3 Disturbing TRUE Stories Where Police Couldn't Help
#Horror #Story #Stories #Scary #Ghost # Haunted #Fright #Nightmare #Real #True #Paranormal
#Horror #Story #Stories #Scary #Ghost # Haunted #Fright #Nightmare #Real #True #Paranormal
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00:00This happened in the fall of 2021, when I was living alone in a rented townhouse in southern
00:15Illinois. It was my first time ever living by myself, and even though I was technically an
00:20adult, 27, with a full-time job and a stable routine, I still had a lot of nerves about
00:26the idea. I'd just gone through a rough breakup, and I thought the silence and solitude might
00:31help me process everything. The townhouse was part of a small row of identical units,
00:37kind of plain but clean and quiet, tucked away in a sleepy cul-de-sac just off a rural
00:42highway. The neighborhood had that sterile suburban vibe. Lots of beige vinyl siding, trimmed hedges,
00:49wind chimes, and mailboxes with family names stenciled on them. Mostly older folk, but
00:54a few young families. I didn't know any of my neighbors well, but I liked it that way.
00:59I kept to myself, but almost right away, I noticed one person who stood out from the rest.
01:06He lived three doors down, a tall, heavy-set man, probably in his mid-40s, with a scruffy
01:11beard and a weird habit of standing outside his house at night, sometimes just pacing or
01:16smoking, sometimes doing nothing at all, just staring. I'd pull into my driveway after work
01:22around 9 or 10 p.m., and there he'd be, leaning against his porch rail or just standing at the
01:28edge of his driveway facing the street. He never waved, never smiled. He just stared,
01:34even if I looked directly at him. I tried to ignore it. A couple of times I mentioned it to
01:40friends or my mom, and they said maybe he was just a night owl or had insomnia, but there was
01:45something unsettling about him, like he was always watching but never participating.
01:49It wasn't just that he was there, it was the stillness. He didn't fidget or check his phone
01:56or shift his weight, he just stood there like a statue. I told myself not to be paranoid,
02:02but the more time passed, the more that gnawing feeling in my gut grew. Then the noises started.
02:08It was around mid-September when I first heard it. I had just gotten home from work after a long
02:14shift. I worked late hours managing inventory at a distribution center, and I usually got in around
02:2010.30 p.m., exhausted, grabbing a bite to eat, and crashing. That night, I fell asleep around midnight.
02:28At exactly 2.37 a.m., I woke up to a sound I can only describe as metal scraping against wood.
02:34At first, I thought I had dreamed it, but then I heard it again. A long, slow creaking noise,
02:44like an old gate opening. My bedroom was on the first floor, at the back of the unit,
02:49and I had a sliding glass door with vertical blinds that led to a small, fenced-in backyard.
02:53I sat up in bed, heart racing, and listened. There was a pause. Then I heard footsteps. Soft,
03:02crunching sounds, like someone walking slowly across gravel. My entire backyard was lined with
03:07decorative rock instead of grass, so you could hear every footstep clearly. These weren't animal
03:13sounds. I grabbed my phone and crept out of bed. I didn't have a weapon, just a dull kitchen knife I
03:20kept in my nightstand, just in case, which at the time felt kind of ridiculous. I crouched by the edge
03:26of the window and peeked through the blinds. I couldn't see anything. The motion light wasn't on,
03:32which meant either they were out of range or had come in a different way. I dialed 911.
03:38The dispatcher was calm, asked for my address, and told me officers were en route. I stayed crouched
03:44in the dark, barely breathing. About ten minutes later, red and blue lights flickered through my
03:50front window. I got up, opened the door, and met the two officers outside. I explained everything,
03:58what I heard, what time it started. One of them walked around the back while the other stayed with
04:02me and asked a few questions. The officer in the yard came back and said the gate was closed and there
04:08were no signs of tampering, but said he'd write up a report just in case. They didn't see anyone.
04:14No footprints or damage. Basically, no crime. One of them actually said, probably just a raccoon,
04:21and gave me a look that clearly said, you're wasting our time. I didn't argue. They left after
04:27about ten minutes. I didn't sleep the rest of that night. The next morning, I went outside to check the
04:33backyard myself. That's when I noticed something strange. There was a flat stone about the size of
04:39a paperback book, wedged under the bottom edge of the wooden fence gate. I hadn't noticed it before.
