15. Even Africa Knows How To Get Spooky!
Back in the day, my dad had a company that rented out 4x4 vehicles to foreigners who wanted to explore rural Africa. These cars were kitted out for off-roading and rarely broke down. But this time one did. My dad had to retrieve the vehicle as he's done a few times before, and since we lived in the neighboring country It wasn't more than a 20-hour drive (we live in Cape Town, South Africa and the vehicle broke down in Namibia).
To my delight, my dad was setting off to retrieve this 4x4 in the upcoming school holiday and asked me to join him. I should add that I was about 16 at the time and ghost stories never really got to me. So we set off on our long journey and the trip goes smoothly as planned. We get to the collection point, hook up the broken down 4x4 to ours and off we go, no problems at all... Until it turned dark. Now I know Namibia quite well, it has some well-known ghost stories, ghost towns and other eerie occurrences have been reported, but in my mind that was just fantasy.
Fast forward to about 2:30 am (remember kids, nothing good ever happens after 2 am) and my dad wakes me up with noticeable uneasiness in his voice. He asked me to look in the rearview mirror and tell me what I see. I looked in the mirror and noticed two dim headlights almost on our rear bumper that appear to be bouncing around a bit. My dad told me he wanted to make sure I see it too and it isn't just his tired eyes playing tricks on him. I looked around and the area we were in was terrifying, to say the least. We were surrounded by hills, but because of the lack of light, it was just pure blackness against the night sky, covered in leafless trees with pointy sharp branches all over.
I ask my dad where we were and he simply said that he doesn't know, he's just been following the GPS and asked me to look if there were any towns near. There wasn't, not for more than 300 kilometers. He pointed back at the mirror and said "look". He then proceeded to shift over the center of the road to the other lane and the lights followed suit without hesitation as if they were tied to us. I asked my dad what it was and he said that he thinks its a truck. Now that in itself is not totally uncommon on these long cross country roads but something about this just seemed off.
I mentioned to my dad that the truck may simply want to pass us, we are pulling quite a bit of weight so we are way under the speed limit at this point and he could be impatient. Dad decides to slow down to 60km/h and moves into the yellow line in an attempt to get this truck to pass. Nope, the truck slows down too. Okay, let's take it down a notch, dad slows down to 40km/h. Nope, same result. We had to drop down to a speed of 20km/h for this truck to start overtaking us. And then it did...
We heard a groan and the grinding of gears and what seemed like an eternity till this truck started pulling up next to us. Now keep in mind these are quite windy roads with hills, so overtaking isn't recommended, especially not that slow, but this truck took its sweet time until it was right next to us.
It was one of those car hauling trucks that have two levels that it can carry cars on. It had chains all over the sides that were slowly clinging and clanging through the night. The back of the truck where the cars get loaded appeared bent out of shape and the metal was rusted and held together by pieces of wood and loose torn pieces of fabric were blowing in the wind. I was terrified. I shifted my attention to the cabin, black as the sky that night and no driver in sight. I'm not making this up, we saw nobody.
The truck pulled in front of us with a groan and it didn't seem like it could speed up anymore. Now we were behind this terrifying mess of a vehicle and my dad started getting impatient, we started overtaking the truck and checked again for life inside the cabin as we passed. Nothing. Once we were in front of the truck I noticed the headlights getting ever dimmer and dimmer, and when we picked up speed so did it. The lights kept dimming until there was but a spark left.
This is where I got convinced something supernatural was going on. We were driving on a hillside and a bend was coming up, not a tight one, but if missed one would go straight off the road and down the hill as there were no barriers. We go around the bend slowly, considering our heavy load and the truck just goes straight without hesitation. We both saw it drive straight off the road and down the hill where at the bottom it finally got to a stop and all the lights died.
We stopped at a rest stop for the night and head back there that morning to have a look if anyone was hurt or if the truck was there. It wasn't and there were no tracks or broken bushes where we saw it go off the road.
Photo by Robert Bye on Unsplash
14. This Is Why We Need Better Electric Cars
I was driving from Dallas to Tuscaloosa. I left at midnight and drove straight through the night with two friends passed out sleeping. It was probably 4 am and I had a 1/4 tank of gas which translates to about 100 miles. I see that the nearest town is about 90 miles so I’m pretty worried about making it.
Before I hit that town, I ran into a tiny town that wasn’t on the map. A few houses, a gas station, a convenient store, and that was about it.
