Speaker A
I'm a 21-year-old who's currently home for the summer from college. I haven't been able to sleep for the past four days.
True stalker horror stories narrated by Mr. Nightmare, revealing terrifying real-life encounters and their chilling aftermath.
Key Takeaways
- Stalking can escalate quickly from online to physical encounters.
- Perpetrators may use social media and public information to track victims.
- Victims should take stalking seriously and seek help from authorities and support networks.
- Workplaces and public venues can play a crucial role in victim safety.
- Legal measures like restraining orders are important tools for protection.
Summary
- A 21-year-old college student experiences stalking after an encounter at a local bagel shop.
- The stalker finds her social media despite her not sharing her name, leading to persistent online harassment.
- He escalates to physically stalking her at her theater job, leaving threatening messages and handprints on her car.
- The theater bans the stalker after he buys tickets for all shows and leaves flowers with a disturbing note.
- The narrator takes precautions such as blocking him, changing routines, and involving theater management.
- The story highlights the emotional toll and fear caused by stalking, including sleeplessness and paranoia.
- The stalker’s persistence leads to the narrator considering legal action and filing a restraining order.
- The video includes multiple chapters covering different stalking incidents and their progression.
- The narrative emphasizes the importance of awareness, support from others, and taking stalking seriously.
- The story is set in Northern Ireland and involves real locations like a bagel shop, theater, and apartment complex.
Chapters
- 00:00Introduction and Bagel Shop Encounter
- 01:07Conversation about Rugby Injury
- 02:03Instagram Follow and First DM
- 03:03Rehearsal and Escalating Messages
- 03:59Man by Car Incident
- 04:50Stage Manager Support and Safety Measures
- 05:44Daily Safety Precautions and Theater Staff Involvement
- 07:29Stalker Leaves Flowers and Theater Ban
- 08:36Encounter Outside Pharmacy and Driveway
- 10:21Home Safety and Police Involvement
Full Transcript — Download SRT & Markdown
Speaker A
It started two weeks ago. I usually go to this mom-and-pop bagel place right by my house. I buy the same thing and sometimes bring home bagels for my family.
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I'd gone on a weekday around 10:00 a.m. As I walked in, there was a young guy working the counter, maybe 24 or 25. He greeted me and asked what he could get for me while watching me intently.
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I gave him my order, then went to grab my credit card out of my wallet only to have all my spare change fall out onto the floor.
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I was mortified. Before I could blink, the employee rushed around from behind the counter to help me pick it all up.
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While he crouched on the floor, I noticed he injured his finger and I automatically felt ten times worse.
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I insisted that he didn't need to help me, but he was adamant and picked up the rest of the coins.
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I asked how he injured his finger. He sighed and explained that he had dislocated it while playing rugby.
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We talked about rugby briefly, how long he'd been playing and where he played. Completely harmless conversation.
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I paid and wished him a nice day. Later that afternoon, I checked my Instagram notifications.
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I saw someone had started following me and I mindlessly clicked the notification. Seeing the profile picture, my stomach dropped.
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It was the guy from the bagel place. I was baffled. I didn't know how he even found me.
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Logistically speaking, my socials are just my first and last name, so if someone really wanted to find me, it'd be pretty easy, but he'd have to know my name and I didn't even say it. All I asked was how he injured his finger.
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I tried to think of possible ways, like did he look at the name on the credit card, or was my name on the receipt? I removed him as a follower and left it alone.
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About a half hour later, he followed me again. Then he DM'd me. The message said that he hoped it wasn't weird that he had found my Instagram.
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He claimed he couldn't stop thinking about me. Now I felt uneasy. It wasn't even that I didn't know him. I'm public online because of my career in music and theater. Random followers don't scare me. I can handle DMs from creeps online.
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This was much more serious and unnerving. This guy had access to me in person.
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His work was ten minutes from my house. I decided to block him, thinking that would be the end of it. But boy, was I wrong.
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My job started up again. I worked from 7:30 into 3:00, and then had rehearsal for a show from 6:00 to 10:00 p.m.
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I was on my lunch break and checked my phone, only to see the guy had made another account and was spam liking all my posts.
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I had over 50 notifications from him alone. The messages complimented my appearance and questioned why I blocked him, and repeatedly insisted that he only wanted to get to know me.
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I went to rehearsal like normal, and during our five-minute break, I checked my phone.
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I had over 100 notifications across multiple platforms. In addition to Instagram, he'd now found my Snapchat and TikTok.
