“Sir, please tell us what happened”

“I pushed it. I didn’t mean to, but I did”

“Sorry, I don’t understand. Pushed what?”

“The button. The middle button”

“The middle button of what?”

“The opener. I didn’t meant to push it, my finger slipped.”

“I see. What happened after you pushed this button?”

“Nothing. At first”

“Sir, please elaborate. What do you mean, ‘at first’”?

“I mean I didn’t actually see anything happen.”

“Then how do you know something did?”

“I felt it.”

“You, felt, it?”

“Yes.”

“Felt what?”

“Fear. Dread.”

“Why?”

“Because I’ve never hit the middle button before. I don’t actually know what it does.”

“And that makes you feel afraid?”

“YES! Very much so. Who knows what could have happened.”

“I see. So after you felt this fear and dread, what happened?”

“Irrational thoughts mostly. A ripple effect caused by pushing the middle button.”

“Can you tell me what those thoughts were?”

“Uh, yeah. I thought that the door would open on a timer and remain open until someone closed it. I thought that a passerby would then enter through the door and gain access. Then they would help themselves to whatever they desired. Then they’d be attacked by my protector and would slay him in self-defense.”

“I see, a bit vague, but I see. So once you started to have those irrational thoughts, what did you do next?”

“I turned around. I had to go back and check. I had to make sure that the middle button didn’t actually do anything.”

“What happened when you turned around?”

“I wasn’t in the right state of mind at that time. I was too overwhelmed by fear and anxiety that I just turned around. I wasn’t focused on anything else but the consequences of pushing that friggin’ button. I didn’t focus on the car driving toward me the other way. I didn’t think about how my sudden u-turn would have its own ripple effect. I didn’t mean to hit the car head on. I didn’t mean for her to die. I just needed to turn around, to go back.”

“I see. So your mind was too busy thinking about the effects of pushing the middle button and that clouded your judgement to safely find a place to turn around?”

“Yes.”

“What did you do after the collision?”

“I ran.”

“You fled the scene?”

“No, well, technically, but I had to get home. I had to make sure.”

“Sir you realize that fleeing the scene of an accident, which you caused, is a felony in this state? You may serve time in prison.”

“I know. I know. I KNOW! YOU THINK I DON’T KNOW THAT!? YOU THINK I WANTED TO LEAVE HER THERE? I DIDN’T, BUT I HAD TO!”

“Sir, please lower your voice. What happened when you eventually made it home?”

“I found it closed.”

“Found what closed?”

“The door. The garage door. It never opened. The middle button did nothing.”

Hello! So I apologize for two things in advance:

1: This is going to be a long post.

2: This may not be where to ask this.

So, the situation is that I am an in-home nanny, and the lady I worked for had an old friend couch-crashing with her for a few weeks while he got back on his feet. In the two weeks he was here we became moderately friendly, enough that I had friended him on FB and given him my number, in case he should need a ride to an interview, hit up the store, etc. Well, after finding out he had stolen various things from her(money, hydrocodone, beer), she kicked him out. That was last Monday, and everyday since then he has sent me message after message of weird, randomly threatening things. (Saying he wants to use me, he's coming to the house I work at, that he's a cannibal?) It has me very worried, and even after blocking his number, and then blocking him on FB, he's been messaging the lady I work and her BF, asking if I'm at the house, where I live, etc. They have also blocked him, but I'm so nervous. Is this the kind of situation where I call the cops, or is there even anything they can do?

Any help or advice would be greatly appreciated! Thank you.

EDIT: Thank you to everyone for the concern, having others voice my own concerns made me feel a little less dramatic! So sorry for not replying to the comments, we had a situation here shortly after I posted this. He came to the house I work at and was banging on the door, screaming to be let in to see me. The cops just left, and took him with them! I gave a stament and they took the screenshots of what he said to me. They said he'll be let out soon, but that gives me time to follow the advice of everyone who commented here. Thank everyone again for your kind words and advice!