I walk into the gas station and hand the guy a 50$ so I can fill up. He was a really tall skinny guy. Like skin wrapped around bones level skinny. Probably 6’5 at least. And he just had this eerie look about him.
He looks at me, leans over the counter, scans the outside, and looks back at me. He hands me my 50$ back and a hat and says “Look, you look like a nice young fella. You don’t want to be out here at this time of night looking like that. Put the hat on, get to your car quickly, and get gas at the next town.”
I was super confused and just said “I don’t have enough gas to get there, that’s why I’m here. I didn’t even know this place existed.” He responds “It doesn’t. Here, there’s 2 gallons left in this can. Just drive another 15-20 miles out and use those two gallons. But please, you need to move now.”
At that point, I stopped questioning him and left. On my return trip, it was day time. So I wanted to stop back in and return the can with 2 gallons in it. But wouldn’t you know? Couldn’t find the little town again. It’s like it disappeared over the weekend.
To this day, I refuse to stop in small towns that aren’t on the map. I have no idea what that gas station employee was trying to save me from, but he pushed me out of there with some urgency and even gave me free gas to do so.
Photo by Marc Schiele on Unsplash
13. This Is How Skynet Gets You Before The Robot Uprising
So, my best friend and I are driving from Texas to Kansas City. We wanted to pick up some tacos for a friend in KC on the way back, so we wanted to find the closest taco shop to KC. Google Maps says there is one on the way, just like two hours away from home! Score, right?
Wrong.
When we get close, it is near 2 AM. We have been driving all day. We are tired. Google Maps tells us to get off the highway, so we do. It drives us through a small town, Christmas lights and banners hanging, street lights on and everything holiday levels of cheer. Apparently, the place isn't in the town, which is unfortunate, but hey, fast food tex-mex. We keep driving, the roads get dodgier and dodgier until google maps has us turn down a literal dirt road. Another mile or so in, and Google Maps calmly says
"You have arrived at the destination."
We are surrounded by trees on all sides. It is pitch black. It is getting foggier by the second. I turn the car around and get out of there.
We can't cancel the google navigation, but instead of saying rerouting, that cold robot voice just keeps repeating:
Turn back. Turn back. Turn back.
I have to figure out how to get back on the highway, and it is made all the harder by the sudden shut down of the town. The lights are gone. The buildings are closed down and run down. Everything that had been alive ten minutes ago was rubble and regret. My friend is losing it, thinking we have entered Silent Hill. I am furiously driving, watching blankets of fog roll in behind us at every intersection. At last, I find the on-ramp and get back on the highway.
Sometimes I want to go looking for that town. Most days, though, I am smarter than that.
Photo by Tom Zittergruen on Unsplash
12. Now I Want T-Rex Pancakes!
My family has a cabin in Cook’s Forest, Clarion, PA. The cabin was built by my great granddad and has expanded a bit over the years. It has a nice little nook at the bottom of a long dirt road off the main path down a nearby hill. There are a few other properties around, but most are up and off on the dirt road, only one is down the hill and only halfway down at that. It’s not modern by any means; no internet, cell service, the TV still has dials you have to twist to get to watch a DVD. It’s very rustic and I love it.
The property halfway down the hill is visible from the front of our cabin, which is where the kitchen window, parking, porch, and fire pit are. For as long as anyone can remember, it’s been this abandoned lot that had what was once a cabin with a concrete basement. The cabin was built on a hill so half the basement stuck out, but the remaining part was crumbling. It also was at the fork where we would ride our ATVs to get to the firebreak, so even though it's creepy it was a very common and familiar sight.
On Memorial Day, which is when we opened the cabin after the winter, our family went to the cabin for the long weekend to spend time together. Everyone would usually get there in the early evening, and then all come together for my great granddad’s dinosaur pancakes for breakfast.
So I wake up, expecting to smell pancakes and hear chatter from the older members of my family down in the kitchen, but nothing. I assume I’ve gotten up too early, and go downstairs to use the bathroom and then go back to sleep. Looking back, the whole upstairs was just mattresses with an aisle between them, I should have noticed that most beds were empty.
I get downstairs and see all the adults outside, and I go out to say good morning and demand my T-Rex pancakes. I walk out and see all my family adults in a kind of semicircle facing an older man and a woman I didn’t recognize. I assume this is some adult situation so I go back inside to wake up my cousins, but not before looking at the clock on the microwave and seeing that it’s about 3 pm.