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He spam liked all of my TikToks that went back to 2022. Worst of all was the string of DMs he'd sent.
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The messages became increasingly demanding. He repeatedly asked why I wasn't answering him, complained about having to make new accounts after being blocked, commenting that I looked pretty that day, mentioning seeing me on Hinge, and questioning why I hadn't matched
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with him, and eventually began angrily demanding a response. My heart was racing as I stood in silence processing everything. What was this guy's deal?
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I felt helpless during the remainder of rehearsal, spiraling until it finished at 10:00 p.m.
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I walked out of the stage door gripping my keys tightly. I was only a few steps out when I came to a stop.
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Something had just moved by my car. I stopped and squinted. From what I could see, it looked like a man hovering around my driver's side window.
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I stared out into the dark parking lot. I'm nearsighted, so I couldn't really even see him that well.
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I bolted back inside through the stage door, locking it, and I raced to find one of the other actors from rehearsal.
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I ended up finding Finn, who was the head stage manager. My hands were shaking badly, and I could barely get the words out.
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Finn calmed me down, and I told him everything. He said he would check first and then walk me to my car.
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I sat in the green room waiting while he checked. Nothing. My phone buzzed. Another DM.
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The message stated that I looked good in blue. That did it. I started to cry uncontrollably, scared out of my mind.
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Finn, being the angel he was, stayed later to calm me down and walk me to my car.
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My nerves were shot as I looked around the nearly pitch-black parking lot. I prayed he wasn't going to emerge from out of nowhere. There were tons of places he could rush out from.
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Behind the garbage bin, behind the trees, the fence in the back, behind my car.
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Finn was beside me as I walked over to my car. I started to open my door when I saw it.
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Two distinct handprints on my driver's side window. I wasn't paranoid. He had really been standing there.
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I couldn't even blame it on imagining things. He'd found the theater. I couldn't even begin to fathom how until it hit me. My Instagram story.
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I'd reposted the cast announcement from the theater, and he'd found out the address. I wanted to kick myself. I was going to be there all week, and now he knew where I was.
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Finn walked me to my car every day during rehearsal to ease my mind. I was restless at night.
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If he could find the theater, he might be able to find my address and my workplace.
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When would he stop? I did everything I could to cover my tracks. I wouldn't post myself on my story until I'd gotten home. I took an alternate route to work. I warned the theater about him, and I stopped going
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to the bagel shop. This angered him, and it only got worse. He was blowing up my phone with angry DMs. The messages complained that I had stopped into the shop.
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He asked where I had gone. He questioned why I was no longer at work when expected. He would repeatedly ask where I was, and eventually warned me that he could easily find me.
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Now I was wondering if I needed to involve the police, or was I being dramatic?
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Was it serious enough to involve the police? The performance dates were coming up, and I was terrified he was going to come to the theater.
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I told the theater staff about it, and they told me they'd keep me safe.
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Eventually, it was opening weekend. I didn't come out to the lobby after the first two shows, since no one I knew was able to make it.
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After the Saturday matinee, one of my friends in the cast came to find me. She told me someone had come to see me and had left flowers.
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I felt bad thinking maybe one of my friends had stopped by as a surprise.
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It was from my stalker. He left a bouquet of flowers and a note. The note said that he was disappointed that I hadn't come to see him after the show. It mentioned that I hadn't returned for bagels and was no longer
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parking in my usual spot at work, but he claimed that he would be patient.
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It said the roses would look lovely in my bedroom, and added that I didn't need the stage manager to walk me to my car because I had him. So, that was the last straw.
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I went straight to management with the flowers and note in hand. Apparently, some girl they'd recently hired to work box office had let him in.
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He told her he was my boyfriend and asked where I would come out after the performance so he could meet me.
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Worst of all, he purchased tickets for the entirety of the show's run. The director ended up calling an emergency meeting to explain everything.
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He was banned by the theater, and his tickets were voided. I haven't heard anything since, and I'm currently trying to file a restraining order against him.
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I'm just praying he backs off and leaves me alone. This happened back in 2018. For some context to the story, I live in Northern Ireland on a street with a r
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At the very end of this row was a pharmacy, which is the first shop you see when you turn into my street.
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Anyway, I was driving back to my house at about 2:00 a.m. from my friend's house. All I could think about was getting into bed, and was on autopilot on the short drive home.
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As I got closer to my street, I could see a figure standing outside the pharmacy.
