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3 True 4th of July Horror Stories That Will Keep You Away from Fireworks Forever · True Horror Stories

• 0:02
  Speaker 1: Owning a KFC franchise wasn't exactly what I dreamed of. Still,
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: after years of scrimping and saving, it was a stepping stone,
• 0:09
  Speaker 1: a sign of stability for my young family.
• 0:12
  Speaker 2: The grand opening was a hit.
• 0:14
  Speaker 1: The Colonel's secret recipe filled the air, families poured in,
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: and the registers sang a sweet song of chi ching.
• 0:21
  Speaker 1: I got lost in the chaos, wearing my long hours
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: like a badge of honor in this new venture. Even
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: though I could easily appoint someone to close up after
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: every day shift, I still chose to do it independently.
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: So this one late evening, as I was locking up,
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: I noticed a shadow moving outside the kitchen windows. As
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: I brought my face close to the window to see
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: if someone was there, a man jumped right away from
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: the darkness, almost giving me a heart attack. He had
• 0:50
  Speaker 1: scruffy hair framed by wild eyes, and he stared into
• 0:54
  Speaker 1: my soul. A shiver ran down my spine, but I
• 0:58
  Speaker 1: brushed it off once he left abruptly, Probably some homeless junkie,
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: I thought. Over the next few weeks, the man became
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: a fixture, standing silently across the street. My wife, Carmel,
• 1:11
  Speaker 1: dismissed him as harmless, but I couldn't shake a feeling
• 1:15
  Speaker 1: of an ease.
• 1:16
  Speaker 3: He probably wants some free food. You're orring for no.
• 1:20
  Speaker 1: Reason, Carmel scoffed. Then came the night that shattered my calm.
• 1:26
  Speaker 1: As I was leaving the restaurant to rustle in the alley,
• 1:29
  Speaker 1: sent chills down my spine. I turned around to see
• 1:32
  Speaker 1: the man standing behind me with a creepy smile splitting
• 1:36
  Speaker 1: his grime caked face. Fear primal and cold coiled in
• 1:41
  Speaker 1: my stomach. He spoke in a raspy voice, the words
• 1:45
  Speaker 1: sending a jolt through me.
• 1:47
  Speaker 2: Just the bones. I only need the bones.
• 1:51
  Speaker 1: I rushed to my car and drove away, leaving him
• 1:54
  Speaker 1: standing there in the dark.
• 1:55
  Speaker 2: He didn't follow me or chase me. Though.
• 1:59
  Speaker 1: Days later, viewing the security footage, I noticed something unsettling.
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: The man wasn't digging through the regular trash. He was
• 2:07
  Speaker 1: specifically targeting the bin where we disposed of leftover chicken bones.
• 2:12
  Speaker 1: That's when a cold dread filled me. Every night, I
• 2:16
  Speaker 1: started locking the dumpster with a heavy duty padlock. This
• 2:20
  Speaker 1: change and routine seemed to anger the man. The next morning,
• 2:24
  Speaker 1: I found the padlock damaged, like someone had beaten the
• 2:27
  Speaker 1: crap out of it with a stone. The dumpster was ransacked,
• 2:31
  Speaker 1: and again the chicken bones were gone. Panic gnawed at me.
• 2:36
  Speaker 1: What was he using them for? Was he selling them
• 2:39
  Speaker 1: on some bizarre black market? Furious and determined to stop him,
• 2:44
  Speaker 1: I decided to take matters into my own hands. We
• 2:48
  Speaker 1: had a small incinerator on site for disposing of expired packaging.
• 2:52
  Speaker 1: The following night, after closing time, I shoved a bag
• 2:55
  Speaker 1: full of leftover bones into the incinerator and lit it up.
• 2:59
  Speaker 1: Triumphant smirk played on my lips, thinking I'd finally put
• 3:03
  Speaker 1: an end to the charade. But the next morning my
• 3:07
  Speaker 1: KFC was in a complete mess. The back door of
• 3:10
  Speaker 1: the restaurant was smashed in the deep friar, overturned with
• 3:15
  Speaker 1: grease splattered everywhere on the wall in a thick red substance,
• 3:20
  Speaker 1: possibly oil or even blood.
• 3:22
  Speaker 2: Were these chilling words, you can't stop the offering.
