48 Of The Most Chilling True Stories That Might Send Shivers Down Your Spine

I got chased down by the neighborhood delinquent teen with a gun when I was walking home from the bus stop with friends. I was 10, my friends were 10/11 years old too. We ran to a house for help, a middle aged woman answered and refused to let us in or help us. She said it could be a prank, we told her it wasn’t but she was convinced we were trying to get in her house and rob her. We ran farther to my friends house, her mom happened to be off work early and was home. She called the police. I got to ride in a cop car and watch two cops take down this 17 year old piece of s**t into the pavement.

I was at a sleepover at my friends place. We decided to sneak out and wander around aimlessly. We stopped at our school which had a small patch of trees on the grounds where the older kids hung out during lunch. There was rumours of a great playboy collection there, hence our visit.

While there my friend stepped off to the side to have a pee. A few seconds later he comes rushing back and says “run”. I didn’t know what his deal was but as a kid in the “forest” with only the light of the moon, I figured asking questions was a secondary option to being left alone there.

We ran until we couldn’t run anymore. Finally my friend explained that there was some weirdo looking at him go pee. He said that he believed the guy was jerking off.

Being kids with a history of pranks I thought he was f*****g with me. Then I looked back and saw the guy a long ways back but moving in our direction. We kept running towards my friends place and he kept following.

When we got back we thought we lost him. We snuck back inside and turned off all of the lights in the basement. We laid there silently and terrified.

About 10 minutes later we see something move by the window. We knew someone was out there. We stayed completely still and quiet. A minute later we hear a noise coming from a room in the basement. We both lost it and started yelling “dad” for my friends dad.

He came running down the stairs and we were yelling someone’s in that room. His dad flung open the door and the window was open and there were fresh marks on the wall from someone climbing in or out. For some reason he didn’t call the police. He decided to stay downstairs with us for the night.

I didn’t really sleep and in the morning my friends dad made me walk home with him. A few blocks away and there were a bunch of police. As we walked by one of the cops stopped us and asked if we saw anything suspicious last night. We told him the story which kicked off further questioning.

It turns out that a kid went missing from his room right around the same time that we got chased home.

They found the guy a few days later dead from s*****e. They never found the boy he abducted.

We had a lot of trouble with that. My friends dad felt guilty for not calling the police. He became addicted to sleeping pills. My friend was traumatized with just how close he came to being grabbed in the forest. He turned to d***s really young and eventually k****d himself. I went through therapy for awhile and still have occasional night terrors from that night even though it happened almost 30 years ago.

**Edit:** WOW this blew up. Thanks for the kind words, helpful PM’s, and the gold and silver. Go figure it’s on a throwaway account.

I had far too many comments and questions, so I will try to address them here.

First of all, I have already posted my story on here a couple of years ago. At the time I was approached to sell the rights to it. I was interested in doing so because I like money. As a result I spoke to my family and my friends brother since he is the only one still with us from that family. I also spoke to a lawyer about what to give and what not to give. As it turned out the potential buyer was trying to pull enough information out of me to basically steal the story. Once I had my lawyer tell them that the information exists and has been verified, but they wouldn’t receive it until a contract was in place, they bailed. For that reason I am a little guarded about this information.

That being said, I wrote this out in summary form. I skipped over several details in the process.

One comment was critical of my friend being traumatized by a guy jerking off. That’s not the case. He was traumatized by how close he was to being the victim. This is the same issue I have been struggling with.

Another comment questioned why the guy just so happened to be in the forest. While I don’t know for certain, my assumption was that he was following us before my friend spotted him. Also this “forest” was actually an island of trees in the middle of a field. It was probably 200m diameter at the widest point. It separated the baseball and soccer fields.

I am also appreciative of the advice about my mental health. I have been attending counseling for this and other c**p that’s happened in my life. Unfortunately I have had a few bad situations that rivaled this one. I am doing really well and have managed to live a very happy and successful life. Married for 10 years now and a baby on the way. My struggles are minimal at this point and really are just infrequent night terrors.

Again thank you all for reading and being so supportive.

Me and my boyfriend came back at like 2 am from a night out. We were both quite drunk and stumbled into the hallway to the elevator when we see drops of something on the floor. It definitely was blood. Fresh and wet. The elevator button and door were covered in bloody hand prints aswell.

