9 TRUE HORROR STORIES ANIMATED COMPILATION

um i've lived a long enough life to have  heard and seen a lot of unusual things of course having spent many of my years in it  in the state of florida i've seen firsthand on several occasions why the infamous florida man  is always making headlines across the country heck i could have been one of those florida men  back in the day but i can tell you without a doubt that no matter how steel do you think you've  become against the surprises life throws at you you're never invincible life always h

olds  the power to shock you to your core i mean take me for example i spent my years in the  military and i've spent my years on the streets drifting between one rock and another hard place  but no matter what messed up stuff i have to see go down or deal with i always bounce back well  almost always out of everything i've seen only one thing made me lose my cool and i think  it was just the sheer unexpectedness of it just that i didn't think anything like it could  ever happen in broad dayligh

t in the middle of the city but there's no denying that this happened  everyone knows about it these days it was a nice sunny day in miami i was making my way across town  down the concrete mess of a highway just to get out of that part of town i've been in for the last  few weeks i'd never owned a car so i was taking my bike down the shoulder except i wasn't riding it  i hadn't been sleeping well and the night before i didn't manage to catch any sleep at all i was  honestly too drowsy to pedal

in a straight line so i was literally just walking my bike down  the shoulder of the road there was a sidewalk next to me but it was on the other side of a  concrete barrier like the ones they used to divide directions of traffic on freeways i could  have hopped it on foot but not with my bike i don't know exactly how i'd ended up sandwich there  between the cars and the concrete but after what happened later i'd take that away again for the  alternative the sun was getting high and bright it wa

s starting to hurt my eyes i squinted ahead  and saw that there was a bridge down the way a nice wide overpass to provide some shade i  started to quicken my pace which felt pretty silly given that there were countless cars flying  past me but between the deafening whoosh of each vehicle passing i kept thinking i was hearing  something something that sounded like the shouts of a heated argument between drunk people  that's the problem with you it's going out this down that might not be something

you'd expect  to hear in the middle of the day in your town but in miami it's more than common but i couldn't  help but think it sounded a little unusual i figured that sleep deprivation was screwing with  me pressed on but as i got closer to the bridge the shouting grew louder it sounded more like  screaming but there was some other toilet there like a growling rapid dog every time i thought  i was about to decipher it a car would blow past me then the sound would change by the time  i got to

the bridge my curiosity was peaked i could definitely tell where the noise was  coming from straight ahead of me just a few more yards under the shade i peeked over the edge  of the barrier onto the sidewalk and saw two hairy pairs of men's legs sliding around together  on the sidewalk i instinctively darted my eyes away not wanting to see much more above the thigh  level as experimenting people need to get a room what are they thinking doing stuff like that  on the side of the road in the beami

ng sun well obviously no one cares because no one's  stopping just another day in florida i did my best to keep my eyes to myself as i passed under  the shade i was thankful for the break from the intense light but beneath the underside of the  road above some strange sounds began to echo forcing me in for another look this wasn't an  act of exhibition but there were two messed up looking dudes lying naked on the concrete and one  of them was crouched over the other tearing into a man's face wit

h his teeth there was blood  gushing out and spilling onto the asphalt bone showing through the bite wounds on the  face and flesh and the attacker's teeth as he looked up to notice me just to scream like  a feral zombie as he looked me dead in the eye it was at that exact moment that i jumped onto  my bike and peddled off at top speed all prior drowsiness was erased by the shot of adrenaline i  kept looking back to see if i was being ran down by that psycho but luckily he'd been content with  s

caring me off i rolled down the first ramp that i got to and immediately went looking for a cop  i found one not even a block away surrounded by several other very concerned looking citizens  the police officer however seemed annoyed but i was in a panic and i never panic so i must  have been a sight to see all of my own i barged through all those people and got right up into  the cop's face there's a flipping zombie on the freaking pedestrian path up the ramp just up that  way come on don't get

hysterical with me people what do you mean by zombie there's a dude eating  another dude's face off man finally it seemed like something clicked in the cop's brain he didn't  say anything to us he walked straight into his car speaking something into his radio then he drove  up the off ramp going the wrong way out of sight me and those other civilians traded a few strange  looks all in an understandable loss for words some of them looked like avid bicyclists others just  looked like people who'd

come out of their cars i wondered how long that thing had been going on  with all those people just driving past like that then we heard the gunshots five of them in quick  succession everybody on the street stopped what they were doing dumb found it in just a few  minutes more and more cops came followed by an ambulance and then the army of press news van  after news van drove up to broadcast the scoop live on the scene or whatever i heard some  office building captured the whole thing on thei

r security cameras it was the talk of the town  for weeks i'm sure the name miami was heard all across the world alongside zombie attack cannibal  eats face off homeless man florida man gets wasted and eats face i don't care for any of that  people who weren't there seem fascinated by it but i know more than anything that i never  want to see pictures of that horrible tragedy just from seeing at one time  i was shaken up for months i still get hair standing up on the back  of my neck whenever i

