These aren't the typical "walking through the woods and something scared me" stories. This are disturbing events that happened in the real world that greatly affected the storytellers. These are the stories of shocking things they saw in every-day life that shook them to the core.
In these 14 stories, there are stories of killer cats, shocking stalkers, creepy people, and scary moments, some of which will really freak everyone out! Content has been edited for clarity.
The Jumper
“I was out at lunch in midtown Atlanta with some coworkers. We sat out on the patio. There are some high rise condos right across the street. Some guy jumped from his 40th floor balcony and splattered all over the roof of someone’s Jetta. Everything went everywhere. The noise was pretty memorable as well.
There were a couple of very distinct and memorable sounds. First was the glass exploding. That’s something you hear whenever a window shatters. It’s a car, so it didn’t shoot all over the ground, but every window and windshield popped around the same time. Then the metal. Then there was that distinct thud. That I can’t really describe too well. But there was a girl outside the condo complex entrance who let out one of those blood-curdling screams. When I hear that scream in movies now, it kinda of brings back that image of a rag doll on top of that roof.
We left before ordering and it was a super silent ride back to work.
One of my coworkers said he won’t sit out on patios anymore when eating.”
The Stalker In The Class
“I am a teacher of adult students, and one student of mine is kind of intense and creepy. Actually, she’s based at another school, but specifically started attending classes at my school after meeting me.
When I first started, she kept giving me ‘welcome presents’ as I was new to the country. Just simple things like food, postcards and books, which was a nice idea but it seemed a little excessive. She added me on social media and then got upset when I didn’t reply to her constant messages (I told her that I don’t really use social media).
Anyway, I didn’t see her for a few months and figured she’d just gone back to her own school or stopped studying or whatever, and was relieved that she’d clearly got bored of me. But then last week, she comes in and gives me an envelope full of photos of me during lessons that she’d taken, without me knowing.
I was a little weirded out to say the least.”
The Cries Of A Young Girl
“I work in residential environments as a service technician. I go to houses and apartments and condos to do my thing.
I was working in one particular condo building with over 70 floors and about eight elevators. The elevators are in two groups of four, with two giant elevator shafts. Just picture one giant square that is the lobby and two smaller rectangles in that room that are the elevator shafts. The two shafts are identical looking.
This is relevant because it’s easy to get disoriented as to which direction you are facing when you exit an elevator.
Anyways, after doing a bit of work on the 65th floor unit, I realize I have to go to parking level 1 to a utility room. No big deal. I hop on the elevator and press P1, and take a lonely ride down 60+ floors.
I reach P1 level, and when the elevator doors open, I hear weeping. I’m immediately worried for whoever is crying, so I start to pinpoint where the noise is coming from.
It’s a child crying, and since all the walls in this area are bare and concrete, the sound is echoing and seems to be coming from everywhere.
Panic didn’t set in until I had searched four corners of the square room and hadn’t found anyone. Now, I’m no mathematician, but I’m pretty sure four corners is all of them…so my mind starts racing.
I decide to nope out and head back to the door that would eventually lead me to the utility room that I was supposed to be working in, which I had already passed earlier on my search.
I round the corner and there I found the source of the noise. It’s a little girl, with straight black hair, crouched down, sobbing into her knees facing the corner. I don’t know why I didn’t see her before, because I already checked that corner. So either I am mistaken, or she heard me get off the elevator and was actively moving away from me. For a moment, I considered running because it looked like it was straight out of The Ring, but that moment of nonsense subsided and I asked her what’s wrong.
It turns out she was just lost and scared, so I ushered her back to the concierge desk so security could help her back to her room.
Nothing really creepy after the fact, but for a moment, I thought she would turn around with no face or something.”
He Wanted To Take Her Home
“When I was 17 and worked in retail as a cashier, I had a very old couple come through my line buying a wok. The husband, who was at least 85, started making conversation with me about the wok, and asked if I liked Chinese food.
‘Yeah, I like Chinese.’
‘Do you want to go out with me to get some Chinese?’ He winks at me.
‘N-no sir.’
‘Oh. Well.’ He looks a bit disappointed and turns to look at his wife, who is on the phone with someone, then turns back and says, ‘Would you at least like to come home with me and live in my basement?’
Me: ‘NO.’
The rest of the transaction took place in terrified silence. His wife never said a word. I wonder to this day if he was trying to joke, because he sounded so sincere, or if he was suffering from dementia or something else that make him not realize how creepy that sounds to someone young enough to be your great grandchild.”