I flunked out of my first year of college. I didn’t go to any of my classes, instead, I spent the entire year partying and getting fucked up on whatever drug I could get my hands on.

My entire life I was sheltered by my parents. They never let me do anything that was not according to the Bible. If my friends wanted to watch the newest Harry Potter movie I wouldn’t be able to go, because of the “witchcraft promotion.” If I wanted to go to the mall with my friends I had to give my parents a two-week notice so they could think about it. Nine times out of ten they wouldn’t let me leave.

That is why when I went off to college I went completely insane. I went to any party I was invited to and drank every single night with my roommate on days we did not have anything to do. As the end of the school year, I became desperate for a place to live. I could not spend another day with my parents. I needed my freedom.

So without giving my family any type of warning, I moved into a friend’s house. My friend (Craig) was reluctant at first, but after days of persuading he finally gave in and told me to move in as soon as the school year was over. When I got to his house I gave him my final 300 bucks and he told me that I had 2 months before I had to start paying him 200 dollars a month. Despite having to sleep on the couch, I loved it. I still had my freedom and I even managed to find a job at the local Mexican restaurant within two weeks.

The next three months by and I have never been happier. I was now a shift manager making a little over 10 dollars an hour and I could still go out and go to the same parties I went to last year. Craig wasn’t really around most of the time, but whenever he was home he would smoke some of his weed with me and we would relax while watching whatever was on tv at that time.

For the last three days, everything has gone to complete shit.

It all started with Craig running into my room in the middle of the night. I was doing what a lot of men do in the bed with lotion and tissues around their private area. He sat on the bed next to me for the next twenty minutes muttering the same thing over and over. “She keeps yelling at me. She is from beneath our floors. Where we stand. She says she shouldn’t be here.” After getting over my initial shock, I tapped him with my non-lotion covered hand and asked, “What do you mean underneath your floor? Some chick you never called back?” He stared at me while muttering that same phrase over and over again. I scooted to the other side of my bed and started to ask him if he could just come back the next morning, but within a blink of an eye he jumped on top of my legs and shouted, “She wants me dead. She was never grateful and she wants me dead!” He got off the bed and walked out the door and left me confused for the rest of the night.

When I woke up the next morning Craig was lazily eating a sandwich watching tv. I cautiously walked into the kitchen an...

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I pulled the bedroom door closed behind me with a gentle click. The baby was still asleep in the nursery and wasn’t due to wake just yet. Perfect! That should give my wife, Sarah, the extra time to get dressed and look her absolute best for dinner.

Sarah truly is the most beautiful woman I’ve ever known, inside and out. And God help me, the outside is incredible. Time always seemed to stand still when I watched her get ready. I think it’s the way her dark hair cascades down her bare back like shimmering waves. It gets me every time. As I watched from the doorway, I wondered how I would have ever managed to get by if she had decided not to come back.

What a catastrophe of a year that had been. Twelve brutal, sweat-stained months spent in the bottom of a bottle on the living room floor. Thank God she finally came to her senses a week ago and brought our baby home.

Our family was whole again…

Her hands trembled as she slipped on the slinky black dress I had laid out on the bed for her. It had always been my favorite. I gestured to the chair before the vanity with a smile. “Please, I’ll take care of everything.” After a quizzical expression, and a brief glance at the bedroom door, she sat in front of the brightly lit mirror.

Stroke by painstaking stroke, I applied her makeup, making sure to avoid the bandages and tape covering her lips. The night she had come home we’d had a terrible argument about how her smile had faded. In the end, we’d agreed that she just needed a little help. The first cut at the corner of her mouth had shocked her awake from the anesthesia. We had had to make do without for the second cut.

But now at least the smile was permanent.

I set the makeup brush down and admired my handiwork in the mirror. I brushed Sarah’s shoulder. She briefly shied away, then raised her delicate fingertips to the bandages.

“Let me, Sarah,” I said.