Now, I LOVED the cabin. I’d doodle the cabin itself, 4 wheelers, and the area around it for months leading up to Memorial Day weekend. I was usually up at dawn because I was so excited to just be there. Sleeping until 3 pm was not in any way normal.
I wake my cousins up and by the time they all mosey downstairs the adults are all back inside. Everyone is pretty silent but then great-grandpa fires up the stove and gets us kids excited for dino-cakes, so all seems normal.
I was there with one of my aunts and my uncle, no parents, and my aunt is pretty close in age to me and was for sure the “cool aunt”. So when I saw her pale as a sheet I went to ask what’s wrong.
She took me outside and pointed at the aforementioned abandoned and crumbling property. In its place was a sprawling cabin-mansion, parking area full of SUVs and the coolest looking 4 wheelers my 13-year-old self had ever seen. Aunt tells me that the owners had come to say hi (the couple I saw earlier) and invited us over to hang out with their nieces and nephews, as they were having a Memorial Day get together just like us.
Me, having zero thought besides AWESOME 4-WHEELERS, almost ran to the house but my aunt caught me and rather forcefully reminded me of my dino-cakes. I conceded and ran back inside, to an atmosphere so thick with tension that even my undeveloped brain could detect it. The oldest of the adults were acting normal and playing around with us kids, but something was very off. I finally asked what was up, and my aunt bonked me on the head and asked if I had seen that massive cabin-mansion last night, last year, the year before? We’d come to the cabin every few weeks until December, did I see any construction? Well...no..but they invited us over and they have cool 4 wheelers auntie come on!!
A resounding NO from multiple family members made my emotional girl self almost flee and cry until my grampie (a 6’7” hulk of a man) got down to my level and explained that he felt there was something weird going on. He said the couple didn’t act right, I assumed that meant they were rude, and that we should just keep to ourselves this weekend. I agreed and we went about our day, all adults keeping us occupied with activities either inside or behind the cabin.
We get ready for bed when I see my great-granddad (WWII vet) who had the only bedroom on the first floor loading 3 shotguns, handing one off to my grampie and the other to my uncle/cool aunt’s husband. To my shock and awe, my Gramie pulls out a Glock from her purse. I go to bed with images of my little Gramie taking down a bunch of bad guys with her shiny pistol.
I wake up the next day to the smell of pancakes and the sound of adults chatting downstairs. I’m sad because today is when we have to pack and leave, but things seem back to normal so I’m very glad. I run downstairs, note that the clock says 7:30, but ignore the weirdness and sit in front of a plate of dino-cakes that I dig into while asking my aunt what time we have to leave.
“Leave? We don’t leave until tomorrow.” Wait, what day is it? “It’s Saturday, we just got here last night.” I notice just a bit of doubt in my aunt’s eyes that I know something is up, and I run outside. The abandoned lot is back to its decrepit state. I resolve to brush it off and enjoy my ATV riding and forget about everything pretty quickly.
It wasn’t until I got back to school and was called to the main office where the asked why I wasn’t at school on Monday. I told them that today was Monday, what are they talking about. Nope, it’s Tuesday, and my absence was unexplained despite several calls to my parents.
11. The Grove Of Tranquility
I've been living out of my car recently. There's a stretch of road in the southwest that runs along national forests. One night I was looking for a good dark pull off to sleep in. I found a good one, it had trees to pull under so the headlights out on the two-lane wouldn't be as disturbing, as it has truck traffic.
In the morning I heard a car pull off and watched as it went on past me into the forest on a two-track. I hadn't seen that lane when it was dark, it looked inviting.
I decided to try driving on it myself, it turned out to be a lovely area, and eventually, I found a really nice spot under some trees out in there where it was very quiet and I could see the Milky Way at night, although it was subzero most nights.
I stayed out there for several days, data service was good so I kept applying, and during that time I got an interview invitation, the first in a long time. They called while I was sitting under those trees, the guy who had called later told me that I had sounded very relaxed.
Heartened by that call, I drove out to the highway to get some groceries and water. When I came back up the highway I could not find the original entry point. I found another two-track and eventually got back to the same spot, but that lane had no place to pull off and park.
Months later I took a temporary house about 40 miles from there and sometimes still use that stretch of highway.
I look carefully every time I pass through, sometimes irritating other drivers; I have not yet found the original entry. None of the pull offs have a lane at the back or even a break in the fence, and none of the lanes have even a slight wide spot, much less a deep place with trees.
I am not that kind of person at all, which is why I re-examine that stretch every time I pass through, but I'm slowly resigning myself to having spent at least one night in a place that doesn't currently exist.
