[0:10]This is a story about the importance of truly knowing people. You may think you have a good read on someone, but in reality, you have no idea what they're thinking or what they're capable of. This happened maybe four or five years ago. The struggle of everyday life was starting to wear thin on me and my girlfriend Stacy. She suggested that we rent a cabin out in the woods just to escape for a few days. Naturally, I loved the idea, but I wasn't exactly rolling in the cash. So, she floated another idea. My best friend Randy and his girlfriend were close to us, so she suggested that they come with us to make it like a couple's getaway. It would be fun hanging out, and they would be able to pay for half the trip. I loved the idea, and when I presented it to Randy, he was on board immediately. Since we were taking this trip in the middle of winter, we wanted a cabin with a fireplace and somewhere that would just give us that warm and cozy feeling. Stacy found a place and we booked it for the end of that month. We were excited and started planning meals and other fun stuff to do at the cabin. Less than a week until the trip, Randy and his girlfriend broke up. The breakup was sudden and it didn't end well. Stacy and I tried to figure out if we should offer Randy his money back or just not say anything. We really didn't have the funds to do this alone, but it's also not fair to make Randy pay for half a trip that he's not even going on. I called Randy to talk about it and he told me not to worry about it. I offered several times to give him his money back, but he insisted that we still go and have a romantic getaway. When I told Stacy the news, she was excited and we started getting pumped for our trip alone. The next day, which was only a few days before the trip, Randy told me that he found someone else to go on the trip with us. I told him that I wasn't crazy about that idea and when Stacy heard, she agreed. We didn't really want to travel with some random rebound that even Randy barely knew. I tried explaining to him that travel compatibility is a real thing, and that we know nothing about this woman. Randy begged, and after a few minutes, he talked me into it. He offered to pay for my entire portion of the trip, and he promised that his new girlfriend would be cool and that we would love her. Stacy and I were not happy. We knew the trip had the potential to end in awkward disaster, that alone would be a horror story. It took a little while, but we decided that we were going to make the best of this situation. The weekend finally arrived, and we carpooled to the cabin together in my truck. Randy introduced us to his new girlfriend, Lucy. She seemed sweet and even a little quiet. Stacy and I are not shy, and we can be loud and annoying. We spent most of the drive trying to get to know Lucy, but she wasn't very talkative. I barely knew what her voice sounded like by the time we got to the cabin. The trip started fine. We all got settled in and we were just hanging around the fireplace chatting. Stacy and I love playing card games, but we especially love Uno. We just love its simplicity, and we could play it just about anywhere and anytime. So Stacy suggested that we play Uno, and everyone was on board. Even Lucy seemed like she was finally starting to come out of her shell. During the Uno game, we witnessed our first red flag of the weekend. When Stacy called Uno, indicating that she only had one card left, Lucy looked over at her, and with rage and anger in her normally mousy voice, she started to rip into Stacy. We all kind of laughed at first, thinking she was kidding around, but that made it so much worse. Lucy started to go insane. She was screaming that Stacy must have been cheating and there's no way she could have only had one card left. Stacy was defending herself and Lucy just kept acting like a toddler and screaming about her cheating. I'm not being sarcastic when I say she was screaming about Uno with people she barely knew. Even if Stacy was cheating, which she wasn't, this was an outrageous overreaction. When Randy tried to calm her down, she threw all her cards and left the living room. He apologized to us, and we just laughed it off. Later that night, Stacy made dinner, and Lucy seemed completely fine now, almost like she didn't throw a temper tantrum a few hours ago. This is red flag number two. While we were eating, Lucy started to overshare details about her and Randy's personal time together. Things you don't say to others in public, like very private and personal things that I'm not going to mention in the story for Randy's sake. I could tell he was embarrassed. I just kept trying to crack jokes and change the subject. Eventually she stopped, and the four of us didn't do much for the rest of the evening. That night, Stacy woke me up in the middle of the night and told me to listen. I got up, and I could hear Lucy and Randy arguing. I couldn't fully understand what they were saying because the bedrooms were on opposite ends of the cabin, and we had our door closed. I could just tell by the tone of the arguing and inflection in the voices that they were clearly fighting. The