3 Disturbing TRUE Road Trip Horror Stories
#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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00:00I need to provide some very brief context so the story makes sense.
00:13I go to a public university in California. It's part of the UC system.
00:19Some UCs like UCLA and Berkeley and Santa Barbara are much bigger, while others like mine are much smaller.
00:26Most of the big ones have their own version of what's known as a dedicated tour day, where all the incoming students go to that respective campus to tour it.
00:34But really, it's just an excuse for all the current students to throw crazy all-day parties.
00:39Berkeley's is called Cal Day, and Santa Barbara's is called Deltopia, just to give a few examples.
00:46Now, my campus is about a two-and-a-half-hour drive from Santa Barbara, but it's sometimes customary for students from other campuses to make the drive to bigger schools for that one day.
00:55I've never really been one to party like that, so it was never something I did.
01:00But a few months ago, I realized it was my senior year and I'd never get the chance to go again.
01:06So, when they asked me if I wanted to come with them to Santa Barbara's Deltopia, I decided to say screw it and just went.
01:13We drove down that Friday afternoon, the day before all the major festivities.
01:18The car was completely packed out.
01:19Hunter was driving, and the other friends joining us were Damon, Benjamin, and Armand.
01:26We're all above six feet tall, so the journey was painfully cramped, but it went by quickly with some good conversation and music.
01:34Once we got to Isla Vista, we spent the better part of an hour looking for parking with no luck.
01:39I'm not exaggerating about the parking situation.
01:42That's how popular Deltopia is.
01:44Just as we were about to give up, Hunter activated his charm and convinced a sorority girl to let us park in her designated spot.
01:53We all got a good chuckle out of that.
01:55So, everything was going according to plan.
01:58Hunter's sister is a junior at UCSB, and she agreed to let us all crash on the floor of her apartment.
02:05That might sound a little ratchet to some, but during Deltopia, having a place to sleep is practically a golden ticket.
02:11Her and all of her roommates were super chill, so we decided to party with them that night, even though Deltopia technically didn't start until the next morning.
02:20There's one more thing I have to mention.
02:23Hunter is a really friendly guy, and because of that, a ton of people know him.
02:28He has this one friend named Amir, who is a little problematic.
02:32I'm using the word friend pretty generously here.
02:35Amir is one of those guys who clings to social circles without ever really being a part of them.
02:40He's insecure, loud, oblivious, constantly seeking validation, and somehow makes every conversation about himself.
02:48And before you call me out for gossiping, Amir has done a lot of messed up stuff to my friends and I in the past, so I've earned the right.
02:56Amir had mentioned to Hunter a while back that he was also going to Deltopia.
03:00There was never any real conversation about where he'd be staying or who he was going with.
03:05He wasn't part of our plan, and none of us had brought him up on the drive down.
03:09About an hour after the crew settled into Hunter's sister's place, we decided to make an alcohol run for ourselves and her roommates.
03:17As the five of us were leaving the liquor store with our purchases, who do we see but Amir, just standing there on the curb with his hands in his pockets.
03:26No one said anything.
03:28We just kept walking towards the apartment, and he sort of fell in step with us like he'd been there the entire time.
03:34The first thing out of Amir's mouth, once we were a few blocks away from the store, was,
03:39Why are you guys so surprised to see me?
03:42Was this kid brain dead?
03:44Of course we were surprised to see him.
03:45There was never any plan to meet up with Amir, let alone hang out with him.
03:49And as far as any of us knew, Hunter hadn't even told him where we were staying.
03:54We all kind of ignored him and just kept walking, unsure of how this was going to play out.
03:58Things immediately escalated once we got back to the apartment.
04:03Amir asked if he could use the bathroom at our apartment, and then ran ahead of us when Hunter reluctantly agreed.
04:09When Hunter's sister answered the door, Amir walked right up to her and said,
04:13I'm staying here, before stepping past her without waiting for a response.
04:18She obviously didn't know who Amir was, but just assumed he was part of our group.
04:23When Hunter realized Amir had lied to his sister, he was livid.
04:26I could go into extreme detail about what happened first, but here's all you need to know.