pass under a bridge a person who was riding his bike  here off the macarthur causeway yesterday afternoon says he saw one man  eating another man alive you're about to hear from the miami man who had his face chewed  off my face was all attached up my eyes got plucked plucked out and ignored the officer's  orders to stop eating the other man's face out of every day that i have ever lived through  even with so many of them being so hard there is one that stands out was the worst day of my  entire

life it was my mother's 63rd birthday the morning started just like any other i helped  my little girl get dressed and ready for school it was supposed to be a big day for her she  had been practicing for her school spelling bee for weeks and today was the day the two of us  were about to walk out the door when my husband grabbed me on the shoulder and stopped us before  the door you can't let her go to school looking like that she looks unkempt what will people  think when she's on stage i was

going to just accept that he was right and change our daughter  into some different clothes but my mother who was living with us at the time had a bit of a grudge  against my husband and she wouldn't have it it was her birthday after all who do you think you're  talking to if you make my granddaughter late for school on the day of her recital you got another  thing coming go baby get out of here don't let that oath tell you what to do my husband looked a  little dumbstruck by my mother's resist

ance to his remark he was usually the head of the household  and he would always get his way but ever since my mother retired and started living with us she  had fought him for control over every little thing i didn't want to be caught in the crossfire  between the two of them on that day so i just left like my mother told me to i dropped  my daughter off at school then spent several hours running errands early in the afternoon i got a  call from my mother for some reason she was elated today su

re is a good day dear how's about  you take your old lady out for some coffee and pastries for her birthday there wasn't  really any way that i could say no i might have married a controlling man but i was born to  an even more demanding and particular mother so i put a hold on the grocery shopping i was about  to do and met her at her favorite cafe in town which was of course ridiculously overpriced and  overrated she ordered the most expensive things on the menu on my tab then told me to take

pictures  of her holding them up to commemorate the occasion when i asked for a bite she said oh give it a rest  honey i've done enough for you today i deserve this to myself i was confused by what she meant  but i didn't bother to ask i heard my phone go off from my purse and i welcomed the distraction  i'd gotten a text from my sister-in-law asking where my mother was i replied that she was at  the coffee house with me but i didn't get a reply instead about 15 minutes later the police  pulled

up they marched inside with forlorn faces and told us to follow them to the police  station but they wouldn't tell us why now i understand that they didn't want  to make a scene at the place of business when we got to the station we were met by a  man in a suit who spoke to us softly hello mams i have some very unfortunate news if you would i'd  like to talk to one of you at a time in this room here the other can sit in the waiting room with  your family oh let me go first it's my birthday um su

re come with me ma'am and so my mother  disappeared into a windowless room with that man as i was ushered into a larger waiting  room where i found my entire family of in-laws sitting in quiet sobbing to spare i  asked them do any of you know what's going on but none of them answered they just looked  at me with daggers and their tearful eyes confused i found a seat away from them up against  the wall that was shared with the room my mother had just been taken into i was soon to find out  that t

hat room was purposed for interrogations and had an extremely thin wall something  terrible happened today ma'am your son-in-law has passed away huh what'd you say  your daughter's husband has been killed oh no oh no in that moment my world collapsed i  just seen my husband alive a few hours ago but now he was gone i couldn't think of a single person  who would want to hurt him but then it hit me the last person i'd left him alone with was my own  mother so he's dead yes he was killed he was sho

t a dozen times in his own home yay happy birthday  to me i did it i did it everything after that is just a blur they called my daughter out of  school and made us go in the room with my mother i remember her saying something like aren't you  so happy baby you're free now no more of that jerk hanging around but there was nothing i could  say i'm still struggling to recover from that day almost 10 years ago i just can't believe  how deranged she became that she would do something so despicable an

d then celebrate  it she even made me take her out to lunch afterwards i know i didn't marry a perfect man  but she had no right to do what she did we could have worked things out but now none of that is  possible but over everything else it's my daughter i pray for for her grandmother to take away her  father like that and act like she was doing her a favor i i just don't understand what snapped  in that woman's mind what did you think of him why do you say that that's the  big thumbs down he d

idn't like him i want to tell you that just within  the last 30 minutes the judge did rule that there is now enough evidence for  cynthia citabaca to stand trial for murder oh thank you thank you thank you  thank you thank you oh boy oh you thank boy did you check  the scenes i didn't care i used to work at a walmart before i got  fired for a headphone related incident i worked in the clothing department and since  walmart isn't exactly known for its hot fashion it was generally pretty slow asid

e from folding  and hanging up clothes there wasn't much else to do that's why i picked up the habit of hiding my  airpods behind my hair and listening to music to get through the boredom of my shifts i was fully  aware that this was against company policy but i didn't really care i would have quit from the lack  of stimulation alone if it weren't for my music and it wasn't like my supervisor was around much  anyway i don't think they ever would have known if it weren't for the major incident wh

ich got me  fired the day started like any other i finished the task left over from the previous shift and got  settled into my usual spot by the fitting rooms folding the same 10 articles of clothing over and  over again while tucked into a corner in which i'd only be seen by customers who were already  in the fitting room aisle it took almost an hour before i got my first customer hello sir i'd  like to try on these clothes please he had about five or six articles of clothing so i handed him a

