TRUE Scary Camper Story

I don't know what compelled me to finally share this but I have been thinking about it a lot the past few days and thought i' fit this sub relatively well I'm one of those longtime lurkers who has been sitting on their own story for ages but I finally got around to writing my experience down and hope someone out there finds this interesting read apologies in advance for the length I have a lot of thoughts about this as it was the first and only time I felt legitimately afraid for my life when I

was about 8 years old my parents were going through a divorce and my older sister and I used to spend a lot of time at our grandparents house it's a long ranch style home on a corner in a very nice neighborhood that's a 10-minute walk from a gas station grocery store and a few fast food restaurants the streets are long and lined with well manicured houses cradled by big Scenic California Valley Hills all around we were never very wealthy but my grandpa bought it as a fixer upper many years ago a

nd the property value is skyrocketed since then as you can imagine it's a very safe spot and although there weren't many other kids in the neighborhood it wasn't uncommon to see Neighbors walking their dogs or pushing a stroller down the side walk outside our house although my mom was especially protective all our lives this particular neighborhood was densely populated and my family knew just about everyone who lived there she grew up in that neighborhood herself so she was understandably trust

ing once in a while she would let my sister and I walk to the rotten Robbie gas station on the other end of the block to grab a snack I would always get a ring pop and my sister would grab Three Musketeers before we made our way back home my sister was about 11 at the time and the small amount of Freedom was a really big deal to us nothing compared to walking down that street all by ourselves in the summertime laughing and joking around a couple dollar bills in our pockets I felt like I own the

world the one Oddity I ever noticed around the neighborhood was a small camper parked on the side of the road opposite to the gas gas station right along the backside of the fence of another house it sat there in the shade like a permanent fixture all the windows constantly covered by opaque beige curtains I can't explain why but it always gave me this deep sense of for boing when I'd pass it I was almost positive someone was living inside it because at times I'd hear the air conditioning runnin

g as it sat stagnant in the same spot the hairs on my neck would always stand on end as I passed it particularly as I passed the door and I'd always keep an eye on it for the fear that one day it' swing open just as I came to pass by I think what bothered me the most was a drawing tape to the door from the inside it was extremely messy a sketch of odd lines and a brown colored pencil that was frustratingly IND discernible I could see the outline of something a vague shape but could never make ou

t what it was intended to be I never had the nerves to stop and stare long enough to really investigate but each time I walked by I'd steal a glance a year prior to the incident I'm about to describe I was walking with my mom past the camper in the shade we had just gone to the park nearby and unfortunately had to pass the camper before we could cross the street and continue walking I didn't want to seem afraid so I kept on walking right behind her and didn't object when she walked past it this

time I felt a little braver I was frustrated not being able to decipher the drawing for so long and while my mom was feet away I stopped in front of the camper door and took a moment to really look at the drawing upon closer inspection the paper was filthy I remember doing a project in elementary school where we soaked printer paper in Black Coffee to make it looked age and that's what it reminded me of my mom walked on without noticing i' stopped following her but my eyes stayed fixed on the in

distinct mass of dirt cake scribbles until I could make out what looked to be a tiny malformed face my stomach turned I immediately felt cold and disgusted as my eyes trailed over the rest of the image I didn't know what kind of creature it was at the time but now I can look back back and say the drawing was a badly deformed fetus inside a mass of large perfect circles like those made by a circular ring ruler its face was contorted as if in pain it was so graphically disturbing and seemed to por

tray this odd sense of suffering that stuck with me for days as a child I didn't know how to process it and the mental image still makes me sick to think about I'd never seen anything like it before adrenaline flooded my body and my chest hurt with fear but I selfishly thought of my glorious little trips for ring pops and said absolutely nothing as I followed behind my mom this was in retrospect a classically terrible idea it's one of those things you scream at main characters in movies for ever

since my ill feelings toward the camper had been elevated by the drawing on the door I thought about it every time we drove by and about a month later my mom once again graced us with several bucks and permission to walk down to rotten Robbie and grab our respective snacks I thought about telling my sister about what I'd seen on the way there but she was older and braver and I was terrified she'd making me cross the street with her to check it out it was a bright sunny day and I told myself wit

