People Divulge The Scariest Thing They Learned About Someone From Their Childhood
Reddit user ValuableHovercraft90 asked: 'What's the scariest thing you have found out about someone from your childhood (old friends, teachers, etc)?'
Life is all about learning new things, including learning new things about the people in your life. Sometimes, the things you learn are shocking, disgusting, or even scary.
I was the new kid in town when I was in fifth grade and my first friend was this quiet (and cute) boy in my class. He and I remained friends through middle school, and even though we drifted apart in high school, our interactions when we ran into each other in the halls or the cafeteria were really nice.
All throughout school and even beyond, he remained quiet, polite, and reserved. Just a few years ago, I read a news article written about him. He had apparently fatally wounded his father after an argument.
I had to reread the article several times to make sure it was really about my old friend. I think about it a lot, and still can't believe it!
I'm not the only one that has a shocking story like that. A lot of Redditors learned shocking or scary things about people from their childhood, and are ready to share.
It all started when Redditor ValuableHovercraft90 asked:
"What's the scariest thing you have found out about someone from your childhood (old friends, teachers, etc)?"
So Creepy
"That the boy who lived across the street and moved when I was 6 is still obsessed with me and my sister 30+ years later and posts ramblings on Facebook with our names and that he's going to be with us. Pretty terrifying honestly."
– mrscrawfish
The Worst List
"A neighbour died when he was 30. Police searched a trailer he owned and found weapons, bombs and a list of people he wanted to kill. My uncle was on that list."
– Flashy_Somewhere_648
"I'm glad this ended the way it did."
– CreepyCandidate4449
Terrifying
"One of my best friends (and locker partner) from high school was kidnapped by terrorists in Iraq. After a nightmare of 6+ months, all went silent. We buried an empty casket in his memory 10 years later."
– francois_du_nord
"This is horrifying. How incredibly sad for family to never get any closure. Very sad to read this. :("
– fizzycherryseltzer
"About 15 years ago my dad received a very good offer for work in Iraq, as a construction specialist. He was considering going, since at the same time the financial crisis started in Europe, but then one of his friends, a civil engineer, was kidnapped. Never returned back either."
– 19lgkrn70
"Same thing for my dad old coworker told him how great the money was. Dude got sniped working on a radio tower or something. My dad luckily was like, "I got a wife and family that would kill me for doing something so dangerous.""
– tristanjones
End Of The Friendship
"One of my dad's good friends, and my "uncle", just stopped coming around one day. I was told he was always busy with work, away, etc."
"Turns out, he killed 3 people in a drug deal gone bad and got life in prison."
"What's scary, is that we were over at his house for a weekend BBQ with a bunch of people earlier in the day of the night he did it, and it happened at his house."
– pnwking509
School Friends
"Don't know if it was scary, but I grew up with a kid whose birthday was the day before mine so we almost always shared birthdays in elementary school. We were friends, even spent the night at his house growing up. Later on in our teens, he started getting into some really dark stuff. I recognize that now as his being a sociopath, but like most everybody else at the time, figured it was just him going through some kind of emo phase. Over the years, we lost touch but I would occasionally run into him around town and our meetings were cordial, if not friendly."
"Last year, he was sentenced to 35 years in prison for killing a man back in 1993, roughly 3 years after we got out of High School. Apparently he, his sister and another man lured this guy out to the boonies and killed him to steal money he had gotten in an insurance settlement."
"The only reason they were caught is the other guy got religion, felt remorse and went on the local TV station and aired a confession before turning himself in (He got 25 to life)."
– 530_Oldschoolgeek
"A girl I went to school with did the same thing. She was the nicest girl, got good grades & was kind of a dork. Mixed with the wrong people after graduation. She and two others lured an old man into an abandoned building, stabbed him and robbed him. He later died from his wounds."
– HereF0rTheSnacks
The Worst Afternoon
"I had a friend in grade school who was being raised by her single dad. She had a unique name and pretty face. She never talked about her mom, and she was super outgoing, so all us kids just made friends with her quickly. It was weird her dad never brought her to our birthday parties, even though she was always invited, but we didn’t think much of it. A couple times, she was allowed to ride the bus home with me after school, and we played and had fun until her dad came to pick her up. Later in the school year, she invited me to ride the bus to her house, and my mom agreed. I was 10. It was the scariest afternoon of my young life. I cannot articulate the extreme tension in her home. We weren’t allowed to make any noise, and we mostly stayed outside, me desperate for my mom to arrive."
"Her dad screamed at us for opening the door, and I was too nervous to go into the house to use the restroom. I knew she was embarrassed that there were no snacks or comforting interactions, like at my house. I didn’t really tell anyone how uncomfortable the experience was. After that day, I didn’t hang out with her a lot. We were in different classes, drifted apart, and decades later, when my own daughter asked to go to a friend’s house, I thought about that girl."
"As an adult, I figured out her dad probably worked a night shift and tried to sleep during the day…or he was an alcoholic who was really angry. Maybe both? I looked her up on social media, and thanks to her unique name and face, I recognized her immediately. She’s a perfectly well-adjusted woman with a beautiful family. She even had pictures of her kids with her dad and tributes to him as the greatest father and grandpa. Her whole page made me wonder what the hell I experienced that afternoon in the 4th grade?"
– OlderAndTired
School Is Supposed To Be Safe!
