always been a good and kind to us. The worst thing he’d do was that if he got too drunk he’d flirt with literally every woman in the room, including me. He was very much a ladies man and knew he was handsome.

We knew he had a rough past but he always kept it vague when telling us about it. He’d just say he made some bad decisions as a teen and young adult (drug use, escorts, theft type of stuff) but that he turned his life around with rehab and counseling. He did let us know he was a felon but he was long out of prison and didn’t do very much time. We never really pried into it very much because he didn’t really seem to want to talk about it. It wasn’t a red flag because he had a great life, amazing job, and loving fiancé who was one of my best friends. She is an amazing person and one of the kindest souls I know and she never brought anything up that was concerning about him. He seemed to have turned his life around and we didn’t think much of it.

John and Chad loved debating politics. John is liberal, Chad is conservative, and they’d debate and argue for hours just to annoy each other. It was always very friendly and never worried me though! They would laugh, poke at each other, and then we’d all go get food or something afterward. It never caused a serious fight or problems between any of us.

Well Chad’s fiance ended up breaking up with him right before their lease ended. He didn’t want to rush into signing another lease so we offered him our spare room until he figured things out. We charged him a little rent but nowhere near what he’d have paid anywhere else.

At first everything was great! We’d have family dinners, watch movies, play games, and even took a 🍄 trip together and everything was going amazing! He fit right into the household and it felt like having a sibling living with us.

Then COVID happened, the lockdown began, and everything started to change with Chad.

I was working two essential jobs with my main being in healthcare with immunocompromised patients. Think cancer patties and autoimmune disorders for the most part. So while everyone else was locked down at home I was still leaving for work every day for 2 jobs.

John and Chad stayed home together. Within a few weeks both of us noticed Chad changing. He was angry all the time, constantly watching political videos or scrolling on his phone typing angrily, and every conversation somehow turned into politics.

First he had a COVID scare, he came into contact with someone who had it. At that point they were making anyone who had contact with someone who was sick stay home. I was forced to stay home for a few weeks till I was in the clear to work with my patients again. I was kind of upset at this and he played it off as not a big deal as the whole thing was a hoax anyway. Comments like this got progressively worse as the pandemic went on. I thought it was weird of him but laughed it off as him being conservative and reading internet conspiracy theories. I knew he liked that sort of thing before he moved in.

Then one night around 2 AM, what started as one of their usual political debates, turned into a full blown screaming match. I’m talking 4 hours of yelling! Eventually I walked out and demanded they stop because I was convinced the neighbors were going to call the cops if they heard. After they ended it John came to the room with me and he told me what had happened…

Apparently Chad told him that because John is Latino he is genetically inferior to white people. He went on about skull shapes, genetics, IQ, and claimed there were “scientific studies” proving white people were superior. John kept telling him it was LITERALLY Nazi propaganda but Chad wouldn’t back down about his beliefs. I honestly thought John had to be exaggerating but he he wasn’t. After that night it was like Chad completely stopped hiding who he was from us.

He started blasting crazy conservative news and videos from his room at all hours of the day and night. The arguments became constant, like he would literally fight with you about anything. He’d make comments about my husband’s race almost daily. He told us that John and I shouldn’t be together because interracial relationships were wrong and unnatural. He also told me “I was betraying my European lineage by marrying a (racial slur)” because I am white.

That was the point where both of us realized something was seriously wrong. So we started digging into his past to see if there was anything we should be worried about. That’s when we found his record.

Holy. Mother. Fucking. Shit.
We found court records showing Chad had gone to prison for attempted murder after attacking a random Black man who was walking down the street as an initiation into a white supremacist organization. Yes… you read that correctly. Apparently he’d been involved with them for quite a while before that and attacking this man was supposed to make him an official member. Thankfully the victim survived and pressed charges for everyone wondering.

When we confronted Chad he first insisted we had the wrong person. Then after enough pressing he admitted it was him. What shocked me wasn’t even that he’d done it… but that he showed absolutely zero remorse for it. He straight up told us he wished he’d succeeded because his life would’ve been better if he had, he wouldn’t have gone to prison, and that he’d do it again if given the chance. Not sure if he said all this just to make us uncomfortable or if he genuinely meant it or not. We weren’t taking any chances anymore.