awkwardness of this was crazy and we didn't want to make Randy feel any worse, so we pretended that we didn't hear it and we decided not to mention it the next day. The next morning and day were uneventful. Randy seemed distant and we barely saw or heard from Lucy. It wasn't until that night that things got weird. At some point in the middle of the night, I woke up to Randy standing over me. It scared the hell out of me. I asked him what he was doing, and he looked terrified. He asked if he could stay in our room tonight and if we could keep the door locked. I was confused and asked him if he could explain why. Apparently, he woke up during the night, and Lucy was standing at the bottom of the bed, just staring at him. When he asked what she was doing, she just shrugged and said that she was watching him sleep, just in case, whatever that means. He said they stared at each other for a moment, and then she just turned and walked out of the room. Several minutes later, she still didn't return to the room. He decided to get up and go check on her and make sure she was okay, and that's when he noticed something on her side of the bed. He moved the blanket a little bit, and right there on the bed was a large knife. That's when he decided to sneak over to our room. He quietly walked through the dark cabin, trying not to make a noise. When he got to the living room, he heard Lucy humming to herself and wandering around, like she was almost dancing. He said it kind of looked like she was sleepwalking, but worse. When she was almost at our bedroom door, the floor creaked subtly and she stopped humming. She turned to his general direction, and in an ominous voice, she said, "I see you." Randy said that it didn't even look like she was looking at him, just in his direction. After that, she turned around and continued to hum and skip around the dark cabin. That's when he entered our room and locked the door. I was trying to process all this, and at the same time, Stacy woke up. We were in the middle of nowhere, so we didn't really know what to do. Lucy could have very well just been in some sort of elaborate sleepwalking state, but I don't know if that explains the knife. While we were contemplating, we could still hear Lucy pacing around the cabin. A few minutes later, we heard the front door to the cabin slam shut. We opened the bedroom door, and Lucy wasn't there. Randy looked out of the window, and saw Lucy heading into the freezing cold forest with a T-shirt and a pair of shorts on. Randy ran to his bedroom and screamed because the knife was gone. Stacy said we had to go out and get her and couldn't just let her wander in the woods in the middle of the night, especially if she was sleepwalking. Randy was terrified and wanted nothing to do with his new girlfriend. Stacy went back to our room and started putting on warm clothes and a jacket. Randy was pleading with her to just call a park ranger or something. I've known Randy my entire life and I've never seen him this scared. During our brief discussion in the bedroom, we heard the cabin door open and close again. We all got quiet and listened intently. We heard Lucy stomping down the hall toward her and Randy's bedroom, and she was still humming. We stayed in our bedroom that night and didn't sleep at all. At 6:00 in the morning, we heard Lucy in the kitchen washing dishes. We all went out there, and she greeted us like nothing was wrong. Stacy and I chalked this all up to Lucy just being a bit off and Randy going through some of his own issues since he had just broken up with his long-term girlfriend before this trip. Everything we experienced the night before was weird for sure, but it could be explained by sleepwalking or something like that. Randy was convinced that something darker was at play here, but Stacy dismissed it right away. She went to help Lucy clean, and I tried to console Randy the best I could before he went back to his bedroom. Not two minutes later, he texted me and told me to go to his bedroom right now and not to tell anyone. I went over there, and he showed me something horrifying. While he was packing up his stuff, he moved Lucy's bag. When he set her bag down, a large knife fell out of the side. The same knife that Randy saw the night before. I could see and feel how scared Randy was. He put the knife back in her bag and waited in the living room for everyone else to be ready to leave. The drive home was full of tension. Just knowing that Lucy had that knife in her bag freaked me out. Thankfully, we made it home safe and physically unharmed. Randy ghosted Lucy after that, and she must not have cared because she never tried to get a hold of him either. Occasionally, Stacy will still try to find Lucy on social media, but she's never had any luck. She's even looked at inmate lockup records and still no Lucy. It's like there's no record of Lucy existing, making us feel like she was clearly using a fake name. But if that's the case, what did she want? I wonder if she intended to hurt Randy? Truly, I have no idea what to think about that weekend. The fact that she had the knife, and there's no record of this woman, just makes me think whoever