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I really didn't think twice about it, and just assumed it was someone drunk or on a late night walk.
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As I got closer to turn into my street, I could see that the person hadn't moved at all. They were dressed completely in black, and were standing on the pavement directly in front of the pharmacy doors.
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Even from inside my car, something felt off. I had lived on the street most of my life, and had heard some stories of attempted break-ins into the pharmacy, so it dawned on me I might have been witnessing this person about to try
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breaking in. I turned into my street, and slowed down to get a closer look.
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As soon as my headlights had properly lit them up, my heart dropped as the person lifted both of their hands to cover their face.
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They were also wearing black leather gloves. I could see that this person, who I'm pretty sure was a man, then slowly turned his head following my car driving past with his hands still covering his face.
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I sped up a bit out of fear of this man watching me, and without thinking, I pulled into my driveway out of instincts, which was [music] directly across the road from the row of shops.
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The second I did it, I realized how stupid that was. Now he knew exactly where I live.
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I completely froze as I then tried to think about what to do next. I slowly looked at my rearview mirror to see if that man was still standing across the street.
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I remember feeling relieved for about half a second before another thought hit me. If he wasn't still standing there, where did he go?
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It couldn't have been more than 20 seconds since I passed him. I took a deep breath and opened my car door.
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I don't think I've ever run so fast to my front door and turned the key in the lock.
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I got into my house and locked the door behind me, trying to calm myself down.
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I texted my friends to let them know I was home [music] and mentioned the encounter with the man.
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They said I probably scared the guy off when I drove by and that I was overthinking it.
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At the time, that actually sounded reasonable. I thought briefly about calling the police to explain [music] what happened, but I didn't actually see the man commit any crime, so I decided not to.
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I was exhausted, so I thought I'd try to forget about it and pass it off as just a weird encounter.
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My bedroom is at the front of the house, which has a clear view of the row of the pharmacy.
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Before getting into bed, I looked through the blinds one [music] last time to make sure the guy was gone.
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The street was empty, so I closed the blinds, left my bedroom window slightly open like I always did, and fell asleep pretty quickly.
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I'm honestly not sure how long I was asleep for when I suddenly woke up.
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At first, I didn't know why. I'm quite a deep sleeper, and it's rare for me to wake up out of a deep sleep.
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I lay in silence for a few minutes, slowly looking around my room, trying to figure out what had pulled me out of a deep sleep.
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Then I heard it. It was someone humming. It was very faint [music] at first.
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I stayed completely still and just listened. A few seconds later, I heard it again.
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Slow humming, like someone casually trying to pass the time. It was coming from what sounded like outside my window.
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I checked my phone on my bedside table to see it was 3:30 a.m. My body froze.
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Why would someone be humming [music] outside my bedroom window? Was my mind playing tricks on me?
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I was trying to convince myself that maybe it was someone walking outside, but deep down, I already knew it wasn't.
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Then I realized my bedroom window was still cracked open. I cannot describe the feeling of lying there, knowing someone could be standing only a few feet away from you in the dark.
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If this person really wanted to, they could force my window open and come into my bedroom.
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I was alone. If they decided to force the window open, there would be nothing I could do.
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My mind was racing as I tried to come up with some kind of plan.
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I knew if I rang the police, the person would surely hear me and know I was awake.
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I thought in that moment, the best thing I could do would be to quietly close and lock my window, and then ring the police.
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I slowly got out of bed, trying as hard as I possibly could to not make any noise.
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My hands were shaking so badly I could barely move the blinds. Then the humming stopped. I then noticed something else.
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My heart was beating so fast [music] I was worried the man would be able to hear it.
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I shakily, but as slow as I could, pulled back the blinds. As I pulled back the blind, what I saw next was the most frightening thing I've ever seen in my life.
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The man who I'd seen from earlier was standing directly outside [music] my window. That's when it hit me, and I realized the man outside the pharmacy never actually left. [music] The only thing I could think of is he
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had hidden somewhere nearby when I pulled into my driveway. Not only did he see what house I lived in, but he must have also seen me turn my bedroom light on and close my blinds.
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He knew exactly which room was mine. He again had his leather gloved hands covering his face, but this time he had his fingers slightly spread apart so I could see one of his eyes peeking through the gap in his hands staring
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right at me. He didn't move or say anything. Rather, he just stood there staring at me through the gap [music] in his fingers.
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Slowly, I saw one side of his face smile underneath his gloves. I screamed and pushed away from the window.