• 3:27
  Speaker 1: I called the cops and headed to the kitchen to
• 3:29
  Speaker 1: clean up the place. As I stepped in, a dark
• 3:32
  Speaker 1: figure loomed in the doorway.
• 3:35
  Speaker 2: It was Edgar.
• 3:36
  Speaker 1: Before I could react, he lunched a guttural roar, escaping
• 3:40
  Speaker 1: his lips. We grappled in the dimly lit kitchen, the
• 3:44
  Speaker 1: smell of burning oil and fear thick in the air.
• 3:47
  Speaker 1: He was surprisingly strong, fueled by whatever madness drove him
• 3:52
  Speaker 1: in the struggle, he knocked over a metal tray, sending
• 3:55
  Speaker 1: sizzling cooking. When al flying, I felt a searing pain
• 3:59
  Speaker 1: in my arm as the hot oil made contact. He
• 4:02
  Speaker 1: grabbed me by the neck, but I too, landed flying
• 4:06
  Speaker 1: kicks and punches at random speed. Just as I thought
• 4:09
  Speaker 1: I might be overpowered, the screech of sirens pierced the night.
• 4:14
  Speaker 2: With a burst of adrenaline.
• 4:15
  Speaker 1: I shoved him back, and right then the cops got in.
• 4:19
  Speaker 2: The aftermath was a blur.
• 4:21
  Speaker 1: The officer secured the scene, calling for medical attention for
• 4:25
  Speaker 1: my burns. Edgar, cornered in the alley, offered no resistance.
• 4:30
  Speaker 1: The police report documented the vandalism, the assault, and his history,
• 4:35
  Speaker 1: leaving no doubt Edgar would face serious charges. The most
• 4:39
  Speaker 1: unsettling part of the entire ordeal was Edgar's craze shouts.
• 4:44
  Speaker 2: During the struggle.
• 4:45
  Speaker 1: Between blows, He'd scream about the offering, about how I
• 4:49
  Speaker 1: was ruining everything.
• 4:52
  Speaker 2: You can't stop it. I need the Boks.
• 4:54
  Speaker 1: They great immortality You're ruining everything. His words echoed in
• 5:00
  Speaker 1: my head, a chilling reminder of the depths of his delusion.
• 5:04
  Speaker 1: But even if I didn't understand his motives, at least
• 5:07
  Speaker 1: they were rooted in a twisted reality. Not the supernatural,
• 5:12
  Speaker 1: shaken but alive. I sat in the ambulance, the throbbing
• 5:16
  Speaker 1: pain in my arm, a stark reminder of the night's events.
• 5:19
  Speaker 1: The once mundane task of taking out the trash was
• 5:22
  Speaker 1: now laced with a new kind of fear. But it
• 5:25
  Speaker 1: was a fear I could handle. This wasn't a haunting
• 5:29
  Speaker 1: or a curse. It was a man driven by madness.
• 5:33
  Speaker 1: Edgar was finally off the streets and undergoing a psychiatric evaluation.
• 5:37
  Speaker 1: As for me, I hope I never ever mean Edgar again.
• 5:45
  Speaker 1: The morning had started off like any other at the
• 5:48
  Speaker 1: only KFC in our small Alabama town. I was behind
• 5:51
  Speaker 1: the counter, wiping down the surfaces, getting ready for the
• 5:54
  Speaker 1: usual rush. The smell of fried chicken filled the air,
• 5:58
  Speaker 1: and the hum of the friar was almost comforting.
• 6:01
  Speaker 2: That was until he walked in.
• 6:04
  Speaker 1: The man was wearing shabby clothes, covered in blood, carrying
• 6:08
  Speaker 1: a dead head by its neck. The lifeless birds swinging
• 6:11
  Speaker 1: with his jerky steps. His eyes rolled around wildly, and
• 6:16
  Speaker 1: he muttered some things to himself, words I couldn't quite catch.
• 6:20
  Speaker 1: Then his eyes locked onto mine. He walked up to
• 6:24
  Speaker 1: the counter and slammed the chicken down with a sickening thought.
• 6:28
  Speaker 1: Kneed this chicken in my burgers, six burgers, and kneed
• 6:32
  Speaker 1: this chicken only this is my chicken.
• 6:36
  Speaker 2: I felt a chill run down my spine.
• 6:38
  Speaker 1: I tried to keep my voice steady, tried to reason
• 6:41
  Speaker 1: with him.