"In our school, we had something called "de halte." In English, it means "the halt" literally translated. Basically time out. BIf you had a meltdown in class or you were just a little sh*thead, you were sent there for 15 minutes or so to cool off.
The de hatle teacher got fired and jailed for breaking 4 different wrists of 4 different students by bending them the wrong way..."
– Ok_Win7358
*Skin Crawling*
"There was this classmate a grade below me but all grades shared the same drama class. She was weird and kind of "off." I tried to befriend her at one point and was rebuffed. It later came out that she was actually an almost 30-year-old woman who would show up in a new area claiming to be a 15-year-old runaway. Kind of freaked me out."
– jackfaire
It turns out it was a good thing that the friendship didn't work out!
People Confess The Scariest Thing Their Spouse Ever Said To Them
Reddit user i_like_purple_clouds asked: 'What is the scariest thing your spouse ever said to you?'
Content Warning: Mental Health, Suicide, Suicidal Ideation, Violence
It's so hard to know what someone else is thinking or going through.
Even when they tell us, it can be difficult to fathom the feeling without living it ourselves.
Because of this, sometimes a person can really surprise us by saying something we never expected, even the people we love the most in the world.
Redditor i_like_purple clouds asked:
"What is the scariest thing your spouse ever said to you?"
Absolute Nightmares
"'Look at all those snakes on the ceiling!'"
"It was the middle of the night. He was actually fast asleep. There were no snakes."
- morganafiolett
"My ex was an arachnophobe, and my son had a fever dream/nightmare and was very distressed, screaming that he had woken up and seen 'tarantulas' scuttling into the corners of the underside of the upper bunk of his bunk bed."
"I was doing that, 'Honey, you're very sick, and you've been asleep, and I know it feels very real, but I promise you that there are no spiders...' speech when my ex just ran in, scooped up the boy, and hollered, 'F**k that noise, woman! Call me when you've flipped the mattresses!!' and legit ran out of the apartment with kiddo, lol (laughing out loud)."
"This annoyed me to no end at the time, but my son later told me that my ex made him feel very heard."
- kifferella
Their Reason for Living
"'There are times when I only wake up because I know you're here.'"
- Foreveridosyncratic
"Very sweet, but it would break my heart to hear, which is exactly why I don't say it to my husband, even when it feels true."
- Silhouette_Edge
That Familiar Heart Stitch
"'I think I'm having a heart attack.'"
"It was her first panic attack. I broke every law driving her to the hospital. Thankfully she's doing better now."
- HyliaSerket
"I said this to my fiancé last winter after (being in the process of) getting diagnosed with a heart arrhythmia. I woke him up SOBBING in the middle of the night when he was dead asleep and said, 'I think I’m having a heart attack.'"
"Poor guy. It’s insane how a panic attack can mimic a heart attack. My arm even went numb/tingly!"
- SummerSunset8
Truth Mid-Session
"During our first marriage counseling session, we were asked about our goals for this session. She said, 'I don’t want this to work.'"
"And it did not work. That was the end of our marriage. At the time, it was the scariest moment of my life. Today, three years later, I can honestly say neither of us was happy and needed some help."
"Therapy works. Sometimes honesty hurts and revelations are hard."
- ATENFOOTTURD
Always, Always Ask For Help
"'I thought about hanging myself in the garage last night.' That was my husband when he finally told me how bad he was struggling with his mental health."
"I had no idea he was in such a dark place. Hearing that come out of his mouth both scared the s**t out of me and ripped my heart out."
- heyypeach
The Ultimatum
"'If this is what being with you for the rest of my life is going to be like, I want out right now.'"
"This was said six months into my second marriage."
"I finally heard it: that I was damaged and that I needed help."
"I immediately found a therapist and went steadily for 10 years. It was hard as f**k. Lots of uncomfortable times."
"But it changed me. We are together now pretty f**king happily, 23 years with now two amazing kids. S**t doesn’t have to last forever."
- um8medoit
What's with the Lights?
"'All the lights downstairs just went on. There is someone in our house...'"
"I was on a business trip and my wife called me at 3:00 AM. Never felt so helpless in my life."
"She called the police and they searched our home from top to bottom but we never found out who switched on every single light on the ground floor!"
- GnOeLLLmPF
"Our basement was like this. My husband kept blaming me for leaving the light on, but I had stopped going down there because I was pregnant and didn't want to do unnecessary stairs."
"When he, quite upset at me for continuing to do what irked him so much, told me, 'Can you stop leaving lights on, I'm the one who has to pay the power bill,' and I was like, 'Actually, I haven't been down there in weeks.'"
"I assumed the basement was haunted or we had someone secretly living down there (unlikely because we have security set up... And dogs). But it turns out one of the light switches (the type with a dimmer) was just broken. You'd turn it off and leave the room... But then a few minutes later it would short and turn back on."
- evange
Undervaluing Themselves
"At her lowest point of depression, whilst out shopping, with no apparent trigger, she deadpanned, 'You'd be better off if I didn't come home.'
"Fortunately, she got out of that rut, but doesn't remember saying it and how much it terrified me."
- takesbribes
A Secret Life
"I discovered he was addicted to cocaine. It was completely out of the blue. I would have never found out if I hadn’t stained my shirt and had to go home to change and walked in on him snorting a fat rail at 1:39 PM on a random Tuesday."
