Speaker 1: I lived in Upper Canada at the time, in a
well sized cabin type home. The holiday season was always
my favorite time of the year, as my family would
gather at one of our homes and celebrate Christmas together.
Living alone, this was always something to look forward to.
I didn't mind being alone, but it was just nice
to see some friends and family, sometimes being in a
relatively sizable home. Our small family would often either gather
at my place or my brother's place, usually taking turns
each year. This year it was my turn to host
the family gathering. Most of my family lived on the
other side of Canada, though, making it a long drive
or a costly plane ride. Typically, though, everyone tries to
arrive on Christmas Eve, so come December twenty third, I
called up my brother to make sure everything was going
as planned. He informed me that our parents may arrive
early Christmas morning due to a flight delay, but he
was driving and should make it by the night of
Christmas Eve. Wishing him safe travels, I said good night
and went back to bed. Now, if you've ever lived
in Canada, especially further north, you know the winters are
brutally cold and long, often snowstorms and blizzards. Can form
suddenly and last for a varied amount of time. That
being said, the next day, heavy snowfall covered the grounds
in the morning and was accompanied by rushing winds in
the afternoon. I received a call from my brother around
six pm notifying me that he was going to have
to stay at a motel for the night due to
the snowstorm covering the roads. I agreed that it was
the safe decision, though I was a bit upset that
I'd have to spend the day before Christmas alone, but
I tried to stay positive, looking forward to Christmas Day
with my whole family. At ten o'clock, I got ready
for bed and set an early alarm for five a m.
Just in case my parents arrived at the airport early.
The wind howl outside the house gave me trouble falling
asleep as it was shaking the whole room and making
the whole house creak. But as I lay there, annoyed
and awake, a soft and rhythmic sound approached from outside
the cabin. The wind blowing in all directions at random speeds,
made the soft one to two of the footsteps stand out.
They were slow, as you would expect in this kind
of weather, but they continued all the way until they
reached the wall on the left side of my house.
I just laid there with my eyes open, listening to
this strange person walking during a blizzard in the middle
of the night. A lot of things ran through my head,
such as complete confusion and fear of a possible attack. However,
I began wondering if it was my brother. Maybe something
had happened and his phone didn't have service, maybe he
couldn't find a hotel. The more I had these thoughts,
the more I felt I had to find a way
to see who it was. In wather like this, nobody
could last more than an hour without serious consequences, and
I definitely didn't want my brother and his family stuck
out there. As I was putting on some heavier clothes,
a knock came from downstairs. The odd thing about it
was that it was a single knock, and it didn't
come from the front door. Hesitantly, I opened my bedroom
door and peeked down the stairs. It was far too
dark to see anything, but I didn't want to give
away my position if it was someone dangerous, so I
left the lights off. I walked blindly down the stairs
still listening for any footsteps or sound, but heard nothing
aside from the strong winds. As I got to the bottom,
I made my way to the front door. While the
knock didn't seem to come from the front, I didn't
really know what else to do. I'm not sure why,
but this was when I really started to get nervous, afraid.
Even I don't usually say I scare easy, but something
just felt very wrong. Approaching the door in silence, I
leaned forward and moved the small blinds on the side
of the window. A man stood there looking at the door,
looking calm and emotionless, but as soon as he noticed me,
he began screaming for me to help him, banging on
the window. As he stared me in the eyes, I
jumped back, not expecting such a sudden reaction. My heart
started pounding my chest. The man didn't look well as
in he looked crazy, and he had one hand in
his pocket like he was hiding something. I didn't feel
at all comfortable opening the door, but I also didn't
want to have the man's blood on my hands for
not helping him during a storm like this. Uh, what's wrong?
How did you get here? I yelled? A few second
pause followed before the man answered calmly, I got lost.
I just needed somewhere to shelter. His shift in attitude
was alarming. I stood there thinking for a bit before
the man asked me again to let him in, then
again and again, getting more aggressive with each word, before
beginning to hit the door, pounding on it over and over.
I ran to the other room to grab my pistol
that I kept in cases of home defense. Then I
went back to the front door, though I stood a
good distance away and held my ground, hoping he would
just leave if I ignored him. He continued banging for
well over a minute, but as I stood there anxiously waiting,
I heard again the crunch of footsteps walking around my house.
Knowing now that this was for sure a bad situation,
I ran upstairs and locked myself in my bedroom. I
heard two men start talking soon after, followed by a
window shattering and footsteps entering my home. The footsteps scattered
around downstairs. I heard things moving and objects clattering before
someone began climbing the stairs. My bedroom was the only
room upstairs aside from a half bathroom in closet, shaking
uncontrollably and praying in my head. I held my gun
up and aimed at the door as a man approached
the other side. Yeah, he's got to be in here,
the man yelled, almost in a cheerful way. He punched
the door once, though it sounded heavy, as if he
had hit it with a hammer or maybe even a gun.