My boyfriend called the elevator, pushing me aside not knowing what would be in it. Luckily nothing except for a puddle of blood.

The elevator came from the 5th floor. So we went investigating. The trail of blood ended at a door with huge hand smears of blood on the door.

It took all our courage to ring (not the nicest place to live, robbery??) But I am so glad we did. An elderly man opened the door. He looked like straight out of a horror movie. Covered in blood from head to toe. His grey sweater was red. His hair was wet. His shoes were filled with blood.

We immediately sobered up. I called an ambulance which arrived in 2 minutes. My bf went inside the flat helping the man sit down. There was so much blood I have never seen that in my life.

We didn't know what happened to him until we met him yesterday properly for the first time. Recognized my bfs glasses. He was drunk, wanted to ride his bike home, crashed somehow and got a huge cut on his head. He takes heart medicine which thins his blood that's why he lost so much.

If we wouldn't have rung the doorbell he would have bled to death.

He actually gifted us money and a super expensive bottle of champagne for something completely self explanatory.

My dad threatened to k**l me with a tire iron once, he had me backed into a corner and the tire iron in his hand, I knew the son of a b***h was crazy enough to do it but I didn't care. I told him to do it, "K**l me then a*****e" he pussied out and i walked away. Wasnt till about 10 mins later when I was driving away I broke down shaking and crying. Why it happened- when I was about 22 I told him I was leaving/moving out, they had legal guardianship of me because I'm disabled. He didn't want me to leave because they got government assistance and tax breaks for "taking care of me" I spent a few months in the hospital but was moved to a group home after awhile and am more high functioning now than I have ever been so I do not regret it!!

I was driving through a somewhat rough neighborhood at night (late after a movie) and while sitting at a light we saw this guy in a beat up car take a bump of c*****e next to us. We make eye contact. As the light turns green he merged behind us and then proceeds to follow us around flashing his lights and honking his horn for several blocks. We pull up to another red light he pulls up next to us yelling at us to roll down the window.

Turns out he just wanted to let us know we had a tail light out and then drove away.

When I was 13, I just got dropped off from the school bus, so I had a bit of ways to walk home. As I get close to the corner of my street, some guy in a dark blue car rolls up and asked where I was headed.

Told him I was going home. The guy the excruciatingly slowed his car down to match my walk and asked if I wanted a ride home. I told him no thanks I'm almost home. Then he continued to ask where I live and if I still wanted a ride home.

Luckily I had a phone at this age, and pulled out my Nokia phone (idk why I remember this) and pretend to call my mom (she wouldn't have picked up the phone and I was almost home).

The guy saw what I was doing and sped off like crazy.

From the age of 13, I started carrying pepper spray.

My cousin who was like 14 was babysitting us (9 year old me, 4 year old brother), her dad called coming down from I wanna say crack? H****n? Idk something real bad, he called and screamed at her to tell hik where her piggy bank was, she told him to f**k off and hung up.

He called back, she didn't pick up, and he left a voice message which played as he was leaving it saying basically he was gonna come down there and f*****g m****r all of us, with a knife, he was gonna come down there and f*****g k**l us all.

He was full of s**t but we were terrified. Can you imagine the pure fear a 9 year old feels when a grown man who sounds crazy says he's going to m****r her with a knife? So we prepared. We blocked out the windows, locked everything, put heavy furniture in front of the doors. My brother was asleep in his room, my cousin told me just leave him, but I couldnt stand the thought of him being alone in there so I covert style belly crawled, heart beating out of my chest, across the kitchen, through the living room to his room, scooped him up, and brought him back to my moms room, which we then barricaded ourselves into.

I got no sleep that night and my mom and my aunt came back the next morning like "What the f**k did you kids do?!" But I was honestly just happy to be alive and that my mom was home again.

The worst part of the whole thing is when she got home her dad had sold all of her belongings. I mean everything, her bed, her dresser, tv, it was all gone. It was just an empty room.

He's clean now but I still hate his f*****g guts. F**k you uncle donald.

Torn between being r***d and the way the mental trauma it gave me affects how I react towards other “scary” encounters I’ve had with people.

