Speaker 1: I used to work at my dad's restaurant when I
was in my later teen years. It was just a
regular local place, but it was open until two am
every night. During high school, I would only work after
school until eight, but once I graduated, I started working
the closing shifts to save up money for college. The
restaurant would be surprisingly busy at night, all the way
up until closing. Mostly it was just people picking up
online orders, but sometimes groups of friends would come in
and hang out at one of the tables while they ate.
I definitely preferred working at night, though, as I would
be the only one there and didn't have to listen
to my dad bossing me around. Anyways, after six months
of working nights, things started to get pretty weird. It
was almost closing around one forty five am and I
was in the back cleaning when I heard the door ring.
I finished up what I was doing and made my
way to the front counter. There were two young men
who looked really tired. One of them came up to
the counter while the other one stood at one of
the tables. Oh or dining room is closed for the night,
but I can still take a small order if you
want it For takeout. The man at the counter just
stared at the menu and didn't say anything. I stood
there uncomfortably as the man shifted his gaze to behind me,
as if he was inspecting the place. A few seconds later,
the man by the table quickly walked out, and the
other guy followed. It was definitely the weirdest encounter I'd
probably had, and I couldn't really think of any reasonable explanation.
I kind of just assumed that they were planning on
robbing me, but then decided otherwise for some reason. The
next morning, I told my dad about it, and he
said I could start locking the doors at around one
forty five for the next few days. Another week went
by with nothing unusual before it happened again. I had
a customer picking up an order around one, and almost
as soon as he left, one of the men from
last week walked in. It was the one that was
standing at the table, and I noticed right away that
he was wearing the same exact clothing as last time. However,
this time he came up to the counter. He looked
me in the eyes for a second and then asked
me if I could help him jump start his car.
The way he said it was really creepy, and it
was very obvious that there was something else going on here.
I'm sorry, I have to stay in the restaurant during
my shift. His face immediately shifted into a frown. He
said it would only take a minute and no one
would know that I left. At this point, I knew
something was very off, and I started to panic a
little bit in my head. He started making his way
back to the door, gesturing me to follow him. I
honestly wasn't sure what to do and was really freaking out,
but my fight response was starting and my adrenaline was pumping.
It's worth mentioning that I'm not really that big of
a guy at all, and this man was much larger
than me. Plus I was pretty confident that the other
guy was nearby too, probably ready to jump me if
I didn't comply. But I figured I was screwed either way,
so I might as well try to fight. I grabbed
a pair of scissors we had behind the counter and
stood my ground. The man turned around again once he
reached the door, and this time he looked angry and
demanded that I followed him. At that same instant, a
loud bang came from behind me, followed by the back
door slamming open. I ran to the back, and as
soon as the guy saw me, he bolted right back outside.
I turned around quickly and ran back to the front counter,
but the other guy had left as well. I obviously
called the police afterwards and gave them the security footage,
but it was pretty low quality and hard to make
out any identity from them. Anyways. I'm still not really
sure why they didn't just attack me and rob the place,
but my best guess is that they were just trying
to rob the store without harming anyone, so as soon
as they saw I was gonna fight, they ran. Those
two could have easily taken me down and made the
situation much worse, so I'm glad I didn't turn out
that way. I lived in a small apartment for most
of my twenties, as it was all that I could
afford since I lived alone. My complex was small and
only had six total apartments in it. Most of the
people living there were older and retired and kept to themselves.
I actually liked the fact that I didn't have to
interact with any of them every time that I needed
to go in or out to the complex. As I'm
usually in a rush or just not in the mood
to socialize. Anyways, I lived on the top floor and
the room across from me had an old couple living
there for almost two years before they moved out. I
never talked to them, so I didn't really care to
be honest, But several months go by before someone knew
me moves it, and another two weeks went by before
I actually met them. I was getting ready for work
one morning and preparing my packed lunch when I hear
the neighbor's door open. I didn't think much of it
until another minute went by and I realized that I
never heard the door close. I finished getting ready and
put my shoes on, then opened my door to leave.