"I gave him an ultimatum: my support during rehab unconditionally, or we completely part ways if you want to continue snorting coke all day."
"He said, 'The coke, I don’t want to talk to you.'"
"He chose coke and we divorced, and I have no idea whether he is alive or dead. Frankly, the man I married never actually existed. I have such a bad picker I’ve decided to just give up."
- Glldinkiering
"Honestly, bless him for being straightforward and allowing you to get out quickly. He could have taken you through multiple years of hell of trying to get clean and relapsing over and over. Staying home to do lines alone on a random Tuesday is pretty deep in it, so it's a blessing you caught him that day and got out."
- anoidciv
"He also did me a solid by insisting we have a prenuptial agreement which protected me when his @ss was sued into oblivion by his business partners for embezzling money for coke."
- Glldinkiering
Terrible News
"'I've been in an accident...'"
- Ok-Detective-1721
"I’ve been that guy, she happened to call me as I was being lifted into the ambulance with my head smashed after being hit by a car. I had regained consciousness only seconds earlier."
"Somehow I had the presence of mind to phrase it, 'I’m okay, but I have to go to hospital because I’ve had an accident.'"
- lilgreenrosetta
Bad Dreams Love Company
"'Who’s that standing in the corner?' she said at 2:00 AM while sitting up in bed and pointing towards the corner."
"I was still half asleep but freaking out and then she just laid back down and continued sleeping like nothing happened. No one was in the corner."
- futbo2
"One time I got out of bed to use the bathroom, and as I crossed in front of the bed my wife sat up and started screaming like nothing I’ve ever heard."
"I had an injury that has had me sleeping with extra pillows to position my body comfortably since I was early twenties. The pillows made it look in the dark like I was still asleep next to her. So when she saw me crossing in front of the bed, she thought someone had broken in and was in our room."
- PerfectionPending
Unwelcome Houseguests
"She was filling our water bottles before coming to bed and I was just on my phone in bed. I heard her come up the stairs almost like she tripped on the last step because she usually misses that last one."
"Just as I’m getting up to go see if she’s alright, she comes flying through the bedroom door closing it behind her. I never saw her scared like this and I was confused until she said, 'Something just followed me up the stairs.'"
"I nearly s**t myself, that type of fear where tears spring to your eyes and your stomach knots."
"I’m not sure what I would have done if it was just the two of us alone in the house. (There were others, but they were in their room and asleep.)"
"At first, I thought it was the dog, but she confirmed it was very much not. There was nothing there. She claims it was a large black mass behind her that she could hear. We both had a bit of trouble going to sleep that night."
- MonsterMontvalo
"My best friend was at a friend's house and had a dark mass behind him, over his shoulder, and looking down on him."
"In the middle of the night on the way to the restroom, he felt it. He paused for he didn’t know how long, 10 seconds or 10 minutes, he couldn’t say. Then he looked up and saw it in a mirror at the end of the hall. He sprinted to the restroom and stayed there until the sun came up."
"His friend said he looked terrible in the morning and he responded by saying he saw something last night."
"His friend said, 'Oh man, talk to Mom about it.'"
"He told the Mom about the experience, and she asked, 'Was it the light one or the dark one?'
"Dark one. 'Ok good, the light one is mean.' And that’s all that was said."
- M_n_Ms
F**k Cancer
"'I’m tired and want to go home.'"
"He died six hours later, after only fighting cancer for six weeks."
- Bulky-Tomatillo-1705
"She told me, 'I want to die at home.'"
"She had been battling cancer for five weeks and wanted to be home. She had a few weeks with me and died eight weeks after the inital diagnosis. F**k cancer."
- kazz-wizz
Talk... About What?!
"We need to talk when you get home."
"Folks, I spent the next six hours going over every possible thing I could have done wrong to warrant that response. We were in the middle of buying a house and planning our wedding and I thought everything could possibly be crumbling."
"Turns out my darling wife, the love of my life, and my best friend missed the f**king memo of what 'we need to talk' means in a relationship and wanted to talk to me about CARPETING FOR THE HOUSE."
"That conversation happened over a dozen years ago at this point and I still remind her from time to time about how she almost gave me a heart attack."
"To this day, she thinks it's hilarious."
- Trendsa
Brutal, To Be Honest
"Good god, I have to stop reading these. So much heartbreak here."
"It’s good to be reminded to not take things for granted in good times."
- slaphappypap
This conversation was a great example of how little we might know of what's going on in someone's head, even if it's the person we love the most in the world.
But at least in these Redditors' cases, their partners were willing to share this information with them, which gave them an opportunity to make the situation better.
If you or someone you know is struggling, you can contact the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 988.
To find help outside the United States, the International Association for Suicide Prevention has resources available at https://www.iasp.info/resources/Crisis_Centres/
Content Warning: True Crime Topics
It's hard to know what's going on in someone's head without having their mind ourselves, but we can make assumptions based on how they behave.
Some people have a serious vibe about them that other people know better than to mess with, with some of those vibes downright terrifying.
Redditor sludge_factory_777 asked:
"Who is the scariest person you have ever met?"
Jail Besties
"I got a DUI back in 2009 and was taken to the Placer County drunk tank. A guy with tattoos all over his face approached me..."