  tag numbered six and pointed him down the aisle as i gave him my usual customer service voice all the  rooms are available hang this outside your door to let others know your room is occupied well thank  you very much after waiting a few seconds for a response he didn't get he gave up and took  the first door on the left even on slow days the business came in waves so it wasn't more  than a minute later before the next customer approached me at a glance i could tell there was  something a litt

le off about the guy he didn't seem like the type of person that would usually  buy clothes like at all but it didn't matter to me i treat all customers with the same level of  hospitality none can i get into one of those rooms the guy had far more than 10 articles of  clothing which is the limit per customer but there was no way i was going to argue with  him over it so i just handed him a tag number 10 and sent him on his way away from me all the  rooms except the first on the left are availab

le hang this outside your door to let others know  your room is occupied he took the tag slowly like he wasn't sure if it was some kind of trap or  not then he went into the second room on the left i knew that was weird because most people would  put a little more space between themselves and the people changing next to them the fitting rooms  were more like stalls the walls don't go all the way down to the floor and they don't reach the  ceiling but there was nothing i was willing to do about i

t that alone was not a good enough reason  to interrupt somebody while they were changing so i just went back to folding waiting for them  to come out and give me more clothes to fold a few minutes in my favorite song came on shuffle  i discreetly turned the volume up a few notches just to jam out a little bit for the one song  then i turned it back down so i could hear new customers approaching that's when the weird guy  came out i thought it was strange how he came out before the other guy con

sidering he had so much  more clothes he had all the clothes jumbled up into one tangled mess which he plopped down on the  cart in front of me thank you have a blessed day he sounded out of breath like he just done  a fitting room speed run he gave me a good look at the bloodshot white of his eyes then tore  his gaze away and walked off in a rush i shrugged oh well just another day of dealing with walmart  shoppers but as i was folding up the clothes he just dropped off i noticed something i'd

never  seen before not even at walmart there were blood stains smeared all over the clothes little  ones at first just an eye-catching dab or two then more and more towards the bottom until the  last shirt was nearly soaked in red i began to panic pausing my music to hear my quicken breath  i'd put aside the clothes and walk down the aisle the number six tag was still hanging on the  first door and beneath it a thick pool of blood seeping out into the aisle i pushed open the door  revealing the

source that nice man from before was stuffed into the corner with his face torn to  shreds skin hanging off the bone his half-naked body full of deep holes still spilling out with  blood the blood was everywhere and on the mirror a message had been written in it by hand the  writer's fingerprints visible in the coagulation the parting words of the killer red the devil  made me do it needless to say i got fired that day but i don't care i don't even care  that they caught the guy the same day all

i can think about when i remember that  day is how could i have let it happen if i'd just been doing my job if i'd only been  paying just one little bit of attention i could have heard that man being murdered maybe  then i could have done something to stop it maybe i could have intervened or screamed or something  i could have done anything to save that man's life but no i wasn't doing any of those things i was  lost in my own little world within my airpods and that man is dead because  of me w

orse he's more than dead i really shouldn't be talking about  this but i've been keeping the secret from everyone for decades now and as i've  gotten more old and withered over the years i'm close enough to death that i no longer care  if they find me it was the early 90s and i just hit flat broke and fell out on the streets i  consider myself a wise and seasoned hobo these days but back then i was a rather hopeless case  i barely had any experience with living on my own let alone without a home

not only that but the  city was a lot smaller all those years ago so finding money was that much harder i would spend  all my time begging and pleading and by the end of most days i wouldn't even have enough change  to buy a hot dog from the convenience store i tried everything i could think of busy  streets residential streets kindness crassness i just wasn't getting anywhere by the end  of my first couple months i was starving my bones were protruding from my skin and i could  barely keep my

eyes open from the lack of energy it just goes to show the way people are  because many of them won't take pity on you even if you look as bad as i did i was sitting  on the sidewalk shivering from the first autumn wind and jingling my cup when some jerk wad in a  cheap suit slapped it out of my hand sending all my money flying into the air and tumbling down  into the sewer go get a job you worthless bum then he walked off i struggled to get to  my feet and tried to pick up my quarters but peopl

e kept accidentally kicking me so i gave  up on it i stumbled away from that no good avenue to a more relaxing street i already knew this  particular street was popular among the homeless and i will admit i had the intention  of begging them for food or change but without much expectation of that working so  you could understand my surprise when i saw a homeless couple sprawled out on a park bench all  fat and happy smiling and laughing and chatting so this guy walks up to me and says hey man  h

ave you seen the newest demon slayer episode and i said i can't watch demon slayer i'm homeless  laughter was something i hadn't experienced in a very long time and i certainly hadn't looked  that well fed since even before i became homeless i went right up to them and started to ask  excuse me i don't mean to be a bother but i'm having a really rough time out here and i see  that you guys are doing well all i want to ask is how have you been able to keep your health or  how do you panhandle lik

e what's your approach get lost buddy please sir i beg of you winter  is coming and i haven't eaten in weeks i won't survive if i don't get something to eat i don't  want anything from you but knowledge all right all right man keep it down i'll tell you how we've  been getting fed but you gotta swear to god that you won't tell anyone about this or i guarantee  that starvation will be the least of your worries you got that oh i do i do i swear on the lord in  heaven above me he bless you and your