Forklift Accidents Are No Joke
“I used to manage a small family-owned retail store. It was the 4th of July and the owners of course took the day off and dropped the responsibility on me. We had two stock boys bringing up some items on the forklift when I hear banshee screaming coming from outside the store front. One of them comes flying through the front door on one leg spewing profanity before collapsing on the ground. I look down and see his actual ankle. Like the bone. Blood is going everywhere.
Dude was riding tandem on the forklift (a giant safety no-no) when the driver took a hard turn and sent the kid off the side, running over his foot. The driver screeched to a halt, thought he stopped on the kid’s foot (he didn’t) so he popped the forklift in reverse and ran over the foot again.
Anyway, I learned that day that I keep my cool in emergency situations. I grabbed and elevated the kid’s foot, instructed someone to call 911 (always tell a specific person to call 911, never say, ‘someone call 911’) and another person to get towels to try and stop the bleeding. I held his foot up until the EMTs came. They managed to save the kid’s foot but he had a battle ahead of him. His foot went necrotic and he went septic at one point, but he survived.
I don’t work there anymore. There were a lot of unsafe practices going on and the owners didn’t treat their employees very well. I left about 3 years ago and surprise surprise, they shut down about a year and a half later.”
Not Dealing With Crazy
“When I worked retail in a mom and pop hardware store, there was one Sunday where I had to work solo. We were really slow on Sundays and the manager just started scheduling one person to cut down on overhead.
So I’m sitting there playing Minesweeper on the computer when a homeless dude wanders in. He’s very clearly homeless. Old dirty clothes, pants frayed at the bottoms, split shoes. Hair looks like dust mop from the first Burning Man. Egregiously obese. Egregiously.
I’ve been conditioned to be a retail robot so I ask him how he is and if he needs any help finding anything. He doesn’t say anything and walks through the store, staring at me the entire time. Up and down all of the aisles like he was browsing but he was just looking at me. Still hasn’t said a word.
He finishes up his circuit and then just walks behind the counter, right up next to me.
‘Hey man, don’t be weird. Can’t be behind the counter.’
He doesn’t reply and starts going through the cabinets under the register.
‘Alright, I’m gonna call the police buddy. It’s Sunday and they’re gonna be ticked.’
He finds a quart of Xylene which we used to clean up spills of crazy stuff sometimes. He unscrews the cap of the xylene, throws the cap across the store and looks me right in the eyes.
At this point, I just start leaving. Definitely not gonna wrestle an open can of solvent from a homeless dude. But before I can leave, he lifts the can above his head and empties it all over himself and drops the can.
If you’re not familiar with Xylene, that stuff burns! It’s used to thin out and clean solvent epoxies. No way that he wasn’t instantly in pain.
I’m about as confused as I can be, still terrified because I’m a wimp, standing by the door. I can’t think of anything to say or do and he starts walking towards me again. My mind starts racing and I think, ‘Aw man, he’s gonna light himself on fire. Prolly gonna grab me or something. This blows. I hate this job.’
I’m frozen and my heart is pounding and then he just walks around me and leaves and walks on down the sidewalk.
Locked the door and closed the registers and left. Didn’t even clean up the xylene. Probably stained the crap out of the floors. That stuff is REAL hot. It burns the crap out of your skin if you get it on your hands. Probably burns way worse when you’re covered in it.
I called the owner and told him that I closed and quit. He thanked me for locking the doors before I left.”
Peepers
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“This happened quite a few years ago when I was at college. My friends and I were living on a ground floor apartment and my room was at the front of the building, outside my window was the front yard.
My boyfriend (at the time) and I had literally just finished getting busy and I put my head on the pillow and glanced to my right, which is where the window was. There was a gap between the curtain and the window and I was met with a pair eyes watching me.
We both (me and the peeper) had the instinct to look away and then quickly look back. At this point, I shouted to my ex that there was someone watching us from outside. He jumped, opened the window and shouted various amusing warnings. He could see that the grass was disturbed and that someone had been there and by the looks of it, more than once.
On further inspection the next morning, we found out that he had jumped the small hedge and exited through my neighbor’s yard.
I told my friends and was pretty freaked out by the whole event.
So, my lovely friends decided to walk by my apartment late the next night and bang on the window and make noises.
I almost pooped myself.”
Getting Chased Through Town
“I live in a tiny town of 2.5k people.