Photo by Simson Petrol on Unsplash
10. This Seems Like A Deleted Scene From “Big Fish”
10 years ago, my friend and I were bored one night and were driving around. We were on a highway in NJ about 30 minutes from our houses and through the trees in the middle of nowhere we see this beautiful freshly paved cement pathway with lampposts every 100 feet just lighting this pathway up. It was beckoning to us...and so we found the nearest exit.
We drove around for a while through the darkness until the road came to a dead end and the path began. We got out and started walking on this path through the trees and these beautiful wide open fields until eventually, it ends at a little small town after a couple of miles. At this point, it's like 2 am and a small town like this nothing should be open except for this pizzeria....which is odd...so we go in. It is empty except for the older gentleman behind the counter. We order and start eating...then another older customer walks in.
The gentleman behind the counter and this customer do a double take at each other and then smile. Both of them run around the counter and embrace... "Mario!" "Stefano!" "What has it been 40 years?" "They talk the whole time about their childhood and growing up back in Italy. We think what are the chances we would be here..at this moment, seeing friends reunited after 40 years, just plain, odd.
My friend and I finish up and we head back down the brightly lit path and back to the car and call it a night. Ever since that night my friend and I tried to find that brightly lit path but to no avail. We haven't seen it since from the highway or driving down that road. In the small town, the pizzeria is there, but it closes at 10pm, so no explanation of why it would be open at 2 am. Just plain odd and something we never could explain, experiencing an unlikely moment to watch friends be reunited after 40 years.
9. Got Some Real “Jonestown” Vibes
Near where I live there is a little town called Ridgeview Park.
My friend was talking to a new girl, and we were scoping out where she lived so he wouldn't get lost on his upcoming date when we took a wrong turn.
After a slight decline, the road sharply rose until we crossed some train tracks and were met with a fence about 20 feet tall made from wood pillars about the size around of telephone poles. There was a gate that was open, so we drove in.
Once inside, there is a single loop that winds through the whole complex. Only wide enough for one car. One way in, one way out. In the middle sits a large dome/church. The houses that surround it are all square two-story homes painted brightly in strange colors. There is a drained community pool off to one side with grass growing in the basin. Lined up along the very back of the loop are 50-70 single car garage doors, all right next to each other. No house appears to have their own.
It was strangely quiet and as we drove passed the homes, residents would step outside and watch us. The loop isn't too large, and we eventually made our way around and exited through the gate and some people walked closer watching us leave.
I haven't seen anything else like it. Their website is password protected, and their Facebook page is private. The part you can see says it is a "summer community" that started out as a Methodist camp and still has religious services, and that they only sell homes to members of the family.
Such a creepy vibe to the whole place, and we try to drive through at least once a year (when the gate is open).
8. Nope. I’m Done. This Is Too Creepy
A friend had a recording studio in his parents' house in Colrain, Ma. We were up late, having fun and recording, and for whatever reason, we took his 4 track to the barn to record ourselves singing. On the tape, there's a take of the two of us singing, and then there's a pop, we stop and start laughing all of a sudden, because in real life the single light bulb in the barn had suddenly burst and surprised us. Ha ha! We hauled everything back inside and went to listen to the takes and add more.
But it's western Massachusetts and everything is haunted here. So, of course, on a separate track, we heard a faint voice. New tape, unrecorded area. As we're singing on track 2, a frantic voice is on track 3, quiet but clear enough. It yells "I GOT AWAY! I GOT AWAAAAAAY! I’LL SHOW YOU!!!" And as soon as it says "I'll show you" that was when the light bulb burst and we start laughing.
18 years later is gives me chills to think about. That night we left all the lights on, it was too creepy. There were high tension lines nearby, it wasn't unusual to pick up AM radio on the tape but... On an untouched track? And such a terrified voice coming from the local oldies station at 1 am?
Photo by Zachary Sinclair on Unsplash
7. You Can Checkout Any Time You Like, But You Can Never Leave
There's this old abandoned hotel a couple hours away from me. It's not like a modern hotel, but like an old Victorian house that was turned into a B&B. It's totally boarded up, a big fence around it with barbed wire. Apparently, it's pretty haunted.
In high school, some friends and I went to go check it out. It's in the middle of this a circular road, not a roundabout but you can go around several times before feeding back onto the main road. It takes about ninety seconds to go around this circle. Anyway, the first time we drive through all the shades on the windows are drawn. We drive around again, only half of the shades are drawn. The next time we drive by all the shades are open. We drove around one last time and all the shades were drawn again. We freaked out and drove out of there.