Cool air brushed over my wife’s new smile for the first time. She shivered while I tossed the soiled bandages in the trash. I offered her my arm to stand. “Shall we, my love?”

Her voice is muted, and the words stung like swarming bees. They’ve felt like that since she’d come back.

“Please… let me take my baby and go. I’m not your wife. I’m not Sarah.”

The old man lay there in bed, still and pale-faced.

He forced his eyes open, and furrowed his brow in confusion. Had he not just been somewhere else? Suddenly, he remembered the visits. Ghosts of Christmas past, present, and future had come to him to show him the error of his ways. Now, it was as if he could physically feel the change inside of himself. Pushing himself slowly out of his bed, he blinked tiredly.

He had been awake for three nights as each of the spirits took him to see a different time, and his limbs felt heavier than they ever had before. Still, he could hear the sound of bells jingling and sleds being dragged outside, and was determined to celebrate the season like he had as a child.

He reached out a hand to open the window, only to find it already open. Paying it no notice, he scanned the street below. A smile grew upon his thin lips as he spotted a boy, and he called, "My fine fellow! What is the day?"

The boy did not look up. "Young man!" he added, slightly louder. Still, he was given no answer. Resolving to go down there, he turned back around.

The old man lay there in bed, still and pale-faced.

One rainy night in October, a man was driving past the cemetery. He saw a young boy walking in the rain. The man stopped and asked the boy if he wanted a ride.

The boy approached the car. His face was pale, his clothes were wet and he was shaking like a leaf. He opened the door and got into the passenger seat without saying a word.

The man felt sorry for the boy, so he gave him a red sweater to keep him warm. The boy’s teeth were chattering and he was still shivering.

When they got to the boy’s house, the man stopped the car. The boy got out. The man told him to keep the sweater and said he would come back for it the next day.

“What’s your name?” asked the man.

“Timmy,” the boy replied.

The next day, the man went to the boy’s house to pick up his sweater. When he knocked on the door, a woman answered. The man introduced himself and asked if she was Timmy’s mother.

“What’s this about?” she said.

The man explained that he had given Timmy a ride the night before in the pouring rain and had given him a red sweater to keep him warm.

The woman stared at him and her eyes welled up with tears.

“I’m sorry, you must be mistaken,” she said. “My son Timmy died almost a year ago.”

The man apologized and left. He was very confused and his head was spinning. He drove to the cemetery and found Timmy’s grave.

Lying on top of the grave was his red sweater.

Sticks and leaves are much too brittle to hold a man my size. If I was being smart, I might have watched where I was going and avoided the hole entirely. Instead, my attention was on my hiking partner. Her jokes and charming demeanor kept be engaged and lively on the trail, but they also made me miss the pit beneath the foliage.
A 15-foot drop isn’t too bad if you see it coming, but it will mess you up if you don’t. Only one of my legs felt broken but the other had lodged itself into a crevice big enough to enter but not big enough to leave. I was stuck. My partner tried to reach me, but the walls of the hole were too slick with moss and the drop too tall to risk climbing down. She ran off to get help leaving me alone in the ditch to fend for myself.
After only a moment, my broken leg already throbbed and my back had begun to twinge from my awkward positioning. I figured the situation was as bad as it could get.
Then I heard the Crick Crack sound. Quiet at first, but gradually getting more prominent as the seconds ticked past.
It started near my feet. Crick, Crack, Crick, Crack.
I felt something slimy on the ankle of my trapped leg. Then on the bleeding calf of the broken one. It inched slowly up my pants leg, leaving a trail of wetness behind it. My body shivered and my skin ran cold.
The sound got louder. Crick, Crack, Crick, Crack. I felt more crawling on the crotch of my pants. Any part of my body that was touching the stones suddenly was overcome with something. Something that made a Crick Crack noise and felt slimy.
Panic overcame me. I tried to brush at the places where I felt it. My hands met small, hard shells and gelatinous bodies. Hundreds of them.
It was the snail’s shells rubbing together that made the noise. No matter how much I tried to brush them off, there were just too many. They engulfed my lower body and inched their way up to my torso. Their assent was slow and maddening. I felt their little eyeball stalks brush against my bare skin as they crawled up my pants legs and underneath my shirt. Crick, Crack, Crick Crack.
Their wet trails had begun to burn ever so slightly as they reached my neck. All I could do was whimper. My friend had still not yet returned and I feared she wouldn’t be able to find me in the dark. I called out for her as the snails began to reach my chin.
They’ve covered me. From my ankles to my eyeballs.
I hear my friend calling for me from above. But I don’t want them in my mouth. I dare not scream.
There’s only one noise coming that will come from my lips.
Crick, Crack, Crick Crack.

