Horror Stories

00:05 Hello everyone and welcome back to Horror Stories. 00:08 I know many of you use these episodes to fall asleep, so before you drift off, I'd love it if you could leave a comment letting me know where you're listening from around the world. 00:17 Also, don't forget to like and subscribe if you're enjoying the episodes. 00:26 Story one. 00:28 November weather in Nebraska has always been unpredictable, but no one was prepared for what struck us on the Tuesday before Thanksgiving. 00:36 My brother Nathan called me around noon from the hardware store where he worked. 00:41 He said generators were flying off the shelves because the weather service was forecasting something severe. 00:47 I remember laughing and brushing it aside. I told him people always overreacted whenever bad weather was mentioned. 00:54 My wife Diane was already at the grocery store with our daughter Megan, who had turned 16 that October. 01:01 They were picking up the last minute ingredients for the Thanksgiving meal we were hosting. 01:06 My parents were supposed to drive up from Kansas City the following day, and Diane's sister planned to bring her children from Omaha. 01:14 We owned the largest house in the family, a two-story colonial we had purchased after I became a partner at the accounting firm. So the responsibility of hosting holidays usually fell to us. 01:25 By four that afternoon, the temperature had plunged 40 degrees in only two hours. 01:30 The rain that had been coming down all morning transformed into a mixture of sleet and freezing rain, coating everything it touched in ice. 01:38 I left the office early after seeing co-workers in the parking lot scraping ice nearly an inch thick from their windshields. 01:45 My usual drive home took about twenty minutes, but that day it lasted almost two hours. 01:51 I crawled along at ten miles per hour, watching vehicles slide into ditches on both sides of the road. 01:57 By the time I finally pulled into our garage, the electricity was already flickering. 02:02 Diane met me at the door wearing the worried expression she always got after watching too much local news. 02:08 She said the meteorologist was calling it a once-in-a-decade ice storm. 02:12 Sure enough, just as I finished hanging up my coat, the entire house went dark. 02:18 We had already prepared candles and flashlights because power failures were not unusual in our neighborhood. 02:24 This outage, however, felt different. We could actually hear the ice building on the trees outside. 02:30 Every few minutes, a sharp cracking noise split the air as another branch collapsed beneath the growing weight. 02:36 Megan sat in the living room wrapped in a blanket, complaining that her phone battery was down to 12%. 02:42 She kept asking why we did not have one of those whole house backup batteries like her friend Ashley's family had. 02:49 Nathan arrived around 7. 02:51 As usual, he walked straight inside without knocking. He was carrying a red portable generator he had managed to grab from the hardware store. 02:59 He said it had been the last one remaining on the shelf. 03:03 It was made by some company I had never heard of, but he believed it would be powerful enough to keep the furnace operating and perhaps run a few lights. 03:11 He had also brought four additional gasoline cans, which he arranged in a row against the garage wall like soldiers. 03:18 The temperature inside the house was already dropping rapidly. hovering around 60 degrees and continuing to fall. 03:26 You could see your breath in the hallway. 03:28 Diane had gathered every blanket we owned and created a nest in the family room where all of us huddled together, eating cold sandwiches and trying to remain optimistic. 03:39 Nathan spent nearly an hour studying the generator's instruction manual by flashlight. 03:44 Afterward, he went into the garage to set everything up. 03:47 I helped him place the generator close to the garage door. 03:51 Following the instructions in the manual, we raised the door approximately six inches to provide ventilation. 03:57 The generator came roaring to life on the third pull. It sounded like an overpowered lawnmower, but within minutes the furnace began humming again and several lights illuminated the main rooms. 04:09 All of us celebrated as though we had just won the lottery. Diane even shed a few tears of relief. 04:15 At around 9, Nathan decided to return to his apartment before the roads deteriorated further, although I tried persuading him to remain with us. His place was normally only 10 minutes away, but in those conditions the trip could easily mean nearly an hour of tense, white-knuckled driving. 04:31 Once he left, we prepared to settle in for the night, thankful as warmth gradually spread throughout the house. 04:38 Megan went upstairs first, claiming she needed to finish some homework before the holiday break. I knew the real reason was that she wanted to charge her phone and message her boyfriend while electricity was available. 04:50 Diane and I stayed awake until approximately 11. 04:53 playing cards beneath the light of a lamp and listening to the ice storm batter the world outside. 04:58 From time to time, I opened the door leading into the garage and checked the generator to make certain it still had enough fuel. 05:05 Each time, the steady mechanical rumble reassured me that we would make it through the night without any serious trouble. 05:12 At around two in the morning, I woke with the strangest headache I had ever experienced. It felt as though someone had wrapped a belt around my skull and was gradually pulling it tighter. 05:22 My mouth was completely dry. 05:24 When I sat upright, the bedroom seemed to tilt slightly. It was not spinning exactly, but everything felt unstable. 05:32 I assumed the furnace had dried out the air and left me dehydrated, so I stumbled into the bathroom for water and ibuprofen. 05:39 Diane was sleeping heavily beside me and snoring much louder than usual. That struck me as odd because she rarely snored unless she was ill. As I returned to bed, I noticed that our bedroom door was closed. We almost never shut it because Diane preferred having air circulate through the room. 05:57 I must have closed it without thinking, I told myself, although something about it continued to bother me. 06:03 After several minutes the headache began fading and I drifted back to sleep while thinking about all the cooking we would need to do the next day if the electricity returned. 06:13 The next time I opened my eyes, pale gray morning light was filtering through the curtains. My phone displayed 743. The headache had returned, only now it was much worse. 06:24 It pounded behind my eyes with the rhythm of a drum beat. 06:28 Diane was no longer beside me. I assumed she had gone downstairs to prepare coffee on the emergency camp stove we kept in the house. 06:36 I pulled on the same clothes I had worn the previous day and headed toward Megan's bedroom to wake her. 06:42 She was capable of sleeping through almost anything. 06:46 Her door was closed as well. 06:48 I knocked, but she did not answer. 06:51 That was not unusual for a teenager who had probably stayed awake late into the night, so I knocked more forcefully. 06:58 When there was still no response, I opened the door. She remained in bed, buried beneath three blankets and lying completely motionless. 07:06 I called her name and walked over to shake her shoulder. 07:09 That was when I understood she was not simply sleeping deeply. 07:13 For one brief second, my mind became completely blank. Then everything inside me exploded into action. Her skin had taken on a grayish color. 07:22 When I pulled away the blankets, her body was entirely limp. 07:26 I screamed for Diane while searching for a pulse. I found one, but it was faint and far too rapid. 07:33 Diane came rushing up the stairs. 07:36 The moment she saw Megan, she called 911 while I began performing CPR. the way I had learned years earlier during a workplace safety course. 07:45 The emergency dispatcher repeatedly asked questions that Diane could not answer. 07:50 What had happened? Had Megan taken any medication? Was she injured? 07:55 All we could tell them was that she would not wake up. 07:59 The paramedics arrived 12 minutes later. Those 12 minutes felt like hours. 08:04 I continued chest compressions until my arms burned while Diane sobbed beside me. 08:09 The paramedics moved me aside and began working on Megan with practiced efficiency. They placed an oxygen mask over her face, started an IV, and transferred her onto a gurney. 08:20 One of the paramedics, a young woman with her hair pulled tightly into a ponytail, continued questioning us while her partner treated Megan. 08:28 Were there drugs in the house? Had Megan been drinking? Did she have any history of seizures? 08:35 Then she asked about our heating situation. She wanted to know whether we had any space heaters operating or whether a fireplace was burning. 08:43 I mentioned the generator in the garage. Her expression changed instantly. 08:48 She grabbed her radio, reported a possible carbon monoxide poisoning, and told her partner they needed to move immediately. 08:55 Then she turned toward us and ordered us to leave the house at once and remain outside until the fire department arrived. 09:02 Diane was already following the gurney, but the paramedic caught hold of my arm. She stared directly into my eyes and asked whether anyone else was still inside the house. 09:11 When I told her no, she asked again about the generator, its exact location, and how long it had been operating. 09:18 I explained that it was inside the garage, positioned near the door, which we had raised six inches for ventilation. 09:25 It had been running since approximately 8 the previous evening. 09:28 The fire department arrived just as the ambulance pulled away with Diane and Megan inside. 09:34 I wanted to drive after them to the hospital, but the fire captain refused to allow it. He was a massive man whose helmet identified him as Brennan. 09:43 One of his crew members examined me with some type of meter while Brennan asked more questions about how we had arranged the generator. 09:50 The device began beeping. 09:52 The firefighter showed the reading to Brennan, who immediately ordered me to sit on the truck's bumper. 09:58 He placed an oxygen mask over my face and explained that the carbon monoxide level in my blood was elevated. 10:04 It was not yet critical, he said, but it was high enough that I had no business operating a vehicle. 10:10 Several firefighters entered my house carrying equipment. They emerged about 10 minutes later, shaking their heads. 10:18 Brennan sat beside me, opened a notebook and began explaining how carbon monoxide behaved. He described how it accumulated inside enclosed areas and said that the six inch opening beneath the garage door was nowhere near enough ventilation for a generator of that size. 10:34 The readings inside the house were still above 400 parts per million near the door connecting the garage to the house. 10:41 Overnight, when the generator had been operating at full capacity to keep the furnace running, the concentration had probably been much higher. 10:49 The gas had seeped through vents, walls, and even the narrowest gaps beneath doors, gradually filling the entire house while we slept. 10:57 Megan's bedroom was directly above the garage, which explained why she had suffered the worst exposure. 11:03 Brennan told me we were fortunate to be alive. 11:06 Entire families, he said, had died after making exactly the same mistake. 11:12 As the oxygen began clearing my head, a crushing pressure settled into my chest that had nothing to do with carbon monoxide. 11:20 I kept thinking about Nathan bringing us the generator. I remembered how proud and relieved we had felt when it started. I remembered believing we had taken every necessary precaution. 11:30 Brennan must have recognized the guilt on my face because he rested a hand on my shoulder. 11:35 He told me incidents like ours happened far more often than people realized. According to him, generators killed more people during power failures than the storms themselves. 11:46 Our neighbor George, who lived two houses away, drove me to the hospital while the fire department ventilated our home. 11:53 At the emergency room, doctors placed me on high-flow oxygen for three hours and drew blood every 30 minutes. 12:00 Diane was being treated the same way in another room. 12:03 Megan, however, had been admitted to the intensive care unit and placed inside something called a hyperbaric oxygen chamber. 12:10 The doctor who spoke with us was an exhausted-looking woman who could not have been much older than Nathan. 12:16 She explained that Megan had suffered severe carbon monoxide poisoning. 12:20 Her blood levels had been close to fatal when the ambulance arrived. The following 24 hours would be critical. 12:27 Even if Megan regained consciousness, the doctor warned that she could suffer neurological damage, memory loss, poor coordination, and other difficulties that might not become apparent for several weeks. 12:39 Diane and I alternated sitting beside her in the ICU. We watched machines breathe on her behalf, held her hand and spoke as though she could hear every word. We told her about the Thanksgiving dinner we would prepare when she recovered. We said her cousins were still coming to visit. 12:56 We promised that years from now we would retell the story and feel grateful that all of us had survived. 13:03 Megan woke on Thanksgiving morning. She was groggy and disoriented, but she was awake. She asked why she was in the hospital and why her head hurt so badly. 13:13 The doctors performed examination after examination, testing her reflexes, memory, and coordination. 13:20 Everything came back normal or close enough to normal that they described her recovery as a miracle. 13:26 Megan could not recall anything after going to bed Tuesday night. Her next memory was awakening in a hospital room surrounded by machinery. 13:34 We ate Thanksgiving dinner in the hospital cafeteria. The turkey was dry and the mashed potatoes were lumpy. Yet the food tasted better than any meal I had ever eaten because all of us were sitting there together and still alive. 13:48 Nathan visited with flowers he had purchased from a gas station. His eyes were red from crying and he apologized repeatedly for bringing the generator. 13:57 I told him it was not his fault. Everyone of us had believed we were using it safely. 14:03 My parents and Diane's sister arrived that afternoon, forcing us to explain the entire ordeal again. We watched their expressions change from confusion to horror and finally to relief. 14:15 We were released Friday afternoon with strict instructions to install carbon monoxide detectors on every level of the house. 14:22 That recommendation seems so obvious now that I still cannot understand how we had lived there without them. 14:28 Electricity had returned Thursday morning while we were still hospitalized. 14:33 Our neighbors had already removed the generator from the garage and left it in the driveway, where it sat like evidence from a crime scene. 14:41 I sold it the following week to a man who promised he would operate it only outdoors and far away from any structure. 14:47 although part of me wanted to smash it apart with a sledgehammer. 14:52 Megan returned to school after Thanksgiving break and appeared completely normal. 14:56 Even so, Diane and I watched her constantly during those first several weeks, searching for any indication of the delayed neurological symptoms the doctor had warned us about. 15:06 They never appeared, thank God. But even now, two years later, whenever a storm warning is issued or the power begins flickering, Diane and I exchange the same look. 15:17 Neither of us needs to say anything. 15:19 We both remember how close we came to losing everything because we believed six inches of open space was enough. 15:31 Story 2. 15:33 I operate an IT consulting company from the office in my Colorado Springs home. 15:38 That November afternoon I was absorbed in planning a server migration when my phone rang. The number was unfamiliar, but potential customers frequently called from numbers I did not recognize, particularly now that business was finally improving after two difficult years. 