she was, she had dark intentions. I guess it's good that, for whatever reason, she didn't act on them. The last few years, I've really separated myself from the rest of the world. I've always been someone who likes to be alone, and I don't love the company of others, except for some very few people in my life. A few years ago, I was at the height of my introverted personality. I would go out of my way to find peace and quiet. During this time of my life, I would often find cabins and other secluded places to stay on the weekends whenever I had the funds to make it happen. That may seem ridiculous to some people, but my anxiety for just normal interactions with people was so bad at this point that I would go to those extreme lengths just to be alone. This extreme habit continued for about two years. During that time, something happened at one of my weekend cabin getaways that really freaked me out. The weekend started like any other one. I found a secluded cabin about two hours from home and made the trek out there. I usually would use that weekend time to hike, spend time outdoors, and mostly just catch up on reading. I love to read, and being out in the wilderness where it's quiet always helps me to relax and concentrate. I arrived Friday evening at the cabin, made a small dinner, read a few chapters of my book, and went to bed early. The next morning, I decided to take a long hike. I've always just found peace being outside in nature. Whether it's sunny, rainy, or even snowing, I just love being outside. While I was hiking through the woods, I could hear something behind me, the sound of twigs and branches snapping. You could assume that it was just the sounds of nature, but it sounded almost too deliberate to be natural. I tend to be irrational, so my mind went right away to somebody following me. But every time I turned around and scanned the surroundings, I was completely alone. I kept hiking for a little while longer, but that feeling of paranoia just kept growing. I planned on hiking a little further, but I decided to cut the hike short and head back to the house. I had gotten to a point where I wasn't even enjoying being outside anymore. That night was particularly rough on me. Maybe it was because of all the anxiety I was feeling on the hike earlier, but I just remember being sad. I decided to have a drink, and that turned into a few drinks. Once I started to feel the drinks hitting my system, I felt better, and all that anxiety from earlier slowly disappeared. I tried to read, but instead, I just put on some music and started to vibe. Around 11:00 that night, I thought I heard a knock at the door. I turned the music off and made my way to the door. The front door was a heavy wooden door with two rectangular windows set into it. I looked outside and saw nothing, so I walked away, and before I could sit back down, I heard another knock at the door. I went back over to look out, and this time, someone was standing there, but it was too dark to make out any details.
[13:05]Before I said anything, I turned on the front light, which mostly illuminated the man standing out there. He didn't look scary or disheveled. It was the opposite of that. A clean-cut man with a suit was standing on the other side of the door. He was about 6 feet tall, had an athletic build, and was clean-shaven with a slicked-back haircut. This man was clearly out of place. He looked like he was ready for a business meeting, not a nighttime walk in the woods. I couldn't figure out why a man in a suit would randomly show up to a secluded cabin at 11:00 p.m. From my side of the door, I asked the man if he was okay and what he wanted. There was a weird and almost unnatural pause before the man answered. It was almost like he was processing what I was saying before he answered. Then he finally answered and said that he was driving with his girlfriend earlier. He claimed that he had spent hours walking around looking for her, and now he's lost. He asked if he could please come inside so he could call someone for help. On its own, this was alarming and unsettling, just because a random stranger appeared at the door in the middle of the woods. But one of the most unsettling parts of this was his lack of any emotion in his voice. This did not sound like a man who was lost and missing his girlfriend. He sounded completely void of emotion. I told him to back away from the door and wait at the end of the driveway, and that I would call someone for help. He paused again and looked around slowly, with that same lack of energy. He said that he really needed to come inside. Something was outside and if he didn't get inside for help, he was going to be in trouble. The tension I felt at this moment is almost indescribable. I told him I was calling the police and that he could either wait outside or leave, but I was not letting him inside the cabin. As I walked away from the door to grab my phone, I heard him say that he wanted to hide inside the cabin. He was in trouble, and he needed to hide inside. I grabbed my phone, and that's when he started to aggressively pound on the door. I ran back to the door, and I started to scream some vulgar