04:32Hunter told him straight up he had to leave, that he wasn't welcome there, and that lying to his sister was crossing a line.
04:39Amir didn't go quietly.
04:41He stood outside the door for another 20 minutes, trying to argue his way back in.
04:45Hunter's not the guy you want to mess around with, so Amir eventually took the hint and left.
04:51We got wasted after that, and admittedly, Amir was all any of us could talk about.
04:57We realized later that night that Hunter had been sharing his iPhone location with Amir, meaning Amir had stalked us to the apartment.
05:04But anyway, the next day was a blast.
05:07Deltopia certainly lived up to the hype.
05:10Most of the shenanigans were done by late afternoon, so we met up with five of our other friends, and the ten of us found ourselves chilling back at Hunter's sister's apartment.
05:18We filled the rest of the guys in about the Amir situation, and they found it just as odd as we did.
05:25One of our other friends, Rylan, said he was pretty sure he had Amir's location.
05:30He immediately checked it, and his jaw actually dropped.
05:34He turned the phone towards us, and I swear to God, the little blue dot was showing up basically on top of us.
05:40As soon as we mentioned it, though, the dot started moving away quickly, like Amir had been spying on us from a car and was now driving away.
05:50It was bizarre.
05:52Him showing up a second time was borderline psychotic, especially after Hunter had explained to him why he wasn't welcome there.
05:58We probably should have taken the whole thing more seriously than we did.
06:03That behavior was extreme, even for Amir.
06:06Instead, we all just laughed about his weird obsessiveness and continued partying.
06:12That night, after we had all crashed, I woke up randomly sometime well after midnight.
06:18I barely had time to process my surroundings when I heard glass shattering from somewhere deeper in the apartment.
06:24I shot up off the floor, looking around to see if anyone else was awake.
06:31No one was, probably because everyone had gone to sleep completely wasted.
06:36I realized pretty quickly that no one else had heard it, and if someone had broken in, I was the only one who could do anything about it.
06:44I didn't have a weapon or anything, so I just grabbed an empty wine bottle off the floor, took a deep breath, and started creeping toward the noise.
06:52My heart was pounding.
06:54When I entered the living room, I saw the sliding door that led to the balcony had been completely shattered.
07:00A huge rock sat in the middle of the floor, surrounded by glinting shards of glass.
07:06I didn't need convincing.
07:08I knew Amir was behind it.
07:10I went to go wake my friends up, when, out of the corner of my eye, I saw a closet door handle jiggle a little.
07:17I froze, more scared than I had been just moments before.
07:22I didn't think Amir had the guts to go beyond destroying property, and the thought that he had broken into the apartment terrified me.
07:29I was just about to yank the closet door open, when my better judgment forced me not to.
07:35Instead, I snuck back to the bedroom, woke Hunter up, and told him to back me up.
07:41The two of us walked towards the living room, but by the time we got there, the closet door was wide open.
07:48I looked around frantically, but I didn't see him.
07:51That's when Hunter reached into the closet and pulled out this massive kitchen knife.
07:56I stared in shock.
07:58Amir had literally been standing behind the door with a knife, probably intending to injure me.
08:03He could have literally ended my life had I opened that closet door.
08:06That was the most horrifying moment of my life.
08:10Hunter and I woke the rest of the house up, and we did a sweep to be 100% sure that Amir was nowhere in the apartment.
08:17We obviously got the police involved, but all that really came of that was just getting a police report.
08:23They told us property tends to get destroyed during Deltopia, and we were one of the many victims.
08:29Before you ask, Amir had stopped sharing his location with Rylan, so we couldn't even show the police that.
08:35We had to leave the next morning.
08:38Hunter was freaked out about leaving his sister and her roommates there, especially knowing that Amir had managed to sneak in there once already.
08:46Before we got in the car, he pulled out his phone and typed out this massive paragraph to Amir.
08:51I'm not going to air it out here, but you can guess what was said.
08:54The message never delivered, though.
08:57Amir had already blocked him.
08:59We all pulled out our phones and realized we had all been blocked, too.
09:02Over the next few weeks, none of us heard from him.
09:06It was like he had fallen off the map completely.
09:10I still can't wrap my head around all of this.