15:54 A woman with a flat professional tone asked whether she could speak to Brandon Novak regarding an unpaid debt. 16:01 I told her she had reached the wrong person, but she insisted the number match the one in their records. Then she asked whether I could simply verify the address they had listed. 16:11 Every part of the conversation raised warning signs. I ended the call, blocked the number and returned to my spreadsheets. 16:18 Twenty minutes later, another unknown number appeared on my screen. 16:22 This one had a different area code, but the caller followed the same script about debt collection and confirming my address. 16:29 By the time I went to sleep that evening I had received 14 calls from different numbers, all using essentially the same approach. 16:37 Some were automated recordings, others were actual people who knew my entire name, including my middle initial, and repeatedly pressured me to verify where I lived. 16:48 My wife Amy suggested that perhaps another person with a similar name had accidentally provided the wrong telephone number. 16:55 We had lived in the house for only 18 months. Having moved thereafter, I resigned from my corporate position and began operating the consulting firm independently. 17:05 Most of our neighbors were retired couples who preferred keeping to themselves, and we had never experienced any problems in the neighborhood. 17:13 I silenced my phone and assumed the collection agency would eventually locate the person it was truly trying to reach. 17:19 At approximately 6 the following morning, I awoke to someone pounding on the front door. 17:24 It was the kind of pounding that made your heart leap before your mind had time to understand what was happening. 17:30 Through the peephole, I saw two police officers standing on the porch, their breath visible in the cold morning air. 17:37 I opened the door wearing pajama pants and an old conference t-shirt from a technology summit. The younger officer asked whether I was Brandon Novak. When I confirmed that I was, he explained that police had received a 911 call about 40 minutes earlier from a man claiming to be me. 17:55 The caller said he was experiencing thoughts of self-harm and had access to firearms. 18:00 He had given the dispatcher my complete name, my exact home address, and even my cell phone number. 18:07 I stood there struggling to process what the officer was telling me as Amy appeared behind me and pulled her robe more tightly around herself against the morning cold. 18:16 The officers said they needed to enter the house and verify that everyone was safe. 18:21 It was standard procedure during a welfare check. We spent the following twenty minutes persuading them that neither of us had placed the call, that I owned no firearms and that I was mentally fine, only bewildered and increasingly alarmed. 18:35 The older officer, a sergeant with grey hair at his temples, wrote notes while I described the debt collection calls from the previous day. 18:43 He nodded as though he had encountered similar situations before. He mentioned that swatting and doxing had become more common, although our case seemed relatively mild compared with some of the incidents he had handled. 18:56 The officers provided a case number, advised me to file a formal harassment report, and departed just as our neighbors began their morning routines. 19:05 Several people watched from their driveways as the patrol car pulled away. 19:09 Amy prepared coffee while I sat at the kitchen table staring at my phone, trying to imagine who would invest so much effort into tormenting me. 19:18 I accomplished almost no work that day. Every vibration from my phone made me jump, even though the calls had stopped entirely after the police visit. 19:27 Instead of going to her usual office at the downtown law firm, Amy worked from our living room. She said she did not feel comfortable leaving me alone after what had happened. 19:37 That afternoon we installed a ring doorbell, one of the video models that sent alerts directly to a phone. 19:44 I spent far too much time opening the application whenever a vehicle passed our house. Nothing else happened during the day. 19:52 Amy and I pretended to work, although in reality we were both waiting for the next incident. 19:57 At approximately nine that night, after abandoning any remaining attempt to be productive, we settled onto the couch to watch something mindless on television. 20:06 A notification appeared from the ring application. 20:09 Motion detected at your front door. The live feed displayed our porch, dimly illuminated by the motion-activated light we had installed the year before. 20:19 No one was visible, although something had obviously triggered the camera. 20:23 I reviewed the recording and spotted the figure for only a second. Someone approached the door, placed an object on the mat, and then retreated rapidly, carefully remaining beyond the part of the camera's range where the image became clear. 20:37 All I could distinguish was a dark jacket and what appeared to be a baseball cap. 20:42 Amy had already begun calling the police while I stood beside the window, searching the street to determine whether anyone remained outside. 20:50 The neighborhood appeared deserted. There were only parked vehicles in the glow of porch lights. 20:56 After watching for five minutes, I carefully opened the front door, keeping most of my body behind it as though the door could serve as a shield. 21:04 A manila envelope rested on the mat. 21:07 There was no writing on the outside, and it had been sealed with ordinary tape. 21:12 I carried it inside using a pair of kitchen tongs. The precaution felt absurd, yet somehow necessary. 21:19 Amy warned me not to open it until the police arrived, but both of us new officers would not respond quickly to a non-emergency report involving an envelope. 21:28 I held it against the light and saw papers inside, apparently printed documents. 21:33 After another minute of debate, I pulled on a pair of latex gloves from Amy's cleaning supplies and carefully cut open one end with scissors. 21:41 The envelope contained roughly 12 pages, all printouts taken from different websites. 21:47 The first page was a screenshot of my LinkedIn account, except someone had altered my employment history. 21:54 It showed me holding positions at companies where I had never worked, including one that had been investigated for fraud two years earlier. 22:02 The following page came from a dating website I had never seen. It displayed my photograph and name but claimed I was divorced and seeking discreet encounters. 22:11 Every page contained another fabricated profile, combining my genuine personal information with lies. 22:18 There were postings on employment websites, public forums, and even what appeared to be a sex offender registry displaying my name and address. 22:26 Fortunately, that final item was only a mock-up rather than something that had actually been published online. 22:32 The last page tightened my chest in a way the others had not. It was a printed photograph of our house taken during daylight hours, most likely with a phone from somewhere across the street. 22:44 Someone had edited the photograph by drawing red arrows toward various windows and labeling them home office, master bedroom, and bathroom. 22:52 In one corner a sentence had been written by hand rather than printed. 22:56 Nice setup Brandon. We should talk about your consulting rates. 23:00 Amy took the pages from me after noticing the change in my expression. 23:04 I watched concern transform into genuine fear as she examined them. 23:08 Her instincts as an attorney immediately took control. 23:12 She began photographing each sheet with her phone, documenting everything while quietly mentioning harassment statutes and restraining orders. 23:20 Neither of us slept much that night, even though police promised that a patrol car would periodically drive through the neighborhood. 23:27 Every noise outside sent us toward the ring application. Every vehicle that slowed near the house made us look through the blinds. At around 3 in the morning, Amy finally fell asleep on the couch. 23:39 I remained in the kitchen with my laptop, searching the internet for any of the false profiles. Two were still active. One was the dating account. 23:49 The other was a forum post advertising discounted IT services for cash only, with no contracts required. 23:56 I captured screenshots and began submitting removal reports. Most websites, however, demanded extensive identity verification before they would delete anything. 24:06 I knew the process could require days or even weeks. 24:10 The most frightening part was having no idea why someone was doing this or who might be responsible. 24:16 I reviewed my client list three separate times, searching for anyone who could resent me or any project that might have ended badly. Nothing stood out. 24:25 Friday morning arrived far too quickly, and neither Amy nor I went to work. 24:30 She called her office and reported a family emergency. 24:34 I canceled two video conferences by claiming my internet connection was malfunctioning. We were working through our third pot of coffee when my phone rang. The call came from a local number I did not recognize. Despite Amy's advice, I answered. 24:48 A man with a rough voice, the kind that sounded as though he had smoked for decades, asked whether I was the brand in advertising cash-only IT services. 24:57 I began explaining that the advertisement was fraudulent, but he interrupted. 25:02 He said he did not care about the post. He only wanted to know whether I was the Brandon who had worked at Systematics Corporation in 2018. 25:11 My entire body went cold. I had worked there briefly as an outside contractor for four months before the company collapsed in a massive embezzlement scandal. 25:20 I had not participated in anything illegal. 25:23 In fact, I had left two weeks before federal agents raided the offices. 25:28 Even so, anyone associated with the company had suffered damage to their reputation. 25:33 When I became silent, the man chuckled. He said we definitely needed to meet because he had a business proposal that would benefit both of us. 25:41 I told him I had no interest in any proposal and began ending the call. Then he said something that stopped me. He mentioned Amy's maiden name, identified the law firm where she worked, and even knew the floor on which her office was located. 25:56 He said it would be unfortunate if her co-workers learned about her husband's association with systematics, especially the encrypted files I had supposedly helped conceal before leaving. 26:07 The accusation was entirely fabricated. I had never worked with anything related to the company's financial infrastructure. The man said he possessed documents suggesting otherwise. Before disconnecting, he told me I had until midnight to reconsider. 26:22 He would contact me later with instructions. 26:25 Amy had heard enough from my side of the conversation to understand what was happening. The situation was no longer random harassment. It was extortion. 26:35 Whoever was responsible had conducted extensive research on both of us. 26:39 That evening, while Amy spoke with a colleague who specialized in cybercrime, I noticed something in the ring recordings that I had previously overlooked. 26:48 Reviewing footage from the previous several days, I saw the same vehicle repeatedly passing our house. 26:54 It was a dark blue sedan with mud covering the license plate. Since Wednesday, it had driven past at least fifteen times. Each time it slowed near our driveway but never stopped, creeping along as though the driver were inspecting something. 27:09 I began downloading every recording. 27:12 Then the doorbell camera activated again. 27:15 This time it captured the visitor clearly. 27:17 He was a heavyset man in his 50s with a gray beard and wire-rimmed glasses. He wore a Denver Broncos cap and a brown leather jacket. 27:26 He stood on the porch for perhaps 10 seconds, looking straight into the camera with a faint smile. 27:32 Then he raised a sheet of paper displaying the handwritten time 11.47 p.m. 27:38 Afterward he turned and walked away. 27:40 Amy immediately contacted the police while I inspected every lock on every door and window. 27:46 The responding officer was not one of the officers who had visited the previous morning. After watching the footage once, he requested backup. Within 20 minutes, three patrol cars lined our street and a detective named Rivera sat at our kitchen table reviewing the entire sequence of events. 28:03 She recognized the man in the recording. 28:06 His name was Carl Brennan, a former private investigator who had lost his license five years earlier after illegally obtaining and selling confidential records. 28:16 He had been associated with three other extortion investigations, although prosecutors had never secured a conviction. 28:23 According to Rivera, he always managed to remain barely inside the grayest boundaries of the law. 28:29 She said Carl typically worked with a partner, a technology specialist who conducted the online harassment while Carl handled intimidation in person. 28:38 At exactly 11.47 p.m., my phone vibrated with a message from a block number. 28:44 The text contained only an address in a warehouse district on the southern side of the city and the sentence, Come alone or the files go public Monday. 28:53 Rivera was already shaking her head before I finished reading the message aloud. 28:58 Police intended to place our house under surveillance and follow Carl or anyone else who appeared, but she strongly recommended that I not visit the address. 29:07 Amy was less diplomatic. 29:09 She said I would be an idiot to walk willingly into such an obvious trap. 29:14 Still, Carl's research had been thorough. He knew about systematics. 29:19 He understood that even false accusations supported by manufactured evidence could ruin my company, especially within the relatively small IT consulting community, where professional reputation meant everything. 29:32 Rivera left two officers stationed outside and gave us her direct telephone number. She said patrols would increase throughout the night and that the cybercrime unit had already begun tracing the telephone numbers and fraudulent profiles. 29:45 I did not go to the warehouse. Instead, I finally did what I should have done from the beginning. 29:50 I used my own IT expertise to defend myself. 29:54 While Carl waited at whatever trap he had arranged, I contacted a former colleague from my corporate years who specialized in digital forensics. 30:03 Together, we traced the fabricated profiles to a particular IP address and identified the electronic fingerprints Carl's technical partner had failed to conceal. 30:12 By 4 o'clock Saturday morning, we had collected enough evidence for Rivera to obtain a search warrant. 30:18 Carl's partner turned out to be Dennis Huang, the owner of a struggling computer repair shop that was barely remaining in business. 30:26 Police searched both Dennis' shop and Carl's apartment Saturday afternoon. They found everything. There was software used to generate the robocalls, templates for counterfeit documents, and even audio recordings of Carl boasting about earlier extortion schemes targeting other former Systematics employees. 30:45 The entire operation collapsed more rapidly than I had imagined. 30:49 Dennis cooperated immediately. 30:51 In exchange for a plea agreement, he revealed everything about Carl's activities. They had operated the scheme for two years, selecting victims who had some connection to public corporate scandals. 31:03 Their strategy relied on the belief that most people would pay rather than risk damage to their reputations. 31:09 After news of the arrest became public, seven additional victims came forward. 31:14 Carl received an eight-year prison sentence. 31:17 Dennis was sentenced to three years with probation. 31:20 Removing every fraudulent profile took several weeks. Even now I occasionally receive telephone calls from attorneys offering assistance with my supposed debt problems. But my company survived. 31:33 Amy and I relocated six months later. We did not move because we were forced to. We moved because we wanted a new beginning. 31:41 Our new home has stronger security, no exterior entry points leading into the basement, and neighbors who actually communicate with one another. 