04:46The gate had a heavy spring that made its swing closed automatically, but the stone looked like
04:50it had been placed there specifically to stop it from closing all the way. It was subtle, like
04:56something someone would do if they wanted to come back later and slip in without making noise.
05:01I picked up the rock and tossed it across the yard. I called the police again and told them what I'd
05:06found. They told me they'd note it in the report, but again said there wasn't much they could do.
05:12I asked if they could talk to any of the neighbors or check for cameras. They said no, unless a crime
05:17was committed, they couldn't investigate. I felt like I was losing my mind. Two nights later,
05:24it escalated. At exactly 2.14am, I woke up again, this time to the sound of my back door handle turning.
05:31The handle rattled gently at first, like someone testing it, then a harder jiggle, like someone
05:37trying to open it. I sat up in bed, heart hammering. I couldn't see anything through the blinds,
05:45but I could feel someone standing on the other side. My mouth went dry. I picked up my phone with
05:51shaking hands and called the police again. While I waited, I crouched in the hallway, out of view.
05:57I didn't have a gun or dog, just that stupid kitchen knife. My motion light clicked on and
06:04through a tiny gap in the blinds, I saw a shadow move across the window. It was a man. He didn't
06:10run or try to hide. He just stood there. The same two officers showed up again. This time,
06:16they actually found footprints in the gravel, big ones, heading right up to the door. But again,
06:22they said since no entry had been made, there wasn't enough to go on. They promised to patrol
06:27the area more often and told me to keep my doors locked. The next day, I installed a camera. It was
06:33one of those mid-range Wi-Fi security cams. I set one up above the back door and another above the
06:40front porch. That night, I didn't go to bed. I sat in the living room with the lights off, watching the
06:46live feed on my phone. 2.14am came and went. Nothing happened. Then, at 2.23, the back camera
06:55triggered. A man stepped into frame. He walked in through the gate like he knew exactly how to move
07:01to avoid the motion sensor until the last second. He was tall and broad, wearing a black hoodie with
07:06the hood up, jeans, and gloves. He walked up to the door, looked up directly at the camera,
07:12and smiled. A slow, stretched out grin. Then he backed up, still staring, and disappeared into
07:19the dark. I called the police again, and they came back, watched the clip, and admitted that yes,
07:25it was unsettling. But since he didn't break in, didn't damage property, and didn't appear to be
07:30armed, there was still allegedly nothing they could do. They wouldn't even ask the guy down the street
07:36to check his doorbell cam. I begged them. They said their hands were tied. That night, I packed
07:42a bag and slept at a hotel. When I came back the next day, I found four muddy handprints on the glass
07:48door. Too high up, and too low, like someone had crouched down and just rested their hands there for a
07:54while, staring in. I moved out a week later. I broke my lease and forfeited my deposit. I didn't care.
08:01I couldn't stay there another night. The final straw was the note I found wedged in my mailbox the day
08:08I left. It was handwritten, in small cramped letters, on lined notebook paper. It said,
08:15the cops leave, but I don't. I filed one last report. The officer I spoke to that time looked
08:22genuinely disturbed by the note. He promised they'd do a wellness check on the neighborhood.
08:27But it was too late. I never went back. About a month later, I got a message on Facebook from a
08:34girl named Kayla. She said she was the new tenant who had moved into the unit after me. Her message
08:40said, Hi, sorry to bother you. I think you used to live here. Did you ever have someone in a black
08:46hoodie hanging around the backyard? I keep hearing footsteps at night, and last night, someone knocked
08:51on the glass door around 2am and just stood there. I didn't reply. I didn't want to know what happened
08:58next.
09:08I work for a property preservation company. Basically, we handle foreclosed homes, securing them, cleaning
09:15them out, winterizing them, sometimes even boarding them up if there's been vandalism.