things at the man outside. In the middle of my rant, I stopped yelling because I heard the man laughing. This was by far the most emotion the man had shown. I looked out the window, and the man had his face practically pressed up against it. His face was just inches away from mine. I nearly fell over from the shock of seeing him so close to me. In a calm voice, he said, "Come on, Victor, just open the door already." somehow, this stranger in his suit knew my name. I was frozen for a few seconds, and then without thinking, I dialed 911, and I told them that I was staying at a cabin, and a strange man was trying to break in. As soon as I hung up the phone, I looked out the window, and nobody was there. For almost 15 minutes, I waited for the police, and I never once stopped looking out the window. During that time, I didn't see any movement outside. It was one single patrol car, and when he got there, I opened the door and let him in quickly. I told the cop everything, and he seemed concerned and confused. He told me that none of the other surrounding residents reported anything weird, and this was the first time he had ever gotten a call like this. The cop was nice and could tell that I was a nervous wreck. He suggested that I drive into town and stay at one of the hotels if I was still scared. I told him that I had been drinking and that I didn't feel comfortable driving my car, but I didn't want to stay there alone. He was nice enough to offer to drive me into town. As we were walking to the patrol car, I heard the officer make a weird sound, almost like he was shocked. I asked what was wrong, and he pointed to the tires of my car in the driveway. My tires were deflated, and it looked like they had been slashed. I started to unravel a bit, and the cop did a good job of keeping me as grounded as I could be. He drove me to a nearby hotel and stayed with me in the lobby until I could get in touch with my dad. I stayed in that hotel that night, and my dad came to pick me up in the morning and helped me sort out the details of getting my car towed. The owner of the cabin reached out to me a million times to apologize, but I just didn't care. I wanted this experience to be over. I didn't even ask for a refund. Some people have floated the idea to me that somehow the owner of the cabin was involved in this nightmare, or that the owner himself was the man in the suit. But I don't think so. The man had a picture of himself on his profile, and the man in the suit looked nothing like this guy. I never got any answers, and I'm sure I never will. I still get chills to this day when I think about that night. Even seeing those stupid prison windows freaks me out. I hate knowing that somewhere out there, this man is potentially still terrorizing people. About six months ago, my father passed away. I'm not looking for any sympathy or anything like that. I didn't have a good relationship with the man. He wasn't a bad guy, he just didn't know how to be a proper father to me specifically. At a very young age, I realized that I was nothing like him. I knew I wasn't going to become the person he wanted me to be, and I know that bothered him, even if it was just subconscious. Fast forward to six months ago when my father passed, and I was surprised to see that he left me his cabin in his will. I've had friends tell me that this was my father playing one last joke on me, but I don't think that's the case. I think he knew I would sell it, and I think that's what he wanted me to do. After some of the boring paperwork details, I was told that to sell it, I needed to go and clean it up and maybe fix some of the things that needed work. I used that as an excuse to stay at the cabin one last time. This was my way of saying goodbye to my father. When I arrived at the cabin, the first thing I noticed was the horrific smell. It smelled like death in there, and no, he didn't pass away in the cabin. He actually hadn't been to the cabin in almost a year before he died. I looked around for any dead animals, but I think the place just stunk from years of not being cleaned properly. The next thing I noticed after the smell was that the cabin looked exactly how I remembered it looking when I was 10. He still had the same setup, the same gross couches, the same bookshelf. Literally everything was the same. I spent a few hours downstairs deep cleaning every inch of that place. Luckily, my father fixed the roof a few years ago, so that was the one thing I didn't need to worry about. While I was going over my checklist of things I wanted and needed to do, I kept hearing noises coming from above me, like the sound of rustling and movement. That's when I remembered that he had an attic in his cabin. Attic might be a stretch, it's really like a mix of an attic and a crawl space, almost like it doesn't know exactly what it wants to be. There's a back hallway in the cabin, and located on the ceiling in the back hall is a pull-down cord. When you pull the cord, the door opens, and one of the retractable ladders comes down. I slowly started going up the ladder, and I was prepared to be attacked by a legion of raccoons or squirrels. Instead, I was