31:50 I still look at the ring application more often than necessary, and calls from unidentified numbers go directly to voicemail. 31:58 But now when I notice a vehicle slowing near the driveway, it is usually someone studying a GPS, or searching for the correct house number, not someone recording the details of my life for another extortion scheme. 32:16 Story 3. 32:18 November always brought double shifts at Garrison's department store. When Colleen asked whether anyone could cover the overnight inventory shift on the Friday following Thanksgiving, I needed the additional money too badly to refuse. 32:31 I was 26 years old and still repaying loans from a journalism degree I had never used. 32:37 Most nights I stocked merchandise and folded endless rows of winter coats that customers would scatter and destroy again the following morning. 32:45 That particular Friday, garrisons closed at midnight after the chaos of Black Friday. I arrived at 1 in the morning carrying a thermos of coffee and a podcast downloaded onto my phone. 32:56 I expected another tedious shift spent counting products in the stockroom while the shopping mall remained silent and dark around us. 33:04 After eight months of working there, I had become accustomed to the strange atmosphere Garrison's developed after closing. 33:11 That night, however, something felt different from the instant I scanned my badge at the employee entrance. 33:17 Normally, at least three or four employees would be assigned to overnight inventory. 33:22 Colleen had texted to say she had developed food poisoning from her mother's turkey stuffing. 33:27 Brad's vehicle had broken down on the highway while he was returning from his parents' home in Michigan. 33:33 It'll just be you and Hector for maintenance, she had written. 33:37 Hector had already begun his rounds on the opposite side of the mall. 33:41 I followed the rear corridors toward my department. 33:44 I passed the break room, where someone had left half of a pumpkin pie in the refrigerator with a sticky note reading free. 33:51 The usual music continued playing through the overhead speakers at the barely perceptible volume. 33:57 Management always forgot to shut off completely. 34:00 My department was women's formal wear, positioned in the center of the second floor. It was surrounded by tall mannequins dressed in sequined holiday gowns and velvet jackets that cost more than my monthly rent. 34:12 According to the overnight assignment list, I needed to count every item stored in sections D through H. That meant approximately four hours of scanning barcodes and comparing the results with the spreadsheet on the tablet the store had provided. 34:26 I started in the back corridor. That was where we kept excess merchandise and boxes stacked nearly to the ceiling. 34:33 Next season's spring collection was already stored there, waiting to replace the winter items. 34:39 The fluorescent lights produced a particular high-pitched hum that caused headaches if I remained beneath them for too long. 34:45 I could hear the ventilation system switching on and off. Each cycle made the plastic inventory labels flutter against the cardboard boxes like tiny fingers tapping for attention. 34:56 At approximately 2.30, after completing Sections D&E, I decided to purchase water from the vending machine near the customer's service counter on the main sales floor. 35:06 I stepped out of the stock room. That was when I noticed the mannequins for the first time that night. I mean truly noticed them. There were around 40 mannequins in our department. They were faceless white figures whose heads had been tilted at precise angles required by some corporate visual merchandising handbook. 35:25 Every one of them had been placed strategically to guide customers' attention toward featured clothing collections. 35:31 Standing among them in the half-darkness, however, with only emergency lights illuminating the floor and faint music drifting through the speakers, they resembled a crowd interrupted in the middle of a conversation. 35:43 Despite having no facial features, their blank heads somehow seemed capable of expressing emotion. 35:49 I collected my water and returned quickly to the stockroom, telling myself I was behaving irrationally. 35:56 I had worked plenty of overnight shifts without becoming frightened of plastic display models. Section F took much longer than expected because someone had incorrectly labeled half of the boxes during the previous delivery. 36:08 I was forced to open each container and confirm whether the contents matched the inventory codes. 36:13 My phone battery was draining unusually quickly, probably because of the weak signal in the stockroom, so I shut off the podcast to conserve power. 36:23 Without the audio playing, every sound became magnified. I heard cardboard shifting, distant pipes striking inside the walls and the endless overhead music, which had changed from instrumental Christmas songs to generic jazz that sounded as though it had been recorded underwater. 36:39 I was crouching between two tall shelving units and scanning a box of cashmere scarves when the announcement system crackled overhead. 36:47 The noise startled me so badly that I dropped the scanner. 36:51 It struck the concrete floor and slid underneath the lowest shelf. 36:55 At first I assumed it was feedback or perhaps Hector testing the system. 37:00 Then the voice began speaking. 37:02 My entire body stiffened because I recognized it immediately. 37:06 Attention Garrison shoppers. The time is now 10 o'clock and our store will be closing in 15 minutes. 37:13 Please bring your final selections to the registers located at the front of each department. We thank you for shopping with us today and look forward to seeing you again soon. Garrisons where style meets savings. 37:26 It was the standard closing announcement, repeated word for word. The same recording played every night. 37:32 Except now it was playing at 3 in the morning inside a completely empty department store. That was not the worst part. 37:40 It was not what made me rise so suddenly that I knocked an entire stack of boxes onto the floor behind me. 37:46 The bright professional voice echoing through the building belonged to me. 37:50 Three months earlier, management had recorded me reading the closing announcement after Janet, the employee who usually handled it, quit without warning. 37:59 They needed someone with what they described as a friendly yet authoritative speaking voice to record the store's messages. 38:06 I had spent an entire afternoon inside the manager's office, reading script after script into a microphone while Keith from corporate adjusted audio settings on his laptop. 38:16 He forced me to repeat lines until my throat became sore. Hearing the recording at 3 in the morning, when I knew no one should have been inside the control room where announcements were managed, caused every muscle in my body to tense. 38:30 The message played again, my own voice reverberating through the stock room. 38:34 This time I noticed something slightly wrong. The speed seemed altered by the smallest amount, making my voice sound empty and unnatural, like a person speaking through a long tunnel or from the bottom of a deep well. 38:48 I picked up my phone and called Hector. The call immediately went to voicemail, which was not especially unusual because reception was poor throughout most of the building. 38:58 My legs felt unstable as I passed through the swinging doors and entered the sales floor. 39:03 I tried convincing myself that there had to be a rational explanation. Perhaps it was a software malfunction. Maybe someone was playing a prank, although I could not imagine who would invest so much effort into something that elaborate. 39:17 The announcement had ended by the time I reached the sales area. Only the soft music and the low mechanical hum of the escalators remained. The escalators continued operating all night, even after the store had closed. 39:30 I began moving toward the staircase leading to the first floor where the security office was located. 39:36 I intended to inspect the surveillance cameras or at least find the overnight security guard who was supposed to be monitoring them. 39:43 As I crossed my department, however, something stopped me instantly. 39:46 I blinked several times, trying to confirm that I was really seeing what appeared to be in front of me. 39:52 Every mannequin in the women's formal wear section had been turned around. When I passed through earlier to retrieve water, all of them had faced outward toward the walkways, displaying their clothing to potential shoppers as they always did. 40:06 Now every mannequin faced inward. Forty pale figures formed a circle around the central display platform holding the featured holiday collection. 40:15 Their eyeless faces pointed toward the empty space in the center as though they were observing something invisible to me. 40:22 Sequins on the dresses reflected the emergency lights, sending sparks of light across the surrounding walls. 40:29 The reflection shifted slightly with the circulation of air, creating an illusion of movement, of breathing, of life existing where none should have been. 40:39 I stepped backward and collided with something solid. 40:42 I nearly screamed before realizing I had struck one of the jewelry display cases. 40:47 The sharp breath I made seemed to echo through the department. 40:51 Only then did I realize the music had stopped. The entire store had become silent. My phone vibrated inside my pocket, startling me again. A text message from an unidentified number appeared on the screen. 41:04 Check the fitting rooms. I did not recognize the number. When I attempted to call it, an automated recording informed me that the number had been disconnected. 41:14 The sensible response would have been to leave immediately. 41:17 I should have walked through the employee exit, abandoned the inventory assignment and forgotten about the overtime pay. 41:24 I should have focused only on putting as much distance as possible between myself and that store. 41:30 Instead, something compelled me to continue. 41:33 Perhaps it was curiosity. Perhaps it was a stubborn refusal to accept that anything truly dangerous was occurring. 41:40 Whatever the reason, I walked toward the fitting rooms at the rear of the department. There were six narrow cubicles in a row, each enclosed by a heavy burgundy curtain rather than a solid door. 41:52 A long mirror stood at the end of the corridor. 41:55 As I approached, I heard something that forced me to slow down and then stop. 41:59 My voice was coming from one of the fitting rooms again. 42:02 This time it was not the store's closing announcement. It was a telephone conversation I had had with my mother two days earlier. 42:10 Only my side of the discussion was playing repeated word for word. 42:14 I heard myself speaking about returning to college. 42:18 I said I was exhausted by retail work. 42:21 I talked about feeling as though I was wasting my life folding clothing for customers who barely acknowledged my existence. 42:28 The curtain covering the middle fitting room moved slightly as though someone had brushed against it moments earlier. 42:34 Beneath it, I saw a shadow with the unmistakable outline of feet. 42:38 The feet did not move. They remained perfectly still while the recording of my voice continued inside. 42:45 My fingers trembled as I reached for the curtain. 42:48 My heart was beating so violently that I could feel it inside my throat. 42:53 In one sudden motion, I pulled the curtain open. The cubicle was empty. 42:58 A small digital recorder rested on the bench, the same type employees used for verbal inventory notes. 43:04 It was playing my private conversation repeatedly. 43:08 A message had been written across the mirror in what appeared to be dark red lipstick, the expensive variety sold at our cosmetics counter for $40 per tube. 43:17 The words weakened my knees. 43:20 You looked better in the blue dress. 43:22 Thursday, November 14th, 2.47pm. 43:26 That date had been two weeks earlier. It was an ordinary afternoon when I had tried on a blue dress from the clearance rack during my lunch break. 43:34 I had done it inside those same fitting rooms. I had been alone. 43:39 Or at least I had believed I was alone. 43:41 I seized the recorder and ran. 43:44 I no longer cared about explanations or logic. The only thing that mattered was escaping the building. 43:50 I sprinted through the departments, passing mannequins that seemed to rotate their heads and follow my movement, although I knew such a thing was impossible. 43:59 Then the announcement speakers crackled again. 44:02 This time the voice was not a single recording. Dozens of voices filled the store. Every voice belonged to me, but they had been collected from different conversations, telephone calls and recordings. 44:14 Someone had cut and combined them into an unintelligible storm of my own words. 44:19 The sentences had been rearranged into new phrases that made no sense, yet still sounded threatening. 44:26 It felt as though someone had spent months gathering pieces of me and preserving them for that exact moment. 44:32 The escalator was still operating. I descended three steps at a time and nearly fell when my shoe caught in the metal grooves. Behind me I heard footsteps. At least they sounded like footsteps. 44:44 There was a deliberate clicking of heels against tile, echoing throughout the deserted store. 44:49 The rhythm, however, was wrong. There were too many feet. 44:54 It sounded as though every mannequin inside the building had stepped down from its platform and begun pursuing me. 45:00 The employee exit stood on the first floor beside the loading area. 45:04 I collided with the door hard enough to knock the breath from my lungs. 45:08 My hands struggled with the key card while the footsteps came closer, multiplying and approaching from several directions. 45:15 Finally, the lock released. 45:18 I burst into the freezing November air and did not stop running until I reached my vehicle beneath the only functioning street lamp in the employee parking lot. 45:26 I sat inside for 20 minutes with the engine running and every door locked. 45:31 Through the rear view mirror I watched the department store and waited for someone, anyone to emerge after me. 45:37 Nothing moved except occasional pieces of trash carried across the pavement by the wind. 45:43 Eventually I called the police from inside the car. 45:46 I told them someone had entered the store, that I had heard intruders and that I had fled because I believed I was in danger. 45:53 Two officers arrived within 15 minutes. I remained inside my vehicle while they searched the building with the security guard. 46:01 The guard had apparently been sleeping in the break room the entire time and claimed he had not noticed anything unusual. 46:07 The officers discovered Keith from corporate inside a third floor storage room. He was surrounded by monitors and recording devices he had been using to spy on employees for the previous six months. 46:19 He had placed concealed cameras inside the fitting rooms, break room, and even the bathrooms. 46:24 He had also been secretly living in the department store after closing. He slept in different storage areas, stole meals from the cafe, and used copied employee key cards to move around without attracting attention. 46:37 Police recovered hundreds of hours of recordings They were not only of me. Keith had filmed every woman employed at the store. He edited the footage and audio into disturbing compilations that he uploaded to private internet forums. 46:52 Investigators learned that three other retail chains had previously fired him for similar conduct. 46:58 Somehow he continued finding employment because none of those companies had pursued criminal charges. 47:04 They had simply wanted him removed as quietly as possible. 47:08 Keith was arrested that morning. 47:10 I gave my official statement at the police station while still wearing my garrison's uniform. Before leaving, I removed it, crumpled it into a ball, and threw it into their trash bin because I knew I would never wear it again. 47:23 The department store permanently closed two months later after the lawsuit. 47:28 I heard the location was eventually converted into a gym or something similar, although I have never returned to verify it. 47:35 I did return to school. 