At first, we thought the black liquid was oil, that we'd struck it rich and that we'd be able to retire and live in leisure.
We actually started writing down all the ways we'd spend the money.
Our first choice was to spend until we had our dreams. Houses, cars, pets, food... We'd spend as much as we wanted to spend, and we'd be happy.
Of course, we'd probably run out of money soon after.
Our second choice was to spend mostly on the necessities, only indulging on luxuries when we were sure we were stable.
Sadly, our dreams were cut short as we dug deeper, and realized that we hadn't hit oil.
Whatever it was, its eyes were gleaming as it started to rise from the ground.

Cuenta la historia que un ser proveniente del inframundo se oculta debajo de las camas y, cuando tiene a su víctima en su poder, la arrastra hasta su mundo. Se le conoce como la Mano Peluda, es decir, una mano de color negro con enormes y filosas uñas, las que en sus agudas puntas segregan un veneno mortífero.

Lo más insólito de este ser es que en sí se reduce, en su apariencia, a una mano sin cuerpo alguno, en cuyo término brota la sangre.

Se dice que cuando un niño baja de su cama a altas horas de la noche, la Mano Peluda está esperándolo, y sin mucha demora, lo ataca, arañándolo con sus largas uñas para luego conducirlo debajo de su cama, portal al inframundo, donde será alimento de otros demonios.

Si el niño logra escapar, aún permanece en peligro, debido a la inoculación del veneno. Al carecer de un antídoto, muere irremediablemente, devorado por terribles dolores.

People get these silly notions in their heads. They think of me as a silent and mysterious force of nature, draped in a black coat, scythe in hand. I will admit, it's certainly flattering. Most people are disappointed when they find out the truth, that I was 'hired' in the 70s. Unfortunately, the clothes you die in are the clothes you stay in. For me, that means an ugly haircut and...

bellbottoms.

That's another thing, I haven't been doing this forever. In terms of reapers, I'm basically a novice. I'm not sure why my predecessor chose me to replace him, maybe he got a kick out of the idea of a guy who liked disco just a little too much being the last thing the dead ever see of this world.

People also think that I'm not allowed to interfere. The thing about being a reaper is that there really are no rules. I hate to be the one to break it to you, but management left the building a looong time ago. Maybe the Big Man Upstairs got fed up with his creation, but he probably just got bored. Death is the only force in the universe, I'm the one who keeps the lights on. That's what people don't expect, this job can get really boring. I pull the soul out of the body because most of the time they haven't figured out how to get out by themselves. Then they give me the whole spiel, "Will I go to Heaven? What's the meaning of life? Why are you wearing bellbottoms?" I've heard it a billion times. After all the pleasantries are out of the way, I give them the choice.

That's something else you might not expect. Like I said, there are no rules. There's no balance to uphold or anything like that. If you want to roam the galaxies or check up on your loved ones, who am I to stop you? Hell, if you want to stay in your mortal body, I'll even shove you right back in there. But before you make your decision, I whisper something in your ear. It's a secret, something only the dead can hear. The funny thing is, you all change your mind after I've said what I need to say. I haven't had a single taker yet. In fact, nobody has ever chosen to stay once the Reaper tells you his secret. Would you like to know what it is? The one sentence that can convince everyone to leave this world behind?

Well, I'll tell you later.