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I grabbed my phone and dialed 999, crying so hard the operator could barely understand me.
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I never felt such relief when I saw the blue and red flashing lights through my blinds.
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They searched around [music] my house, nearby gardens, and alleyways, but there was no sign of the man.
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The only thing they [music] found was that the glass of the door on the pharmacy had been smashed.
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The security shutter was down, so the man [music] couldn't get in. So, he had given up and left.
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The police mentioned that he may have noticed me slowing down and watching him. I'm not sure if he wanted to intimidate me for witnessing him about to commit a crime, or whether he had some other reason for following me. I'll
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never know. I still live in this house today. I've never seen that man again, but every time I drive past the pharmacy specifically late at night, I still look at that exact spot where he was standing. And I always think of this
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night. Prior to the experience I'm about to share with you, I was never really apprehensive about living alone.
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As a single 19-year-old, I was excited to gain some independence by moving out of a not-so-good situation with roommates.
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I was a server in a chain restaurant not too far from my hometown, where I was working full-time hours and making [music] decent money for the time. Not a ton of money, but enough to get an apartment of my own.
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Thankfully, there was an apartment complex down the road from my job that seemed safe and affordable for a single person.
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Apartments in my price range usually meant not having the most well-behaved neighbors, but despite the low cost of the apartment, everything seemed normal and relatively safe for the first few months of my lease. I kept a fairly consistent schedule, work, home, repeat.
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The only time I left my house outside of working was usually just to check my mail at the leasing office or bring my garbage to the dumpsters that were supplied by the landlord.
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Both of those errands were in the apartment complex less than half a mile away, a detail that will later be important in the events to come.
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After the first few peaceful months of living on my own, I started noticing strange things happening in my apartment, things I couldn't explain.
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I came home from work one day and instantly felt like something was off as soon as I stepped inside.
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It didn't feel like someone was watching me, but it felt more like someone had been there while I was gone. The energy was just different.
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My apartment was on the second floor, so I had a set of stairs to climb before the space opened [music] up to the living room and connecting kitchen.
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As soon as I approached the living room, I immediately noticed very large, man-sized muddy footprints [music] all over the carpet and leading into the kitchen.
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Call me stupid, but I went straight to the kitchen to see if someone was in there.
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It was empty with the exception of more muddy footprints. The kitchen offered no place for an adult to hide, so I searched the rest of [music] the apartment before taking inventory of my valuables.
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Nothing was missing, which almost confused me even more than if something had been stolen.
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I called the leasing office to see if any maintenance workers were scheduled to be in my apartment that day because that would definitely explain the footprints.
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They weren't the most professional company, so I thought maybe they forgot to let me know.
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The leasing office confirmed [music] what I was dreading, though. No maintenance workers had been scheduled to be in my home that day.
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I had a friend that also lived [music] in that same apartment complex just a few streets away. I told him everything I saw.
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He chalked it up to me being paranoid and said that I walked through my house with muddy boots on and forgot.
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I know I didn't forget and I knew I wasn't crazy. A few days passed with no incident, [music] but I knew I needed to pay closer attention to things like locking my doors and windows.
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This brought me some peace of minds and just when I thought I could start to move on from the situation, things got worse and more [music] strange.
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I started noticing some strange but non-threatening things like my brand new jug of water that I stored in the fridge was now open and sitting on my kitchen counter and half gone. Another time, I noticed my heat had been cranked up to
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the highest possible setting, something I know I wouldn't have done since I was responsible for paying the heating bill.
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Each time something like this happened, I would call my friend and tell him what I was experiencing and that I suspected someone of breaking into my apartment.
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He always chalked it up to me being paranoid and believed [music] I was simply forgetting that I actually did the things I was telling him about.
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After all, what would someone be doing in my apartment? I was a server and always had cash and coins sitting out in the open, but there was never any money missing.
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I also had various electronics and other items that a person could have easily taken if they wanted to, but they didn't.
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After a while of consistent events but no real evidence to report to the police, I actually started to think that maybe I was crazy or extremely forgetful like my friend said, or maybe I wasn't.
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After about 2 months of these events, I tried to ignore what was happening since nobody believed me and I couldn't prove anything.
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It wasn't until one summer night when I arrived home after a late shift at work.
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It was around 11:00 p.m. and pitch black outside. I walked by myself in the parking lot straight to my apartment as I usually did.
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With my keys in hand, I tried to insert my key into the door lock, but to my horror, my apartment door was already cracked open.