47:37 I am studying cybersecurity now. 47:40 It is strange how life works out. I also search for hidden cameras everywhere I go. 47:46 I listen for the faint electrical hum of recording devices. 47:50 Once you discover that someone has been observing you without your knowledge, you never completely stop looking over your shoulder. 48:01 Story 4 Mom was fighting with the turkey when I came through the door that Wednesday afternoon, struggling to force the 20-pound bird into submission while muttering about thawing schedules and packaging that refused to cooperate. 48:16 I had just finished a 12-hour shift at the hospital in Tulsa and driven directly to my parents' farmhouse. 48:22 I was still wearing my scrubs beneath my jacket because I knew Mom would start worrying if I arrived late. 48:29 The kitchen windows had fogged over from all the cooking. Through the condensation, I could make out the wheat field stretching endlessly beneath the sky that had taken on a strange yellowish-gray shade. 48:40 My younger sister, Ashley, stood at the stove, stirring gravy with one hand while balancing her baby on her hip. 48:47 Her two older sons raced in circles around the dining room table, their sneakers squealing across the old linoleum floor. 48:54 Dad had barricaded himself in the living room with the weather channel playing. He had turned the volume high enough for everyone in the house to hear the meteorologist discussing pressure systems and cloud formations. 49:06 The unusual thing about that afternoon was how motionless everything seemed outside. 49:11 It felt as though nature had pressed a pause button while the rest of us hurried around indoors preparing for the following day's feast. 49:18 Ashley's husband, Robert, was expected later with his mother. 49:22 Mom kept checking her phone for updates from my brother Kevin, who was driving in from Arkansas with his new girlfriend, someone none of us had met yet. 49:31 The house felt full of movement and anticipation. 49:34 Pots bubbled, oven timers beeped, and the children argued over who would be allowed to lick the mashed potato beaters. 49:41 I remember washing my hands at the kitchen sink and looking toward our old storm cellar, about 50 yards from the house. 49:48 Its wooden doors were buried beneath fallen leaves. We had not opened it since I was probably 16 or 17, back when Dad still forced us to practice tornado drills every spring. 50:00 At approximately 4.30, I was helping Ashley peel potatoes when the electricity flickered once. 50:07 It lasted only long enough to reset the microwave clock, not long enough to make anyone concerned. 50:13 From the living room, Dad called out that the weather service had mentioned a few storm cells developing southwest of us, but nothing appeared to be moving in our direction. 50:22 At worst, he said, we might get some rain later that night. 50:27 The boys had transferred their chaos outdoors. 50:30 Through the window, I watched them throwing a football with the aggressive enthusiasm children use when each is trying to prove he is tougher than the other. 50:38 The air entering through the screen door felt unusually thick and warm for November, almost like breathing through a damp towel. 50:46 Mom complained that her arthritis had begun bothering her. She insisted that meant a storm was approaching, regardless of what the meteorologist said. 50:55 I stepped onto the back porch to call the boys inside for a snack. 50:59 That was when I realized the birds had fallen completely silent. There was not a single chirp. 51:05 No crows called from the fields. Even the chickens in their coop had stopped their usual clucking. 51:11 The western sky had turned a nauseating green color, like aged copper. 51:16 Clouds at different altitudes were moving in separate directions, producing a twisted, rotating effect that tightened something in my chest. 51:24 Still no warning sirens sounded. None of our phones received emergency alerts. There was only that unnatural silence pressing against my eardrums. 51:34 I called the boys again, louder this time. They abandoned the football in the yellowing grass and ran toward the house. We had barely gotten inside when the windows began trembling in their frames. 51:45 At first, the vibration was faint, like a truck traveling along a distant road. 51:50 Except no road was close enough to create that kind of shaking. 51:54 Ashley looked up from the stove, her face suddenly drained of color. 51:59 She asked whether anyone else could hear the low rumbling noise. 52:02 It resembled a freight train, but something about it was wrong. 52:06 The sound was too steady and much too close. 52:10 Dad sprang from his recliner and rushed toward the front door. He pulled it open, and I will never forget how rigid his entire body became when he saw what was approaching. 52:20 Over his shoulder I saw it too. 52:22 A dark, violently twisting column was descending from the clouds less than a mile away. 52:28 It tore through the Johnson's cornfield, hurling debris hundreds of feet into the air like confetti made from destruction. 52:35 Everything that followed happened with incredible speed, although each second remained stretched into minutes in my memory. 52:43 Dad screamed for everyone to get into the storm cellar immediately. His voice cracked in a way I had never heard before, not even when Grandpa died. 52:52 Mom dropped the glass casserole dish she was holding. 52:55 Sweet potato pieces and shards of ceramic scattered across the kitchen floor. 53:00 Ashley crushed her baby against her chest so tightly that he began shrieking. 53:05 Her two older boys stood frozen in the doorway, their eyes as wide as dinner plates. 53:10 Then the electricity failed completely, plunging the house into an eerie green-tinted darkness. 53:16 Through the windows we watched Transformers erupt in brilliant blue flashes farther down the road. The rumble had become a deafening roar, loud enough to make my teeth ache. 53:26 The entire house started groaning as if an enormous fist were squeezing it. 53:31 Mom began shouting about the pantry. She pointed toward the reinforced closet beneath the staircase where we stored canned food and cleaning supplies. She said it was closer and therefore safer. She insisted we would never reach the cellar in time. Dad was already forcing us toward the back door. He shouted that the house would not withstand the tornado and that the pantry would become a death trap. We had to get below ground. 53:57 I grabbed Ashley's two older boys, lifting one beneath each arm, while she struggled to secure the baby. 54:04 Mom remained paralyzed between the two choices. Her hands trembled as she looked from Dad standing near the back door to the pantry only ten feet away. Then the wind struck the house. It did not build gradually. It hit all at once, like an invisible wall slamming into the structure. 54:21 The kitchen window exploded inward, throwing glass across the exact place where we had been standing only seconds earlier. 54:28 Dad made the decision for everyone. He seized Mom by the wrist and dragged her toward the rear entrance while yelling at me to run. 54:35 Just run. Do not look back. 54:38 The instant we stepped outside, the wind tried to tear us apart. 54:42 It pulled at our clothing and hair and made breathing impossible unless we turned our faces sideways. 54:48 The 50 yards separating us from the storm cellar seemed more like 50 miles. 54:53 Its wooden doors were barely visible through the horizontal rain, which had become mixed with soil, fragments of corn stalks and God only knew what else. 55:03 Behind us, metal shrieked. It was probably the barn roof being peeled away like the lid of a tin can. 55:10 Ashley's oldest son screamed at my arms. but his voice was nearly swallowed by the apocalyptic noise surrounding us from every direction. 55:18 Dad reached the cellar first. He struggled against the wind to lift the wooden doors. 55:23 The old hinges screamed in protest after years without use. The moment he raised the left door, it ripped free from its hinges and vanished into the storm as though it weighed nothing. 55:34 The right door remained attached long enough for Dad to force Mom down the concrete stairs and into the darkness. 55:40 I practically threw the boys down after her. I heard them tumble and cry out, but there was no time for gentleness. There was time only to survive. 55:49 Ashley came directly behind me carrying the baby, and all of us collapsed down the steps in a mass of limbs and terror. 55:56 The temperature dropped nearly 20 degrees the moment we descended below ground. The cellar smelled of damp soil and decades of spider webs. 56:05 Dad slammed the single remaining door above us and forced a 2x4 through the handle just as something enormous struck the ground where we had been standing moments before. 56:15 It could have been a piece of farm machinery or part of someone's roof. 56:19 Inside the cellar, the darkness was absolute. 56:22 We huddled together on the wet floor, reaching blindly for one another while the world above us disintegrated. 56:28 The noise cannot truly be described. It was like being trapped inside a blender filled with thunder and shattered glass, punctuated by violent impacts that shook loose dirt from the ceiling and showered it over our heads. 56:41 Mom recited the Lord's Prayer repeatedly. 56:44 Ashley's baby screamed himself hoarse. The older boys clung to anyone they could reach, their fingernails digging through clothing and into skin. 56:53 I tasted blood where I had bitten my tongue during the fall. My ankle throbbed after landing badly on the concrete stairs. Still, the only thing I could think about was whether a single wooden door and a rusted two-by-four could withstand the nightmare moving directly above us. 57:09 The tornado lasted perhaps three minutes. It felt more like three hours. It passed directly over the cellar with a sound I can describe only as destruction itself being given a voice. 57:20 At one point, the door above us lifted several inches despite the 2x4 holding it in place. For one terrifying moment, we saw a narrow strip of greenish light and debris spinning overhead. 57:32 Then the door crashed shut again. The wood cracked, but somehow remained intact. 57:38 Just as abruptly as the tornado had arrived, the roar began moving away. The sound faded toward the east, leaving behind an unnatural silence broken only by rain tapping against whatever remained above us. and the exhausted whimpering of the baby. 57:53 We stayed motionless for another 10 minutes. No one was brave enough to speak or move. 57:58 Eventually, Dad activated the flashlight on his phone and illuminated our faces. 58:03 Every one of us was covered in soil and cobwebs. Our eyes were wide with shock, but we were alive. Every single one of us was alive. 58:13 When we finally climbed out of the cellar, the surrounding landscape was unrecognizable. It looked as though someone had fed our farm through an enormous shredder. 58:22 The house remained standing, but half of the roof was missing. 58:26 Mom's kitchen was exposed to the sky, resembling a dollhouse with its front wall removed. 58:32 The barn had disappeared completely. Only the concrete foundation remained, with twisted metal beams protruding from it at unnatural angles. 58:41 Dad's truck had been thrown at least 200 yards into the wheat field. It rested upside down like a dead beetle. 58:48 The strangest thing, however, the detail that still sends chills through me whenever I remember it, was Mom's turkey. 58:56 It was the same bird she had been fighting with only an hour before. 59:00 It sat completely intact in its roasting pan on the kitchen counter, visible through the missing wall. 59:06 It had not shifted even an inch from the place where she had left it. 59:10 We spent Thanksgiving in a motel in town. We ate Chinese takeout because nearly every restaurant had either sustained damage or become overwhelmed with displaced families. 59:21 But all of us were together. 59:23 After everything we had survived, orange chicken and fried rice tasted like the finest holiday meal in the world. 59:34 Story 5. 59:36 When you agree to work an overnight stocking shift at Savemore during the week before Thanksgiving, no one warns you about the silence. It is not a peaceful kind of quiet. It is the sort that presses against your eardrums and makes you conscious of every sound your own body creates. 59:53 I needed the additional money that year. It was as simple as that. 59:57 My landlord had recently increased my rent by $200, and my daytime job entering data at an insurance office barely left enough for groceries after the bills were paid. 60:08 Savemore offered an additional $4 per hour for overnight work, and management was desperate enough to employ anyone willing to work from 11 at night until 7 the following morning. 60:19 I reported for my first shift on a Wednesday near the end of November, three days before Thanksgiving. I wore the ugly green vest they had issued me and a pair of steel-toed boots borrowed from my cousin. The store manager was an exhausted-looking woman named Veronica, Her greying hair was pulled tightly into a bun and she gave me a 10 minute tour of the back room, demonstrated how to operate the pallet jack and told me the code for the freezer alarm before disappearing into her office. 60:47 She also mentioned that I would be working alone during most overnight shifts. 60:52 The other stalker, a man named Julian, had suddenly quit two weeks earlier without giving notice. That should have been the first warning sign. The first several hours passed normally. I unloaded cartons of canned food, refilled the cereal shelves, and tried not to think about how the store resembled a gigantic tomb once the customers had left. 61:11 The fluorescent fixtures produced a constant low electrical hum that never completely disappeared into the background. 61:19 At approximately one in the morning, the public address system began playing a repeating advertisement for the Black Friday doorbusters. 61:26 The same enthusiastic voice recited the identical message every 12 minutes. 61:31 Savemore is your destination for Black Friday savings. Join us Friday morning at 5am for doorbuster deals you cannot miss. 61:40 After hearing it for the fifth time, I wanted to tear every speaker out of the ceiling. The extra money kept me working. 61:47 I continued stacking jars of pasta sauce and rotating older merchandise forward the way Veronica had instructed. 61:54 The layout was uncomplicated. There were 12 aisles, along with the produce department near the entrance and the meat and dairy cases running across the rear wall. 62:04 I worked in an organized sequence beginning with aisle 1 and planning to complete the entire store before my shift ended. 62:10 By 2 in the morning I had reached aisle 7 where the snacks were located. That was when I heard it for the first time, the unmistakable metallic rattle of a shopping cart wheel. 62:21 It was that specific sound made by a cart being pushed slowly across linoleum flooring. 62:27 I froze in the middle of reaching toward a shelf, still holding a box of crackers, and listened. 62:34 The noise seemed to originate near the front of the store, somewhere around the produce section. 62:39 Then it stopped. I placed the crackers down and moved toward the end of the aisle. Leaning out, I searched the front area. There was nothing. The checkout lanes were vacant. 62:51 Every register screen was dark. The produce misters moved through their programmed cycle with a gentle hiss. 62:58 I told myself the building was probably settling. 63:01 Older stores produced strange noises. There were pipes, ventilation systems, and refrigeration units switching on and off. 63:09 I had once read that large empty spaces could distort sound and confuse the mind, causing the brain to fill silence with familiar noises. 63:17 That had to explain it. 63:19 I returned to my stock card and resumed working, although I kept part of my attention focused on the rest of the building. 63:26 For the next twenty minutes, the only sounds were the repetitive announcement and the buzzing lights. Then, while I was cutting apart empty cardboard cartons with my box cutter, I heard the card again. 63:37 This time it sounded closer. Perhaps aisle nine or aisle ten. 63:42 The movement was intentional. It was not the random rolling of an unattended cart drifting across an uneven floor. 