lady thank you all right man listen up because i'm only going  to say this once walk two blocks west to the edge of the woods on the far side of the street there's  a loose manhole cover enter and follow the sewer until you meet the old head mannered he feeds the  homeless now get lost i heeded him and got out of there my brain was so fried by starvation that  when i found the manhole i didn't even think about the stench of the sewer once but i did make myself  wait until sundown it seemed obvi

ous with all the secrecy that man had pressed upon me that you  weren't supposed to be seen going in getting there in the early twilight i heaved off the manhole  cover with what felt like the last of my strength then stepped down onto the ladder and dragged the  cover back sealing myself in the musky darkness i carefully made my way down the ladder until my  feet plunge into raw sewage i didn't even flinch let alone recoil or i might have noticed what  was off about the sewer water instead i re

ached into my pocket and found a lighter flicking it  on to provide myself some meager guidance in the oppressive stench there were only two ways to go  forward and backward but on the wall of the tunnel with some writing cruelly smeared on in some kind  of dripping red ink or maybe it was blood it read mannered buffet with an arrow pointing down  the tunnel seems like i'm in the right place as i thought aloud i heard my voice echo many  miles through the corridors stirring a number of creatures

that were living within them all of a  sudden i could hear the scurrying and chirping of rats that i hoped were running away from the sound  of my voice and not toward it but i didn't have the mental fortitude to linger on the grimness  of my situation not with all the ravenous hunger racking my brain i pressed on seeing not just more  finger-painted signs directing me to the buffet but also the size of the rats i heard monstrous  things but that's beside the point i must have trudged about hal

f a mile through the muck of  the sewer when i knew i had to be getting close because i could hear the people eating they  sounded like animals growling lip smacking hoots out of sheer celebration i never heard  such a loud chewing but even in the sewer the sound of it made my stomach growl i picked  up my pace and tried to get there quicker but pretty soon i found myself exhausted  forced to go on at a slow steady pace eventually i saw an intersection in the tunnel  and that's right about when

my lighter ran out of juice i pressed on the sound of the feast growing  louder and louder but right as i was about to round the corner i heard a snap like a bone being  broken in half i stopped a chill ran down my spine trying my hardest not to stir the sewer water that  i could now clearly see was a dark turbid red and a light from around the corner i crept up to the  intersection then peeked my head around the corner squatting in the stagnant drainage of a clogged  culvert were six or seven s

hirtless homeless men all sat around a floating corpse of a man which  they were devouring ripping the skin from flesh the flesh from bone breaking the bones and sucking  out the marrow cracking the skull and scooping out the brains chewing that bright crimson with  tendon and sinew stuck between their teeth and i would have recognized that cheap suit  anywhere i'd seen that jerk just a few hours ago right before these crazy cavemen killed him  and dragged him down here i turned and ran i may ha

ve been on the verge of starvation but i  would have rather died than become one of them thirty years later and i've long since found  out how to make a living on the streets but i'm still traumatized by what i saw it's my  nightmare in every fitful sleep i managed to catch but i think i've outlived all the faces  i remember from around that time so i can finally get it off my chest without  worrying of becoming the buffet myself what the hell man what do you want you what do  you want me for i'

m just a bum i'm a professional photographer by trade but i've had a few side  hustles in the past i'm also sort of a fanatic for the paranormal which has led me down a number of  photographic rabbit holes but strictly as a hobby i never get paid for attempting to actually  photograph real ghosts however some years ago i did combine those interests into an obscure  side hustle that ended up getting me into trouble basically i'd take pictures of grieving family  members then photoshop images of t

heir deceased loved ones into the photographs it was never  my favorite gig not only because it involved the fabrication of the ghost that i was trying  to find proof of but mainly because i always had the nagging thought in the back of my mind  that said it was taking advantage of people who were struggling with the loss of their loved ones  but all those people willingly responded to my ad i never charged them much just enough to make ends  meet so i continued to do it unfortunately there was

one client who forced me to stop from the very  beginning i was getting strange feelings about their request but at that point i was already  starting to get the idea into my head that i was really helping these people with their grieving  process somehow she called me around midnight with a strange excitement in her voice you've reached  sunday morning photography how may i produce your memorable photos hi i saw your ad on facebook  how much do you charge for a funeral photography session well

the usual rate is 100 for an hour  long shoot about two weeks until you receive your five finished photographs can you get them to  me by monday if i give you 500 um sure great i'll text you the details i was a little flabbergasted  500 for an hour on camera and four hours in the photoshop was better than my professional  rate at the time i didn't really question why she needed them so fast but i thought it was  weird that she didn't even tell me who had died though within minutes she'd send ove

r a dozen text  messages really long and drawn out blocks of text detailing how distraught and depressed she was due  to the sudden death of her two-year-old daughter and how she didn't want to talk about it over the  phone before i even had time to type the words my condolences she completely switched into business  mode she gave me a detailed list of the kinds of photos she wanted how she wanted them composed  which pictures of her daughter she wanted to use and how just a lot of very specific