When Pokemon Go first came out, my fiancé and I were really into it. We would play it for hours. Instead of walking, we drove so we could hatch eggs faster. We didn’t drive faster than 20 and it worked. So, we’ve been doing this same route for about a week. Down all the same residential streets, etc. We would frequently stop and park next to this empty lot because there were always good Pokemon. One night we did this, and people who lived in the house across the street came outside, stood on their porch, some 30 yards away, and shined a spotlight on us. Super weird, so we got ready to leave and then this truck drives next to us and asks if we’re okay. We say, ‘Yep, just playing Pokemon Go’ and we show him the phones. He leaves.
As we’re driving away, we notice this truck is following us. Kinda weird. We head out on the main drag and the truck is getting increasingly more aggressive, driving up next to me and shining a blinding light at me. We are freaking out at this point. We eventually lose them and my fiancé and I switch places, so now he’s driving because I was freaking out.
We start to head home and the truck found us again. This time they are out for BLOOD. We must have driven 75mph on the residential streets, and blew through people’s yard trying to lose these people. Nothing worked. I was sobbing on the phone with 911, begging them to help us.
We ended up driving through this tree-laden yard and totally messed up my car. The truck pinned us in and three huge dudes and a girl hop out and start walking towards us. My fiancé manages to get the car unstuck and again we’re flying through our little town. It was so dark and we were so turned around we weren’t sure where we were. The truck was able to pin us in again. This time, my fiancé drew his sidearm and ordered them to back off several times. They sped away.
I asked 911 to have the police meet us at the local convenience store. Earlier on we tried to go to the police station, but none of the cars were there so we kept moving. We get to the convenience store and the cops are there. 10 seconds later, the truck shows up. The driver jumps out and charges our vehicle. The cops restrain him. They talk to them for awhile and come back to us, asking if we pulled a weapon. We say yes, and explain why. They say that the people who chased us had people break into their house recently so they were scared. We were floored. That gave them a right to do this?
The cops said we were lucky they didn’t press charges about the weapon. We didn’t sleep well for days.”
He Went Out Feeling Good
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“I worked for RadioShack back in the late 90’s and I was scheduled to open on a Saturday morning. I go in the door, lock up behind me and go to the back to get things ready, only to find my boss, sitting at the chair with his tie around his neck, tied up to a inventory rack, with his pants around his ankles and he’s dead with his still junk still at attention and in his hands.
I just slowly backed out and called the cops, district manager and the rest of the day was pretty much a blur. The district manager wouldn’t allow us to take the day off so I had to finish my shift that day. I think I kept the door locked all day and didn’t do a darn thing. That is the day I started drinking heavily.
His family never spoke to any of us after I found him. Not at the funeral or any point after. I think they were embarrassed and didn’t want to remember him that way.”
Video Game Makers With Sick Senses Of Humor
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“I was playing the PC game ‘Black and White’ (not a horror game) shortly after it came out. It was late a night and suddenly I hear my speakers whisper my name. There was no reason for it, nothing happened on screen, just my computer whispering my name. It scared the crap out of me.
Years later, I found out that they had recorded common names in one of the game files, and if the name on your profile matched a name they had recorded, it would have a small chance to randomly play while you were playing.”
The Pig At The Window
“Our old house was on a corner and in lieu of a backyard, we had a side yard with a small deck that wrapped around the back. The dining room had patio doors that lead out to the back and we would have BBQs and such back there.
When I was about 14, we only had one desktop computer and one laptop for the family. My brother and I would fight over the desktop, so I would use the laptop to write music.
On one particular night, my brother had a friend over and they were downstairs doing whatever and I was at the dining room table on the laptop.
As I was wrapped up in my writing, I didn’t pay much attention to my surroundings.
I heard a knock on the patio door, which startled me. I looked up, expecting my brother or his friend, as the basement had a door that lead to the back deck as well.
Standing at the door and waving, was a person (could not tell gender or age) wearing a Halloween pig mask.
Thinking it was my brother or his friend I mouthed, ‘Good one,’ and gave the person the finger and they walked away.
As soon as they left, I went downstairs to give them crap. To my surprise and dismay, they were both sitting on the couch playing PlayStation. They swore up and down it wasn’t either of them, and there was no way one of them would have had time to get downstairs and unmask before getting on the couch.
To this day, I have no idea who it was that knocked and waved.”
Creepy Customers
“One time, a person asked me how much our garage door openers installation cost is, I told him $129.99 and he was like, ‘Whoa, that is way too much… How much would you do it for?’
I told him $129.99 again and he says, ‘No, no, I mean how much would you install it for… like, personally?’
I was like, ‘Nope, I don’t do that.’
He was like, ‘Come on, I would pay you well! Feed you dinner, anything else you wanted…’ and kind of trailed off his voice.