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Not wide open, but just shy of being completely [music] closed. It was definitely not closed and locked like it was when I left.
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I may not have been the most cautious person in the world, but I would never go to work and not lock my door.
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[music] I know I locked it. I had adopted a young cat at the time and he didn't go outside.
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Despite my better judgment and what I would recommend, I decided to go into the apartment alone to make sure my cat was still there.
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I shouldn't have done that, but I was furious knowing my cat could have escaped or worse.
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At this point, [music] I knew with 100% certainty that all these things really had been happening to me, so I began testing my theory.
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Every time I left the house, no matter how long I left for, I started putting clear tape on the bottom of my door before I left.
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If it was unstuck or had been moved when I got home, that meant my door had been opened while I was gone.
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To my not so surprise, the tape was either moved or missing every single time.
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This was my proof that someone had been in my apartment and not just once, countless times.
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And that was just the beginning. I started coming home and finding my door wide open, no matter where I went or how long I was gone for.
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This included short trips to the nearby leasing office and the garbage dumpsters I mentioned earlier in my story, just a minute or two away.
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I was left with no other choice but to believe that someone was not just breaking into my apartment, they were actively watching me.
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Fear and suspicion started to turn into anger, anger that someone was doing this, anger that nobody believed me, and anger that I hadn't caught the person making me scared to live alone.
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I called the police and started filing police reports because they said if the person ever did get caught, I would have a paper trail of evidence to help convict him.
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Unfortunately, as the months went by, I was still no closer to finding the person.
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The stalking and harassment became so frequent that I just expected my door to be open each time I arrived home, and it was.
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I tried to get out of my lease because of how unsafe I felt. The leasing office was unwilling to let me out of my lease or even offer any help at all.
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My only option was to file police reports with the little information I had. I filed the reports because of suspicion, but I had no solid evidence of a break-in or theft.
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I was at the point where I had to accept that my life would be this way until I was able to move out.
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It wasn't until one afternoon when I was relaxing at home on my first day off in a while that I saw something that nobody could deny or pass off as paranoia.
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My gaming system and multiple other electronics were missing from my TV console. This was my first win, my first I told you so. I wouldn't think having my items stolen would be a good thing, but this was the first time nobody could
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deny that someone had been in my apartment. The theft actually made it feel way less creepy than having a man hanging out in my apartment doing God knows what.
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I immediately called the police, then called my friend, and told them all what I discovered.
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The police came and took another report with the new information, and my friend was, for lack of a better word, completely flabbergasted and extremely apologetic.
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My friend started keeping a closer eye on my apartment, even sometimes lending me his dog to be my home security while I was at work. Thankfully, nothing too serious happened after that.
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I finished the rest of my lease and moved out, never finding out who the perpetrator was.
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Fast forward 4 years, and I met my now spouse. We needed a cheap apartment to rent, and even though I vowed to never live in that complex again, we figured that things would be normal since we would be
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living together, and it had been years since my experiences. We were correct at first.
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Just as my previous tenancy started, things were normal and peaceful. Until one day, I was bringing groceries in from the car when I was stopped by a maintenance worker of the complex.
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He called me by my name and asked me if I used to live in that apartment and pointed to my former apartment.
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I was freaked out that this guy not only knew my name, but also knew which apartment I lived in years prior.
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I instinctively said no and asked him how he knew my name and information. He said the leasing agent woman in the office told him.
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I took a step back from him because at this point I was genuinely freaked out.
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He must have sensed my suspicion of him because he followed up with some information I had been waiting for for years. He told me that a former maintenance worker of theirs had recently been fired and arrested for breaking into women's apartments, and he
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thinks I was one of his victims. I felt a huge but equal mix of fear and relief.
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Not only did the perpetrator have his own key to my apartment, but he was able to keep such a close eye on me because he lived right across the street. Our front doors faced each other and our apartments were no more than 50 ft
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apart. This made things so much clearer. Every time I left for work, checked the mail, did anything outside of my apartment, even for just a few minutes, he was watching and able to enter and exit my apartment so quickly.
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To this day, I'm thankful that I was never victim of something worse, but I still carry these experiences with me today.
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Never take your safety for granted. Trust your instincts. Better to be safe than sorry.
Topics:stalkertrue horror storiesMr. Nightmarereal stalking experienceonline harassmenttheater stalkingpersonal safetyrestraining orderNorthern Irelandcreepy encounters
