People Are Sharing The Most Terrifying Encounters They've Had With Total Strangers

26.

“When I was about 14, my longtime childhood friend and I, both having SUPER strict parents, used to sneak out in the middle of the night during our summer break just to hang out, walk around town, and generally sneak around feeling daring. One night, I went and stood outside her house at the usual time, but she didn’t show. I eventually gave up and went to walk back home. About halfway back, a car came down the street towards me. I was on the same side of the road, and some instinct told me to cross to the other side. Just as I decided to do so, the car started slowing down. So I crossed, and it sped up again. As it passed me, the driver turned his face towards me and gave me a penetrating stare that chilled me.”

“As the street was otherwise completely silent and deserted, I could easily hear this car reach the end of the road, then turn and head back my way. Thinking fast, I waited until he’d almost reached me before running back across to the other side of the road. This time, the look he gave me was unmistakably angry. 

He sped up again, and as I was just passing a smaller side road, I ran down there as fast as I could. I knew there was an alleyway at the other end that I could get home through, and he couldn’t drive down that way. Again, I heard the car reach the other end of the road and turn around again. As the sound of the engine approached, I dived behind a parked car.

He came down my side road, driving very, very slowly. Peeking out, I caught a glimpse of the driver looking left and right as his car crept along the road. He was clearly looking for me.

As soon as the car had turned a corner out of sight, I ran up a nearby gravel driveway that turned out to have a couple of lock-up garages at the other end. By some amazing stroke of luck, I found one was unlocked. I slipped inside, pulled the door closed, crawled under a tarp in a dark corner, and just…waited.

A few minutes later, I heard a car door slam. Then I heard one of the most terrifying sounds I’d ever heard—footsteps on gravel.

They came to my end of the driveway and just stood there for a while. I don’t even know how he knew I was there, as he wouldn’t have been able to see me go up there in his rearview mirror, unlike he presumably had with the side road, but apparently he did. Eventually, he seemed to give up, and I heard the footsteps receding back down the drive. Then the car door slammed, and the engine revved up.

I have no clue how long I stayed there under that tarp in the pitch dark with my legs cramping up, but it felt like forever. It was morning by the time I got home. This was almost 30 years ago, but I can still feel those chills.”

—u/tiptoe_only