Photo by Okamatsu Fujikawa on Unsplash
6. Run For The Hills, Run For Your Life
Many years ago, my family and I moved from California to Nebraska. I was still a young kid, probably 5-6 years old. We were driving through Nevada and shortly after Las Vegas and we needed to stop and fuel up.
We stopped at your typical old-school gas station that rings when you pull up to the pump. I don't remember it that well but my dad told me it looked normal. He got out to stretch while my mom went inside to pay for gas. My mom said that when she walked in, the gas station had quite a few people inside (despite us being the only car there).
When she walked up to the counter to pay for gas, everyone turned to her and the lights went out. She ran outside where my dad witnessed everything and helped her into the car and we sped off down the interstate, not caring whether we ran out of gas or not. To this day, my mom says that's one of her scariest encounters because she can't explain nor figure out exactly what was going on. And yes, we found a better gas station down the road and made it to Nebraska.
5. Maybe It Was Pumpkin Hill?
When my brother and I were 10 and 12 respectively our family went on a hike through the cemetery and into the woods not far from our house.
My brothers and I would explore these woods every day. Even camped in them before. We knew it like the back of our hands.
Anyway, as the family hit our usual spot by the creek halfway through the hike my brother and I said we would be back in a few, we wanted to wander off further up creek. So we did.
We came across a very large hill we had never seen before. It was littered with what looked like all of someone's worldly possessions. As if they turned a house upside down, shook out the contents, took the house and left. There were tons of painted X's on the trees showing someone intended to cut them down at some point. We poked around for a few when we thought we heard our mom hollering at us. So we turned tail and walked maybe 20 feet back down the hill to where our parents were. The entire encounter was maybe 45 minutes long.... on our end.
As soon as our mom saw us, we got the scolding of a lifetime. We had actually been gone for almost 4 hours. She never saw us walk up any hill and remembered seeing us meandering down the straight path by the creek, not turning up a hill that was 20 feet away. My mom, dad and our other brother combed the woods for over 4 hours screaming our names and couldn't find hide nor tail of us.
We pleaded our case and even tried showing her the hill. Surely she was messing with us. So we stomped up to the turn off for the hill and....it was gone. Nowhere to be seen. For YEARS we explored the woods determined to find that hill. We covered miles and miles of off-path woods. As we got older we mapped it out. To this day that hill does not exist. We never found it again. Never found the weird furniture, toys, clothes, and other household items that were scattered across the hill. And never met anyone in the area that had a clue about the hill.
We probably just wandered way further then we meant to but I always found it weird that we never found the hill again.
Image by Jordan Stimpson from Pixabay
4. But What Is Buffer Night?
This story takes place in the mid-'90s, a time before widely used cell phones and GPS. My two best friends and I freshly able to drive decided we would head out on a Saturday to a water park in Southern Missouri, about a 3-hour drive from our home town in Northwest Arkansas. We had never been before and just used road maps to get there.
We had a pretty fantastic time but as the sun started to reach the tree line we thought we ought to head home. It’s about 7 o'clock and we missed a turn but my friend Paul who was navigating said not to worry another turn was coming up that would get us their just as fast. The next turn took us from detoured to completely lost. By 8 o'clock we are on a road that seemed to be lacking in informative road signs and zero lights.
We finally see a gas station and are relieved to get some directions as well as some gas. My one friend and I go inside while my other friend pumps the gas. We come inside and a very friendly old man in his early 60s who gives us a very large grin and says "Weeeeell Hello there" it was very foghorn leghorn-esk. He looked like he was from the country but very pleasant.
We explained that we were needing gas and wanted to fill up. He explained that he was about to shut down for the night but would be happy to oblige us. He then said something I'll never forget, "You have to make haste though... tonight is buffer night." My friend and I looked at each other and shared an awkward look. We asked him if he could point out our location on the road map.
While he was finding it two people entered the shop from the back and called out for the old man. He said he was up front. The two approached us, A man and a woman, and at first looked confused then as though hit with an epiphany they smiled. They asked the old man "Are these the guests tonight?" He shot them a look and said "No these are some lost children."
The way he said "Children" caused the hairs on my neck to stand up. Not sure why. They looked at us and said "The three of you should make haste, because tonight is buffer night." Two things scared me right then. The first being how did they know about my other friend pumping gas out front when they came from the back and the second being that they repeated the old man verbatim.