09:12As aggressive as Amir often pretends to be, he doesn't have a history of violence.
09:17In fact, I've always thought of him as a little passive.
09:21He knows where all of us live, so I'm still worried, even while writing this out, that he's going to do something drastic.
09:27I'll send an update should something happen.
09:40My name is Arthie.
09:42This happened a pretty long time ago, but I'd say I still remember about 90% of the details vividly.
09:48It was late April, 1996.
09:51I was fresh out of basic training, and I had just been assigned to an airbase as a communications specialist in San Angelo, Texas.
09:58Being stationed in Texas was great for me.
10:01I'm originally from Mississippi, and part of the reason I enlisted in the first place was to get as far away from home as possible.
10:08I was 24 years old at the time.
10:10My closest friends on base were a guy named Seabass and a girl named Kay.
10:14I've since lost touch with them, but back then, the three of us were inseparable.
10:20It was a warm weekend, sometime in early April, when Seabass proposed taking a road trip to Austin for the day to experience a change of scenery.
10:28Kay and I were also getting sick of the base life monotony, so we agreed.
10:32Kay offered to drive, so we packed her SUV with our stuff and hit the road that same afternoon.
10:38About an hour into the drive, we were on a mostly empty stretch of highway when Seabass spoke up.
10:43He asked us if we had seen the car behind us pull up from the shoulder right after we had passed.
10:49I looked back and saw a dark colored Tahoe or something similar trailing us at a steady distance.
10:55I hadn't seen it pull off the shoulder, but being as we were on the highway, it wasn't exactly the weirdest thing.
11:02But then Kay changed lanes just to see, and the SUV followed.
11:07She did it again a minute later, and again, it mirrored her move.
11:11I was confused at first, but then a minute later the SUV put its lights on, and everything made sense.
11:19We were getting pulled over by an undercover cop.
11:22Kay pulled over, and I watched as the cop pulled over behind us.
11:26I'm a pretty observant person.
11:28Processing information quickly is something I was quite literally trained to do.
11:32So I instantly realized something was off.
11:35The guy who stepped out didn't look like any cop I'd ever seen.
11:38He was wearing all black tactical gear, but nothing on him that said police.
11:44The only thing even remotely official looking about his uniform was a patch on his arm that said something I couldn't read.
11:50He didn't behave like a normal officer either.
11:53Instead of approaching Kay's window, he stood behind the car like he was waiting for something.
11:58I watched him a little while longer, and realized he wasn't just standing behind the car, but was actively analyzing it.
12:06He was looking through the rear window like he was trying to see the stuff we packed.
12:10He was also checking out Kay's bumper stickers and her license plate.
12:15Seabass and Kay eventually caught on to the officer's strange behavior too,
12:19and Seabass rolled his window down before asking the officer if there was a problem.
12:22Instead of responding, the officer swiftly walked up to Kay's window and asked for her license and registration.
12:30Kay reluctantly gave it to him.
12:32He walked back to his vehicle, and didn't return for a really long time.
12:37The three of us started whispering about how strange this whole encounter was getting,
12:41but we weren't sure what to do.
12:43After what felt like forever, the guy finally exited his car again.
12:47Only this time, two other men stepped out with him.
12:51I could feel my heartbeat ticking up, so I did some focused breathing to keep calm.
12:55The original officer walked back up to Kay's window and asked her if her father was in the army or something.
13:02Kay asked for clarification, and the officer mentioned the U.S. military bumper sticker on the back of her car.
13:09Kay laughed and said that she was the one in the military,
13:11then turned to Seabass and I and said,
13:13Them too.
13:15The moment Kay mentioned we were all in the military, I noticed a shift.
13:19The guy at her window didn't say anything right away, but his body language stiffened.
13:24He glanced back at the other two men, who were still standing near the rear of the SUV,
13:29and then he glanced back at Kay.
13:31There was a weird silence for a second,
13:34and then he just told Kay that he was letting her off with a warning and to drive more slowly.
13:38He handed back Kay's license and turned around without another word.
13:42The three of them got back in the car, and before Kay could even start her engine,
13:47the Tahoe pulled off and sped away.
13:51The three of us were dumbfounded.