requirements  that grieving people wouldn't usually care about most of the time they're too preoccupied  with grief itself to deal with the details after all a professional gets paid for the  details but this woman was something else she had what she wanted in mind and she wouldn't  accept anything different in the slightest all that said because she was paying me so much i  ignored the feeling of suspicion in my gut and met her the very next morning she told me to meet her  at a certain cemete

ry which led me to believe that we'd be taking photos at her daughter's grave then  she asked me which one of these gravestones would look best for the photo shoot uh you mean your  daughter hasn't been buried yet no i told you i'm getting these photos for her service now answer  the question from that point on i didn't ask any questions we walked together through the cemetery  until she found a random gravestone that she liked that's when i began the photo shoot she was  the most nitpicky parti

cular customer i've ever had i nearly filled up an entire sd card with  duplicate pictures because the tiniest thing was out of place or she didn't have the right facial  expression the whole time i was just hoping that the family of whoever this gravestone belonged  to didn't show up and start screaming at us this woman even had a book as a prop i think it  was titled the giving tree she made me take a photo every second as she read the entire thing  to her dead daughter who wasn't even there t

hen after the hour of the photo shoot was over she  held me up for another hour as she scrolled through all of the hundreds of photos and  picked out the five that she wanted produced after she was finally gone i purchased  a few energy drinks and went home to pull an all-nighter to get all of her  pictures done before the next morning honestly i just wanted to be done  with this client and claim my money thankfully she didn't hassle me about the quality  of the photoshop upon delivery that's wh

at most people had issues with but she didn't care i saw  the money hit my bank account and i thought i was finally done with that horrible woman but i sure  wasn't a few days later i got a knock on my door kind of banging that sounds like someone's trying  to beat down your door that makes you shoot out of bed in your underwear i answered the door to  two men in suits who held up their badges that they introduced themselves good morning sir  we are homicide investigators from the state we have

a few questions we'd like to ask you  you're not under arrest but we'd like you to come into the local station i'm sure i haven't  done anything wrong so it shouldn't take long but of course i was there all day my side  gig had gotten me wrapped up in a murder case that awful witch had taken advantage of me she was  under suspicion of murdering her own daughter and she had me take those photos to make her look  innocent like she was grieving and yearning for her lost daughter when she was the on

e that  killed her that incident ruined my reputation from that moment on i never did another one of those  gigs i never should have done them to begin with she used my work to make people  think that she's innocent what did she want in the photos she told me that  her daughter's favorite book was the giving tree and she said i want me holding the book  reading it to my daughter macy who passed away and i want to be looking down at her  while she's reading the book she wanted this more than any

other photo when i look at  that photo now i see mommy why'd you do this when i was still in college i worked part-time  at the local walmart to make ends meet nowadays i'm extremely grateful that my degrees  kept me employed in a more respectable career because i almost didn't make it  out of my time at walmart alive i remember one night in particular when the danger  came to a head it was a friday i was taking a few hours to catch up on my studying before going out  for the night but i got a c

all from my manager hey sally we need you to come into work  tonight miriam didn't show up again all right i'll be there in an hour it seemed like  that there have been a lot of no call no shows recently i certainly didn't appreciate losing  my night out to a late shift at work but more than that i didn't want to be the type of person  that left their workplace short staffed that being said i could already feel myself getting closer  and closer to that point the turnover was high for good reason

the pay was minimum wage and  management was always taking advantage of the people who didn't walk out the door people like  me when i showed up at around nine i was glad to see that it was a slow night for a friday back  when i was working there walmart used to stay open far later than it does today i could see why they  made the decision to change their hours i only saw about a dozen cars in the entire parking lot and  most of the customers were already checking out still i was pretty sour ab

out the whole thing it  wasn't like i was getting paid overtime for this the next several hours dragged on uneventfully  until finally my manager made the closing announcement attention valued walmart customers  the store is now closing please finish shopping and make your way to the checkout lanes thank  you and have a safe night the way he delivered that announcement you'd think he was a nice guy  but he was only that way to the customers not with the employees i checked out my last customer 

and was about to walk out the door for the night when he yelled at me hey sally where do you think  you're going uh i'm going home i just clocked out no you're not miriam shift was eight to close  so that means you're gonna help close the store all right what do you need me to do well for  starters walk around all the aisles and make sure all the customers are on their way out you  got it boss the store was probably all but empty by the time he made his announcement i didn't see  anybody until i

got to the electronics section but of course when it's the dead hours of the morning  and you're trying to close so you can go home and get some sleep the one person left in the store is  always the one person who gives the most trouble he was just some old fat guy staring at the wall  of tvs at first i thought it was strange that he could be fixated on the same minute long action  movie preview that constantly plays on the tvs but i quickly realized that somehow there was  something else playi

ng on the one he was staring into i approached him slowly excuse me  sir the store is closed you'll have to leave and come back to buy that tomorrow he didn't  answer to me he didn't even move or blink or give any indication that he was aware of my  presence sir would you mind coming back tomorrow not a single muscle twitched he was engrossed  into whatever he was watching but i was ready to go home sir the store is closed if you  stay any longer you will be trespassing just a moment sally i'm w