attacked by an even more foul smell than before. I started to cough from the horrible smell in the attic. After my coughing spell, I looked around and was disgusted. There were boxes everywhere, but the worst part was that there was trash all over the place, wrappers from food, empty beer cans, and just garbage everywhere. I knew my dad was not the cleanest person, but I also didn't think my dad was this messy and disgusting. I picked up some of the trash, but I only stayed up there for a little bit. The smell was horrible, and I was tired from cleaning downstairs. I wasn't mentally prepared to go through all the boxes and deal with the upstairs at that moment. I took out a bunch of trash, and decided that I would clean upstairs tomorrow. Not long after, I went to bed. I put some of my clean sheets on his bed and slept in his old room. I woke up during the night because I thought I heard the sound of rustling again. I started to think that maybe the walls had some kind of animal infestation. That would explain why I kept hearing movement, and if animals were living in the walls, maybe animals were also dying in the walls, and that would explain the smell. The only problem with my theory was that the sounds I kept hearing were clearly coming from above my head in the attic. Since I wasn't sleeping very well, I decided to plug my nose and go check it out. When I got to the back hall, I noticed that the attic door latch was open, and the ladder was hanging down. I thought that was weird, but totally possible that I didn't shut the door all the way, and maybe the wind or raccoons knocked it down. When I went to latch the door, I noticed another snack food wrapper on the ground at the base of the ladder. I couldn't believe there was more trash. I picked it up, stormed into the kitchen angrily, and threw the trash away. I grabbed a water bottle, went to the living room, and sat on the couch. It was dark in the living room, and I knew I wasn't going to fall asleep again, so I decided to stay awake. He had a small end table next to the couch with a little lamp on it. I turned on the lamp, and it wasn't very strong. It was a low orange light, but it was enough for right now, just enough so I didn't have to sit in complete darkness. I started to think about my father. Then I started thinking about my father in this cabin. I was thinking to myself, why would he ever hang out in that nasty, dirty attic when he has the entire cabin to himself? Even though the cabin was disgusting, it was a lot nicer than a dirty attic. While I was sitting there, I looked over to the corner of the room, and I saw something weird. It looked like a blanket covering something next to the recliner. That alone wouldn't be weird. What was weird is that I cleaned that entire downstairs earlier and I don't remember a blanket covering anything. I slowly got up and started to approach the blanket. I froze in my tracks. I was a couple feet away from the blanket, and I noticed something that looked like the bottom of a boot protruding from the blanket. I slowly took a step back and tried to focus my eyes in the mostly dark room. I was staring right at the blanket, and I watched the entire blanket shift. It was clear to me that someone was under this blanket, and I wasn't hearing animals earlier. I was listening to the sound of a person moving around. I stood there for a second, just watching the blanket. The more I stared at it, the more I realized how obvious it was that a person was hiding there. I could clearly see the blanket moving up and down from whoever was breathing underneath the blanket. I didn't want to find anything else out about this person. I slowly retreated to the kitchen, grabbed my phone and keys, and sprinted out of the cabin. I ran to my car and started it, and started backing down the long driveway. While I was backing out, I looked up and saw a scary-looking mangy man run out the door. He didn't chase my car or anything. He just ran outside and stood in front of the cabin. I called the local police department and reported this to them. They told me that because my father hadn't been living in the cabin for some time, some random person probably moved in there for warmth, and when nobody ever came to the cabin, he probably just stayed. Judging by the smell, he figured that the man was probably there for at least a year, which makes sense because my father hadn't been to the cabin in a while before he passed away. By the time the police showed up, the man was gone. I have no other information about who the man was, where he came from, or where he went. I don't think he intended to hurt me unless he had to. He clearly had a lot of chances and didn't do anything. But it doesn't change the fact that I was sitting next to a strange man who had been living in filth in my father's attic. I never took another step inside that cabin after that night. I hired someone to clean it out without even telling them. Maybe that makes me a jerk. They got rid of everything inside and I sold it as is. I hope whoever owns the cabin now is as happy as my father was in that place, and that they never have to deal with the surprise visitor.