"He wanted to offer me his roll of toilet paper for a pillow. He introduced himself as the 'Sac City Psycho,' and he told me he would watch over me to make sure nobody f**ked with me, because he could tell I did not have much experience in jail."
"Now looking back on it, I guess for a few hours there, I was his b***h."
"Super nice guy, though. I 10 out of 10 would be his b***h again."
- NagoGmo
Innocent Until Feeling the Vibes
"I did an internship at a jail and met a dude awaiting trial on a triple homicide."
"The guy just had that vibe around him that just made you feel uncomfortable. Just being in his presence, you could feel the air change around you."
"Everyone in that room felt and respected it."
- throughthequad
The Magnetic Personality Type
"I once did one of those corporate mock jury panels. The little scientist analytics guy came out halfway through to shoot the breeze and holy h**l, I never understood what people meant by having a magnetic personality until then."
"We were clamoring over this dude. It was completely involuntary. He asked me a question and it was an out-of-body experience watching myself act like a golden retriever."
"I was so freaked out that I avoided him like the plague the rest of the panel. Nice dude. Seemed chill, but he could have started a cult with a snap of his fingers. Absolutely terrifying."
- Bridge-etti
Top-Notch Security
"I once as a medical student was doing a rotation in the state mental prison. We had to do a basic physical on this guy."
"There was a chair in the middle of the room, bolted to the floor. He had cuffs on his wrists and feet secured to the chair. Nine guards were in the room surrounding us, not more than five feet from the chair in a circle."
"He was off, just not there, and didn't want to cooperate. He looked at me, saw my coat, and said, 'That guy is from the university. I want to talk to him.'"
"I still don't know what he had done, but after a few months of the rotation, no one else had that degree of security for medical visits. No one else was even close."
- rykh7
Biker Aesthetic
"My cousin. He's a high-ranking member of a pretty well-known one-percent motorcycle club. The dude stands maybe five feet, seven inches tall, and he is of average build. He has no visible tattoos and is super soft-spoken."
"Everything about him says he should be a banker, not a biker. I have never seen him even raise his voice once but that dude scares the absolute s**t out of me. He gives off strong psycho energy."
- SignificantFix8218
Scary Dude with a Big Heart
"I live in New Mexico and met 'Big Dragon' from 'Beyond Scared Straight.' He does outreach like that with troubled kids."
"I was working as a teacher at YDDC, and they brought him down. The dude is no joke."
"I shook his hand, and you could just tell, the only reason he was not killing people was he didn't want to, because if he did, the guards would have not been able to do anything about it."
- Soundwave-1976
Murderous Besties
"I got arrested for public intoxication in the mid-to-late 90's and was put in a normal cell because the drunk tank was full. About ten minutes later, I was woken up and hastily moved to an adjoining cell."
"I visited with the guy in the first cell I was in for a few hours. When I was bailed out, I bumped knuckles with Gary, the guy in the second cell, and left."
"I later found out he was Gary Kleypas, and he was being held on first-degree murder... of a college student."
- TheJonnieP
Completely Out of Place
"I was working at a bar in a pretty small town when we had a drifter come in on a random midweek night. The second he walked through the door, everyone I worked with and was at the bar said they felt cold."
"The dude had incredibly sunken eyes, pale white skin, dingy dirty hair, and visibly sharp-looking teeth. If I were to explain what a mako shark as a human would be, that’s this guy."
"He said he was passing through and was looking for 'stuff ordinary people can’t find' and then proceeded to show photos on his phone of odd areas he had been to previously. Nothing was off about the photos, but everyone I saw gave me more chills."
"Nothing was happening, no one was there, but everything had this feeling of 'I’m not supposed to be here.'"
" The dude left and asked me to follow him on Instagram, which I did. He posted last a few years ago up in Jackson Hole and said he’d be staying off for a while. Odd dude. We all were quite relieved when his cab showed up."
- Expensive_Change_893
The Doll Whisperer
"My grandpa's second wife, Angie. She was a hateful woman. I don't believe in people being 100% anything, but she was pure evil."
"She had a collection of porcelain dolls in a corner of their house when I was very young, and she would always try to talk to me through them, giving each of them their own creepy voices. One time, I touched a Pillsbury dough boy figure on her shelf, and she swatted my hand with a metal ruler."
"She was in her 70s when I was a young kid, and I'm 30 now. I heard from my aunt that she's still alive somewhere near where she lived with my grandpa (which makes me believe she is some kind of hag witch) and that she's committed insurance fraud, like, a lot."
- LepreConArtist
Constant High-Alert
"I was at a bar and this guy walked in and immediately it felt like I was on alert. My spine turned to ice when I saw his eyes look at me, they were almost sunken into his face as if he was peeking out from behind a portrait. He moved like a cat stalking prey."
"Over time, he made his way over to me and made polite conversation, but his words felt disjointed, almost like he was translating them before speaking them. There was nothing aggressive or insulting about anything he was doing."
"In fact, he was quite polite. but everything about this guy was setting off every nerve I had. He was even smiling through most of it, but it felt as if his lips were stapled back."
- Cyanora
Reverse 'Breaking Bad'
"When I was pretty young, I was hanging out with an older friend, and I found out one of her close friends from school became a high-ranking member of a cartel. He got cancer and was allowed to sort of 'retire' from the cartel to spend the last few years with his family."