When I was r***d I just felt a numbing sensation. But it f****d me up.

For a few nights since Halloween, there’s been a man walking uncomfortably close to the back of our house. My dog never barks or growls, but every time this man is there, Toby is ready to go for it. This man always appears a few minutes after I turn off the bedroom lights, always when my SO and roommates are gone.

Last night he was there again, and I was so terrified. It felt like my heart was going to explode. Toby jumped out of bed, growling and barking. I see the a walking, and he passes a bush—but doesn’t appear from the other side. Toby stayed at our bedroom patio door for twenty minutes. The man never moved from behind the bush. I went upstairs and looked over our balcony, and I could see his boot. We slept upstairs last night.

The only time I felt this unsafe in my home was after I got r***d. I thought I had this trauma under control, but recent events make me feel like therapy would be beneficial.

Edited to add a picture of the [area behind our house ](https://imgur.com/a/jxB5NZl) and a f**k you to anyone who wants to be accusatory of lying about being r***d.

I’ve had a horrible experience with the police after reporting being r***d, and so have thousands of other victims. If you’ve never experienced that trauma, you don’t get to have an opinion on how it affected me. Maybe instead of victim blaming, be suspicious of why the police don’t ever take our claims seriously. Do some research on how that trauma can affect people differently. And reread what you’ve written, think about how it would feel to go through that and see some entitled p***k tell you you’re just “a troll using it for karma.”

F**k you. A simple link to my profile and you’d see that I’m a victims advocate and I’ve been very open about what I’ve gone through since I joined reddit (even before). So many victims are afraid to talk about what happened to them because of reactions like this.

Once, whilst getting s****d with mates in a graveyard at about 16-17, my friends little brother was suddenly accosted by an absolute giant of a man and a pair of his cronies. We had seen them coming but didn't expect any violence.

He grabbed my mates brother in a headlock and said "we're gonna go shave his head", I'll add that we were all the typical long haired, black denim and Pantera t-shirt spotting types, getting verbally and occasionally physically a****d was kinda standard. Thinking that they were probably joking to a degree I pulled my friend out of the hold.

Well, next thing I know I'm being punched around the chops by a guy a solid foot taller than me, a decade older and with strength and a reach that I couldn't possibly compete with. I spent a lot of my childhood getting beaten by adults, but by this point i thought I'd got through that part of my life.

He held me by my neck and just kept punching me until I hit the ground. By this point my collective of mates are doing all they can to stop him but he's swatting them like flies, one calls the police.

Once I'm on the ground he kicks me in the skull, eleven times in all, I'd heard he was wearing steelies but I'm not entirely sure if that's true. But he just would not stop throwing all he had at my skull. The last kick was under the chin and everyone heard a massive crunch. It was enough to make my attacker stop and run away. It's okay though, it wasn't my neck, but I had just had seven of my teeth shattered whilst biting through the edges of my tongue.

Was left with a dodgy eye, ear, memory and spine. Still get weird headaches since then too, but I got off lucky. Because I don't bruise the hospital kinda dismissed me upon arrival and I then had to go give a statement, it was of over time that a lot of the more frustrating issues became apparent.

They caught the bloke, he had to pay me £120 towards dental bills, but most importantly my friends were all fine. I been getting my a*s kicked by people for years so I'm happy it was me and not them, I've just no idea why he was so determined to seemingly k**l me. He died a couple of years back now, good riddance.

Have been home invaded three times, once by two guys who had a gun, a knife, and a bottle of petrol they splashed all over everyone, and the other two times by 4 dudes with knives. Got stabbed one of those times, only in the hand but they were going for my face, luckily I was fast enough to "catch" it. Those experiences were pretty freaky and taught me a lot about how savage and animalistic people can be.


Edit: so many people saying I should get a gun, do I have a gun now etc. H**l no! If I had a gun either I would have been k****d, to get my gun off me, or I would have k****d someone. No matter how f****d the situation was I wouldn't want to k**l someone, they were just morons who were acting on (untrue) rumors that I was a d**g d****r and someone worth robbing. But I would like to believe that they could turn their lives around. I dunno maybe that's naïve of me but hey, I'm still here. Would probably feel different if I had a wife and kids but I'm not so worried about myself I guess.