63:49 It sounded exactly like someone casually pushing a shopping cart while browsing. 63:54 Hello, I called. My voice seemed much too loud in the deserted store. 63:59 The store is closed. 64:01 There was no response, only the public address system beginning its Black Friday advertisement again. 64:08 I abandoned the cardboard boxes and walked rapidly toward the rear of the store, where the sound had originated. 64:14 My boots squeaked against the polished floor. 64:17 When I turned into aisle nine, the baking aisle, it was empty. 64:22 Neatly arranged bags of flour and sugar stared back at me from the shelves. There was no cart, no person, Nothing had been disturbed. 64:32 I remained there for several seconds, feeling my pulse accelerate more than I wanted to acknowledge. 64:38 I studied the aisle from one end to the other. The fluorescent lights flickered once. 64:43 It was only a brief interruption, but it made every shadow jump before the lights stabilized. 64:49 I inspected aisle 10 and then aisle 11. Both were empty. 64:53 The rational part of my mind insisted I was exhausted. Working through the night could interfere with your senses. 65:00 Perhaps the sound had come from outside the building. 65:03 Maybe someone was pushing a cart across the parking lot and returning it to the corral. 65:08 But it was 2.15 in the morning on a Wednesday night in late November. 65:12 Who would possibly be outside with a shopping cart? 65:16 I walked to the front windows and pressed my face against the cold glass. 65:20 I formed a shield around my eyes with both hands to block the interior lights. The parking lot spread out before me, dark and vacant beneath the orange street lamps. 65:30 My vehicle stood alone near the employee entrance, coated in a thin layer of frost. 65:35 There were no other cars, no people, no shopping carts. Nothing moved anywhere. 65:42 I returned to my duties because the alternative was remaining there while my imagination became uncontrollable. 65:48 I needed the job too badly to leave over unexplained sounds. 65:52 Veronica had prepared a list of essential products that had to be stocked before the morning employees arrived, and I was already behind. 66:00 I pushed the pallet jack toward the dairy department at the rear of the store. Three pallets loaded with milk and yogurt were waiting inside the walk-in cooler. 66:09 The cooler entrance was a heavy industrial door with a silver handle that required considerable force to open. 66:16 Inside, the temperature dropped to approximately 38 degrees, and every breath formed a visible cloud. 66:23 I moved quickly, transferring milk crates onto my flatbed cart. That was when I noticed something unusual. A security camera was mounted near the corner of the cooler ceiling. 66:33 It was one of those small black dome-shaped cameras that ordinarily disappeared into the surroundings. 66:40 A red indicator light was blinking on it. 66:42 I had already entered the cooler three times that night, and I was certain the light had not been illuminated before. 66:49 Security cameras usually did not display visible lights, did they? 66:53 I stared at the tiny red point flashing in a consistent rhythm. An unpleasant sensation crept along my spine. 67:00 Someone was observing me. 67:03 It had to be Veronica watching the camera feed from her office to make certain I was not wasting time. 67:08 That explanation made sense. 67:11 I pulled my loaded cart backward through the doorway and allowed the heavy cooler door to close with a hydraulic hiss. 67:17 When I turned toward the main sales floor, I saw something that caught my breath in my throat. 67:22 At the opposite side of the store, in the frozen food aisle, someone stood completely motionless between the glass freezer doors. It was unquestionably a person. 67:32 They were facing toward me. They wore dark clothing, perhaps a coat or hooded sweatshirt. They were not walking, shopping, or making any visible movement. They simply stood there like a mannequin. 67:45 My first reaction was relief. 67:47 At last I had an explanation. Someone else was inside the store. Perhaps it was another employee Veronica had forgotten to mention, or a supervisor conducting an inspection. 67:59 Then that relief transformed into something colder. 68:02 Whoever stood there had remained silent when I called out earlier. 68:06 Why had they not answered? Why were they standing completely still in the frozen food aisle at 2.30 in the morning? 68:13 I abandoned the loaded cart in the dairy section and started toward the person. 68:17 My footsteps echoed throughout the quiet store. 68:21 Hey, I called, forcing my voice to sound calm and welcoming. 68:25 You scared the hell out of me. I didn't realize anyone else was here. 68:30 The figure gave no response. They did not move or even shift their weight. 68:35 When I approached within approximately 30 feet, I could see that they were facing directly toward me, or perhaps toward the dairy department behind me. 68:44 Their posture was unnaturally rigid. Both arms hung straight down at their sides. 68:49 At that exact moment, the public address system crackled overhead. 68:54 Savemore is your destination for Black Friday savings. 68:58 I stopped when I was roughly 20 feet away. From that distance, I could see that the person wore a dark navy or black sweatshirt with the hood raised. 69:07 Their face remained hidden in shadow, yet I could feel them looking at me. 69:11 They were not merely glancing in my direction. They were staring with an intensity that made every survival instinct in my body demand that I retreat. 69:20 Can I help you with something? 69:23 I tried again. 69:24 My voice came out weaker than I intended. There was still no reaction. No movement. No recognition that they had heard me. In the silence, the freezer unit sounded extraordinarily loud as their motors worked to maintain the temperature. The glass doors behind the stranger reflected my own image, warped and ghost-like. 69:44 That was when I noticed the person's hands. 69:47 They were not relaxed naturally at their sides. They were clenched into tight fists. 69:52 It was the type of tension visible in someone who was either terrified or furious. 69:57 My mouth went dry. Something was deeply wrong. Nothing about the situation made sense. 70:04 I stepped backward once, then again, never removing my eyes from the figure. 70:08 They remained perfectly still. They did not even appear to breathe. 70:13 I'm calling the manager, I said more loudly, attempting to sound authoritative despite the fear building inside me. 70:20 You need to leave the store. 70:22 The figure slowly tilted its head toward the left. It moved only several degrees, as though considering my statement. 70:30 That tiny motion frightened me more than the complete stillness had. 70:34 I turned and moved quickly toward the front office where Veronica should have been. 70:38 My heart pounded against my ribs. 70:41 I refused to run because some foolish part of my pride did not want the stranger to see me panic. 70:47 Still, I was moving much faster than an ordinary walk. 70:50 When I reached Veronica's office, I struck the door three times. 70:54 Veronica, we have a problem. 70:57 There was no answer. I tested the handle. The door was locked. I knocked again with greater force, making my knuckle sting. Veronica, are you in there? 71:08 Nothing. 71:10 The office was completely dark. When I pressed my face against the small window in the door, I saw that her chair was vacant. 71:17 Her computer was turned off. 71:20 She had left. 71:21 She had probably been gone since shortly after I arrived. 71:25 My mouth felt like sandpaper. 71:27 I was completely alone inside the store with whoever, or whatever, was standing in the frozen food aisle. 71:34 The security room was beside Veronica's office. It was a narrow space containing monitors that displayed different surveillance angles from around the building. 71:43 The door was unlocked. I practically fell inside, then slammed it behind me. 71:49 Six screens were attached to the wall. 71:51 Each monitor rotated through different camera feeds every few seconds. 71:56 I searched them desperately for the frozen food section. Then I found it. Camera three. 72:03 The view showed the entire frozen food aisle from above. 72:06 The figure remained there in exactly the same place. 72:10 Now they appeared to be facing the camera. 72:12 facing me again. 72:14 What happened next nearly stopped my heart. 72:17 As I watched the screen, the figure raised one arm. The movement was slow and mechanical. They pointed directly toward the camera, not generally in its direction, directly at the lens. It was as though they knew precisely where the camera was located, as though they knew I was watching. 72:35 My chair shrieked against the floor when I recoiled, nearly falling backward. I seized the desk to steady myself without taking my eyes from the image. 72:44 The figure maintained the position, arm extended and finger pointed for what seemed like forever. 72:50 In reality, it was probably 10 or 15 seconds. Then the arm lowered. The figure turned and walked out of the camera's view with stiff, deliberate steps. 73:00 I switched rapidly between the other feeds. 73:03 My fingers slipped against the controls because sweat covered my palms. 73:07 Camera 1 displayed the front entrance. Empty. 73:10 Camera 2 showed the produce section. Empty. Camera 4 displayed the checkout lanes. 73:17 Empty. Camera 5 showed aisle 3. 73:20 Empty. Camera 6 displayed the rear stock room. It was not empty. 73:26 The figure stood beside the loading bay entrance. The same rigid posture. Facing camera six. Facing me again. There was no possible way they could have traveled that distance so quickly. 73:39 The stock room was located across the store from the frozen food aisle. Walking there should have required at least two minutes. 73:47 Only seconds had passed since the person disappeared from camera three. 73:51 I did the only thing that seemed reasonable. 73:53 I took out my phone and dialed 911. My hand shook so severely that I nearly dropped it twice before lifting it to my ear. 74:02 A dispatcher answered after the second ring. She spoke in a calm, professional tone and asked me to explain the emergency. 74:09 I tried. The words came out confused and disorganized. 74:13 I told her someone was inside the store, behaving strangely. Someone who had no reason to be there. 74:20 She asked whether the person had threatened me. 74:23 Did they possess a weapon? 74:25 Was I in immediate danger? 74:27 I did not know how to respond. The stranger had not verbally threatened me. 74:32 I had not seen a weapon. 74:34 Still, every instinct in my body screamed that I was in danger. 74:38 Just send someone, I finally said, my voice breaking. Please send the police. 74:44 She assured me that officers had been dispatched. She instructed me to remain on the telephone, secure myself somewhere safe and avoid confronting the intruder. 74:54 I continued watching the screens while she spoke. 74:57 The figure remained inside the stockroom, motionless once more. That same horrifying stillness. 75:03 Then the monitor went dark. Not only camera six. Every screen shut off at the same moment. 75:10 The security office fell into darkness except for the dim light from my phone. 75:15 The monitor's electrical hum vanished, replaced by a silence so complete that it felt like physical pressure in my ears. 75:22 I sat in the blackened room while the dispatcher continued speaking. 75:26 She repeatedly asked whether I was alright and whether I remained on the line. 75:31 I whispered that the electricity had failed and I could no longer see anything. She told me to remain calm. 75:38 The officers were approximately three minutes away. 75:41 Three minutes felt like three hours. 75:43 I stared toward the dark monitors while my phone illuminated only a small area around me. 75:49 I listened. 75:50 I listened for breathing, footsteps, that shopping cart rattle, or anything that might reveal where the figure had gone. 75:57 The entire store had become silent. 76:00 Even the public address announcement had stopped. There was no fluorescent buzzing. No refrigeration motors. Nothing. 76:08 Then I heard it. 76:10 This time it was not a shopping cart. It was footsteps. 76:14 Slow, evenly spaced footsteps approached through the hallway outside the security office. The dispatcher was saying something about remaining hidden and making no sound. but I could barely understand her. 76:26 The footsteps stopped directly beyond the door. I saw the shadow of feet blocking the faint light beneath the frame. 76:33 Someone stood there, waiting. 76:36 My breathing became fast and shallow. 76:39 I struggled desperately to silence it. 76:42 The door handle moved once, Someone tested it. The lock held. 76:47 Thank God I had secured it. 76:50 The shadow remained outside for what could have been thirty seconds or five minutes. 76:54 Time had ceased making sense. Eventually the footsteps moved away through the corridor. I did not move. 77:02 I barely breathed. 77:03 I only gripped the phone and prayed that the police would arrive before the door opened. 77:08 When I finally heard sirens approaching in the distance, I nearly cried from relief. 77:13 The footsteps had disappeared long before, and the building remained dark. 77:18 Red and blue lights began flashing through the store windows, coloring the walls in alternating shades. 77:24 I heard vehicle doors slam and officers shouting. Then several sets of heavy footsteps entered the building. 77:31 Police. If anyone is inside, identify yourself. 77:35 I unlocked the security room door and stumbled into the hallway. I nearly collided with two officers holding raised flashlights. 77:43 They escorted me outside while three more officers searched every aisle, room corner, and possible hiding place. 77:50 I stood in the parking lot wrapped in a blanket someone had given me, watching them work. 77:55 Forty minutes later, the officers came outside with their findings. The store was empty. There were no signs of forced entry. There was no evidence that anyone else had been inside. No hooded figure. Nothing. 78:09 They discovered that someone had switched off the main electrical breaker. That explained the outage and the dead surveillance system. They could not determine who had turned it off or why. 78:20 The loading bay door in the stockroom had been unlocked from inside. Someone had unquestionably been there. Someone had entered, moved through the building as though it belonged to them, and escaped without leaving a trace. 78:33 The police completed a report and reviewed the recorded footage from before the cameras stopped functioning. The recordings provided nothing useful. They showed only me working by myself in apparently empty aisles. 78:45 I never returned for another shift. 78:48 Veronica called the following day, irritated that I had abandoned my position. 78:53 I told her exactly what had happened. 78:56 She became silent for a long time. 78:58 Then she admitted that Julian, the stalker who had quit two weeks earlier, had described similar incidents during his final nights. 79:06 He had heard carts moving without anyone pushing them. 79:09 He had experienced sounds he could not explain and an overwhelming feeling that someone was watching him. 79:15 Veronica had concealed that information during my training because she assumed Julian was inventing excuses to escape his employment contract. 79:24 I ended the call without another word. 79:26 Savemore hired a replacement within a week. 79:29 Through a friend of a friend I heard that the new employee did not remain long either. Whatever occupied that store, or whoever was conducting that twisted game, I wanted nothing to do with it. 79:41 I accepted the loss of income and returned to working only my daytime job. No amount of extra money is worth that kind of fear. 79:53 Story 6 Finals week had completely exhausted me by the time I posted in the Riverside County Buy Nothing group, asking whether anyone had a moving dolly I could borrow. 80:05 My roommate Ivy and I needed to remove a broken futon from our dorm room before Thanksgiving break. 80:11 The campus maintenance workers wanted $40 simply to carry it to the dumpster. That was $40 I definitely did not have. 80:19 I had turned 19 three weeks earlier, and the birthday money my parents gave me had already been spent on textbooks I should have purchased second-hand. 80:28 The futon itself had been free. 80:30 We had collected it from someone's curb in August. 