My go-to respond in people-acting-creepy scenarios is to be like, ‘You do realize you are taking to a minor right now, right?’
He said, ‘Even better!’
That was probably the fastest I’ve ever called security. I had him removed from the store. I was just glad I was behind the counter when we discussed installation.”
A Mystery, Blood-Thirsty Cat
“I live in the sticks in Michigan, but I live in a decent sized neighborhood with about twenty houses. Our streets make two circles. I was home with my toddler, who was taking a nap. I’m on my back porch, drinking coffee. Around noon, there’s a piercing scream that seems to last at least thirty seconds, I’m startled, so I go out of my fence and walk up my driveway to look around.
There’s a man hauling butt down the street, cradling his arm and dripping blood on the concrete. He sees me and shouts, ‘Did you see that freaking cat?! Which way did it go?!’ I saw no animal.
I asked if he needed help, but he declined, saying an ambulance was on its way and just needed to find the cat. Perplexed, I pull off my long sleeve and hand it to the guy, telling him to at least wrap his injury. He holds up his arm, and his fingers are mangled.
‘A house cat did this to you?!’ I exclaimed as I gently help him wrap his hand.
‘This wasn’t a regular cat…we just have to find him!’
So I help him look. So do a few of our neighbors. The ambulance arrives a few houses down at his place, so we walk down and sit on the curb. Suddenly, commotion from the other way and a half dozen people sprinting to the cul-de-sac to corner this animal. It disappears around a house, and we hear a volley of barking. Another man comes from behind the house, running at full speed towards the ambulance. I’m still sitting with bloody guy, and running guy gives him a tissue. I almost fainted and probably would have if I were standing- in it was bloody guy’s thumb and first finger, with a bit of tissue and nasty.
We never caught ‘the cat’ and I didn’t get a good enough look at whatever it was to figure it out. They found hoof-like prints in the mud under the bushes the guy was bitten in. Police came looking around to see if there was a bobcat around. No one found any other signs.
The bloody guy said he was weeding his garden and this giant black fuzzy thing with teeth and a tail chomped his hand under the bush and ran. He tried to follow it, but it was too fast. He said it stood taller than his knees, and he was like 6’5. Got his digits stuck back on properly though, and has since fenced his back yard.”
The Man In The Car
“I am fairly small for a guy. I stand at around 5’5” and the most I’ve ever weighed was around 150 lbs. About 6 or 7 years ago, I didn’t have my license despite being far old enough to drive, but a good buddy of mine wanted to hang out. He, too, did not have a way of transport, so we decided to both walk towards one another and meet in the middle. We would both be walking about 5 miles. It was 3 am on a cold winter night and I was wearing a black jacket with my hood up.
About 2 miles into my hike along the main road, a car pulled into a parking spot of a home I was passing, just a few feet behind me. He wasn’t entirely into the driveway, almost half way hanging out into the road. I half expected it was just a kind stranger wanting to give me a ride, but I wasn’t about to take any rides from anybody. I kept pacing forward and ignored the car behind me, expecting them to roll down a window and shout at me. It didn’t happen. The car just sat at the edge of that drive way, running but completely dark inside to the point that I could only barely make out the figure of a large man.
I don’t typically get frightened by much, but something in the air made me tense up and my heart kind of dropped to my stomach. I stopped and turned to look at the car. I had a feeling that the person driving was watching me intently.
The figure in the car was definitely facing me; I could see the reflection from his dash bouncing off of his eyes. I stared back. I figured he was about to yell out to me, but he just sat quietly in a strangely menacing way that I have only ever seen scenes in movies play out. I kinda did a wave at the figure, letting him know I saw him and waited for some type of communication in return. He didn’t budge, just stared intently. I returned to pacing away, slightly brisker.
After just a few moments, I could hear the car slowly roll in reverse, so I turned to face it but kept pacing backwards. The car kept creeping, slowly. I pulled down my hood and stood still again, waiting for him to pass me…but instead the man slowed to a stop beside me. The passenger side window rolled down, and the man and I met eyes.
No words were exchanged at all, and before I could even let out a ‘hello?’ the man grimaced and accelerated away at a decent pace; almost as if he was disappointed by what he had seen.
It doesn’t seem like much from how it reads, but I’ll never forget how tense that interaction was for me. I’ve not felt anything like it since. With my jacket on, I think it’s likely that he was hoping me to be a late teenage or adult female. Regardless of what he hoped I was, the way he went about approaching me felt very malicious. He certainly wasn’t trying to comfort the female he was poaching.”