13:53Seabass couldn't stop talking about how those guys weren't real officers,
13:57and they would have done something shady had we all been civilians.
14:00There really wasn't much more we could do, so Kay just got back on the highway.
14:05Austin was actually a really good time,
14:07and by the time we got back to base, we had all but forgotten about the stop.
14:12It wasn't until about a week later that I was reminded of it.
14:15I was sitting in the rec room watching the local news with Seabass,
14:19when a story came on that made me freeze up.
14:22Apparently, a man and woman had been found dead in a ditch along a stretch of highway just outside of San Angelo.
14:28According to the reporter, the victims had been robbed and murdered,
14:33and investigators believed they were dumped there the night before.
14:36What really got me, though, was the next part.
14:39The vehicle found abandoned near the scene was a Black Tahoe.
14:43Police confirmed it had been reported stolen months earlier, several states away.
14:49Seabass and I instantly went to find Kay,
14:51and the three of us agreed we had to tell the police about what we had seen.
14:54We told the police everything, and part of me felt a surge of guilt for not telling them sooner.
15:00Even to this day, I still think about how Kay's bumper sticker may have saved our lives that day.
15:06I can't help but think about how easily it could have been us in that ditch, had we not been military.
15:21I've always been a really private person.
15:23That's part of the reason I've waited so long to put this story out there.
15:27I can't think of many worse things than this story getting traced back to me somehow,
15:31but I was recently thinking about how it would be a shame to leave this earth without circulating it.
15:36So, here it goes.
15:38I just want people to know that I'm really stepping out of my comfort zone doing this.
15:42About ten years ago, I was on a solo road trip from West Patterson, New Jersey to Fort Worth, Texas.
15:48I was on the way to visit my parents, whom I hadn't seen in a while.
15:53I'd moved out of Fort Worth years earlier and hadn't been back much since, so this trip felt overdue.
16:00Somewhere in the middle of nowhere, maybe Arkansas or the edge of Oklahoma, I can't really remember exactly,
16:06my car started acting up.
16:08I tried to ignore it for a while, but eventually, I had no choice but to pull over.
16:12However, there wasn't much around, just trees, open field, and a long empty road behind me.
16:19I popped the hood and started poking around, pretending I knew what I was doing.
16:24I didn't.
16:25I was just sort of killing time, but I didn't want to admit that I was basically helpless.
16:30I figured I'd poke around for a bit, and once that failed, I'd call AAA.
16:35I didn't actually have AAA, so I was really pissed because I knew they'd charge me an arm and a leg.
16:40A few minutes later, though, I heard a car pulling up behind me.
16:45It was a nondescript, white pickup truck.
16:48I remember noting to myself that it didn't have a front plate, or at least not one I could see.
16:54The driver's door opened, and a man stepped out.
16:57If I had to guess, I'd say he was in his mid-30s, maybe a little older,
17:02but worn down in a way that made him seem older than he probably was.
17:06He had curly hair and a long, uneven beard that looked like it hadn't been trimmed in years.
17:12He seemed like the kind of guy you could tell worked with his hands a lot, if that makes any sense.
17:17He honestly kind of looked like an older version of me.
17:20Same build, same height, same hair color, just a bit less well-groomed than I am.
17:26He walked over slowly, giving my car a once-over as he approached.
17:30He didn't ask if I needed help so much as assume it.
17:33Before I even said anything, he was already leaning over the engine like he knew what he was doing.
17:39I spoke up and told him what happened, then thanked him for stopping to help me.
17:43He told me he was a mechanic, and based on how quickly he got to work, I didn't question it.
17:49I was already thinking about how I could repay him for the help,
17:52when he said something that kind of surprised me.
17:55After a minute or two of fiddling,
17:57he stepped back and gave the engine a look that didn't exactly inspire confidence.
18:02He muttered something about needing a compression tester.
18:06Apparently, without it, the car wasn't going to start no matter what.
18:10Then he glanced over to his truck and said his friend, another mechanic, might be able to bring one over.
18:15I honestly had no idea what the part even was that he was talking about,
18:19but he seemed genuine, so I believed him.
18:22I thanked him again, and he pulled out his phone, presumably to call his buddy.
