Speaker 1: I was sixteen last year and me and my friend
Leon were hanging out a few days before Halloween talking
about what we wanted to do. We felt too old
to go trick or treating, but we also still wanted
to do something and have some fun during the holiday.
We thought up a few ideas, most being quickly discarded,
but then I thought of something different. I reminded Leon
of the abandoned farm that both of us had already
known about, and suggested we explore it. It would be
creepy and thrilling, which was exactly what we wanted for Halloween. Also,
compared to our other ideas, this one was the best
by a long shot. Leon was excited about it too,
but we both agreed that other people would probably have
the same idea to go on October thirty first, so
instead we chose to go on the night before. Didn't
want a risk running into anyone crazy at an abandoned
place like that. We just wanted to explore and maybe
be a little bit spooked, then leave, which sounded harmless enough.
On the thirtieth, leand drove us out to the neighborhood
it was by and parked on the road. Then we
got out and walked through the neighborhood until we got
to the street that turned into a gravel path. This
was the driveway leading up to the farm. I'd only
ever seen the place during the day, but it was
pretty much just a large field of grass with a
typical wooden barn and a single story home. From the
edge of the path, neither structure was visible. Our flashlights
only lit up a few feet ahead as we started
making our way down the gravel driveway. Once we started
to get closer, we could see the outline of the
barn on the left side and the house further back
at the end of the driveway. We were more interested
in the house, figuring the barn was probably completely empty
and not very exciting. We kept walking and got to
a clearing of the tall grass. It was like a
circle of dirt and short grass that went around the
perimeter of the house. As we approached the front, we
passed by some large farming equipment. I don't know what
they were, just some sort of old tractor looking things
that had been left out for years. Even with our
dim flashlights, we could see that they were engulfed in rust.
When we got up to the porch, it looked like
the door had been replaced by a solid wooden board.
We walked around the whole outside of the house and
every window and door was sealed and covered. Disappointed, we
went back to the front of the house and tried
to think of something else. As we stood there, we
saw the path going up to the barn. It wasn't
an actual path, it was more of just a line
of flattened grass. With nothing else to do, we started
heading for the barn. Something felt different as we approached
it compared to when we approached the house. It was
just an uneasy feeling that grew as we got closer.
When we reached it, the large door was already wide open.
I walked in first and Leon followed behind, both shining
our flashlights around as we entered. It only took a
couple seconds for a horrid smell to hit us. Though
it was a barn, so it wasn't exactly surprising. But
then we noticed something else. There were footprints all over
the ground, but not what you'd expect from other kids
exploring the place. They all went in a line back
and forth from a single point on the other side
of the barn. I saw in Leon's eyes that he
was just as freaked out as I was, but that
was the goal of going there in the first place.
We slowly walked in line with the footprints leading to
a wooden cellar hatch that was blended in with the floor.
The only noticeable thing other than the clear footsteps going
up to it was a shiny new padlock that held
the hatch shut. Before we could really think about it,
a sudden thud shook the whole barn. We turned around,
seeing the door had been shut behind us. Leon sprinted
over and shoved the door back open, and both of
us looked around but didn't see anyone. Now terrified, we
sprinted straight through the tall grass back to the gravel driveway,
then booked it to the neighborhood where the car was.
We definitely got the scare we were looking for, but
maybe even too much so. Neither of us ever tried
to figure out what really happened that night, but a
couple months later we saw that the whole house and
barn had been blocked off. We tried to look up why,
but there was no word publicly about it. What was
going on there remains a mystery, but I think if
we had stayed to find out we may have never left.
It was the fall of twenty eighteen when this happened
to me. I was twenty two and at the time
I was living temporarily on the East Coast, right outside
of the Appalachian Mountain Range. I'll go ahead and admit
that I've never been too much of an outdoorsy person
and hadn't had any experience in camping or anything, nor
was I really that interested in those sorts of activities. However,
this was my last year living in probably the best
place to do all those outdoor things. Plus, with it
being midfall and the trees looking pretty and the weather
being nice, I figured this was my chance to try
it out. I didn't want to go for a huge
camping adventure or anything, so I found a simple hiking
trail instead that had some good views of the mountains.
I prepped a small backpack with water, snacks, and a
first aid kit. No cars were there, though. It was
just a small dirt parking area, so I guess it
wasn't as popular as I thought. I parked and started walking.
It was calm, and it definitely didn't feel like a
path a lot of people would take. It didn't have
any noticeable recent shoeprints in the dirt. It was just
a fairly small path with trees on either side. As
I got further in, the entire path became more densely
covered in trees, enough to block out a lot of
the sun and make the whole trail shaded. It was
actually really nice and cooling, but not hearing or seeing
anyone else became more of an unsettling thought. The further
out I got, not in a creepy way, but just
that I was entirely alone. It wasn't something I was
used to. About an hour, or maybe even two hours
down the trail, I was caught off guard by seeing
a man ahead of me. He was sitting on the side,
looking like he was just taking a break under one
of the trees. As I passed him, I gave a
friendly nod and said hi, to which he looked up
at me and said nothing. He didn't smile or nod,
He just looked at me for a few seconds, and
then I looked away. I wasn't sure what to make
of it. Maybe he didn't hear me, or maybe I
caught him off guard as well. But the strange look
without even a slight smile was not giving me a
good feeling. I walked a bit faster for the next
part of the trail, hoping to put some distance between us.