"I met him at a party of hers...He was very polite, but I had no intention of spending more time around him!"
- xain_the_id**t
Soldier Vibes
"A dude who hung out with a friend of mine back in the 1980s was a Vietnam vet, one of the advance forces guys or whatever they called them."
"He looked like he could bite the top off of a fire hydrant."
- Earthling1a
A Good Egg. Or Rock.
"A p**sed off Dwayne 'The Rock' Johnson."
"Let me explain A few years ago, I was part of a charity event with Power of Pain (a family friend who I call my aunt, Barby, owns the charity for neuropathy and other immune disorders), and funnily enough, we somehow got Dwayne Johnson as a guest (we had contacted him but didn't expect him to actually come)."
"He was a f**king great guy. Honestly, best f**king dude in the world."
"Anyway, after the event, a lot of us went to a Denny's down the road to celebrate, not expecting him to be there, though he was invited. He showed up like 20 minutes after we all got there and he was having a blast hanging out eating Pancakes."
"Unbeknownst to the rest of us, there was a domestic dispute across the Dennys, a couple who seemed like they were about to break up, but more like the guy was just an abusive a**hole screaming at his girlfriend the whole time and her just in tears."
"Dwayne caught wind of what was going on, stood up, put on his 'Rock' persona, and had a f**king screaming match with this guy. The guy was just receding further and further into his shell and eventually he just f**king left."
"Dwayne paid the girl's bill, helped her stop crying, and walked her out to her car. He then came back in with a smile and continued having a good night and finished his Pancakes."
"He's a beautiful, kind-hearted man, but if you p**s him off, he WILL make you s**t yourself. Remember, they call him 'The Rock' for a reason."
"Best night of my life. Moral of the story: Be nice to people, because if you're not, you may find yourself in a situation you just can't win."
- Ok_Experience_6877
It's easy to see how these are the people that Redditors viewed as the scariest and most intimidating people that they had met. Even if a person hasn't done terrible things, sometimes people just have a vibe about them that makes you think they have the potential, or at least the power.
While we have not all witnessed something that will forever keep us up at night, we've all seen or heard something that was terrifying.
And it seems the scarier it was, the harder it becomes to forget.
Redditor AncientTranslator405 asked:
"What's the scariest sound you've ever heard?"
Unidentified Animals
"A fox in the middle of the night. It sounds like a legitimate screaming ghost. I was in bed and chilled from the sound until I learned what it was."
- Due_Difference8575
Feeling Territorial
"My dog ran out the front door one night and didn't see the opossum on the porch until she turned around to come back in."
"That growl scream thing they do is horrifying, especially when it's a large opossum standing between you and your dog."
- mel2mdl
An Accident's Aftermath
"Two years ago, I witnessed a near-fatal accident. A truck t-boned a small sedan with kids in it."
"I'll never forget that sound of the crunch, the mom crying hysterically because she thought her kids were dead, and the sight of it all."
"The worst part is I knew the kids. They were students of mine. Everyone survived but not without permanent injuries."
- amahler03
Living with Dementia
"One thing my grandmother did when she was near the end of her dementia was to call out, 'Mama, Mama' in a long and drawn out 'Maaaaaaammaaaa.'"
"She passed in 2007, and now my mom lives with us and is also suffering from dementia. I was awakened one night by the same long drawn out 'Maaaaaammaaaaa...'"
- pastelpizza
Sad Goodbyes
"My grandmother passed last month. She was 96 and the absolute best."
"She was suffering from vascular dementia. Luckily she was peaceful with it and not violent or agitated. She remembered everyone but kept thinking people who died 50+ years earlier were still alive."
"The day before she passed, she sat up all of a sudden after being asleep basically for the entire previous week."
"She looked at me, a tear rolled down her face, and she said, 'Take care.'"
"I told her I loved her. She then said, 'I love you' back."
"I am so glad I was able to be there for that and to be there for her at the end."
- Gravath
Lost Partners
"I woke up in the middle of the night with my elderly neighbor crying and asking for help because she had just found her husband's body in their house."
"It made me horrifically sad, and when I finally went back to bed, I couldn't let go of my wife, fearing the day this might happen to one of us."
- TheAwesomePenguin106
Bad News
"I was at work and a mom got a call that her 19-year-old had just died in an accident."
"That sort of misery is a sound I hope to never hear again."
- Independent-Face-959
Missing Child
"When I worked in retail more than a decade ago, a woman came into the store crying for something in another language."
"Her cries were blood-curdling and it was her daughter's name."
"She lost her child somehow in the parking lot and hoped she wandered into the store (she didn't)."
"I can still hear her cries echoing in my head."
"Thankfully, they found the little girl wandering between parked cars. Happy ending."
- itsmarvin
Waiting for the Inevitable
"Sudden screeching car tires behind you."
"A few years ago, we were sitting at a stop sign and got rear-ended by a girl texting on her phone (going 60 miles per hour) and it was the scariest three seconds of my life. My two-year-old son was in the back seat too."
"We had been at the lake and had bags piled up, so we couldn’t really see out the back window, and all of a sudden, there was the sound of LOUD screeching tires erupting behind us."
"I just knew I was about to die while I waited a couple of seconds for it to hit us. Thank god it wasn’t a semi-truck or something."