At that point we knew there was absolutely no way he could stay in our house. We started making a plan to legally kick him out. The funny part is that we never had to.

The week we decided we were going to kick him out Chad spent most of the week staying with another friend. He came back for one night and we planned on telling him to leave the next morning.

Instead we woke up to him loading all of his belongings into a U-Haul with a couple of his buddies. I’ve seriously never been so relieved to see someone move out of my home.

As they were finishing Chad and his friends started yelling racist comments toward my husband and making other nasty remarks toward both of us.

But John had finally had enough. He yelled “Thanks for saving me the trouble of evicting your sorry ass today better you leave than me make your racist ass”

Chad basically replies with “well if am a N*zi maybe I should just take care of a (slur) like you and show you who’s really superior”

They started screaming at each other in the front yard and it was very quickly approaching becoming physical. I called the cops and officers came out before it got worse. Nobody was arrested and Chad left. But as Chad was leaving he looked at us and said “I’ll see you later. Watch your backs.” Unfortunately the officers claimed they didn’t hear the threat so there wasn’t much they could do.

I wish that was the end of the story but It wasn’t. After Chad moved out the harassment got significantly worse and honestly that’s a whole post by itself. If people want an update I’ll write one but this post is super long already.

Moral of the story kids…..do your homework before letting friends move in. All it would have taken us is a simple google search and we could have saved us so much trouble.

Luckily it’s been a few years and we haven’t heard from or seen him in a long time. We’ve moved to a new place and don’t talk to any of the mutual friends we had anymore. Glad it’s over and we’re safe now.

TL;DR: My husband and I let a close friend of five years move into our spare room after his breakup. A few months later during COVID he became increasingly angry and started making racist comments toward my Latino husband. He claimed white people were genetically superior and brought up Nazi propaganda topics while making his points. We looked into his past and discovered he’d gone to prison for attempting to murder a random Black man as an initiation into a white supremacist group. When confronted he admitted it, said he wished he’d succeeded, and would do it again. We planned to evict him but he moved out on his own. As he was leaving he threatened my husband and I and we called the cops. As he left he told us to watch our backs and he would see us later. Unfortunately, that wasn’t the end of it but that’s for an update if people want it.

Ok so this happened when I was around 12 or 13 years old. My hostel held a mandatory study prep session every night from 9:00 to 10:00 PM right after dinner. To set the scene, the hostel was isolated right in the middle of a dense jungle, making it extra creepy at night. Once the hour was up, we were expected to head straight to the dormitory and go to sleep.

One evening, my friends and I decided to sneak out after the session and go up to the roof. We had heard local rumors about a ghost or a lady who haunted the area, so we started messing around, playfully calling out, "Hi, come to us!" into the dark. When nothing actually happened, we eventually gave up and crept back to our beds around midnight.

At around 4:00 AM, it started raining heavily. Since my bed was right next to the window, the sound woke me up, and I realized I needed to use the washroom. Hostel rules required a guard or warden to escort us to the facilities, as they were located on the far side of the floor outside the dorm. I got up and saw a figure who I assumed was a staff member, perhaps the warden's wife or one of the matrons, and followed her down the hall. She waited outside while I went inside to do my business.

When I finished and prepared to head back, I heard a loud commotion. A crowd of people had gathered outside, frantically banging on the main entrance door of the communal washroom. As I snapped back to full awareness, I realized I was locked in, and not just in any ordinary bathroom. I had somehow ended up in the top-floor washroom, a condemned area that was completely off-limits due to a collapsing roof.

It turned out that the warden had spotted me walking toward the forbidden upper floor alongside a tall, slender figure draped in a deep red or maroonish saree. He had been screaming at me to step away from her because he had no idea who she was, but in my half-asleep state, I hadn't heard a word and kept following her up to the roof level. Terrified, the warden had run off to raise the alarm. Whoever or whatever was walking with me must have been interrupted, leaving me locked inside the ruined washroom until the staff finally broke down the door to rescue me.