09:20It's not glamorous work, but it pays well, and for the most part, it's quiet. You spend a lot of time
09:26alone in houses that used to belong to people who are long gone. Sometimes it's sad, sometimes it's just
09:32boring, but every once in a while, you get a house that feels unsettling. This happened in 2020, when I was
09:39assigned to clear out a property in a rural part of upstate New York. It was one of those dying places,
09:45only one gas station, half the businesses shuttered, roads cracked and overgrown. The house itself was
09:51a small, one-story place off a dirt road, surrounded by overgrown brush and woods on three sides. No other
09:58homes nearby, just trees and silence. According to the file, the house had been foreclosed after the
10:05owner, an elderly woman, passed away, and no hairs had stepped forward to claim the estate. The utilities
10:12had been shut off for over a year. Our job was to catalog any remaining property, empty it out, and
10:18secure it for winter. I drove up on a Monday morning around 9 a.m. with a small box truck in all my gear.
10:25From the outside, the house looked intact, windows closed, door locked, roof fine, just a lot of weeds and
10:32vines climbing up the porch. I had to shove the front door open because it had swollen in the frame,
10:38but once inside, everything looked pretty standard. It was dusty, stale air and faded furniture.
10:45Then my work phone rang.
10:49It startled me because I had no signal out there. I'd already checked and noticed I had no bars,
10:56but the phone buzzed anyway. There was no number on the caller ID, it just said unknown caller.
11:02I answered, and there was nothing, just a low crackling sound, like static. I said hello twice,
11:10then hung up, chalked it up to a glitch. I got to work. I always start with photos, documenting every
11:18room, every item. The living room was cluttered with old furniture. Lace curtains, some framed paintings,
11:25it reminded me of my grandma's house. Heavy furniture, doilies, porcelain figures. The hallway
11:32had a smell. Not rot, more like mildew and dust, and something faintly metallic. There were three
11:39bedrooms. One had been stripped bare except for a sagging mattress on the floor. Another was clearly
11:45a sewing room, with thread spools everywhere and a dusty machine on the desk. I took a closer look,
11:52and there was a cork board filled with old newspaper clippings, and they were mostly obituaries.
11:57Dozens of them, all clipped out with scissors and pinned carefully to the board. No names I recognized,
12:03all local. I moved on. In the master bedroom, there was a rotary phone on the nightstand.
12:11I remember stopping and staring at it for a second because I hadn't seen one in years.
12:15It was off-white, yellowed with age, with a long, coiled cord. The kind of phone that would never
12:22ring again because the line had been cut long ago. I moved on to the bathroom. That's when my phone
12:28rang again. It said unknown caller again. This time, I hesitated. I picked it up, stepped out into
12:39the hallway, and answered. Again, nothing. But this time, after about five seconds, I heard a whisper.
12:47Very soft, so quiet I could barely make it out. It said,
12:52Don't answer the phone in the bedroom.
12:56Then the line went dead. I stood there, frozen, heart pounding. The house was dead silent.
13:02I checked the windows. All closed. Nobody was outside, and there was no sign of forced entry.
13:10My first thought was that someone had pranked me. It's what anyone would think. Maybe one of the
13:14other crew guys was messing with me. But no one else knew I was there that early. And again,
13:20I had no signal. I checked my phone. One bar, then nothing. Like it flickered in and out of existence.
13:28I tried calling my supervisor, but the call failed. I decided to finish the job quickly.
13:35I started boxing up loose items in the living room. Books, figurines, dusty glassware. But the
13:41whole time, I felt off. Like I was being watched. I kept glancing toward the hallway, half expecting
13:48to see someone standing down there. Then the phone rang a third time.
13:52But not my phone. The rotary phone in the bedroom.
13:59I heard it from across the house. A shrill, mechanical ring that echoed through the rooms.
14:05That phone should have been dead. The line was disconnected. No dial tone and no service.
14:11But yet it rang. Like an old-fashioned bell.
14:14I walked slowly down the hallway toward the bedroom. Phone still in my hand. It rang again
14:20and again. I stepped into the doorway.
14:24The phone sat on the nightstand. The receiver trembling slightly with each ring.
14:30There was no chance I was picking up that phone.
14:33The rings eventually stopped.
14:35I backed out of the room.
14:36I wanted to leave, but part of my job was securing the property and I still had to check
14:42the basement. I almost said screw it, but something made me keep going. Maybe it was
14:48pride. Maybe I just didn't want to admit how scared I was.
14:52The basement door was in the kitchen. I opened it slowly.
14:57The stairs creaked as I stepped down, flashlight in hand.