- masterpate
A Mechanical Error
"A CNC machine I was operating made a horrifying screeching noise as it dropped a 10-inch saw blade and fired it at me. Nearly lost my leg that day, it missed the main artery in my leg by two millimeters."
"I still get PTSD dreams where I hear it screech, bang, and it whistling toward/through me."
- natha134
Storm of the Century
"My husband and I were awakened by a thunderstorm so loud and physical that we thought it was an earthquake, and a strong one. It was extremely loud and shook the house and everything in it, and the rumble that woke us up lasted for probably 10 seconds."
"It was such a violent shake, I was thinking, 'This will be the earthquake that kills us.' I swore that the ground was going to open. It took several seconds to realize what it was."
"I only have experienced thunder like that a few other times in my life, and I grew up in a high-altitude part of the Pacific Northwest."
"Where I live now, we have a fault line, and they always go on about 'the big one' and how devastating it will be. So in my disorientation, I thought it was the beginning of the big one that had woken us."
- SapphireHaze
Someone Approaching
"I was standing in the middle of Death Valley at midnight several months ago, with no light or anything else around me, as I was taking pictures of the Milky Way."
"I suddenly heard footsteps approaching. I grabbed my camera and turned to run."
"It ended up being another photographer who had been sleeping near me and then woke up and came to talk with me. It took a good two hours for my heart to calm down."
- jscheel
Breaking In
"Someone breaking into my home is genuinely my worst nightmare. It doesn't help when you have a cat that likes to do zoomies in the middle of the night, either."
- PlayerAlert
A Child in Need
"Hearing my seven-year-old scream/wailing from their room at 2:00 AM. That eerie sound of fear and despair and hopelessness calling for someone to stop whatever is going on. Hearing it come closer and closer before you can even get out of the covers to check on them."
"Fortunately, it turned out their hand had fallen asleep and they thought it was a dead hand stuck in the pajamas. They stopped screaming as we were yelling 'What?! What?!'"
"'Oh. It's just my hand.'"
"Still the scariest sound I have ever heard. I have nightmares about it sometimes..."
- mel2mdl
Houseguests
"When I was 13, I was lying in bed, trying to fall asleep."
"I went to grab a drink of water from the bottle next to my bed, and my elbow bumped the wall next to it by accident."
"Almost immediately, a singular bump ‘responded’ from the other side of the wall."
"I froze, stared at the wall, and then knocked twice in the same spot."
"Two knocks responded a moment later."
"The other side of the wall was our lounge room. There was no one in there, and I know because I didn’t get another wink of sleep until the sun rose."
"Still freaks me out, and I occasionally knock the walls of my bedroom now, hoping I don’t hear anything knock back."
- Anxiety_bunni
While almost all of these sounds are explainable, if tragic or terrifying, they undoubtedly would keep someone thinking about them for a long time.
You know what's truly terrifying? The world.
It can feel like it's out to get you and based on some of these harrowing tales of death avoidance and last-minute escapes, you might be justified in thinking that way,
The world is scarier than anything you can see in theaters or watch at home. Clearly, real life is where the fear should be.
Reddit user, Shaneshev, wanted to know when things became too terrifying to handle when they asked:
"People of Reddit; what is your downright scariest real-life story?"
Keep A Phone Nearby
"I was home alone when I was 11. I had just fallen asleep and someone tried to break in the front door. I called 911 and hid in the pantry in the bottom shelf. They came to the door next to the pantry and tried to break into that door too. The police got there and one of them picked me up and held me until my mom got there. I wouldn’t let go and he made sure I felt safe. I’m 27 and haven’t stayed home alone much since. The day I signed a lease for my first apartment I got a dog so I wouldn’t be alone. It’s pretty traumatizing when you’re that young."
HistoricalHeart
Get In. Don't Ask Questions.
"Years ago in one of my first jobs, a colleague told me a story. The night before, she had gone out for some drinks and on the way home she had got off the bus and was walking down her road to her house. A taxi pulled up alongside her and the driver told her to get in the car, she obviously said no. He then said to her "call whoever you want whilst you're in the car, but please just get in and I'll explain". So she got in."
"Turns out, walking towards her was a topless guy with no shoes on and a machete in his hand. Cab driver had already called the police but then saw my colleague so had stopped to look after her."
– Good-Helicopter-9303
Bullet: Dodged
"I had a pulmonary embolism last year in late August. I was going to get a pain evaluation the following Monday, but the pain was so bad on Friday that I just went in. The doctor told me that I’d have died if I had waited."
– jeff_the_nurse
Unsure Of His Next Move
"This is very tame compared to a lot of the stuff on here, but when I was twelve I saw this huge man drop a dollar bill. He seemed not to notice, so I ran across the street to hand it back to him. He thanked me several times, and I could see that he wasn't right in the head. I was a pretty small girl, probably only 100 pounds at the time. This guy easily had a foot on me. All of a sudden, he grabbed me by the top of my head and wouldn't let go. I am so lucky that my dad was nearby, and he pretty much just picked me up and led me away."
– Simple-Muscle822
"dawg just open palmed your head like a melon? yeah, that’s terrifying-"
– ImThatMelanin
Not The Person You Want To See
"I was home alone (thankfully my kids weren't home) when my now ex husband's drug dealer came by. He busted I'm the door screaming at the top of his lungs that he's gonna f-ck us all up. I was hiding in my walk in closet under blankets on the phone to 911. He got so close a few times, I have never been so petrified in my whole life. The cops came very quickly and he ran off, they caught him just a few streets over."