18:26He froze up for a few seconds while looking at his phone screen,
18:30and then put his phone back in his pocket, saying it was dead.
18:33He then asked if he could borrow mine to make the call.
18:36I didn't even think twice about it.
18:38I pulled my phone out of my pocket and handed it to him without a second thought.
18:42He took it with one hand, and then, almost in the same motion,
18:46he reached into his jacket with the other and pulled out a gun.
18:49I instantly knew what was about to happen.
18:53He didn't say much, just told me to sit down on the shoulder and not try anything stupid.
18:58His voice didn't shake.
19:00He'd clearly done something like this before,
19:03or at least thought about it enough for it to seem practiced.
19:06I did what he said.
19:08The whole thing felt strangely calm,
19:10like we were both just going through something totally normal.
19:13He rifled through my pockets and took my wallet,
19:16my backpack from the passenger seat,
19:18and even had me show him the password to my phone.
19:21Then he drove off, and that was that.
19:24I had literally just been robbed on the side of the road.
19:27I know I'm speaking about it calmly now,
19:30but you best believe I was livid at the time.
19:33I don't think even now I've ever been more angry in my life.
19:36Unfortunately, there's more to this story.
19:39Much more.
19:40I'm not going to get into too much detail,
19:43but someone eventually did stop and help me.
19:45After getting my car started,
19:47they were even nice enough to give me directions
19:49all the way to my parents' house
19:50so I could do it without my phone.
19:53I made it to Fort Worth later that night,
19:55and given the circumstances,
19:56my visit with my parents was actually really nice.
20:00The next few weeks were a blur of canceling cards,
20:03replacing IDs, updating passwords,
20:05and basically recovering everything I'd lost.
20:08It was annoying and time-consuming,
20:10but I eventually squared away as much as I possibly could,
20:13and I got on with my life.
20:16Fast forward like six months,
20:18and that's when things started to hit the fan.
20:20One day, I got a letter in the mail
20:22from some bank I didn't recognize.
20:25It was addressed to me,
20:26thanking me for opening a new line of credit.
20:28I figured it was a scam at first,
20:30or just some kind of junk mail,
20:32but then another one came.
20:34This time from Best Buy,
20:36with a card I'd supposedly opened
20:38and already racked up over $1,000 on.
20:41The charges were all from a random town in Tennessee.
20:44At first, I was more confused than anything,
20:47but that's when it hit me.
20:48I had forgotten until that exact moment
20:51that my social security card
20:52was likely in my wallet when I had gotten robbed,
20:55and now, the guy who had robbed me
20:57had everything he needed to become me.
21:00The next month of my life was a living hell.
21:03My credit report was a mess.
21:05Hard inquiries, new cards,
21:07balances I didn't spend.
21:09It felt like every day there was something new.
21:12If any of you have dealt with identity theft,
21:14you know how hopeless it can seem.
21:16I filed a report with the FTC,
21:19placed a fraud alert on all three credit bureaus,
21:21and even froze my credit.
21:23I went to the police and gave them everything I had,
21:26but without a name or a license plate,
21:28they apparently couldn't do a thing.
21:30I filed a formal report anyway,
21:33just to have a paper trail.
21:35I even called the local police departments
21:36in each of the towns where fraud had occurred.
21:39I followed every step you're supposed to follow,
21:41but somehow, it wasn't enough.
21:44Things kept escalating.
21:46Whoever was stealing my identity
21:48was being extremely cautious about it.
21:50A few weeks later,
21:52I got a call from my health insurance provider.
21:55Someone had received emergency care
21:57under my name at a hospital in Georgia.
21:59It wasn't just a billing issue.
22:01There were now records in my file
22:03that didn't belong to me.
22:04Stuff that could actually screw me over
22:06if I ever landed in the hospital
22:08and couldn't speak for myself.
22:09I obviously reported everything to the police again,
22:13but that was the last straw for me.
22:15I decided to take matters into my own hands.
22:18From then on,
22:19I transformed my whole lifestyle
22:21and spent every ounce of my free time
22:23trying to track down the perpetrator myself.
22:26I set up Google Alerts for my name
22:28and any recent cities tied to the fraud.