80:33 Having to pay money just to dispose of it felt like some sort of cosmic joke. 80:38 Within 10 minutes of publishing the post, a man named Connor sent me a message. He said he owned a moving dolly and could also help load the futon into a truck if necessary. 80:48 His profile appeared ordinary. 80:51 There were pictures of him attending what looked like a San Diego Padres game, one photograph with an older couple I assumed were his parents, and several images of him hiking among reddish rock formations. 81:03 According to his profile, he was 26 and employed in IT support. He seemed harmless. He even appeared kind for offering assistance to someone he had never met. 81:14 We exchanged messages for several days. The conversation was limited to practical details, such as when I needed the dolly and whether I had access to a vehicle. 81:23 Connor said he lived close to the university, just beyond Village Drive near the shopping plaza containing the Trader Joe's that was always overcrowded on Sundays. 81:33 He offered two options. I could stop at his place and collect the dolly myself. Or he could bring it to campus and help carry the futon because it was probably a two-person task anyway. 81:44 Initially I hesitated. There was the obvious concern about meeting an unknown man from the internet. However, Ivy would be with me, and the meeting would happen in daylight. 81:55 Connor also had approximately 400 Facebook friends and photographs stretching back several years. 82:01 Serial killers usually did not maintain such convincing social media histories, did they? 82:06 At least that was what I told myself. 82:09 We agreed to meet Wednesday afternoon, November 9th. He would come to the dormitory. We would load the futon into his truck and he would help me dispose of it. It sounded easy and free. I actually felt slightly guilty for suspecting someone who appeared to be doing nothing more than helping a stranger. 82:27 On Wednesday morning, Ivy sent me a text saying she had been called in for an emergency shift at the university library. Another employee had quit without warning, and the library desperately needed coverage. 82:40 Ivy needed the extra hours anyway, so I told her not to worry. 82:43 I would meet Connor alone, load the futon, and finish everything within 30 minutes. 82:49 Connor arrived at approximately 2 in the afternoon in a blue Toyota Tacoma. He looked exactly like the photographs on his profile. He was of average height, with brown hair and wore jeans and a gray hooded sweatshirt. 83:02 He had an easy welcoming smile. The first thing he did was apologize for not bringing the moving dolly after all. He explained that it actually belonged to his roommate, who had taken it that day to help his girlfriend relocate. It was a complete coincidence. 83:18 Connor sounded sincerely apologetic. He said he had moving straps in the truck that would work even better for carrying a futon. 83:26 His explanation sounded so casual and reasonable that I did not question it. 83:31 Together we carried the futon down three flights of stairs. The straps genuinely did make the task easier. 83:38 Connor joked that the futon probably weighed more than both of us combined. He asked what futons were filled with. 83:45 Concrete? 83:47 I laughed. He was funny and appeared completely normal. 83:51 There was nothing visibly unsettling about him. 83:54 After securing the futon in the bed of his trunk, he asked whether I wanted to get coffee once we had disposed of it. 84:01 He said there was a good café near his apartment and offered to pay because I was a broke college student, and he remembered what that period of life had been like. 84:10 I nearly accepted. 84:12 He had just helped me carry heavy furniture without charging anything, and he seemed like a decent person. 84:18 Something made me pause, although it was not exactly fear. 84:22 It was more that I had a great deal of studying to finish and thought I looked terrible. 84:27 I told him perhaps another day. 84:29 I really needed to return to my books. 84:32 He did not pressure me. He simply said that was fine and asked where the dumpster was located. 84:38 I directed him toward the large disposal area behind the dining hall. When we arrived, however, he frowned and pointed out that it was completely full. He was right. Discarded furniture and bags of trash had already been piled around it. 84:52 Connor suggested taking the futon to the municipal dump across town, but said there would be a disposal fee. 84:59 Alternatively, he had access to a storage area at his apartment complex, where we could leave it temporarily. 85:05 He said he would handle it later. His apartment was only five minutes away. 85:10 The suggestion seemed reasonable. I had already taken up a considerable amount of his afternoon. 85:16 Sure, I said. That would be great. Thank you so much. 85:21 He gave me the same friendly smile and we drove toward Village Drive. 85:25 His apartment complex was one of those newer developments covered with imitation stone and given a name intended to sound luxurious. 85:33 It was called Parkside Terrace, Parkview Terrace, or something similar, despite there being no park anywhere nearby. 85:41 Connor parked and told me the storage space was located in the basement close to his unit. 85:46 He said it would be simpler to enter through his apartment than walk around the entire building. 85:51 That explanation also seemed logical. 85:54 I followed him up an exterior staircase to the second floor. The hallway smelled as though someone had recently burned popcorn and attempted to conceal the odor with air freshener. 86:04 Connor unlocked apartment 2G and held the door open so I could enter first. 86:09 The apartment was unusually clean, suspiciously clean for a 26-year-old man living alone. 86:16 There were no dirty dishes in the sink, no scattered belongings and no visible clutter. 86:22 Everything appeared carefully arranged. 86:24 There was a beige sofa, a glass coffee table, a flat-screen television attached to the wall, and several framed prints displaying generic landscapes. 86:34 It resembled a staged apartment used in a rental advertisement. 86:38 Connor walked beyond me toward what I assumed was either the basement entrance or a storage closet. Behind me, the front door closed with a quiet click. 86:47 It did not slam. 86:49 It was only the soft, final sound of a door shutting on its own. 86:53 I turned around and tested the handle. The door was locked. It was the type of deadbolt that required a key even from the interior. 87:02 My heart began fluttering strangely. 87:04 Still, I kept my voice steady when I asked whether the door locked automatically. 87:09 Connor was standing near the kitchen, approximately ten feet away. He looked at me with a perfectly calm expression. 87:16 Yeah, he said. 87:18 It's a security feature. A lot of apartments have them now. Kind of a fire hazard, though. 87:24 He said the last part almost like a joke. Then he asked whether I wanted water or anything else. 87:30 His voice remained pleasant and relaxed. 87:33 Nevertheless, something in the atmosphere had changed. I could not identify exactly what it was. 87:40 No, thank you, I said. I should probably leave soon. 87:44 I have a study group at four. 87:46 He nodded slowly. 87:48 Sure, sure. 87:50 Then he asked whether I had noticed anything unusual about our conversations. 87:54 The way he said conversations made my spine tighten, plural, as though he were referring to more than our Facebook messages. 88:03 I told him I did not understand. 88:05 My phone was in my rear pocket and I began calculating how quickly I could retrieve it, unlock the screen and call 911. 88:13 Connor walked toward the sofa and lifted a laptop from the coffee table. He opened it and rotated the screen toward me. 88:21 Our Facebook message thread was displayed. 88:24 Every message was there. 88:26 He had screenshots dating back to the first day I posted about needing the dolly. But there were other photographs too. Images I had never seen before. There was a photograph of me crossing the university campus. Another showed me sitting outside the student union holding coffee. Another displayed ivy in me inside the dining hall. 88:46 My throat became completely dry. 88:49 Connor scrolled farther down. There were more conversations. My text messages. Private exchanges with Ivy. 88:57 Messages between me and my mother. Texts I had sent to Troy, a man from my biology course whom I had been casually talking to. 89:06 They were messages sent from my own phone. He had been reading everything, in that same composed voice. 89:13 Connor asked whether I understood how easy it was to duplicate someone's phone data when you had the correct software. 89:19 He reminded me that he worked in IT. He said it was frightening how much access people unknowingly gave away. 89:26 The previous week he had sent me a link that supposedly contained photographs of his truck so I would recognize it. 89:33 He said that was all he needed. 89:35 One click. 89:36 After I opened the link he obtained everything. For several seconds I could not speak. My brain struggled to understand what he was showing me and what it meant. 89:46 He had been monitoring my text messages for more than a week. 89:50 He knew where I went, whom I spoke with and what I said privately. 89:54 He knew Ivy would not accompany me that day because he had read the message she sent that morning. He had prepared everything. 90:01 The missing dolly. The overflowing dumpster. 90:05 Every part of it had been planned. 90:07 My voice trembled when I asked what he wanted and why he had done this. 90:11 Connor closed the laptop and placed it carefully on the table. Then he sat on the armrest of the sofa. 90:18 He said he was not really doing anything. He had simply wanted to meet me face to face and have a genuine conversation without the artificial performance people used online. 90:28 He said I seemed interesting and sincere, unlike other women who were preoccupied with managing their image. 90:35 He admitted that he had been monitoring my social media activity for months. He had started before I published the post in the Buy Nothing group. He first noticed me after I commented on something in September. 90:47 From that point he began following everything I did online. He knew my university schedule, my major, and where I preferred to eat lunch. 90:55 My post about the futon had merely created the perfect opportunity. He called it serendipity. 91:02 I felt as though I might vomit. 91:04 I forced myself to remain composed even though every instinct inside me demanded panic. 91:10 As steadily as I could, I asked him to unlock the door and allow me to leave. 91:15 I promised not to tell anyone what had happened. 91:18 I said I only wanted to go home. 91:20 He tilted his head as if considering my request. Then he said he absolutely would let me leave. He simply wanted to show me one additional thing first. 91:30 Connor removed his phone and opened an audio recording application. He pressed play. 91:36 My own voice came through the speaker. 91:38 It was audio from 20 minutes earlier inside his truck. 91:42 I heard myself discussing studying and laughing at his jokes about the futon. Then another clip played. 91:49 It was my voice from earlier that week during a telephone call with my mother about our Thanksgiving arrangements. 91:55 He had recorded everything. 91:57 Every in-person conversation we had shared. Every telephone call I had made during the previous week. 92:04 Connor said he liked preserving records. He liked documenting connections because it made them seem more authentic and in some way more permanent. 92:12 He appeared genuinely proud. He behaved as though he had shown me something impressive instead of something horrifying. 92:20 That was when I understood he honestly did not believe he had done anything wrong. 92:24 To him this was normal behavior. 92:27 He considered himself attentive and thorough. 92:30 That complete separation from reality frightened me more than anything else. 92:35 My hand moved toward my pocket. Connor noticed immediately. He told me not to bother trying my phone because he had remotely disabled its cellular connection approximately five minutes earlier. 92:46 He said he could restore it whenever he chose. 92:49 His tone remained completely matter of fact, as if he were explaining how to operate a coffee machine. 92:55 Then he stood and approached me. 92:57 He did not move in an openly threatening way. 93:01 His manner remained casual. 93:03 He said we should sit down and speak honestly, getting to know each other without electronic screens between us. 93:09 He had prepared tea earlier. It was probably still warm. 93:13 He behaved as though this were an ordinary social visit. As though I had entered willingly as an invited guest, it made my skin feel wrong against my body. 93:23 I backed away until I struck the locked door. 93:26 I told him I truly needed to leave immediately. 93:29 My voice broke on the final word. 93:32 For the first time, Connor appeared irritated. He sighed and said I was behaving dramatically. He insisted he had no intention of hurting me. He only wanted to talk. 93:43 Why, he asked, was everyone so paranoid now? 93:46 He gestured toward the sofa again, this time with more force. 93:51 Sit down, please. 93:52 I refused. 93:54 Instead, I did the only thing I could think to do. 93:57 I began talking. 93:59 All right, I said. 94:01 Okay, I'll stay and talk, but can I please tell someone where I am first? Ivy will worry if I don't check in. 94:09 He considered that suggestion. Then he refused. He said telling anyone would defeat the purpose. No one else needed to know about the time we spent together. 94:18 This was private. 94:20 I continued pushing. 94:22 I kept my voice as controlled as possible. 94:25 I told him that if I failed to text Ivy within the next 10 minutes, she would already understand that something was wrong because we had a system. We always informed each other of our locations. It was completely false, but I said it convincingly. 94:40 I told Connor that Ivy knew I was at Parkside Terrace, apartment 2G, with a man named Connor from the Facebook group. 94:47 His expression shifted slightly. The irritation became something more analytical. 94:53 He asked when I had shared that information with her. 94:56 I said I had done it that morning before she left for work. I claimed I had sent her his address as a precaution. 95:02 Another lie. 95:04 A useful one. 95:06 Connor stared at me for a long time. I could almost see him calculating the possible consequences. 95:12 If I was telling the truth, someone knew exactly where I had gone. Someone would notice if I disappeared. 95:19 He returned to the kitchen area, creating some distance between us, and I watched him think. 95:25 The apartment was entirely silent except for the refrigerator humming. 95:30 Eventually, he said he would allow me to leave. However, I first had to delete our entire Facebook conversation in front of him. 95:37 I also had to promise never to tell anyone about the duplicated phone data or the recordings. 95:43 If I spoke, he would release every private message I had ever written to everyone I knew. 95:48 He would send them to my relatives, professors, and friends. 95:51 He claimed to have backed up the files in multiple locations. 95:55 He delivered the threat without a motion, as though negotiating a professional agreement. 96:01 I agreed immediately. 96:03 I removed my phone which suddenly had cellular service again and deleted the complete message thread while he watched. 96:10 My hand shook so severely that I struggled to touch the correct parts of the screen. 96:15 Eventually I finished. 96:17 Connor appeared satisfied. He walked to the door, removed a key from his pocket and unlocked it. 96:23 Then he opened the door and said it had been nice meeting me in person. 96:27 He hoped we could remain in contact. 96:30 I said nothing. 96:31 I left the apartment and walked as quickly as possible without running. 96:36 I hurried down the stairs and across the parking area. I did not stop moving until I was six blocks away. 96:43 From the parking lot of a Target store I called Ivy and told her everything. She wanted me to contact the police immediately. 