– Mason3637
Close...Closer...
"I used to sleepwalk when I was a child. We lived in a rough neighborhood (Decatur, GA) and I would wake up outside in the middle of the night, not knowing how I got there, and would have to walk home and walk into the darkened doorway I had left wide open for whoever might be lurking around. However, the time that scared me the most was when I was about 9 years old. I woke up and found myself with the bedroom curtains drawn back and staring out the window. As I came awake, I noticed a very large and completely hairless man (no hair, eyebrows etc) staring at me and slowly inching closer to the window and closer to my face. He was looking bewildered like he wasn't sure what he was seeing."
"At that moment, I realized what was going on and I started screaming uncontrollably, frozen in place and peeing down my leg. The man freaked out and screamed, did a tumbling move, and then ran off in a weird zig-zag like he was trying to dodge bullets. My mom woke up and thought I probably had a nightmare. The next morning we found a screw driver on the front porch and damage to the door jam and door handle."
"I still just about pee my pants when I tell that story, but now it is usually from laughing. I will never forget the look on his face when I started coming to life and screaming or his high pitched scream or his duck and roll and dodging and bobbing all the way down the street."
– issamurcle
A Hair's Width Away
"I was riding my motorcycle on the highway, going through a major city. I was still pretty nervous about riding on busier highways since I was still pretty new on the motorcycle. I was in one of the middle lanes when about 250 ft in front of me an 18-wheeler (Semi) kicked up a plywood panel that was in the road in my lane. It flipped around, making it look like I was going to run into it like a wall. Didn’t have enough time to brake or move lanes since I was surrounded by other vehicles."
"Luckily another 18-wheeler passed by it, causing it to rotate perpendicular, making it barely graze my elbow as I passed by it. I don’t think I moved a muscle for a quarter mile in shock that I survived that."
– FuryFlurry40
You'll Wonder "What If?" For The Rest Of Your Life
"I always parked in a certain spot at my last job for 12 years that I was there. It was accessible to the public as it wasn’t company parking but they wanted us to park in the back of the lot so the closer spots could be available for customers."
"One day my spots taken by a dark tinted caddy and I’m immediately pissed because everyone knows it’s mine. It’s morning shift so 4am so it can’t be one of the others cause I know what they drive. So newbie? Or maybe another employee from another shop in the plaza? It’s still there on my lunch break and when I go home and the next day I come in at 1pm till close. Around 9:30. And then also the next."
"Something about it really bothered me. It smelled wrong. Literally, it’s the South and high summer and who knows what’s baking in there. My dad was a marine then a police officer. He always said if you feel something is wrong there probably is. So I dialed the non-emergency contact police number. I felt like an idiot but every time I walked by it bugged me. So. I was stuck waiting for over an hour before anyone shows and honestly, if I hadn’t been off the next day would have been like f-it. But I waited, mostly because I can be really a petty SOB and that’s my spot damn it."
"The police show, all annoyed because who knows how many “they can’t park here” calls they get. They run the license plate though and then things go crazy. They want my info, want me to contact my manager, does this lot have cameras, have I touched the car, etc."
"Apparently the car is on Amber alert as the last sighting of a missing person who was a minor. A 15 yr old girl. When they pop the trunk they find her dead, mutilated body under a blanket and the source of the smell. She had gone out with her much older, controlling and insecure boyfriend but had decided to get out of the relationship. She only made the mistake of getting into the car with him. He drove three counties over after torturing her, stuffing her in there and who knows what else, then parked and walked away, left her to die in the trunk."
"I never learned her time of death so it haunts me sometimes thinking she might have been saved if I’d made a fuss earlier. So yeah, listen to your gut even if it seems petty."
– Fubar-is-my-life
A Very Close Call
"I was held at gunpoint by a kid in my school. I’m still in the same class with him and when I ask him about the gun he says he makes them himself. I’m still wondering what would’ve happened if he pulled the trigger. The gun felt so real and it had loaded barrels wich he showed me"
– Virtual_Display_4842
In The Nick Of Time
"I was working with a friend of mine (we work in Security) and we had a nightshift at an empty festival site. I decided to do my usual round in the woods and I saw someone running. I quickly paged my friend and he came to me. We both didn't see him but we decided to keep our eyes open. A few minutes lster I looked to my left and I saw him running again but he was too fast ao we decided to call the cops. 30 mins later they show up,without sirens,without lights just quietly. I was smoking a cigarette when they approached me and they asked: with how many security officers are you? So I said; just me and my friend...their faces immediatly turned white....turned out when I was smoking and on the phone with my head of security,there was a person standing nearby me with something really big and heavy (don't remember what it was) ready to attack me...cops showed up just in time"
– hetisjanken
Abducted!
"More-so scary for my family but maybe would be scary for little me if it happened…my whole family had a big party at one of those trail parks that had camp sites and hiking trails. I was 5 at the time and a lady lured me away from my group with her cute dogs. My whole family caught her in time before she “took me to the police “ stating “I didn’t know where her family was so I was going to help her.” Idk what happened after that. I will update if I remember to ask."
– violet-ack
Was He Really There?