15:00I smelled mold and something like rust. There were shelves along the wall, filled with old
15:06paint cans and some broken furniture. In the back corner, there was a small table.
15:12On it, a cordless phone, a newer model. It was gray plastic and covered in dust, and next to it,
15:20a stack of yellowed notebooks. I picked one up and flipped through it. Each page had a name
15:26and a date and a short sentence. Lena H., July 3rd, 2019, rang once, didn't answer.
15:35Carl M., September 12th, 2019, picked up, warned him. It was more like this. Dozens of entries.
15:44I dropped the notebook, and my heart felt like it completely dropped out of my body as I looked
15:49around the basement, fearing I wasn't alone down there and that someone was watching me from any
15:54corner in the darkness. I rushed back up the stairs, looking behind me the whole time,
15:59heart in my throat. I didn't finish the job. I drove straight back to the office and turned in
16:04my report. I didn't tell them everything. I just said the property was unsafe and possibly had
16:10squatters or interference. They reassigned the job to another crew. Two days later, I got a text from
16:17one of the other guys, Mark. He'd gone out there that morning to finish the job. I hadn't told him
16:23specifically what happened. His message said, the phone in the bedroom with no service rang while I
16:29was in there. What the hell? I called his work cell phone immediately, and he told me he didn't
16:35answer the phone in the house because he was too freaked out. The next day, Mark apparently quit
16:40without notice and never returned to work. He's not dead or anything. I admittedly looked him up on
16:46Facebook eventually, and he'd posted stuff since then, but I never spoke to him again. I don't know
16:52what else he saw in the house, but it must have been something bad enough for him to want to distance
16:56himself from this job. My boss did call the police to report the potential squatters after Mark quit,
17:02but they found nobody inside of the house. Everything about that house, from its location,
17:07to its eerie dilapidated interior, to the phone calls to my cell phone, and that voice on that line,
17:13and that damn house phone ringing. It's like I found myself in a legitimate horror movie.
17:18I swear it had to be one of two things, an elaborate sick prank, or an equally elaborate trap.
17:35This happened in 2019. I was in my late 20s, living alone in a rental house in a quiet neighborhood
17:41on the edge of town. It wasn't a fancy place, just an older, one-story house with creaky floors,
17:47thin walls, and a small backyard. But it was cheap, and it came with a basement, which I used to store
17:53extra furniture and tools and stuff. I moved in that spring, and for the first few months,
17:59nothing strange happened. The house had its quirks. Some pipes rattled when you'd turn on the shower,
18:05and there was this one kitchen cabinet that always swung open on its own, but nothing unusual for a place
18:10that old. The only part I didn't like was the basement. The door was in the hallway next to the
18:15bathroom. It was heavy and stuck a little when you opened it, and the light switch for the basement
18:20was actually halfway down the stairs, which meant you had to walk down a few steps in total darkness
18:25before you could reach it. The first time I went down there, I honestly felt weird. Not scared exactly,
18:32but uneasy. The single bulb didn't do much to light the corners, and the whole place smelt like old wood,
18:39but I didn't have any reason to be down there for long, so I stored my things, shut the door,
18:44and didn't think much of it. That changed around late October. I had just gotten home from work.
18:51I'm a night shift security guard, so I usually get home around 3am, and I was heading to the bathroom
18:56before bed when I heard something. It sounded like a faint knock. Three soft taps. It came from behind
19:05the basement door. I froze in place. At first, I thought maybe I imagined it. Maybe it was the pipes or the
19:13house settling, but as I stood there, holding my breath, I heard it again. Three distinct knocks. I backed up
19:22a few steps and stared at the door, and then I waited. There was just silence now. I remember whispering to
19:30myself, it's just the house, even though I didn't really believe it. I didn't open the door. I went to
19:36my bedroom, locked the door, and stayed awake for the next two hours, listening. Eventually, I fell
19:41asleep with the TV on. The next morning, I checked the basement. I opened the door, went down the stairs,
19:49and turned on the light. Everything was exactly the way I left it. No signs of anyone having been down
19:54there. No footprints in the dust, no broken windows. I convinced myself it had to be the house shifting,
20:01or maybe a small animal that got in somehow. I moved on. But a few nights later, it happened again.
20:09This time, I was in the bathroom brushing my teeth when I heard the knock.