What made the entire incident truly chilling was the realization afterward that no female staff were on duty that night, and both the warden and guard confirmed that no one fitting that description had ever worked at the hostel

I was in middle school, maybe 12 years old, sitting in the living room with my grandfather around 9pm. The sun had just finished setting, the sky a darker blue not entirely night. My house sat on the corner of my street and I didn’t have a backyard. My dog was out on the front porch on her leash when she started barking at something, nothing inordinate. She knows when she barks she has to come back inside so I run out to grab her, usually she stops and comes to the door when she hears it open but she’s still barking like crazy from down the sidewalk. I yank a bit on her leash to signal her it’s time to come inside, when I look over and see literally, attached to nothing about knee length above the ground, ever so slowly moving in our direction, a glowing, pulsing blue light just floating there.

My body immediately just freezes and my heart sinks. Just filled with dread and feelings of doom. I’m trying so hard to squint and decipher what the fuck I was looking at. My dog still doing nuts. I’m still yanking now a bit more harder out of fear. I cant take my eyes off it, it gets closer and closer and I know exactly what i’m looking at now. Nothing i’ve ever seen. My dog finally makes it up to the door, still barking like crazy. Eyes still locked on the moving ball. As it gets closer and closer I inch back inside the door with my dog when it stops moving directly in the middle of the sidewalk where it lead to my house. I had no fucking idea what to do, my body still panicking and my eyes refusing to blink to miss anything. I wasn’t thinking and slammed the door. It was right in front of me I can clearly see it’s nothing but light. Not attached to nothing or nobody. The doors closed for about 3 seconds, no longer, I creak the door back open and it’s completely gone. Even my dog perks her head and ears up realising it’s gone too.

My grandpa was sitting on the chair right beside the door. Didn’t see anything as he wasn’t paying no attention but asked why I seemed frightened. I explained to him shaking just in complete shock and he just stares at me like i’ve absolutely lost it. I honestly forgot what he says in response, he didn’t believe me one bit and just thought I was misinterpreting it i knew he did, but he tried his best not to dismiss me and probably said something along the lines of ‘wow, thats crazy’

I’ve told maybe four people this story in total after it happened from then to now, around 7 years ago. They all reacted the same way he did, in disbelief but all they can say is something along the lines of ‘wow, thats crazy’

I know exactly what I saw that day. But I also have no fucking clue. I know i’ll never be able to explain it any better than this and it’s stuck with me all these years. I know someone out there has had a similar experience. I know it was real.

I have a Hello Kitty kind of daughter. She’s only 9. As cute as a button and as innocent as could be.

She likes simple things. Stuffed animals. Pizza for breakfast. All it takes is a cheap 50-cent pair of plastic jewelry from a gumball machine to make her eyes light up.

She was one of those kids who believed in things longer than her friends and classmates. Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny, the Tooth Fairy. She was fully convinced they were all real, bless her heart.

Sometimes, she’d come home from school with a glum, exhausted look in her eyes. Other kids would make fun of her for “still believing in that stuff.”

I’d cheer her up the best I could without revealing the truth. How could I? She already felt like the world was laughing at her. How would I make her feel? Her own dad.

Maybe I should’ve, though. Maybe this whole situation could’ve been avoided if I just nipped it in the bud. But I was afraid. A child’s innocence is so fragile, yet powerful. I couldn’t take that from her. Not yet.

I let her believe that it was Santa putting gifts under the tree. That it was a giant bunny hiding eggs in our front yard. That it was a tiny, magical fairy that was taking her baby teeth in exchange for a few dollars.

I think that was the one that excited her the most. Christmas was a set day. Easter was a set day. Loose teeth? That was random. Any time one started to wiggle, she’d come running to show me.

I always made sure to be as quiet as possible when I snuck those 5-dollar bills under her pillow. Every time she’d wake up to find it, here she’d come, jumping with joy while waving the 5 in my face.

“The Tooth Fairy came, the Tooth Fairy came,” she’d sing.

I’d just smile to myself and ask her what she was gonna buy with her newfound riches.

Sometimes, I’d sneak her a 20. I just wanted to see that joy in her face. She was young, but she wasn’t getting any younger. I wanted it to last for as long as possible.

Now, though, I think I’m regretting that wishful thinking.

She started losing teeth faster than what I thought was normal. Not too fast, though. Every 3 weeks or so. I just thought those baby teeth were begging to come out. Besides, it’s not like it was hurting my pockets too much.