We clarified the directions to get back on the main highway and paid for the gas without waiting for change. My friend and I booked it out of the gas station to find my other friend already in the passenger seat. When we got into the car we were nearly airborne from the speed we took off. Before we could say anything, my friend in the passenger seat told us about how three men from across the street stood under a tree just watching him. He waved but they didn't move a muscle.
We just drove as fast as we could until we got back to the highway. To this day I will still have a nightmare every so often about that gas station and what my imagination has twisted "Buffer night" into being.
3. I Did Promise A Milkshake
So back when I was younger I was kind of a terrible kid. To deal with being just totally unmanageable as well as being a child of two narcissists the decision was made that I would work on a huge ranch deep in the countryside of Arizona (should be noted I was a pretty accomplished equestrian rider at this time so ranching wasn't really out of the realm of what I could do) . On cattle drives it was not unusual to stumble upon houses, encampments and even whole towns in also in the middle of nowhere. These all had their own movie like situations that came out of them but one, in particular, I will NEVER forget.
Here we are on another cattle drive this time pretty far into it, we have been out in the desert if I remember correctly easily three or more weeks when we stumble upon this town in the middle of a canyon that is picture perfect in addition low and behold there is a diner. Like an old totally chromed out east coast diner. We have not eaten anything really of substance for a while and the head wrangler promised me a milkshake for my birthday. I was beyond stoked if not a little weirded out but honestly, after you spend enough time in the wilderness of the US, nothing really surprises you.
So we leave behind some of our mates to watch the cattle who are resting in the shade after getting over this rocky wash and hike into the canyon to go to the diner. The second we set foot in the diner the head guy, this older cowboy who is the head of all of us grabs my arm. This place is packed and everyone is wearing odd clothing like stuff from maybe the 40s or 50s? My head wrangler (T) is a really tough guy who from ranching for his entire life had definitely seen some weird stuff. T grabs my arm (as I am just focused on milkshake and about to go grab a booth) when I realize everyone is just staring at us and there is a really strange feeling in the air. Now we were used to getting looks all the time from being smelly and dirty but these people had these almost fear and/or shock . T and the two others with us slowly back out of the diner dragging me in tow and we immediately go back to our site and leave without a word. I was so confused I just went along with all of it.
To this day I have no idea what that place was or if we stumbled through a time warp or what but my wrangler told me later that night when we were away from them that he felt like we had stepped back in time. Like truly stepped back in time and that place was stuck in some sort of loop and if we stayed we would get stuck too. T never really spoke a lot, nor was he to be messed with, he also had a mean sweet tooth despite having almost no teeth so for him to have reacted that way really shook me.
I have no idea if what he told me is true but I will never forget the look of all those people in that immaculate diner.
Photo by Peter Bond on Unsplash
2. Here Come The Men In Black
When I was small I went to check out a local graveyard (it's not as weird as it sounds, there was Norman art and scattered human bones. These are neat when you're 10)
Anyway, I'm cycling in there and I see like 4 guys in Ordnance Corps gear. Walking from grave to grave, before I had much chance to investigate, two soldiers pointed their weapons and told me to leave.
So I headed back home and told my mom what I saw. Explosive scares happen every once and a while here in Kerry as they find ammo from the civil war so we (me, mom, dad, brother) decided to go drive down. This is only a few minutes after I was there. We turn into the junction and that’s all I remember.
I wake up in a field next to the graveyard. My head hurt so much. After I realize where I am. I begin yelling out for my family and I hear replies from over by the graveyard. Hopping over the wall, I see my brother lying the wrong way over a bench and my dad coming out from the abandoned church (he says he was sitting against one of the walls). We go over to the car, which is haphazardly in the middle of the car park. And my mom is slumped over the wheel. When we wake her up she jumps back with a panicked look on her face. She yells at us to get into the car and we speed off.
When we get home we start talking about what happened and me, my dad and my brother all remember nothing past the junction. My mom remembers past that the junction. She says she saw "something" there was a bright white flash. And there was nothing.
It still freaks me out just thinking about it.
Photo by Kenny Stier on Unsplash
1. Honestly, They Probably Just All Decided To Move To Canada.
There is a town right near me in Pittsburgh, PA (Lincoln Way in Clairton, PA) where a whole street full of families disappeared overnight back in the 70s. Everything (bills, food, clothes, etc...) was left behind, no trace of them to this day. You can go on google maps and look it up, the houses are abandoned and almost closed off from the rest of the town.