"When i was around 10 I started seeing like 7 foot tall black shadow people with glowing red eyes in the corner of my room and when I slept in the lounge room, down the hall. To this day I still dont know if it was hallucinations, my imagination, sleep paralysis or a demon or something like that."
– WhoG1vesASh1t
That's Why You Don't Sneak Out
"When I was 12 me and my friend sneaked out during a sleepover. We found a shopping cart in the woods, we drove the cart trough the city and our plan was to drive it under a bridge and leave it then head to my house but when we were under the bridge we heard a loud cough, we started running up towards a university I looked back and I saw two guys running after us. We lost them with running inside of the university's yard and hiding inside of a garage."
– The_Orange_Burger600
A Strange Man
"A years ago, my younger brother was playing with his toys in his room, while I and our mom were sitting in another room. Few minutes later, we both heard crying from brother's room. We fastly came to him and after he chilled down, he said he saw a scary man, but there were no one except of us. A few days later we pictured brother's room and showed picture to great grandpa (he was working with spirits and that stuff at the time) and he saw something unusual on this picture. Later, father also saw something weird, but in mirror. Even now our cat just sometimes stays in the middle of different rooms and stares at nothing."
– oyomoyk
A Real Man After All
"When i was in 6th grade i was chilling in the class with some of my classmates. Our class was on the 4th floor, which is about 30 meters up. We had a beautiful view. All of a sudden my best friend comes into the class crying and shouts that he saw a hanging man out of the window in the train. He could see the man's face and body. At first, no one really believed him except me and we looked right out the window. A man with an orange top and a bloody face was hanging on a small bridge next to the rails (the bridge was 50-80 meters away from the window). I calmed him down and told him that the person didn't look real. 10 minutes later he calmed down a bit and we asked a teacher if we could go to the office to ask if they could call the police. The secretary called the police and we went back up to our class. We could see the police officers go up to the man and pull him up. It turned out that it was actually a real man. So many years have passed and I still have the image in my mind's eye."
– GucciBananaKing99
Heroic Mom
"i was a about seven at the time, and was playing in my front yard. i was alone out there, but we lived in a nice neighborhood, so my mother wasn't worried. i heard a car screech to a stop behind me, and a guy jumped out, grabbed my arms, and started to throw me into the back of his van, all the while, im screaming. my mom came out and punched the guy in the face, and saved my ass. my mom had heard the car pull up and went to see what was happening, and when i started screaming, that's when her mother bear instincts kicked in. the guy was charged, and i don't know where he is now."
– the_hentai_merchant
I Swear It Happened!
"I was walking home from my friends house at around 10pm. it had just snowed a few days ago so the sidewalk was icy. as i was walking, a car pulls in and is driving by me. i don’t think much of it since i live in a relatively safe neighborhood, but i speed up anyway. the car starts driving faster and i begin to run. as i turn the corner i hear a car door slam and footsteps. i’m now at a full on sprint and slip on the ice and face plant on the side walk. i get up and run the rest of the way home. nobody believed me except my aunt when i told them."
– Ok-Calligrapher9997
Nearly Drowned
"I was in the ocean. the water went to my neck. it was fun. jumping over waves. low tide. the tide was getting higher. i was in my regular clothes. I was being swept away by sea. but some guy saved me. mind you i was 9/10. i owe my life to whoever saved me."
– mantheman433
Look Into Your Future
"Alright so this is the scariest for me that continues to scare the shit out of me."
"I was a bartender at restaurant and this was around 2007. I was going through a terrible time in life and during closing I was talking to a friend/customer about it and he suggests I go and see this psychic. I immediately dismiss it and go about life for another painful month or two. I ended up seeing this person again and ask for the contact information."
"I call this lady we’ll call her Janice. Says she doesn’t do phone readings and if I really wanted a reading that I would have to go to her apt. Now, I was nervous and intrigued at the same time so I say fuck it and plan to go and see what’s up."
"Fast forward two weeks and I make the train trek to where she lived. She lived in the projects so I was already nervous af."
"I go up to the floor she lives on and knocked. An older lady answered the door very nice. I was told to wait in her living room."
"After a few minutes she calls me into her kitchen. Now I’m starting to become really skeptical because it is totally not the set up I imagined. At all. Like it’s just a dining room table. No tarot cards, no paraphernalia, nothing. Just a notebook."
"She tells me the reading is 30 dollars. Now, I am really skeptical at this point because I had brought a few hundred with me and what can I really expect for such a small amount. I resign myself to the fact that this is probably a bunch of bullshit and I wasted the day but continue on to be polite."
"She asks me to write down my full name. She mutters a few words and dead fucking ass her eyes roll into the back of her head and another voice starts to speak. Like a mans voice. Not like she tried to sound like a man. But a mans voice. I am terrified at this point but I cannot move from my chair. All I can do is listen."
"Whatever this was speaking told me shit that is still coming true to this day. Told me my sister would die of an overdose which I dismissed because my sister was just fine. Ended up happening. Told me another family member would take their own life. Ended up happening. Told me no matter how hard life is to never commit suicide because “I didn’t want to end up in there with them.""
"Told me also good things that happened. Certain things predicted haven’t happened yet but a few things keep ending up to be true to it is still terrifying."
– Dizzy-Cryptographer2
When you're done reading this, maybe do a quick scan of your surroundings. Just in case, you know? Never can be sure what's coming around the corner or who might be standing behind you.
Good luck.