I was sitting at a coffee shop one afternoon minding my own business when a stranger came in the door, awkwardly glanced in my direction then looked me dead in the eye and said "You're being watched". My heart jumped and I just kind of responded in fear, "Excuse me"?

"You're being watched." He proclaimed once more, but this time a little more sternly. I must've had this look of terror on my face because he quickly chuckles and tells me someone is standing outside the window behind me staring at me, I look behind me and it's my brother.

I woke up hungover as h**l in my apartment in Philly to a big guy with a gun pointed at me telling me to give him money. It honestly took me a few seconds to realize what was happening and as I frantically searched for my wallet, he took my back pack with my laptop and also stole a few Eagles/Flyers jerseys. The weirdest thing was that he stole all my socks as well.

I was never in any danger, but observed another girl almost get kidnapped at Walmart...

Back when I was in high school, my mom, dad, kid brother, and I went grocery shopping at Walmart. A teenage girl (who was about my age at the time) approached us and awkwardly said she thought some sketchy men had been following her around the store.

I guess my family doesn't look very threatening, because she asked my dad if he would be willing to walk her out to her car. She seemed embarrassed and kept saying she was probably overreacting, but my dad was quick to say that he would never want me (his teenage daughter) walking out alone if I suspected someone was following me.

My mom, brother, and I stayed with our cart, and my dad went out into the parking lot with the girl. Several minutes later, they both came back inside and we knew something must've happened.

It turns out that an old van was parked and idling right next to her car. When the driver and passenger noticed the girl was with my dad, it sped away.

The police were called, the girl's parents showed up, and my dad and the girl provided statements to the officer. The officer applauded the girl for going with her gut by asking my dad to walk her out, because based on the evidence, there very well could've been a much scarier ending to the story...

Meanwhile, the incident freaked my parents out so much that I wasn't allowed to go to the store alone after dark until I graduated from high school. Lol.

Additional information that might be relevant: This happened in January or February of 2010 in northern Colorado. We never found out if somebody was caught after the incident, but after speaking to my dad he confirmed that neither him or the girl had remembered the license plate (although he did recall it was a CO plate)... He wanted to reiterate that it was 150% the girl taking a proactive approach to her own safety that saved her life that day.

I worked with this guy who was a hard partier. He seemed pretty cool when we were working, so when he mentioned a band I liked was playing at a little country bar right outside of town, I agreed to go with him. We had a blast and I ended up wasted. He kept my drinks flowing all night which was fun for me because I was only 19. We get back into town and he parks behind a bar that had a strict ID policy. He says he'll be right back. At this point, I'm not feeling good at all. Not drunk sick, but something different. I got out and made my way to my usual bar hangout across the street. A regular noticed me and later said that I didn't look right. He got a number for my friend (before cell phones) from the phone book and called him to come get me. The last thing I remember was the guy came in looking for me and the guy helping me refused to let him take me home. He left pretty quickly. I remember nothing else until I woke up the next day, tucked in on my friends couch. I felt like I'd been hit by a truck. Pretty sure the original guy roofied me and my instincts kicked in before he could accomplish anything. I avoided him like the plague at work after that. The good thing was, the guy that helped me at the bar ended up becoming one of my best friends.

Last year I moved from a dense urban area to a really pretty, underpopulated rural one. I got super into trail-running. There's a big, circular route that I like a lot in the local nature preserve, and over the summer I was on an early morning run there when I passed a dude sitting on a rock slightly off the trail. He looked exceedingly normal - streetclothes, hat, boots etc - and I figured him for a hiker. All good.

So I make my way down the path, around, uphill and to this nice overlook, where I usually stop to drink from the fountain. It's when I'm bent over at the fountain that I hear a twig snap, and I straighten up to see that guy, crouched over and stepping through the woods off the clearing like he's trying to creep up on me. I bolted.

The sprint back was the most terrifying experience of my life, obviously. I don't know if I lost him or if he gave chase at all. The police never found anyone matching his description, and I don't run anywhere near there anymore.

edit: If you'd like to be creeped out further - the police said he had most likely seen me before and been stalking me for an indeterminate period, i.e. he was camped out front to see whether I'd show, then cut across to the spot where he knew I always stopped. I'd probably seen him before without realizing it. He might know where I live.