• 6:43
  Speaker 3: Sir, we can't use that chicken.
• 6:46
  Speaker 2: We have her own.
• 6:48
  Speaker 1: His eyes snapped to mine, wild and furious, and I
• 6:52
  Speaker 1: saw something dark and dangerous there.
• 6:54
  Speaker 2: My heart raised.
• 6:56
  Speaker 3: Okay, sir, I'll take care of it.
• 6:59
  Speaker 1: Carefully, took the dead hand, and, trying to keep my composure,
• 7:04
  Speaker 1: walked to the back and threw it in the dumpster.
• 7:06
  Speaker 1: My friend Melissa packed six chicken burgers and handed them
• 7:11
  Speaker 1: to me. He sat alone by the window, covered in blood,
• 7:15
  Speaker 1: occasionally talking to himself.
• 7:17
  Speaker 2: When he was leaving, he turned back to me. She
• 7:21
  Speaker 2: was Cynthia.
• 7:22
  Speaker 1: For days, I couldn't shake the image of him out
• 7:25
  Speaker 1: of my mind. I jumped at every little sound, expecting
• 7:28
  Speaker 1: to see him again. And then he came back one evening,
• 7:32
  Speaker 1: same disheveled appearance, same dead bird, blood on himself. This
• 7:38
  Speaker 1: time he ordered five burgers. We threw the dead bird
• 7:41
  Speaker 1: out and gave High his burgers, which he ate alone
• 7:45
  Speaker 1: while talking to himself. Before he left, he looked at
• 7:49
  Speaker 1: me with those same wild eyes.
• 7:52
  Speaker 2: She was Rachel.
• 7:53
  Speaker 1: Two weeks past, and he showed up again, ordering four burgers.
• 7:57
  Speaker 1: This time the pattern was on mistakable, and it terrified me.
• 8:02
  Speaker 1: He sat eating slowly and then left, saying she was Pauline.
• 8:08
  Speaker 1: Curiosity and fear gnawed at me. I needed to know
• 8:12
  Speaker 1: more about this man, so as soon as he left,
• 8:15
  Speaker 1: I decided to follow him, asking Melissa to cover for me.
• 8:19
  Speaker 1: I trailed behind at a safe distance, my heart pounding.
• 8:23
  Speaker 1: He walked with the same jerky motion, talking to himself.
• 8:27
  Speaker 1: He led me to an old church, where he spoke
• 8:29
  Speaker 1: something to the guard, who laughed heartily with him and
• 8:33
  Speaker 1: patting his back. I decided to approach the guard.
• 8:37
  Speaker 3: Excuse me, do you know that man?
• 8:40
  Speaker 1: The guard, an older gentleman, looked amused at my interest
• 8:44
  Speaker 1: in the man.
• 8:45
  Speaker 2: Oh that's crazy.
• 8:46
  Speaker 1: Christopher mentally ill, poor soul, but his father left him
• 8:51
  Speaker 1: a ranch and all he used to be in a
• 8:53
  Speaker 1: fluid farmer, you know. But after his wife passed away
• 8:56
  Speaker 1: in a tragedy, he became well cuckoo.
• 9:00
  Speaker 3: Oh my god, if you don't mind me asking what
• 9:04
  Speaker 3: happened to her.
• 9:06
  Speaker 2: No one knows exactly.
• 9:08
  Speaker 1: Christopher was away and their daughters were at their grandmother's.
• 9:11
  Speaker 1: His wife was alone in the hen pen when she
• 9:14
  Speaker 1: suffered an attack or a stroke or something.
• 9:17
  Speaker 2: Poor man.
• 9:18
  Speaker 1: When he returned he found his hen feeding off of
• 9:21
  Speaker 1: his dead wife. Something broke in his head that day,
• 9:25
  Speaker 1: A cold dread settled in my stomach.
• 9:28
  Speaker 2: He has daughters, Oh yeah, six of them.
• 9:31
  Speaker 1: Pauline, then there's Rebecca, and uh oh, Cynthia. She's a
• 9:36
  Speaker 1: regular at this church, but I haven't seen her in
• 9:39
  Speaker 1: a while. Blood drained from my face. I dialed nine
• 9:43
  Speaker 1: to one, pint one and prayed that what I was
• 9:45
  Speaker 1: thinking was wrong. The police took him in for inquiry
• 9:48
  Speaker 1: from the church and then stormed into the rants later
• 9:51
  Speaker 1: that day. What they found sent a wave of terror
• 9:54
  Speaker 1: and grief across our small town. They found his three
• 9:58
  Speaker 1: alive daughters time up inside a barn, chained and malnourished.