I immediately noticed that the neighbor's door was still open, and
a tall man in his forties or fifties was standing
right outside the door, facing me. He smiled and introduced himself.
I faked a short smile and told him my name
and said I had to go to work and began
walking past him. But as I started down the stairs,
he asked me to come in for a little bit
and have breakfast with him. This was really weird, as
I had just told him that I needed to go
to work, but I just said sorry and continued down
the stairs and out of the complex. While I was
at work that day, I thought about how strange the
interaction was. Thankfully, when I got back home, I was
able to get into my apartment without any interactions. But
the next morning, I woke up to a knock at
the front door. I was really annoyed because I had
worked today and now I was up early, but I
quickly got dressed and opened the front door. My neighbor
was there, but strangely, he was standing right in front
of his open door again. He asked me to join
him for breakfast again, to which I obviously declined and
told him in a more aggressive manner to not knock
on my door so early. The man didn't seem very
happy about my answer and just kind of stood there.
Then he said that I didn't have to leave for
work for a while and I had enough time to
eat with him. I knew that there was something wrong
with this guy, as there was a lot about that
response that was creepy. I firmly said no and then
backed away and closed my door, making sure to lock
it again. The more I thought about this guy, the
more creepy and disturbing the interactions seemed. The rest of
the day went by as usual, though, and I got
home around six. I made some dinner and watched a movie,
and got ready for bed around eleven. I laid in
bed for a while, thinking about my creepy neighbor and
wondering what to do about it. I decided that if
anything else happens, i'd contact the owner of the complex
and have him talk to the guy. Then I leaned
over and turned off my lamp and tried to fall asleep.
But a few minutes later I heard the neighbor's door
creak open. I waited silently, listening to what the guy
was doing, but I couldn't hear anything else again. Though
I'd never heard the door close, I was pretty nervous,
unsure of what the man could possibly be doing this
late at night. Eventually, though, I drifted asleep due to
not hearing any further noises for over an hour. I'm
not sure how long I slept before a loud knock
at the door woke me up. But these knocks didn't
come from my front door. They were at my bedroom door.
I shot up completely terrified and turned on the lights.
The only thing I had to defend myself with was
a small screwdriver on my nightstand. I grabbed it and
stood next to my bed, shaking in fear, before picking
up my phone and calling nine to one one. When
they arrived at the front door, I quickly got out
of my room and opened it. I was surprised the
door was even shut, but I told the officers everything
and all about my suspicions of the neighbor. Unfortunately, though,
there was no real evidence of a break in, and
they couldn't do much at all. I knew what I
heard was real, though, and I did not feel safe
in my apartment anymore. I called my sister later that day,
and she agreed to let me stay at her place
for a few days. Those days went by quicker than
I hoped, though, and I started driving back to my
apartment on Saturday evening. I tried to stay calm, assuring
myself that the guy had given up by now and
everything would be okay. I pulled him to the parking
lot and made my way into the building. The sun
had just set, so the staircase was dim. I slowly
made my way up trying to stay quiet as to
not let my neighbor know that I was coming up.
Once I reached the top, I saw his door was closed,
and I got a big sense of relief as I
quickly made my way through my door and locked it
behind me. I dropped my bag in the hallway and
turned on the lights. As I turned the corner into
my living room, I jumped back, screaming as the man
was sitting right on my couch, staring at me with
a wide, awful smile. I sprinted out of the entire
complex and into my car, then called the police again
and waited for them in a nearby parking lot. When
they arrived about ten minutes later, we drove up to
the complex and they went into the apartment while I
waited by my car. Surprisingly, they came out just a
minute later with the man in handcuffs. They said he
was still sitting on the couch and that they also
found a small knife in his pocket. The most disturbing
part of this whole situation, though, was that when he
was questioned, he admitted to breaking in three separate times,
and I only knew about the two incidents, which meant
that at one point he was hiding in my apartment,
probably watching me without me even knowing. I have a
little Jack Russell DOGG named Maggie, and she has a
lot of energy, so when we go for walks, it's
not uncommon for them to spread to the two hour mark.