96:50 I was terrified of what Connor might do with my messages if I reported him. Some were embarrassing. 96:56 I had written private complaints about professors, said unkind things about people, and discussed personal family matters. 97:04 The possibility of everyone reading those conversations made me feel physically ill. Ivy persuaded me that we at least needed to create an official record of what happened, even if I was not prepared to pursue charges immediately. 97:17 That evening we went together to the campus police department. I brought my phone and showed them the deleted Facebook messages, which were still stored in the archive. 97:27 I explained the cloned information and the audio recordings. 97:31 The officer assigned to my report was an older woman named Officer Stephanie Reeves. 97:36 She did not dismiss my concerns or imply that I was exaggerating. 97:40 She told me Connor's conduct violated the law in several different ways. There was unauthorized interception of electronic communications, stalking and false imprisonment. 97:51 She explained that even if he possessed my private messages, releasing them in retaliation would constitute an additional offense. 97:59 He was already potentially facing serious criminal charges. 98:03 Hearing that helped, it confirmed that he had genuinely committed crimes and that I was not simply being paranoid or dramatic, as he had claimed. 98:12 Campus police contacted the local department. Within 48 hours, investigators obtained a warrant to search Connor's apartment. 98:21 I was not the first woman he had targeted. Police discovered information from three other women on his laptop. Every one of them was a college student from the surrounding area. Connor had connected with each through different online groups during the previous two years. 98:37 None had reported him because he used the same leverage against them, threatening to publish private information if they told anyone. 98:44 One woman had graduated and moved to Arizona specifically to escape him. 98:49 Detectives recovered recording devices, backup drives, and printed photographs. 98:54 Everything had been organized carefully inside folders labeled with our names. 98:58 Connor had constructed an entire system. 99:01 He was arrested and charged with several felonies, including illegal wiretapping, computer fraud, stalking, and unlawful restraint. 99:10 The court set bail at an amount he could not afford. 99:13 The prosecutor told me Connor would probably accept a plea agreement rather than proceed trial. That was exactly what happened. 99:21 He was sentenced to 18 months in county jail, followed by three years of probation, mandatory counseling, and a permanent restraining order. 99:30 He is also listed as a registered offender in the state database now. 99:39 Story 7. 99:41 I was raised in a quiet Pennsylvania town nestled between old coal-covered hills and stretches of maple woods. 99:48 It was the kind of place where people could identify a neighbor's truck simply by hearing the engine. 99:53 At the time, I worked part-time at a diner beside the main road, taking double shifts in the days leading up to Thanksgiving. 100:00 Most nights I finished around 11 and walked home with the cold cutting through my jacket, while the faint odor of fuel drifted from Murphy's auto repair farther down the street. 100:10 Murphy's had existed for as long as anyone could remember. 100:13 It was a low gray building with one flickering sign and three gasoline pumps that barely functioned during the winter. 100:20 That night, shortly after midnight, I was sitting in my kitchen warming leftovers when the noise came. 100:26 It was a deep, violent crack powerful enough to make the window panes bend. For a moment I thought an aircraft had crashed or something had exploded in the surrounding hills. 100:36 The lights blinked once, then the frozen glass of the windows began glowing orange from outside. 100:42 I ran out without shoes. 100:44 The air was thick with the harsh chemical smell of burning rubber and gasoline. 100:49 From the corner of Maple Street, I could see flames climbing the side of Murphy's Garage as though they were alive. 100:55 People poured from their houses, shouting names while struggling into coats. 100:59 The volunteer fire department arrived quickly. 101:03 Our town may have been small, but everyone took pride in responding when something serious happened. 101:08 The scene became complete chaos. Sparks snapped through the air. Hoses hissed. Beneath everything was the low, relentless roar of fire consuming metal. 101:19 I remember seeing old Tom Murphy standing across the street in his slippers. He only stared. 101:25 He did not speak or move toward the building, even when one of the firefighters shouted his name. 101:31 Something about that seemed wrong. It was his silence and the way he held a set of keys in his fist as though he were physically incapable of releasing them. 101:40 By the time the firefighters extinguished the flames, the garage had been reduced to a skeleton The smell was unbearable, somewhere between melted plastic and diesel exhaust. 101:50 Most people assumed the fire had been caused by an electrical malfunction or perhaps a gasoline leak. 101:56 The firefighters, however, appeared uncomfortable. They sealed the entire property with tape and forced the rest of us to remain at a distance. 102:05 At approximately two in the morning, I overheard one of them quietly say that they had discovered evidence someone had been siphoning fuel from the underground tanks. 102:14 That made no sense. Almost no one in town knew how to open the access covers, much less extract gasoline from the tanks beneath them. 102:22 By the following morning, the atmosphere in town had changed. The smell of scorched rubber carried for half a mile, and the air had that strange stillness that follows a major event. 102:33 Everyone had developed a theory. Some blamed teenagers fooling around. 102:38 Others whispered that Murphy had done it for insurance money. 102:42 When I stopped at the diner for breakfast, nearly every customer was discussing the fire as though it were a film they had all watched from different seats. 102:50 Then Tom Murphy entered. He looked as though he had not slept at all. 102:54 His face was pale and soot still darkened his hands. 102:58 What caught my attention, however, was his calmness. He sounded almost rehearsed, as if he were already repeating a story he had spent the entire night practicing. 103:08 He sat at the counter and told the waitress that the security cameras had malfunctioned earlier that evening. 103:14 According to him, the system had automatically erased all the footage before the explosion. For several seconds, no one spoke. The only sound was the ceiling fan rotating overhead. Someone eventually asked whether he had contacted his insurance provider. 103:29 Murphy slowly nodded without lifting his eyes from his coffee. 103:33 Something about his explanation bothered me. 103:36 Murphy was not the sort of person who believed in coincidences, yet he kept repeating the word accident, almost as though he were trying to persuade himself rather than anyone else. That night I could not sleep. The smell of gasoline inside my house seemed far stronger than it should have been, even with every window shut. 103:56 I kept thinking about the timing. The cameras had stopped working only hours before the fire. 104:02 Murphy had stood safely across the road without a single burn, gripping those keys. 104:07 At around one in the morning, I put on my jacket and returned to the site. The fire engines were gone, although the warning tape continued fluttering in the wind. When I moved close enough, I could still feel heat radiating from the metal through my jeans. A few loose tools were scattered across the gravel. 104:24 There was a socket wrench, one work glove, and an old siphon pump lying half melted near the fence. 104:30 While I stood there, a pickup truck rounded the corner, its headlights sweeping across the wreckage. 104:36 I recognized the vehicle immediately. It belonged to Eli, who had worked for Murphy until quitting the previous spring. 104:43 He slowed when he noticed me, lowered the window halfway and asked what I was doing there. His voice sounded harsh and almost offensive. 104:51 I told him I was only looking because I had been unable to sleep. 104:55 He gave a single nod. 104:58 Some people shouldn't dig too deeply, kid, he said. 105:01 Then he drove away. 105:03 His warning followed me for the entire walk home, sounding louder in my head than the wind. 105:08 Two days later, investigators from the state fire marshal's office arrived. They parked a white van beside the curb and spent hours searching through the ruins while half the town watched from the sidewalk. 105:20 By noon, rumors were already spreading. Someone claimed investigators had discovered tire marks entering the rear lot. 105:27 Another person insisted Murphy had been seen at the garage late on the night before the explosion. 105:33 The strangest part was Murphy's behavior whenever anyone mentioned the missing surveillance video. He dismissed it as though it were unimportant. He claimed the system had been malfunctioning for months. 105:44 When I asked one of the firefighters whether that was true, he frowned. 105:49 Funny thing, he said. I helped install those cameras last summer. They were brand new. 105:55 That evening, electricity throughout town failed for nearly an hour. 105:59 I sat on my porch listening as generators began humming in different parts of the neighborhood. 106:04 The darkness made me nervous. It was not only because of the fire, everything suddenly seemed unnaturally quiet. 106:12 Down the street I could barely see the outline of the destroyed shop against the sky. 106:17 For one moment I thought I saw movement within the wreckage, like someone carrying a flashlight. 106:22 When I blinked, it disappeared. 106:25 A minute later, a car door slammed somewhere nearby, and the sharp, raw odor of gasoline reached me. 106:31 By morning, word had spread that someone had entered the restricted property during the blackout. 106:37 Police claimed nothing had been stolen, but one of the inspector's toolboxes had been opened and left partially submerged in puddles beside the pumps. 106:45 When I passed the property, I noticed fresh footprints leading toward the woods behind the lot. 106:51 The ground was deeply muddy from the previous night's rain, making the tread pattern easy to see. 106:56 They came from heavy boots, almost certainly belonging to a man. What disturbed me most was the path they formed. It appeared the person had paced repeatedly between the underground tanks before finally disappearing among the trees. 107:11 That same afternoon, I encountered Eli again at the service station near the highway. He appeared exhausted, his eyes red from lack of sleep. 107:20 He asked whether people were still discussing the explosion. 107:24 When I said they were, he sighed. 107:26 Murphy shouldn't have kept those drums down there, he muttered. 107:30 I asked what he meant. 107:32 Eli stared at the counter for a long time, tapping his thumb beside the register. 107:37 Then he lowered his voice and said he had known what was leaking. 107:40 Murphy simply had not wanted to spend the money required to repair it. 107:45 Before I could ask anything else, Eli grabbed his cigarettes and left without looking back. 107:50 I could not stop thinking about his statement that night. 107:53 During my lunch break the following day, I went to the public records office to investigate. 107:59 Murphy's auto repair had been cited twice that year for unsafe fuel storage conditions. Both violations remained unresolved. 108:07 The inspection notes described corrosion around the underground tanks and warned of possible vapor leaks. 108:13 The realization struck me hard. Perhaps whoever had been siphoning the gasoline had not been stealing it. 108:20 Maybe that person had been trying to empty the tanks before something worse occurred. But if that were true, why had the camera footage been erased? Why had Murphy acted as if nothing was wrong? 108:31 A week later, heavy rainfall washed away much of the loose wreckage, although the smell of fuel remained. 108:37 People gradually began moving on. They decorated their homes for the holidays and pretended life had returned to normal. 108:45 Murphy reopened the remaining section of the office to process paperwork, but it looked more as though he were preparing to leave town. 108:53 One afternoon I saw him carrying boxes into a rented van. His eyes repeatedly moved up and down the street. 109:00 When he noticed me watching he raised one hand in a stiff anxious wave and disappeared inside. 109:05 That was the final time I saw him. 109:08 By morning both the rented van and the sign from the front of the property were gone. Months passed before anyone learned anything new. 109:16 Then during the spring, workers excavating a drainage line behind the former garage uncovered a buried drum. 109:22 It was an industrial fuel container, rusted through and leaking thick sludge into the soil. 109:28 The city had to bring in an environmental response crew to contain the contamination. 109:33 I stopped nearby while they were working because I was curious. One of the crew members told me initials had been burned into the metal cap. TM, Tom Murphy. 109:44 When I asked whether the drum had been buried recently, he shook his head. 109:48 It was old. 109:50 Very old. 109:51 Probably placed there before the gasoline pumps had even been installed. 109:55 No one ever saw Murphy again. 109:58 Some people believed he relocated somewhere in the south. 110:01 Others whispered that he had never truly left, that he had constructed those tanks himself years earlier, and that the earth had finally caught up with him. 110:10 Every so often when the wind comes from that direction, the smell is still there. It is only a faint sting of gasoline in the cold air. I do not know whether it is imagination or something continuing to seep from beneath the ground. 110:23 But every time I smell it, I can almost hear the explosion echoing through the hills again, as though the town itself is reminding us that we never truly understood what burned that night. 110:39 Story 8. 110:41 I went to my parents' lake house that weekend, mainly because I needed to clear my mind. They had retired to Florida several years earlier, but the house in northern Wisconsin still remained, quiet and isolated between rows of pine trees that moved as though they were whispering among themselves. 110:58 At that time I worked remotely designing websites and I had spent weeks surviving on caffeine and almost no sleep. 111:05 The small grey cabin seemed like the perfect place to disconnect, prepare some soup and perhaps read beside the fireplace. The lake had already frozen halfway over. 111:16 Its surface was a dull silver that reflected nothing. 111:19 Outside the only sounds were the dock creaking or an occasional crow calling in the distance. 111:25 It was peaceful but in a way that felt strangely heavy. 111:29 I noticed the footprints on the first morning. 111:31 Initially I did not think much about them. They began near the tree line and ended directly beside the porch. They were large enough to belong to an adult man, although the impressions were smeared as though someone had walked through mud while dragging one heel. 111:47 The ground around the lake often became soft after rainfall. so I assumed a raccoon or stray dog might have wandered through and distorted the tracks. 111:55 Still, the shapes looked unusual. They were not paw prints or divided like an animal's feet. They were clearly human. They also appeared to have been made by someone barefoot. It was November, and temperatures dropped below freezing at night, which should have made that impossible. 112:13 I remember crouching and touching the edge of one impression. 112:16 The outline remained sharply defined and the mud had not frozen yet. 112:20 That meant the footprint was recent. 112:23 The following morning more had appeared. They followed the same route and ended in the same place, directly at the back porch steps. 112:31 I prepared coffee and attempted to make a joke about it. 112:34 I sent my friend Leah a photograph with the caption, Looks like I've attracted a Bigfoot admirer. 