atching my favorite  horror film i gasped i had no idea he knew my name i had already clipped off my name tag when  i clocked out a few minutes before then maybe he'd heard my manager yelling at me  get out or i'm calling the cops he stared me down with the smuggest of looks then finally  turned and walked away i let out a sigh of relief with him gone there was nobody left in the  store so i went ahead and started shutting down the television displays i began with the tv  that the creepy old fat

guy was enthralled with i only glanced the screen enough to realize that  there was some sadistic gore movie playing on it not something management would be okay with i  quickly reached behind the tv and ejected the disc he'd left it was a blank disk home burnt with  the date written on it with a sharpie it was dated two days before that night i pocketed the disc and  went back to work until i was finally allowed to go home but when i plopped down on my couch i  couldn't relax something was lin

gering in the back of my mind so i fished the disc out of  my work pants and fed it into my dvd player immediately my heart sank there was no hollywood  reject it was a homemade recording and there were no actors only real people in mortal peril a  real life snuff film and the unwilling stars were my co-workers i watched petrified  horror as the girls i thought had skipped out on work or tied up tortured brutalized and  eventually executed on camera and at the end the eyes of miriam pleaded thro

ugh the  screen for help but her mouth was taped shut the things that man did to those girls  i i just can't even talk about it anymore i'm sorry it makes me sick to my stomach and even  after all these years i'm still so paranoid that i'd run into trouble on my way home from work one  night and never show up again who was that man and why did he even have the nerve to play this disc  at the walmart that was supplying his victims i panicked i quit the next day and never looked back  i also repor

ted the disc to the police but nothing ever came out of it every night i contemplate  whether i was next after all he knew my name i don't know if anyone who needs this advice  will be able to find this but i'm going through the trouble of telling this story on the off  chance that it will reach the right person i'm not ashamed to admit that i'm homeless i'm  posting this on a library computer to a website some kid on the street told me about anyone out  there who's in danger of becoming homeles

s needs to remember what i'm about to tell them if you  have people you can trust never leave their side for their protection and yours i'm  usually the first guy to follow this rule but a few weeks ago i forgot it for just one  night i was walking down the streets of northern las vegas around evening time probably a sketchy  situation from those but i felt pretty confident the bothersome police mostly left  this neighborhood to its own devices and i had quite a few friends in the area that's  j

ust the kind of guy i am i can make friends with almost anybody no matter how down and out any of  us get i just found a bag of half-eaten mcdonald's in a trash can so i was ready to find a place  to sit down and eat then turn in for the night i dragged my mat of cardboard into an alleyway  where i knew a guy named skeg would be living i'm sure skeg wasn't his real name but most homeless  people in vegas are hiding in debt to somebody so we almost never tell our real names hey  bert want some du

mpster pizza it's pretty fresh only if i can trade you some  less than fresh hamburgers you drive a hard bargain bert but i'll have to  accept sit down let's divvy sure is a nice night that's just how we were skag and i it certainly  wasn't a nice night i was just saying that the sun was setting fast and the bone-chilling  nighttime air was blowing in even quicker but we were in good spirits despite all that we  had food and company and that was all we needed though i think skag had found himsel

f a little  booze with that pizza because he was acting a little more freely than usual i almost  hit the jackpot in the casino today bert one little inch away and that five dollars would  have been five thousand one of these days i tell you skeg's gonna win it big oh yeah what would you  do with five thousand dollars you gonna invest it all that investment crap is slow money i'd get  one of them blackjack tables and i'd clear it out double my money then double it again you know  skeg if somebod

y gave me five dollars i'd spend it on food i wouldn't gamble it away that's how  i got in the mess that i'm in and that bird is why you'll stay in the mess you're in rotten in  poverty while skeg is out shooting for the stars don't you know the sky's the limit you can't stay  stagnant i don't need to hear this have a good night shooting for the stars skag i wish i could  have just swallowed my pride and stayed there for the night but in my grandstanding attitude i made  myself walk out into the

cold to find a different place to sleep i didn't feel like walking up  on someone in the dark and giving them a fright so i thought i'd just spend the night alone i  laid down my cardboard map behind a gas station pulled on my raggedy old blanket and started to  drift off that's when i heard something sniffing right in my ear half asleep i brushed it off  and rolled over thinking it was just a stray dog smelling my breath then i don't know what but  something made me throw off my blanket the co

ld air woke me up right then and before i could pry  my eyes open i could tell just from the dead quiet that i'd slept for some time it must have been 4  am but soon enough my eyes opened and focused in and there was a hooded man standing right over  me he wasn't moving just looking down at me with shrouded eyes he was holding a plastic bag for  some reason i could hear it crinkling in the wind and it looked like he was hiding something in  his sleeve what the hell man what do you want yeah what

do you want me for i'm just a bum that  wacko didn't respond he just started to lift up his arm letting his sleeve fall back then  siren started to echo from around the corner the creep froze glanced around in every  direction then bolted out of nowhere i got out of there too before the cop showed up  or he came back i decided being alone wasn't worth the hassle so i hustled back to skeg's alley when  i got there he was slumped over on his side facing the wall by then i was freezing cold so i d