20:15Not three taps this time, just one, but it was loud, and it was close, like someone had used their
20:21knuckles hard against the basement door. I opened the bathroom door, and looked. The basement door
20:27was closed. Nothing moved. The hallway was quiet. I walked over and put my ear against the wood.
20:35At first, I heard nothing, but then, very faint, I heard what sounded like breathing.
20:46Slow, steady, as if someone was standing on the other side, waiting.
20:51I backed away and went to my room, again locking the door. I called my landlord. I told him something
20:57strange was going on in the basement, that I thought someone had maybe gotten into the house
21:01somehow. He seemed skeptical, but said he'd come by to check it out. When he arrived in the morning,
21:07we both went down into the basement together. He looked around, checked the windows, the walls,
21:13even the foundation. Nothing was damaged or broken. No signs of a break-in or animals.
21:18I didn't say anything. I couldn't explain what I was hearing, and I didn't want to sound crazy.
21:25For the next week, things were quiet. I started to think that maybe I was just overtired or imagining
21:31things. I was working too much, after all. But then, one night, around 2am, I was sitting on my couch
21:38watching TV when I heard the basement door creak. Not a knock or slam, but a creak, like it was slowly
21:45swinging open. I sat up straight and turned off the volume. I could hear it. A slow, grinding creak
21:53of the hinges moving. I got up and peeked down the hallway, and the basement door was wide open.
22:00I hadn't opened it in over a week. I hadn't even touched it. I grabbed a flashlight and slowly walked
22:06toward it. I didn't have a weapon, but I had no choice. I had to know what was going on.
22:11I stood at the top of the stairs and shined the light down. The basement was pitch black. The
22:17bulb wasn't on. I reached around the corner and flicked the switch. Nothing. It was dead.
22:25The bulb must have burned out. That's when I heard footsteps coming up the stairs. They weren't rushing,
22:30they were slow, but they were 100% footsteps. I backed away. My hands were shaking. I slammed the
22:38door shut and held the handle tight. For a moment, I felt the pressure of something on the other side,
22:43like it was leaning against the door. Then it stopped. I locked the door and called the police.
22:50I told them someone was in my basement. They showed up about 10 minutes later, and two officers cleared
22:56the house and went down into the basement. I stood in the front yard, waiting, and after what felt like
23:01forever, they came back up. They said they didn't find anyone. No signs of forced entry or anyone
23:08hiding. Nothing was even disturbed. One of them even tried to laugh it off, asking if I'd been watching
23:13scary movies. I knew what I heard. After they left, I didn't go back inside right away. I just stood there,
23:21staring at that house. Finally, I went back in, locked every door and window, and stayed up until
23:27the sun came up. That morning, I bought a padlock and installed it on the basement door. I didn't
23:33care if it was allowed or not. I needed it. For the next month, the basement stayed quiet. No sounds
23:40or knocks or anything. I almost let myself relax. Then one night, I got home from work and noticed
23:47the basement door was open. Not just unlocked, the padlock was lying on the floor, broken.
23:53The door itself was slightly ajar. I hadn't touched that door in weeks. I stood there,
24:00staring at it, and for the first time, I realized something. Every time this had happened, every
24:06noise and every knock, it had always happened at night, when I was alone. I did not go down. I
24:12couldn't. I packed a bag, left the house, and stayed at a friend's place for a few days. When I came back,
24:19I literally nailed the basement door shut. I even wedged a chair against the door. I didn't care if
24:24the landlord got mad. I just couldn't look at that door anymore. A few nights later, around 3 AM,
24:31I was laying in bed when I heard a sound that I still can't explain. It was a voice. It wasn't loud.
24:38It wasn't even someone speaking, like the barely audible sound of a rumble of someone's vocal cords.
24:43It came from somewhere beneath the floorboards, directly under my bed. That was it. I called the
24:50police again. They showed up, did their search, and nothing turned up again. So I packed everything,
24:56minus the stuff in the basement, and I left. I didn't even wait for the lease to end. I don't
25:01know what was in that basement. I don't want to know. All I can say is that sometimes, when I lie awake
25:07at night in my new apartment, I think about all of this, and I wonder if I'd waited just a little
25:12longer, what would have come up those steps?
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