After an hour, I slowed down and made it to
the end, which was an overlook of the mountains. The
fall colors on the trees made the view way better
than it probably would have been any other time of
the year, and overall I was glad to have made
the hike. I stared off into the distance for a
few minutes, enjoying a view that I almost never got
to see. But when I turned around to leave, my
heart almost left my body when I saw the man
from earlier standing right at the end of the trail.
He was maybe ten feet from me, and I never
heard him walking up. After the initial scare, I realized
how creepy it was that he was just standing there
and not coming up to look out the overlook like
a normal person would be doing. But then he did
something even more odd. His face shifted as he smiled
and said hi, asking me how the view was. Yeah,
it's really nice. You should take a look too, I responded,
trying to be polite but still really confused. The man
stepped closer, then pointed to my right and said there
was an even better view down that trail. I looked
over my shoulder to where he was pointing. There was
a path barely visible going through the dense trees. It
was rugged and undefined, not something that looked to be
used very often. The man walked up to where the
path started and stood at the entrance, telling me again
about how great the view was, and saying it was
just a minute or two to walk there. I politely declined,
but he continued to tell me about how great it was,
to the point where it was obvious that he had
to have other intentions than just wanting me to go
there and see a nice view. I said I was
okay and had to get home, then started to walk
toward the main trail, but the man was quick to
move his body in front of it. I stopped in place,
now even more terrified in thinking of the possible intentions
of this man who was just a few feet from
me in the middle of an empty forest. The man
looked at me with a blank expression. I took a
few steps, walking around him and just hoping that nothing escalated,
and for some miraculous reason, it didn't. The man watched
me as I made my way around him and down
the trail. Every time I looked back, he was still
watching me, not even trying to be discreet. Thankfully, he
didn't follow, and I made it back to my car.
I don't know what that man was trying to do,
but it was almost surely not anything good. What was
down that path likely was just a dead end, somewhere
for him to lead me before doing whatever horrible thing
he had in mind. I don't know why he didn't
stop me from leaving either, Maybe he was worried about
doing something on the main trail. All I can say
is that I'm lucky to have gotten out before something
else happened. During October and our town, there's always this
place that opens up with a bunch of fallen Halloween
related things to do. It's a huge fair that's set
up on a farm. I'd been there a couple times
with my family when I was younger, but this was
my first time i'd gone alone with just friends. We
were in high school and thought it'd be fun to
walk around and just have a few laughs while we
enjoyed the Halloween vibes it offered. The place was open
late the whole week leading to Halloween, so we went
on one of those weekday nights around eight pm. I
guess we chose an odd day in time, though, because
most of the families had already left and there were
only a few groups of kids our age running around. Still, regardless,
we still had fun. We played some of the random
games they had set up and messed around a bit,
but then one of my friends said we should check
out the corn Maze. None of us hesitated to run
in and try to get as lost as possible. That
was until somehow we split into two groups. Three of
them ran off one way and I was left with
my buddy Micah. Seeing as it was a maze, there
was no use in trying to chase after the others.
We went our own way for a few minutes, then
started trying to find our way out. During our ten
or so minutes that we spent walking around, we never
heard or ran into any of the others from the group,
which made us wonder how big the maze actually was.
At some point, we were getting tired of it and
really started trying to find the way out. Whenever there
were more multiple paths, we would split up and check
if either were a dead end, then come back and
go down together, whichever we thought was best. But on
one of these random crossroads, Micah didn't come back. I
waited for a long time, at least two or three
minutes without hearing or seeing him, until I heard footsteps
coming from down the path. As I waited for Mica
to reappear, something about the footsteps didn't seem right. A
moment later, a large man came around the path and
walked up to me. He was wearing farmer type clothes
like overalls, a flannel shirt, and boots, looking like all
the other employees at the fair. He said it was
closing for the night and that he would take me
out of the maze. I told him my friends were
in here as well, and he said that he'd already
shown them out, which made everything else make sense now.
I followed him, going around multiple turns in corners, but strangely,
the sound of the fair started to get quieter and
quieter until I couldn't hear it at all. It was
just me and this man walking through a dead, silent
corn maze. Then we reached a dead end. I stopped
and watched the man pull aside the corner and start
pushing his way through it, urging me to come through.
I did as he said, walking through it and following
closely behind him until the corn abruptly stopped and turned
into an empty field. As I looked around, I realized
that this was the other side of the cornfield, opposite
of the town and fair, and right in front of
me was a car parked in the grass with its
engine running and headlights off. My breathing became shallow and
my heart rates started increasing. All of a sudden, the
man quickly turned around and tried to grab me. I
was able to react fast enough, moving away and running
back into the maze. As I sprinted back onto the path,
I heard the man forcing his way through the corn
again and following right behind me. I started going straight
through all of it, just trying to get back to
the fair, where hopefully someone could help me. This seemed
to work, as the man never caught up to me.
When I made it out, my whole friend group was
standing at the entrance waiting for me. It's not really
clear what happened, but Micah said he came back for
me and I was gone. None of them saw the man, though,
and almost didn't believe me until I called the cops.
All they found were tire tracks in the grass. No
car or man anywhere