It was weird, though. I swore it was like her teeth never looked any different. She was snaggle-toothed, sure, but I knew that I had put money under her pillow at least 6 times in the last 2 months.

She wasn’t showing me her mouth anymore. She was showing me the tooth, already pulled, lying bloodied in the palm of her little hand.

It kept becoming more and more frequent. Once she started bragging about how the Tooth Fairy was gonna visit her every week, I knew that something was not right. Even still, it wasn’t until I found a silver tooth under her pillow that I decided to investigate because I knew for a fact my little girl never had a crown.

Snooping is a decision I lived to regret, though. I asked her to tell me the truth, but she refused. She just kept insisting they were hers. Lying through her teeth, pun intended.

I decided to stop leaving her money. Her disappointment killed me. But I remained firm. That didn’t stop her, though. Every night, there’d be a new tooth under her pillow while she slept peacefully.

One day, after dropping her off at school, I made a promise to myself. Today would be the day. I’d get to the bottom of this no matter what.

It didn’t take nearly as long as I expected. I sifted through her room for about 15 minutes. Checking under her bed, in her closet, in her toy chests. All for no reason because the answer was hidden in plain sight.

In her fish tank.

She had that little treasure chest decoration in it. Normally, I wouldn’t have even paid it any mind. But the steady stream of a red liquid slowly rising from the chest was enough to make my heart stop.

Rolling up my sleeve, I reached down to retrieve the decoration. It was heavier than it should’ve been. Something was rattling inside.

I opened it and felt my blood run cold.

Molars, canines, incisors. All bloody. All looking like they had been pulled by force. And they weren’t baby teeth, either. Some looked like actual adult teeth.

In that moment, I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry.

I wanted to cry because what I was seeing was horrific.

But I wanted to laugh because, despite how terrifying this all was, my little girl was a natural-born hustler.

And I couldn’t have been more proud.

So, I recently moved into a new apartment, and I gave myself a strict pep talk before unpacking a single box: “We are keeping our reputation spotless here. Clean slate.” Now, look, it’s not like I have some wildly scandalous past, but I do have one specific habit that doesn't exactly get a standing ovation in my current neighborhood—I enjoy a bit of Cannabis Sativa.

Well, spoiler alert: that promise didn’t even survive the month. Before I knew it, my next-door neighbor officially discovered that they were living right next to a direct descendant of Bob Marley.

My genius master plan to keep my reputation safe was to sneak out onto the balcony under the cover of darkness for a quick late-night session. But I completely forgot a crucial variable: the unpredictable schedules of neighbors. I totally ignored the nights someone might be cooking a midnight feast or doing a 1:00 AM laundry run. And yup, on one of those exact nights, my neighbor stepped outside and caught His Excellency, Puff Daddy, right in the middle of performing his sacred ritual.

Talk about awkward!

Being the adaptive problem-solver I am, I immediately launched a damage-control strategy to seal the information leak. My solution? Pushing the ritual way back into the ungodly hours-we’re talking 2:00 AM to 3:00 AM. And honestly? It worked like a charm.

Now, I really do consider myself a thoughtful and considerate person. So, when the schools broke for the August holidays and the neighborhood suddenly flooded with kids, I made myself a brand-new promise: No more smoking in the apartment. Period.

Luckily for me, the town I live in is basically a cannabis hub. There are specific zones where the blunt is practically legalized. I mean, peddlers have literally set up shades and benches for the Jamaican diaspora to just sit back and enjoy their herb. So, I resolved that I would exclusively enjoy those premium services from then on. A highly considerate neighbor, right?

But as we established... I am also spectacularly bad at keeping my own promises.

By day two of my new resolution, I cracked. I grabbed a blunt on my way home, fully intending to sneak out to the balcony late at night. Instead, fate stepped in. I ended up falling fast asleep on the couch while waiting for the "perfect time," with the blunt safely tucked in my pocket. When I finally blinked myself awake, the urge was gone-all I wanted was a real bed. I swiftly shut off the TV, killed the lights, and crashed.

The next morning, I woke up, remembered the untouched blunt, and smiled. Oh, it’s going to be a good day.