112:41 She told me to purchase a trail camera and joked that the footage might make the news. But the way the footprints ended precisely at the door began bothering me. 112:50 It appeared too intentional. It was as though someone repeatedly walked toward the house and turned away just before reaching it. 112:57 I checked every lock twice that evening, although the closest neighboring property was more than half a mile away. 113:04 Later, I curled up beneath a blanket on the couch while the television light flickered across the windows. 113:10 Outside, the lake resembled a black sheet of glass. 113:13 Occasionally, the old dock groaned as though something heavy had shifted against it. Near midnight, I turned off the television and entered the kitchen for water. That was when the exterior motion light abruptly switched on, flooding the back porch with brightness. 113:28 I froze halfway across the room and stared through the glass door. I expected to see a deer or raccoon fleeing into the darkness. 113:36 Instead, behind the patio furniture and partially concealed by shadows, there was a figure. 113:42 Someone crouched close to the ground with both hands pressed against the wooden deck. They seemed to be waiting. 113:48 I remained motionless for what felt like an entire minute. 113:52 The light produced a faint electrical buzz, casting harsh white illumination against the glass. 113:58 The crouching figure did not move at all. 114:01 My first thought was that someone must be playing a joke. Perhaps it was a local teenager or a hunter who had become lost in the surrounding trails. 114:10 The longer I watched, however, the more certain I became that whoever was outside understood that I could see them. 114:16 Their head tilted slightly. It looked as though they were studying the reflection in the glass, attempting to determine whether I was standing inside. 114:26 My pulse began pounding in my ears. I reached toward the phone resting on the counter. The moment I turned my body, the motion light shut off, plunging the porch into darkness. 114:36 When it activated again, the figure was gone. 114:39 The porch stood empty. 114:41 No footprints were visible through the glass. There was only the soft hiss of wind traveling from the lake. 114:48 I barely slept. 114:50 Every noise made me sit upright and listen. 114:53 The floorboards groaned. 114:55 Ice near the dock cracked and shifted in the distance. 114:58 At approximately three in the morning, I finally fell asleep on the couch with a lamp still burning. 115:04 When I awakened, the footprints had returned. 115:07 This time they circled the porch twice before ending at the door. Whoever had made them had come back after the light shut off. 115:15 I called Leah and explained what had happened. 115:17 I tried to sound relaxed but my voice repeatedly caught. 115:21 She offered to drive up and stay with me. 115:24 I told her it was unnecessary. 115:26 It was daylight and nothing genuinely dangerous ever happened out there. 115:30 At least that was what I wanted to believe. 115:33 By afternoon, I had nearly convinced myself that the entire situation had some harmless explanation. 115:39 Maybe a fisherman had taken a shortcut through the woods. 115:43 Perhaps someone had simply become curious about the empty-looking cabin. 115:47 I tried to work, although I found myself glancing toward the windows every few minutes. 115:52 Around sunset, I took a flashlight and stepped outdoors for the first time since the previous evening. The cold air bit into my skin. 116:00 The footprints remained, but they ended suddenly near the deck railing, as though the person who made them had simply disappeared. 116:07 I followed their direction with the flashlight. Approximately ten feet into the trees, I discovered an empty soda can and a torn piece of cloth snagged on a branch. 116:17 It appeared to be part of a faded red flannel shirt. 116:21 Without thinking, I placed it in my pocket. 116:24 I regretted doing so the moment I returned inside. 116:27 That night, I left the living room light on and sat near the window, waiting. 116:32 It was almost one in the morning when the motion light activated again and illuminated the porch. 116:37 My breath caught. The figure had returned to the same position. 116:42 He crouched close to the ground, one hand wrapped around the leg of a patio chair. 116:46 This time he slowly raised his head. 116:49 The light touched enough of his face for me to see it. 116:52 His skin appeared pale, almost like wet paper. 116:56 His mouth hung slightly open. His eyes were what made me freeze. 117:01 He was not looking toward the door. He was staring directly through the side window where I was sitting. 117:07 After several seconds the light switched off again. During that brief darkness I swear I heard the porch boards creak under his weight as he moved closer. 117:16 I retreated from the window and grabbed my keys. My hands felt nearly useless. 117:21 Every sound inside the house seemed magnified. 117:24 I locked myself inside the bathroom, sat on the cold tile floor and attempted to calm my breathing. 117:31 After what seemed like an eternity, I forced myself to look through the blinds again. The outdoor light remained off. 117:38 The patio chairs however had shifted. 117:41 One was angled toward the door as though someone had dragged it an inch closer. 117:45 I had not heard a car. I had not heard footsteps moving back through the woods. 117:50 The person had simply disappeared. 117:53 I called the sheriff's department and reported that someone was prowling around the property. The dispatcher said a patrol vehicle would come from the nearest town. It took 20 long minutes before headlights finally appeared on the dirt road. 118:06 The deputy inspected the porch with a flashlight followed by the yard and the dock. There were footprints everywhere now with fresh impressions overlapping the older ones. He asked whether anyone else possessed a key. I told him my parents were the only other people who did and they were in Florida. 118:24 The deputy advised me to spend the night somewhere else. 118:27 I packed a bag so rapidly that I nearly left my laptop behind. 118:31 Before departing, I looked through the window one final time. The motion light switched on again, even though neither the deputy nor I was standing outside. 118:40 He frowned, walked onto the porch and waved his arm repeatedly in front of the sensor. 118:45 The light did not react. It remained illuminated until we drove away from the property. 118:51 The following morning I returned with the deputy to collect the remainder of my belongings. 118:56 The motion light was off. Frost had filled the footprints. Every patio chair had returned to its original position and was aligned perfectly. 119:05 Nothing appeared disturbed. 119:07 Then I opened the door. 119:09 The smell reached me first. It was a mixture of mud and something metallic, like rainfall combined with rust. 119:17 On the kitchen counter beside the coffee maker lay the strip of red flannel I had collected from the forest. It was no longer damp. 119:25 Someone had folded it neatly in half and placed it beside my mug. 119:30 I cannot explain how it got there. 119:32 I had left that piece of fabric inside my car's glove compartment. 119:36 I never returned to the lake house after that. My parents eventually sold the property and I did not object. 119:43 Even now, whenever I visit a cabin near a lake or see motion lights flashing between trees, the same cold sensation passes through me. 119:52 I remember that silent figure crouching behind the outdoor furniture, waiting for me to turn off the lights. 119:58 I still wonder whether he had been observing me much longer than I realized. Perhaps he moved closer every night, stopping only a few feet from the door. 120:07 Maybe he was waiting for me to be the one who stepped outside first. 120:16 Story 9. 120:18 Black Friday was finally nearing its end, and the store resembled a battlefield that had just been abandoned. 120:24 I worked the closing shift at a medium-sized retail chain in northern Illinois, mainly restocking merchandise and cleaning up after the day's chaos. 120:33 It was the sort of store that sold everything from kitchenware to inexpensive electronics. 120:39 I had worked there for two years while attending evening classes during the week and surviving largely on coffee from the vending machine. 120:46 Most of the staff left around midnight that evening. 120:49 Only Mark, the overnight manager, and I remained to finish filling the shelves before the morning employees arrived. 120:56 After enough time, the fluorescent lights began affecting your mind. Their dull constant hum resembled a mosquito you could hear but never locate. 121:05 Occasionally, one fixture flickered overhead, causing the shadows on the linoleum to shift with it. 121:11 The air still carried a combination of burned coffee, cardboard dust, and cheap plastic. 121:17 I had an entire pallet of Bluetooth speakers that needed to be moved into the stockroom. 121:22 As I rolled it through the deserted aisles, the wheels echoed much more loudly than they should have. 121:27 It was the first moment all day when the store had become completely silent. 121:31 Near the customer service counter, several monitors displayed the surveillance camera feeds. I looked at them mostly from habit, checking whether Mark remained in the stock room or had slipped outside for another cigarette. 121:44 One screen caught my attention. 121:46 The camera covering aisle 9 in the electronics department showed movement. A tall figure was walking slowly between the shelves. At first I assumed the system was replaying delayed footage from earlier. The cameras sometimes malfunctioned after operating through an especially long shift. The timestamp, however, showed the current time. 122:07 1247 AM. 122:09 I used the radio to ask whether Mark was inside the electronics section. His muffled response came from the stock room. He had not left it. 122:18 My first reasonable thought was that a shopper had accidentally been locked inside after closing. Perhaps someone was hiding. 122:25 Similar things had happened before. 122:28 Once a drunk college student fell asleep in the outdoor furniture display. 122:32 I picked up my flashlight and headed toward aisle 9. 122:36 I intentionally made as much noise as possible so whoever was there would know I was approaching. 122:42 As I drew closer, the electrical hum from the light seemed to grow louder until it almost felt alive inside my ears. 122:49 When I rounded the corner into aisle 9, the first thing I noticed was the temperature. 122:54 It felt considerably colder than the rest of the building. It was not ordinary cool air. It seemed as though the air conditioning system had activated only inside that aisle. 123:04 My footsteps produced sharp echoes across the polished floor while I swept the flashlight over the shelves. There were rows of headphones, telephone chargers, and empty product boxes. There was no sound except the faint buzzing from the fixtures above. 123:19 Hey, I called. The store is closed. You can't be back here. 123:24 My voice traveled through the surrounding aisles. No one answered. 123:28 I stood still and listened. 123:30 Somewhere nearby, a display television switched on and began showing static. 123:35 I searched behind every end cap. I even crouched to look beneath the shelving units, assuming someone might be hiding as a joke. There was nobody. 123:45 When I returned toward the service counter, I looked up at the camera dome above aisle 9. Its red indicator light continued blinking. It was recording. 123:55 Back at the monitors, I rewound the video by several seconds. I expected to see myself searching the aisle with a flashlight. 124:02 Instead, the footage showed something emerging from behind the shelves immediately after I walked past. The image was unclear. It looked more like a shape outlined by weak illumination than a clearly defined person. 124:15 It moved slowly and intentionally, as though it had been waiting for me to turn away. 124:21 I remained frozen for at least ten seconds, staring at the grainy screen. 124:26 The figure leaned into the aisle as though examining the camera. Without warning, the image distorted and became a frozen frame. 124:34 The timestamp stopped as well. 124:36 12.58 AM. 124:38 Every other camera continued operating normally. Only the feed from aisle nine had failed. 124:44 I remember tapping the monitor, as though physically touching it could somehow repair the system. 124:50 Before I could decide whether to search the aisle again, the motion alarm sounded. A sharp digital beep echoed from the console. The alert symbol appeared repeatedly over the aisle 9 feed. 125:02 Mark emerged from the stock room after hearing the alarm. I told him someone might still be inside the building. 125:09 At first he laughed, then he noticed the flashing monitor. 125:13 We stood together watching the frozen image for what seemed like an entire minute. 125:18 Eventually, as though the system had suddenly caught up, the picture began moving again. 125:23 It displayed an empty aisle. Every shelf and product box appeared untouched. 125:28 Mark muttered something about cheap electrical wiring and told me we should close early. 125:33 I was not prepared to leave yet. 125:35 I wanted to be certain that whatever I had seen was no longer moving around inside the building. 125:41 Mark went toward the front entrance to begin turning off the lights while I performed one final inspection. 125:47 I pushed my cart through toys, clothing and cleaning supplies. 125:51 Everything appeared normal. 125:53 When I approached the electronics department again, the motion detector above aisle 9 clicked. The lights there brightened to full intensity. 126:01 I stopped and stared down the length of the aisle. 126:04 The atmosphere felt heavier than before, as though the store itself were holding its breath. 126:10 I moved several slow steps forward. The wheels of the cart squealed against the flooring. 126:16 When I reached the middle of the aisle, I noticed that one of the display phones had been removed from its holder. 126:21 Its security cable hung loosely. The empty plastic bracket continued swinging gently from side to side. 126:28 I called Mark's name. At the exact moment I spoke, the lights overhead flickered. 126:34 During that half-second of darkness, I saw movement at the far end of the aisle. Something tall and pale stepped partially into view, just far enough for me to distinguish its outline. 126:45 I shouted again, louder. 126:47 The lights returned to full brightness. 126:50 The aisle was empty. 126:51 I slowly moved backward, keeping the beam of my flashlight aimed ahead. 126:56 Behind me, the motion sensor switched off. The lights dimmed one after another in sequence, resembling a wave withdrawing into the ocean. 127:05 By the time I reached the customer service counter, Mark was already inserting the key into the front door lock. 127:11 I explained what I had seen, or what I believed I had seen. 127:15 He only shook his head and said exhaustion was affecting me. 127:19 We clocked out. 127:20 I remained outside the glass entrance for another minute. 127:24 From the parking lot I could see the reflections of the surveillance camera lights flashing inside. 127:29 Only one remained continuously illuminated. 127:32 It was the red light above aisle 9. 127:35 That indicator should have switched off automatically after the system entered nighttime mode. Instead it continued glowing. 127:43 The following morning I returned before my scheduled shift and reviewed the surveillance system again. 127:49 Every recording between 1245 and 105 had disappeared. 127:54 According to the system, the files were corrupted. 127:57 The missing footage was not the strangest part. An audio recording remained attached to it. 128:02 The file contained approximately 20 minutes of silence. Then a faint voice began whispering my name. 128:09 It was not shouting or calling for me. It repeated my name quietly over and over. 128:15 The IT technician said the recording had probably malfunctioned during compression. 128:20 I resigned one week later, but every year when Black Friday returns, I still hear that same electrical hum inside my head. It feels as though those lights are waiting for me to come back.