22:30I checked my credit report constantly.
22:33I scanned forums and dug through social media.
22:36I did everything I could think of.
22:38One night, on a whim,
22:40I decided to start checking Craigslist.
22:42I focused on cities tied to the fraud,
22:45places where charges had shown up from
22:47or mail had come from.
22:49After looking around for a while,
22:51something caught my eye.
22:53It was a posting from Jackson, Tennessee.
22:56The listing was for a bunch of used power tools
22:58and some other miscellaneous items.
23:01I wasn't sure why it stood out to me so much,
23:03but the longer I looked,
23:04the more familiar it seemed.
23:06And then it clicked.
23:08Everything listed matched up perfectly
23:10with some of the things
23:11that had been charged to that Best Buy card.
23:13I sat there for a while,
23:15unsure what to do.
23:17Eventually,
23:17I responded to the listing,
23:19saying I was interested in a couple of the items
23:21and asked if they were still available.
23:23I debated trying to attach a tracker link
23:26or something clever,
23:27but I didn't want to spook whoever it was.
23:29If it was him,
23:31and he got even a hint that someone was onto him,
23:33he'd vanish.
23:34So I kept it simple.
23:36To my surprise,
23:37it didn't seem like the guy was onto me at all.
23:40After exchanging some emails
23:42over the next few days,
23:43he gave me a time and a public place to meet,
23:46and he told me to bring cash.
23:48The meeting was supposed to be the next day.
23:50I debated driving all the way to Tennessee myself,
23:53but I couldn't bring myself to.
23:55There's no telling what I would have done to that guy
23:57had I seen him in person a second time.
24:00So instead,
24:01I called the police department in Jackson
24:03to see if they remembered my case.
24:05They did,
24:06and I basically pleaded with them to help me out.
24:09I gave them everything I had
24:11and damn near prayed.
24:13By some miracle,
24:13they told me the details lined up just well enough
24:16for it to be worthwhile.
24:18They said they'd at least talk to him
24:20and see if there was any information
24:21they could get out of him.
24:23The next day,
24:24after a little back and forth,
24:25I got the guy to tell me
24:26he was driving a red pickup truck.
24:29I communicated that with the police
24:31and waited.
24:32After legitimately several hours,
24:34they called me.
24:36When they told me what had happened,
24:37I wanted to drop on my knees.
24:39I swear on my life.
24:40The officer told me
24:42that as soon as the guy spotted the patrol cars
24:44near the meetup spot,
24:45he immediately sped out of the lot.
24:47He didn't even try to play it cool.
24:49That alone was enough to raise red flags,
24:52so they followed him.
24:54Not long after,
24:55the guy ended up losing control of his truck
24:57and crashing into a ditch.
24:59It wasn't a major accident,
25:00but it was enough to get officers legally involved
25:03beyond just a casual questioning.
25:05According to them,
25:06he was a total wreck.
25:08Visibly shaken,
25:09panicking,
25:10talking in circles.
25:11You get it.
25:11As soon as they even mentioned
25:14the Best Buy items,
25:15he folded.
25:16He admitted he didn't know
25:17where the stuff had come from,
25:19that it wasn't his,
25:20and that a friend had given it to him,
25:22and he had independently decided to resell it.
25:25It could not have been more perfect.
25:27The guy ratted out his friends,
25:29and with his cooperation,
25:30the police were able to acquire
25:32enough evidence to arrest the real perp.
25:34I have never felt more relief in my life.
25:37Like I said earlier,
25:38I'm not trying to have this traced back to me,
25:40so I'm going to keep things vague from here on out.
25:44I will say this much, though.
25:45The guy who robbed me wasn't acting alone.
25:48Turns out,
25:49there were three of them total.
25:51The craziest part is that I wasn't the only victim.
25:54From what I was told,
25:55they had been targeting travelers
25:56and isolated drivers
25:57up and down a few different interstate corridors,
26:00mostly in the south.
26:02Eventually,
26:03all three of them were caught,
26:04charged,
26:05and put in jail.
26:06I'm not going to say much more than that,
26:08but what I will say is,
26:10justice was served.
26:11Justice was served.
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