This particular day, I got home from work around five thirty,
and the sun doesn't usually set until six thirty or seven.
Almost immediately after walking through the door, I put her
leash on and quickly changed and then we headed out.
The walk went as usual, as Maggie just took me
in whichever direction she wanted to walk in. Things didn't
start to take a turn until about an hour in,
when the sun was almost fully down, and unfortunately for me,
I had walked further than I'd realized. If you take
your dog for long walks, you know how easy it
is to zone out, especially if your dog rarely stops
to sniff. We had walked in a direction I had
taken normally, but the particular street I was on was unfamiliar,
but I still knew the general direction home. I started
to turn around, but Maggie was standing still, and then
she began whimpering softly, and that's when I saw it.
Through the soft light of the sunset, I could make
out a huge coyote staring at us in the middle
of the street. It was roughly the size of a
golden retriever with matted fur, and with its mouth partially opened,
you could see its disgusting, sharp yellow teeth. I knew
exactly what it wanted. I picked Maggie up and started
walking the opposite direction. I was a bit fearful, but
for some reason, I thought it would just go away.
I didn't know these streets very well. But what I
didn't know was that I had to keep moving. As
I quickly continued, the coyote slowly followed, keeping its distance still.
But the darker it got, the more scared I became.
And after walking down random neighborhood roads in the darkness
for a while, I came to the horrifying realization that
I was lost. All the turns had messed with my
sense of direction, and I had no idea which way
to go through the darkness. I could now see the
glowing eyes of the beast and could now hear it
yipping and howling as I walked further through the dark
neighborhood streets. Every few minutes, another set of glows eyes
would appear behind me, and even more louder howls. I
could tell they were getting closer too. I was absolutely
terrified at this point, trying to hold back my tears
as I was panicking and fearing for both mine and
my dog's life. Every once in a while, I had
passed a street light and looked behind me, revealing the
entire pack walking slowly with their heads down, watching my
every move. After almost forty five minutes of being followed,
I began tiring and I knew I was far from
the safety of my home. Maggie began whimpering louder too,
which made me even more emotional as I knew that
she was aware of what may soon happen. The howling
and yipping became more frequent, growing louder and closer. I
looked back one more time to see all of their
eyes staring at me from only thirty to forty feet away.
But suddenly, and strangely, they all began to separate, moving
to the side of the road. A few moments later,
a small car slowly makes its way between the crowd
of coyotes and stops right next to me. A lady
rolls down her window and asks me if I needed help.
I was so thankful for her and told her to
please take me home. There are almost no circumstances in
which I would willingly get into a stranger's car, but
I really had no other choice. The lady was really
nice and seemed terrified for me. I was crying at
this point, knowing I had just been moments away from
a grueling attack. She kindly dropped me off of my house,
which was almost twenty minutes from where she picked me up.
I live in a nice neighborhood, one where you don't
have to worry about your house being broken into or
carjackings the only growing problem in our neighborhood and many
neighboring ones, as well as coyotes. It's been a few
years since this incident happened to me, and as time
went on, there became more more showing up around town,
getting bigger and stronger. The public knows to be cautious,
especially in parks where there are tons of trees and
places for them to make home. Signs were put up
letting people know of the popular areas where anywhere between
three and twenty have been spotted There have been news
stories coming out such as groups of coyotes leaping over
fences and taking small dogs, and larger animals being found
torn apart in kids parks. Very sad stories and some
even a little scary. But you never think of coyotes
as being an immediate danger until you're being followed in
the middle of the night by a pack of the
hungry and merciless at