• 10:03
  Speaker 1: It took the officers three days to find and recover
• 10:06
  Speaker 1: the remains of Cynthia, Rachel, and Pauline buried on the farm.
• 10:11
  Speaker 1: They were his three eldest daughters. It was later revealed
• 10:14
  Speaker 1: in the news that Christopher was seeing visions of his
• 10:17
  Speaker 1: wife talking to him, increasingly convincing him that they all
• 10:21
  Speaker 1: had to suffer the same fate as hers to be
• 10:24
  Speaker 1: together in the afterlife. After killing each daughter one by one,
• 10:28
  Speaker 1: he fed them to a starving hen, and then killed
• 10:32
  Speaker 1: the bird before carrying it to the KFC where I worked,
• 10:36
  Speaker 1: asking for it to be made into burghers. No one
• 10:39
  Speaker 1: had answers to why he wanted to eat those chickens only,
• 10:42
  Speaker 1: but all his talking to himself made sense. He was
• 10:45
  Speaker 1: probably seeing his dead wife. The whole episode made me sick,
• 10:50
  Speaker 1: and I swore off chicken or any kind of meat
• 10:53
  Speaker 1: after it all happened. Taking a job at the local
• 10:59
  Speaker 1: Chaos Sea seemed like a good idea. I was twenty four,
• 11:03
  Speaker 1: fresh out of college and looking for something to pay
• 11:05
  Speaker 1: the bills while I figured out my next steps. The
• 11:08
  Speaker 1: KFC was well known for its high turnover rate amongst employees,
• 11:12
  Speaker 1: but it didn't bother me. I figured fast food jobs
• 11:16
  Speaker 1: were always like that. Besides the rumors of the kitchen
• 11:19
  Speaker 1: being haunted were just silly superstitions.
• 11:22
  Speaker 2: To me.
• 11:22
  Speaker 3: Peo will always make up stories to explain why they quit.
• 11:26
  Speaker 3: It's probably just the late hours and the hard work.
• 11:29
  Speaker 1: One night, after I closed the KFC and was leaving
• 11:32
  Speaker 1: for home, I spotted a woman sitting by the window
• 11:35
  Speaker 1: holding an orange umbrella.
• 11:37
  Speaker 2: My heart skipped a beat.
• 11:39
  Speaker 1: I thought I had locked a customer, and by mistake,
• 11:41
  Speaker 1: I quickly unlocked the door and rushed inside, but to
• 11:44
  Speaker 1: my shock, there was no one there. The next night,
• 11:48
  Speaker 1: I started my shift with a sense of unease. Everything
• 11:51
  Speaker 1: seemed normal until odd things began happening. Pots and pants
• 11:55
  Speaker 1: would fall on their own, making loud, clattering noises that
• 11:59
  Speaker 1: echoed through the end the kitchen. The fryar would turn
• 12:02
  Speaker 1: on by itself, the oil bubbling and hissing without anyone
• 12:06
  Speaker 1: even touching it. Cold spots followed me around, making my
• 12:10
  Speaker 1: hairs on the back of my neck stand on end.
• 12:13
  Speaker 1: One time, the walk in freezer door swung open with
• 12:17
  Speaker 1: a creek, even though I knew I had.
• 12:19
  Speaker 2: Shut it tight, And then as I went.
• 12:21
  Speaker 1: To shut it, the soda machine started dispensing drinks on
• 12:25
  Speaker 1: its own, spilling liquid all over the counter. I tried
• 12:28
  Speaker 1: to ignore the strange occurrences, focusing on my tasks. But
• 12:32
  Speaker 1: that night, after closing up, I saw her again. The
• 12:36
  Speaker 1: woman with the orange umbrella was sitting by the window,
• 12:39
  Speaker 1: only this time she was staring directly at me. Panics
• 12:43
  Speaker 1: surged through me, and I rushed to my car, my
• 12:46
  Speaker 1: hand shaking as I fumbled with the keys. Before I
• 12:50
  Speaker 1: drove away, I saw in the rear view mirror, but
• 12:53
  Speaker 1: the woman was gone again. The next day I confided
• 12:57
  Speaker 1: at all in my colleague Mike. He was older guy
• 13:00
  Speaker 1: and had been working at the outlet for three years.