I couldn't help but make a quiet gasp from the
terror of it. The man let out a sick, chuckling laugh.
Then the other man downstairs yelled something, and both of
their footsteps faded away. I sat there with my gun
held at the door for probably fifteen minutes, with nothing
but the sounds of winds blowing downstairs. Clearing the house carefully,
I made sure they were gone, then put a small
wooden board over the broken window to keep the snow out.
The men had taken a few expensive things around the
house and a bit of a mess, but no other
harm was done. The blizzard had settled by morning, and
I informed my family and the police of the encounter.
My brother was angry at himself for not having been
there for me, but I assured him it was okay,
and he made the right call to not drive in
a snowstorm. Despite having the most horrifying encounter in my
entire life, I actually had a really enjoyable Christmas with
my family. People these days are cruel and awful humans,
and to do something like that, To put someone through
something like that, especially during the holiday season, is just
another level of insanity. Christmas was always a big event
in my family. Every year, we'd drive out to my
aunt and uncle's house, where I'd get to see all
of my cousins as well as my grandparents. There's one
year I still think about a lot, though, because something
happened that I still can't get out of my head.
I was only ten at the time, and I was
a relatively shy kid, so meeting new people wasn't enjoyable
at all. This year, though. When we arrived at my
uncle's house, my oldest cousin introduced all of us to
her boyfriend, Drew. Apparently they'd been together for a few
years and things were getting pretty serious, so she wanted
the whole family to get comfortable with him. From what
I heard, they met at the college they both went to,
which wasn't far, but Drew was from out of state,
so my uncle offered him to stay at his house.
During winter break. Anyway, over the next couple days, I
remember avoiding him as much as possible. I really didn't
want to talk to some stranger I didn't know, and
I definitely didn't want him to act like he was
my big brother. However, my younger brother, who was only six,
was talking to him all the time. It was like
they had just become best friends in just two days.
My parents thought it was cute that my little brother
was looking up to him, but I found it to
be weird. I don't know, something about it just made
me feel uncomfortable. During the nights, I shared a room
with my brother, and I'm assuming Drew my cousin shared
a room on the other side of the house. I
asked my little brother as we were getting ready for bed,
why he like Drew so much, and he just talked
about how cool he was. I don't really know what
I expected my six year old brother to say, but
when he responded, it kind of clicked in my mind
that I really should be wondering why Drew wanted to
talk to my brother so much, not the other way around.
I know this all sounds like it may just be
taken into bad context when it could just be a
loving soon to be cousin in law. But it was
just a feeling in my gut that told me something
was off. And just four days after we had arrived,
and on the night of Christmas Eve, my gut feeling
was proven to be right. I specifically remember going to
bed that night noticing my brother having a lot more energy,
way more than he should have at that time of night.
I thought it was because he was excited about Christmas morning,
as I was too, and I went to sleep soon after.
Some time hours later, I woke up. I don't know
what actually woke me up, as the house seemed silent,
but I instantly noticed my brother was not in his bed.
My eyes widened and I looked all around the room,
calling out his name in a whisper. I felt protective
of my little brother, and I was really worried about him.
I almost wanted to cry when I saw that his
jacket was missing. We both had been hanging them up
on the handles of the closet door, but his was gone.
I grabbed mine and rushed downstairs. From the bottom of
the steps was a hallway. On one side was the
front door, and on the other was the back door.
Looking at the back door, The screen door was closed,
but the actual door was open. I remember being scared,
but more than anything, I wanted to make sure my
little brother was okay. So I walked outside. Out in
the field behind the house, I could see two figures,
one large and one small. They seemed to be walking
away from the house, but it was dark and hard
to tell. I walked a bit closer, then gathered the
courage to yell my brother's name. Both figures stopped for
a moment, and then the smaller one started running towards me.
My baby brother ran into my arms. His eyes were watery.
I looked back up and the other figure was still
standing in the field, looking in our direction. I led
my brother back inside and up to our bedroom. I
asked what had happened and what he was doing outside.
All he would say was that he was scared of
the dark, but Drew wanted to play a game. I
didn't know what that meant, but I didn't care. Waking
up a six year old and leading them outside in
the middle of the night was not okay. I kept
my brother close for the rest of the holiday, but
now I wish I had told someone about it. I
was a shy kid that didn't want to be the
center of any drama, and I didn't think anyone would
believe me, so I kept my mouth shut about it.
