Unwelcome Visitors

"Was 15/16 at a house party with my good friend, another girl."

"There were some gatecrashers who turned up, which weren’t unusual at London house parties, but these guys were older, and there was just a vibe."

"I looked at my friend and said to her 'I’m gonna call my mum and dad to come get me do you want a lift?'"

"My parents were always amazing and said to me that if I was at a party or out and for ANY reason didn’t want to be where I was I could call them and they would come and get me."

"My parents turned up, coats on over pyjamas and took us both home."

"Apparently half an hour after we left, someone was stabbed and lots of stuff was stolen and people beat up and held up at knifepoint."

"I had such a feel in the air that I’ve hardly felt before or since and KNEW we needed to not be there."- AliceLovesBooks

Came Out Of Nowhere

"I used to drive for Lyft. April 2018, I picked up a young couple from a bar at about 1:30 am."

"They were fairly chill and I figured it would be my last ride of the night."

"The dude asked me to stop at a corner store on the way to their destination so that he could get cigarettes."

"I didn’t see any harm in waiting so I stopped, and had a nice chat with the young woman while he was in the store."

"He ended up being about 5 minutes since everyone was trying to get their pre-2 am beer."

"When he came out, he asked me to take him to a location that was in the opposite direction of their destination, but was only about a mile away."

"He said he wanted to meet some friends real quick and grab some beer."

"Since I figured it would be my last ride of the night, I said ‘f**k it, why not’ and drive him over there."

"Now, I know the town we live in fairly well, but the direction that we were coming from was not a way I was used to going when I would go to this location."

"So when I turned onto the destination street, I missed the turn into the complex parking lot."

"I just came to a complete stop since the roads were empty and asked them if they just wanted me to park on the street or pull into the complex."

"This is when the two of them started arguing, as he suddenly wanted to go in and hang out for a few minutes while she didn’t want to go in at all."

"She just wanted him to do his thing and get out of there so they could go home."

"And then something hit my car."

"The sound is unmistakable to me, so I immediately started to look around to figure out what it was."

"But there were no other cars on the road, so that couldn’t have been it."

"Then I moved to the next thing on my mental checklist."

"If something didn’t hit me, then what did I hit?"

"But that didn’t make any sense either as I’d been in park and couldn’t have hit anything."

"It’s at this point that the young lady’s attitude completely changed."

"She just kinda looked around, and then said ‘Can we just get out of here? It hurts and I want to go home'."

"This was odd to me as she’d been sitting in my car for about 10 minutes at this point and hadn’t said a word about any kind of pain."

"She followed this up with ‘It hurts and I can’t move,’ put her had to her back, and pulled it out covered in blood."

"What. The. F*ck."

"So the guy starts freaking out, thinking that something in my trunk had exploded, but it was empty."

"As he reached over to tend to her I noticed something white sticking out of the seat."

"This hadn’t been there at the beginning of the night, so I asked him what it was."

"He pulled on it; it was a piece of the filler fuzz from my seat."

"It came out of the hole that had been made in the seat."

"Because she’d been shot."

"As soon he grabbed that fuzz we both had the same realization."

"He slammed shut his door and I drove them straight to the hospital, which was only a couple of miles away."

"That realization, and the follow up realization of ‘oh, someone could still shoot you while you’re sitting here’ was one of the most terrifying things I’d ever experienced."- akabuldozer

Lucky They Stayed Up Late...

"About two months ago I’d stayed up past my usual bed time and as soon as I got in bed I smelled something odd and was hearing some inconsistent banging and clattering from downstairs."

"I don’t live in a great neighborhood, so none of this was unusual, but I got out of bed to check anyway and saw flames licking up the side of the building."

"Yelled at my wife to get out of bed and threw on some clothes and we high-tailed it out."

"Our building has a shared wall with the next and that one had an apartment on the ground floor fully engulfed by the time we made it outside, ended up condemning the whole building."

"I was the first one to call 911."

"Have been jerking myself awake in the night pretty consistently since then."- UglierInside

Easy Prey...

"I was waiting for an Uber on the outskirts of Atlanta with a couple friends around 10pm."

"We were just shooting the sh*t after leaving a nearby restaurant and talking about what bar to go to."

"A disheveled older man walked up a few feet behind one of my friends and struck a weird pose for 2-3 minutes while looking in our direction, and there was no one else around."

"Then he walked off without saying a word."

"He came back a few minutes later and sat down on the sidewalk about 5 feet away from us."

"At this point I'm just wondering if he wants something from us, because there was absolutely no other reason to plop down that close to us on an empty sidewalk."

"Then a small sedan pulls in a nearby parking lot, parking behind some bushes in the spot closest to us and consequently furthest from any of the shops in that lot."

"I only noticed because I happened to be facing that direction, but then saw 6 guys pile out of the sedan and immediately cross the street directly towards us."

"I realized there were not any shops or restaurants still open nearby."

"It suddenly occurred to me that the strange dude might have been sizing us up when he was watching us earlier, and he came back to 'mark' us."

"We were all dressed nice with smartphones out and watches visible, basically the fanciest stuff we had for a night out."

"Right as I started to speak up that we should head back towards other people, our uber pulled up to the curb."

"As we drove away, I watched those 6 guys talking in a circle where we had just been standing, and then they crossed the street again and got back in their car."

"I'll never have a definitive answer, but I'm pretty sure we were 10 seconds away from some unfortunate shenanigans."-Zeethro

Sometimes, the most reliable things we can trust are the hairs on the back of our neck.

The minute they start to stand, it's often a sign that we might very well be in danger.

When this happens, the best thing to do, more often than not, is to get out.