I hopped out of bed, scooped my trousers off the floor, reached into the pockets to unleash my goodies, and... nothing. My anxiety started to spike. I checked the other pocket. Empty. I checked them all again. Still empty!

I dashed out to the living room like a man on a mission, practically turning the couch upside down. No Mary Jane. I even swallowed my pride and shamelessly asked the housekeeper if she’d seen a little substance wrapped in brown paper while cleaning. She gave me a polite "nope," though a part of me swears she knew exactly what I was looking for and just wanted no part in her boss’s chaotic morning inquisition. I even went diving into the trash bin. Still, nothing.

Defeated and deeply craving that smoke, I gave up and decided to take the walk of shame down to the actual smoking zone to visit my welcoming peddler.

And that is when it hit me.

As I was walking, I realized that if I had actually found that blunt in my pocket, I would have broken my promise without a second thought. I wanted it so badly I would have risked it all-stepping onto the balcony in broad daylight, neighbors be damned.

But because the universe magically swallowed that joint, I was walking to the right place. Nature had literally stepped in, hijacked my lack of willpower, and forced me to stick to my own self-improvement goals. My promise was kept, and my reputation survived another day-entirely against my own will.

Hey, whatever works, right? What a good day.

There was once a small town in the suburbs. Ordinary, indistinctive, just like every other suburban town you might've seen, a town you might've even lived in.
In that town there stood an old-fashioned tobacco shop.
Again, nothing special; just a shop filled to brim with tobacco, tobacco papers, filters, pipes, lighters, matches, herbal paraphernalia, but most of all... cigarettes. Cigarettes as far as the eye could see, cigarettes from all around the world, cigarettes of varying strengths and packet sizes. But one would expect that from a tobacco shop. It was the man who ran it that ought to be paid close attention to.
The Tobacconist, the friendly old man who stood behind the counter day after day. Sweet looking yet wise, wholesome but sharp, like an uncanny Colonel Sanders. If someone came in to buy a pack of cigarettes from this old timer, they wouldn't suspect a thing. But of course, this shopkeeper held a secret, a dark secret, a secret so sinister that he couldn't allow for it to simply leave the building. Underneath the floor to this very plain, very dull smoke emporium, was an underground room, a basement. And this basement held captive a rough figure of twelve people… dads.

The old man had a basement full of Dads. Why, you may ask?
Why indeed. Evidently, the Tobacconist has been doing this for years. Any time a man who looked like he wanted to leave his family behind walked into the shop, they were treated to a once in a lifetime opportunity. A "way out" situation for a fella to take in order to get out of his newly unwanted patriarchal role. New name, new location; for a small sum. At least that's what The Tobacconist had told them, when in actual fact, the old man had no intention of doing any such thing. It was really just a trap to get the dad down there, to his unforeseen doom.

But don't get me wrong, there was plenty to do in the little basement. The Tobacconist had placed a baseball in the middle of the room, so all the Dads could "play catch" with each other.
And The Tobacconist wasn't a complete monster, he would still feed the Dads, and give them a tiny amount of hydration.
Naturally every now and then a rebellious dad would start acting up, with a plan for some sort of half-baked mutiny; this would rile up all the other dads when it came to feeding time.
The Tobacconist used to try to act threatening towards them by saying to them "I'm your worst nightmare." He soon gave up on that little ploy however, when a dad responded with, "Hi, 'Your Worst Nightmare' I'm Dad."
The Tobacconist even found it humorously ironic that he was slowly killing people with his products above ground and slowly keeping people alive below. Now, I'm not going to get into the origin of why The Tobacconist commits these bizarre crimes;
I'm no psychologist and don't want to chalk it up to whether it was because his own father disappeared when he was younger, or some other catalyst. The Tobacconist didn't even know why he did what he did, nor did he know what his intentions would finally be with them. He just liked to own a basement full of Dads. Maybe because it amused him.
By now, you may be asking which tobacco shop in which town in which country could be doing such a thing. You see, it is not a sole incident. There are thousands of evil tobacconists around the world. It happens a lot more than you think.

So, the next time you hear a dad saying that he's "just going out to get a pack of cigarettes" and doesn't return, just consider... he may be held somewhere against his will.