id  something i don't normally do i laid down right next to skegg and threw my blanket over the both  of us so i could capture some of his body heat pretty quickly though i could tell it wasn't  working it was like he was barely giving off any warmth at all and what was worse his cardboard mat  was wet at first i thought it might have rained but then i remembered i lived in nevada uh skeg i  threw off the blanket again and tried to shake him awake but he didn't stir i stood up and rolled  him on

to his back revealing the worst skeg skeg skeg skegman come on wake up he'd been attacked  his face was caved in by several strikes from a blunt object and all of the blood he lost onto  the map and he was surely dead i stood in horror a chill ran down my spine as i made the connection  between this and the guy that had woken me up i ran straight to the only place i knew  could help the 24-hour diner four blocks away i told them everything and they called the  police if i'd only stayed with skag

that night he'd be alive and i wouldn't have gotten so  close to death myself oh well i guess he got his chance to shoot for the stars and he took it  just goes to show how important what i said was don't ever get caught out alone because you  never know when or where wackos like that creep are lurking i heard he killed more than one  homeless person just stalking the streets with a hammer and a hood bludgeoning people to death in  their sleep what's gotten into people these days when you first

hit it were you sure it was a  dummy yes the problem being is we've had some other people struck in the head in the exact same  fashion that you struck this dummy in the head you're you're going to go to  clark county i am yeah why because you make us nervous you do yeah you do the story i'm about to tell  is as true as the sky is blue and even though it happened something like 15  years ago now i remember every detail flawlessly i was just a high school dropout doing what  it took to make ends

meet no glamour about it walmarts used to stay open way after dark even  in the desolate rural areas like i grew up in i was hired in as some kind of all-around helper  doing anything and everything my bosses told me to i tell you i was busting my back most of the  hours i spent in walmart i don't remember i was working so hard that it all became a blur  not many memorable occasions except for one there's one night i remember like it was yesterday  i'd been assigned to the clothing department f

or the second half of my shift and the clock had just  hit closing time i'd spent all day sorting clothes managing the fitting rooms and running the  register by myself but it was finally time to start cleaning up and counting the bills in the  register i was right in the middle of counting up all the ones when the man in question stormed up  to the counter with a hoodie and a pair of jeans crumbled up in his arms he was filthy and sweaty  from the warm summer night and his elbows and knees were

all scraped up he had a cross tattoo  on his forearm with a bulging vein running across it and he wore the most raggedy stained white tank  top and shorts he threw the clothes on the counter and demanded to buy them hey mister i need to  buy these clothes all right i got the money i couldn't help but roll my eyes he made me lose  track of the number i was on i'm sorry sir but i just started counting the money in the register i  can't make any more transactions here you'll have to go up to the f

ront you should hurry before they  start closing i don't have time for that i need to buy these here now i'm in a rush i got a little  freaked out by how suddenly his demeanor changed i'd been working in that walmart for long enough i  knew better than to aggravate a customer like him any further so even though it was against policy  i rang him up with the about three hundred dollars in untraceable cash sitting right behind the  counter the man handed me a torn and crumpled twenty dollar bill le

aving him about three dollars  short i gave him an apprehensive look but decided to just accept it and make up the difference  later with some change out of my own pocket i would normally never do that but honestly i felt  a little bad for the guy he looked a lot rougher than most of the customers i saw on a daily basis  and that's saying something as soon as i gave him back the clothes he ripped off the tags and put  the jeans and hoodie on right over the clothes he was wearing it was night tim

e but it was still  over 80 degrees outside which made that action a little strange to me but by then it was too late  without a word he ran out of the store i tried my best to get the encounter out of my mind but it  was no use barely 10 minutes later a whole army of cop cars came barreling into the parking lot  they locked down the entire crossroads plaza and came in questioning everybody in the store they  told everyone they were looking for a convicted killer who'd escaped from prison and wa

s on the  run and when they gave the man's description i kicked myself the fugitive is a white male late  40s wearing a white tank top and shorts he has a cross tattoo on his arm if you believe you have  seen this man please come forward i had no choice but to give them a statement i let them know he'd  hassle me at the register and change his clothes they had me come with them to check the store  security cameras i was extremely embarrassed especially when the police saw how many breaks  i gave

the guy but at least they were able to confirm that he was indeed the man they were  looking for to this day i feel guilty about that night i played in my head over and over again  looking for ways i could have played my cards more responsibly i can't shake the thought that if i  just stalled him for a few more minutes or if i'd stood my ground about store policy and made him  go up to the front maybe he would have been caught i'm always baffled that he didn't steal the wad  of cash i left sitt

ing right in front of his eyes i know he must have been tempted but he probably  thought better of it the worst part is after all these years that man is still on the loose  but when i get too down on myself for all that there's one thing i can remember that makes me  feel a little better about myself a few nights later while that guy was still all over the news  the story broke out that the fugitive some guy by the name of richard had actually been stopped  by the police on his very first day o

n the run but he somehow convinced the cop that he was a  jogger a jogger on the hottest day of the year i may have been reckless but that cop who stopped  him and let him walk was just plain stupid you live around here boy where where's your  address i don't have an address what is we got an escapee a prison you know the bad thing about it  you'll match it up to him that sucks do jog again in the future carry some id with you all right  that's our quick line there have a good day now almost eve