That was a horrible Christmas, though, and I think about
it a lot. I've asked my brother years later what
that Drew guy was doing, but even now he says
he doesn't remember. He only remembers being scared. My cousin
never brought him to any more gatherings, so I'm assuming
things didn't work out. I'm glad I saved my brother
from whatever was going to happen that night, but I
think back to it a lot, wishing that I had
done more. Christmas for my family is probably similar to
most other families. My wife and I tell our son
that Santa brings presence on the night of Christmas Eve,
and then on Christmas Morning we wake up our son
and let him open the presence. It's a very typical Christmas. So,
of course, on Christmas Eve, my kid wanted to make
cookies for Santa, and we left out a small plate
alongside a cup of milk before I sent him to bed. Then,
after waiting an hour to make sure he was asleep,
I began putting all the gifts under the tree. Once
I was finished piling them up, I went over to
the small coffee table and took a few bites of
the cookies to make it look like Santa came. Feeling
satisfied with my work, I turned all the lights off
and joined my wife in bed. The next morning, my
wife woke our kid up, and he ran downstairs to
open his presence. He was so excited, screaming that Santa came.
I always loved seeing his reaction to the gifts, but
it was over after about an hour. He went off
to play with his new toys, and my wife and
I started cleaning up the wrapping paper and boxes. But
that's when I noticed the cookies, well, the lack of cookies. Actually,
they were all gone. We had put out a whole
plate and I had only eaten one. Confused, I walked
over to my wife and asked her about it, though
I knew she was in bed the whole time. She
laughed at me, making a joke as if I ate
the entire plate, but her smile faded when she realized
my concern. I went over to my son and asked
him if he had some cookies this morning, but his
response only frightened and confused me more. He said he
saw Santa eat them last night. Of course, I asked
him what he meant, to which he replied that he
woke up in the middle of the night and saw
some one eating the cookies. I acted calm in front
of him, making sure not to give the big secret
away as he was only six, But I was seriously
worried now by the looks of it. My wife was too.
It's such a weird, silly situation, but in reality it
was also terrifying knowing that some one was inside our home.
I took a quick look around upstairs, then searched the
main floor before going over to the basement. Honestly, I
hadn't been in the basement for months. It was unfinished,
small and dirty. The year before, we had our washer
and dryer moved from the basement to the ground level floor.
Ever since, we had no reason to go down there,
so we just left it as an empty storage room. Anyway.
I opened the door and turned on the dim lights.
I waited several seconds before going down, thinking that if
someone was there, they would make themselves known with no
other noises. I descended into the basement. From my initial look,
I didn't see anything out of ordinary. There were boxes
and dust just like it had been left, But looking closer,
a stack of the boxes seemed strangely put together. It
kind of reminded me of when I was a kid
and would position boxes to make a fort or a wall.
I took a few steps closer before I could hear
heavy breathing from behind the wall of boxes. I frozen,
shocked and scared, hoping that whoever was there stayed hidden
so I could peacefully go back upstairs and call the police.
I was not so lucky, though. A disgusting, scrawny, middle
aged man stood up, looking me directly in the eyes.
I was so shocked I didn't even move. It wasn't
until the man quickly began climbing over the boxes that
I turned around and sprinted as fast as I could
up the stairs. His footsteps were not far behind mine
as I pushed through the doorway and slammed the door
behind me. Seeing a glimpse of the man just a
few steps down, I turned the lock and blocked the
door with a nearby chair. My wife screamed and panicked
at the chaos of the situation. She grabbed our son
and ran upstairs while I stood by the door and
called the police. It's funny, though, because my first thought
while dialing nine one one was how bad I felt
for having to call someone on Christmas morning. Then again,
my family's life was in danger. As I waited for
the cops to show up, the man tried to persuade
me to let him go and that he meant no harm.
At one point, it even sounded like he was talking
to himself. The guy sounded insane. I almost felt sorry
for him when the officer finally made it. He arrested
the man with ease, and I filled out a report.
We tried to not let this ruin the rest of Christmas,
but it was difficult to get back into the joyful mood.
It turned out he'd been squatting in our basement for
anywhere between several days in a couple weeks. He'd been
taking some of our food and drinks while we were gone, too,
which just made me feel sick thinking back. I'd even
remembered things missing, stupid things like the last granola bar
being gone and everyone claiming it wasn't them. These are
just normal things that you just chalk up to being
anything other than someone living in your house and stealing
your food. Now I get a bad feeling in my
gut every time some thing goes missing, as I remember
that creepy guy staring at me and chasing me out
of the basement