Late 80s, was running errands in town with my mum and two sisters. Back then it wasn't uncommon to leave your kids in the car while you ran inside the store.

We are sitting in the car waiting, and then I see an older guy walking towards our car. I just get a really bad feeling and start yelling at my sisters to lock the doors, while I lock the two on my side.

He comes over and spends the next couple of minutes trying to open all the doors on the car while we are cowering in our seats. Eventually he gave up and left.

We were all 8 and under in age at the time. I just knew that if he got in the car he would take one of us.

The first apartment I was in, I moved in right after some coworkers, after living there for a bit, my coworkers jacked AF d**g d****r showed up pissed off. When I answered the door, he wanted to come in and talk to my coworker, I said it was just me and my gf, I didn't want to wake her up so I took the conversation outside. Turns out, he just got out if jail and needed $200. I talked him down saying that $200 wasn't worth any more time and to just let it go, after what felt like an eternity. He finally thanked me and left, I didn't sleep well until I left that apartment.

I was coming out of my local Walmart at maybe 9:30 pm, to a dark, only partially occupied parking lot. It was nice outside since it was summer, and I usually park far enough away to give myself a walk. I should mention that I’m a fairly small, thin female in my 20s as it seems important later.

My car was parked across the isle (or whatever it’s called) from a couple of others; a small sedan directly beside a large, very dark SUV. A lady probably in her thirties was standing between the sedan and SUV with a shopping cart with a baby carrier inside. I started loading my groceries and stuff into my car, and the lady started calling out to me.

“Hey miss, can you help me?”
I immediately got bad vibes, and didn’t approach. I asked “what’s up? How can I help?” without moving from near my car.

She was pulling at the baby carrier in the cart and apparently struggling. “Can you help me get this out of the cart? I can’t get it out!”
It seemed weird to me, since that more than likely wasn’t her first time using the carrier, and since I was pretty obviously smaller and likely less strong than she was. (That might be an unfair assumption to make, but it still seemed weird to me.)

Then, the light in the front seat of the SUV came on. I told her, “you can probably ask the person in that car, I don’t think I’m strong enough to help you!”

She seemed frustrated, and I was getting a bad feeling from the situation, so I was starting to get into my car. She shouted again “I can’t get my baby out, can’t you help me?”

I feel really bad if she really needed help, but I just pulled the car door shut and called my mom right away. It felt like some sort of setup for human trafficking or something- no actual baby noises or sign of an actual baby, and the way the cars were parked and he darkened SUV. I might be paranoid and overthinking, but I just didn’t get a good feeling from any of it. I’m sorry if that lady and her baby really needed help, but I’m sure a Walmart employee would have helped if that were the case!

Saturday at Barnes and Noble. I had my son ready on the changing table. When another man walks into the restroom and I see him just eyeing my boy. I decided to wait to uncover my son. The mans body language bothered me as he slowed down on washing his hands, drying and hesitantly walked out.
I kept my eyes on him as I placed myself in front of my son.

I was up in my third floor bedroom having just had a spliff chilling to music with my headphones on when I started to hear weird noises. Naturally I just thought it was because I was s****d but it was weird enough for me to take my headphones off.

I listened for a bit and coming from downstairs was a creepy voice I didn’t recognise mixed in with John’s (my housemates) voice but he sounded like he was in pain.

I was like w*f so I started walking slowly down my stairs and then looked into his room and saw John on his floor holding his eyes in pain with a big dude in a hoody shouting at him and then grabbing things off the shelves.

The next thing I knew autopilot had kicked in and I ran towards the room and the hooded dude turned, ran out the door when I smashed into him making us both go tumbling down the staircase trying to exchange punches on the way down. We scuffled a bit in the hallway until he eventually ran out the door.

It transpired that John (who at that time was on crutches) was hobbling home and went to open our front door when the hooded dude came up behind him and pepper sprayed him in his face blinding him. He then took him up to his bedroom to rob him and his stuff. Poor guy had to have eye pads on for the next 2 days.

Anyway, it was all pretty f****d up but John was ok in the end and honestly I was so s****d it didn’t really feel like it was happening at the time. Was like a bad trip.

All moved out 2 weeks later - was Brixton in London.