h false certainty that nothing was going to happen if I didn't acknowledge it maybe it'd go away we walked past the camper and it was thankfully uneventful on the walk back I was feeling more comfortable and was focused on fighting open my candy wrapper while my sister walked alongside me we passed the camper a second time but I didn't give it half as much thought as the first time I don't remember what we were talking about but I recall being interrupted mid-sentence as my sister softly yet fir

mly said my name there was a distinct fear in her voice that immediately set me on edge like a bucket of ice water all my senses heightened and I became aware of everything including the sound of halfhazard footsteps about 10 ft behind us it was accompanied by a heavy rustling sound like a heavy backpack and nervously I'd half turned my head to look a man with a long unkempt beard and wearing many layers of ragged clothing stood behind us eyes unmistakably burning into our backs as he walked his

movements weren't normal it was a drunken Shuffle like each of his feet were unimaginably heavy and needed to be moved one grand effort at a time his shoulders were skewed head tilted downward with a strange arch of his neck I could hear his shoes scraping the gravel with every step but rather than seeming genuinely intoxicated it was as if he was intentionally meand pandering our Direction like a zombie with a direct effort to frighten us behind him I saw the camper door was wide open for the

first time in all the years we'd spent living there and realized this was the man who had been living inside he's following us I choked out my eyes filling with tears my mind was spinning as I stared straight ahead again the wide Street and sidewalks abnormally empty all around my sister grabbed my hand she squeezed it hard enough to hurt without looking my way speaking carefully under her breath on the count of three we race home she told me in a very serious tone of voice I couldn't reply thro

ugh the growing lump in my throat but every single cell in my body understood we had to put some distance between us and this man as quickly as possible she began to count steadily while we walked faster and the most terrifying ing part is that he started running before we even had a chance to he must have heard our directions to me and tried to get a head start by sprinting our Direction before she got to three but his footsteps were noisy and we bolted like deer the instant we heard him behind

us I'll never forget it the chase felt exactly like you imagin in your nightmares the fear your pursuers is inches away from grabbing your arm or a fistful of your hair I pictured myself being dragged into the van with nobody around to see or hear me we ran so fast we didn't even have the breath to scream and peering back behind me about 10 seconds later I saw him running our Direction with absolutely none of the impairment he showed with those zombie-like footsteps moments before I think back

on it now and he may have been deliberately pretending to be handicapped to lower our guard so we wouldn't start running the thought is terrifying but I can't rationalize it it any other way we made it to our grandparents house and without looking behind us yanked open the stubborn old door before slamming it closed and scrambling past their excited dogs to get as deep in the house as possible I don't even think we locked it as our main goal was getting within the line of sight of any adults as

quickly as possible my mom was talking to my grandpa at the table and gave us an amused look when we bounded into the living room since we were kids running around wasn't anything out of the ordinary and she didn't ask what happened as we collapsed on the couch and tried to catch our breath the inside of the house felt so safe and felt in such good spirits that I didn't even want to bring up what had just happened like waking up from a nightmare you didn't want to talk about I was desperate to g

o back to normaly I wanted to forget it entirely to unwrap my candy and act like everything was completely normal for the sake of my own sanity and that's exactly what I did I asked my sister a few years back if she remembered this incident I'm 25 and she's 28 now and her response was strange she remembered immediately without the need for me to provide details but she quickly waved it off and insisted he had to have been a bored homeless man looking to Spook some kids walking home with no real

intent to harm anyone I don't know I'd like to believe it's some innocent misunderstanding but like they always say about gut feelings they're rarely wrong I feel in my soul that he wanted to hurt my sister and I that day I never told her or anyone else about the strange drawing on that door and I'm not sure if my sister saw the open door and connected him to the camper or not it's one of my biggest regrets as I would hate for any other children to have been less fortunate after innocently walki

ng past the camper in the shade I believe he may have chosen the spot between the park and the gas station deliberately due to the number of children walking around the area I never saw the camper again a day or so after this I'm not proud of how I handled this and would encourage anyone who finds themselves in a similar situation to contact authorities immediately for the safety of others around I don't know if maybe this whole story comes off as melodramatic but it was very real and very frigh

tening in a way can't forget so possibly deranged camper guy by the gas station whatever your intent was let's not meet