• 13:03
  Speaker 3: Mike, I keep saying this woman was an orange umbrella.
• 13:08
  Speaker 3: She just sits by the window staring at me. It's
• 13:11
  Speaker 3: freaking me out.
• 13:12
  Speaker 1: Hey, congratulations, missus. Margaret has chosen to present herself to
• 13:17
  Speaker 1: you as well.
• 13:18
  Speaker 3: Missus.
• 13:19
  Speaker 2: Who look?
• 13:20
  Speaker 1: You were always poking about why people leave this place
• 13:23
  Speaker 1: so quickly?
• 13:24
  Speaker 2: Right, well, you found the reason.
• 13:26
  Speaker 1: He pulled out an old news article on his phone
• 13:29
  Speaker 1: from four decades ago. He showed a picture of a
• 13:32
  Speaker 1: beautiful woman with a big smile. The headline read, local
• 13:36
  Speaker 1: business woman disappears on opening day of husband's restaurant.
• 13:40
  Speaker 3: Who is she?
• 13:42
  Speaker 2: Look at her hands?
• 13:44
  Speaker 1: I did, to my shock, The woman was holding an
• 13:47
  Speaker 1: orange umbrella. This place was built four decades ago. On
• 13:51
  Speaker 1: the very day of the inauguration, the owner's wife, Margaret, disappeared.
• 13:55
  Speaker 2: No one knows what happened to her.
• 13:57
  Speaker 1: People say her spirit haunts this place, but she's just.
• 14:00
  Speaker 2: Ignore her if you see her.
• 14:02
  Speaker 1: That night, as I locked up the outlet, I saw
• 14:05
  Speaker 1: her again. I could see that her eyes were locked
• 14:07
  Speaker 1: onto mine, but there was something about her that pulled
• 14:10
  Speaker 1: me in this time. As I unlocked the door and
• 14:13
  Speaker 1: entered inside, she didn't disappear. She kept sitting there, still looking.
• 14:18
  Speaker 3: At me, Missus Margaret.
• 14:22
  Speaker 1: As soon as I said her name, she got up slowly,
• 14:24
  Speaker 1: and then, without warnings, started floating towards the back of
• 14:27
  Speaker 1: the outlet. My heart pounded in my chest as I followed.
• 14:31
  Speaker 3: Her, Missus Margaret.
• 14:35
  Speaker 1: She didn't respond, just kept moving silently. She led me
• 14:39
  Speaker 1: to an old, defunct storage room and then vanished behind
• 14:42
  Speaker 1: a wall. The next day, I told Mike and the
• 14:45
  Speaker 1: other colleagues what I saw. We all decided to investigate.
• 14:50
  Speaker 1: She hasn't done this before. If she's leading you somewhere,
• 14:53
  Speaker 1: there's got to be a good reason. We entered the
• 14:56
  Speaker 1: room and I pointed exactly where the woman had disappeared.
• 14:59
  Speaker 1: It was you animously decided to tear down the wall.
• 15:02
  Speaker 1: Mike and Jim brought out hammers from Jim's brother's truck,
• 15:06
  Speaker 1: and before the opening hours they started tearing down the wall.
• 15:10
  Speaker 1: Soon enough, we found a small hidden cavity behind it.
• 15:14
  Speaker 1: One by one, we carefully entered inside. It was covered
• 15:17
  Speaker 1: in dust and cobwebs and a terrible smell. But what
• 15:21
  Speaker 1: I saw next made me scream at the top of
• 15:23
  Speaker 1: my voice. In a corner, there was a skeleton, still
• 15:27
  Speaker 1: wrapped in clothing from decades ago, and near its hand
• 15:31
  Speaker 1: lay a dusty, old orange umbrella, as if lost in
• 15:35
  Speaker 1: time forever Missus Margaret apparently murdered by her husband and
• 15:40
  Speaker 1: cleverly hidden away from the world for an eternity. Why
• 15:44
  Speaker 1: we'd never get to know, But since that day, Missus
• 15:47
  Speaker 1: Margaret's ghost was never seen again.