ryone has an ex and when you  get into a relationship with someone everyone gives at least a moment of thought to  the other people their new partner has been with because you know they're thinking about yours my  wife and i are no exception well i should say my ex-wife and i were no exception i've recently  had to divorce my partner of nearly 15 years i definitely didn't see it coming though  i guess i should have but despite how quickly the decision was made i still feel  confident in my judgm

ent by the time we met we had both been in the dating game for a while  and looking back on it now it seems obvious to me that both of us at that point were more interested  in finding someone good enough to settle down with rather than finding the perfect someone or  whatever naive single people say we both had a runs with narcissists clingers nut cases  and a few other flavors of insufferable people but we each seem refreshingly normal to the other  so none of that history made a difference ma

n i should have paid a little more attention before  we were married my ex-wife would talk every now and then about this guy named jason out of all  her exes he was the one she'd gotten closest with they were together for a few years and they  even lived together to be honest i'm not sure i ever heard her say anything that bad about him  except that he had some strange habits and beliefs when i asked why they broke up she said  something that i always thought was weird he moved to bed and became

a monk he said that  money was the root of evil or something like that when she said that the identity of this jason  guy clicked in my mind i used to hear about him in secondary school how he was always blurting  out strange things in class or sitting by himself every day at lunch and generally just flying  a lot of red flags like bringing razors to school to shave his head in the washroom wait  you mean buzz cut jason you dated him yeah so what's wrong with dating the weird kid um because  if

you date the weird kid that means you're also weird oh grow up it's not like he was violent or  anything i felt bad for him so i gave him a chance he actually turned out to be really nice until he  dumped me to go meditate himself into the grave that should have been my first red flag  but she managed to talk me out of suspicion by all my means of judgment jason had  really fallen off the face of the earth nobody i knew from secondary school had heard  from him in years and my ex-wife was the o

nly one who claimed to know where he'd gone for all  i knew she was right jason had relocated his life to central asia to practice tibetan buddhism  giving up everything he'd ever had in the process certainly that's not something you hear  every day but it's not something you never hear and after my ex and i got engaged jason  was never mentioned again i didn't care anyway what's one piece of baggage on an otherwise  normal person unfortunately that wasn't quite the end of it i think that most p

eople tend to get  suspicious of their partner's loyalty at times but i never thought i'd be one to have so many  reasons to doubt it i almost went crazy thinking i was being overly paranoid about all the weird  stuff going on coming home a few minutes early and seeing my wife out of breath for no reason hearing  doors slam just before i got inside the house her rarely ever letting me go inside her  car and staying out super late on weekdays i told myself those paranoid sensations were just  the

scars of being cheated on in university by other women i thought once we started raising  our family that it would all be put to rest but then our first child came out with bright  ginger hair my ex-wife is a natural blonde and i've got regular old brown hair i can still  remember how it felt when that pit formed in my stomach there was an intense discussion right  then neither of us are red-headed jane that's a recessive gene that nobody in my family shows and  you can't carry it because you'r

e blonde explain to me how that happened oh my god i can't believe  you you didn't even know my natural hair color is auburn it's like you don't even know me maybe you  cheated and you just want to shift the blame on me oh come on how'd you come to that conclusion  enough of this if you keep questioning me i'm divorcing you and taking everything you  have and that was how she got me holding the word divorce over my head like a guillotine i  always feared becoming one of those old lonely divorcee

s who spent every night at the pub more  than anything i didn't want that to become me so begrudgingly i dropped the issue and made  extra sure that the next kid was mine but things never got easier though suspicions of mine never  stopped getting stirred up by one thing or another it started to get to me over time i think i  degraded mentally just from the stress and distrust that i was forced to live with for so  many years when we had her fourth kid she told me that she was going to quit her

job and become  a housewife well one of us has to stay home to take care of all four of them and you make more  money so it should be me you don't really have paternal instincts anyway and to commemorate the  moment she wanted a photo taken of the six of us we all crammed together on the couch and i tried  my best to put on my happiest smile for the camera she posted it to her facebook page as she updated  her employment status i didn't think much of it as i was exhausted from work i was ready t

o  go to sleep especially since i had to get up early the following morning when i woke up my  phone was blowing up with messages on facebook and they all said the same thing who's that guy  on the couch that you guys are sitting on the one right under your wife i had no idea what they were  talking about but i had to take a closer look at the picture and that's when i saw a face i hadn't  seen in over 10 years jason buzz cut jason lying under some kind of blanket acting as a cushion  for my who

le family to sit on and just from the way my ex was sitting on his face i knew that he'd  been the one she was cheating with all those years i couldn't handle all the lies he never went  to bed to become a monk he moved into her basement and became a bum i never knew he was  ginger because he always kept his head shaved all the times i was suspicious and she tried  to gaslight me i'm not even sure a single one of those kids are mine how many times did i  narrowly miss an encounter with him was i

ever safe i didn't want to know i divorced that wench  at the first chance i got and i may have become one of those lonely old pub regulars but i'll tell  you one thing i still feel sound in my judgment hey you