Shows / Creepy Encounters
Creepy Encounters
Short, first-person stories about the frightening things ordinary people run into — a neighbor, a stranger, a habit at home no one ever questioned. It's never a ghost.
Episodes
- Creepy Encounters
Episode 123: A bed and breakfast lady in Galena had my coffee made right the first morning and the suitcase I gave to Goodwill in 2010 was hanging in her mudroom
Submitted by Lynn — Fort Wayne, Indiana. 47. I drink my coffee the way I learned to drink it on night shifts at a truck stop off I-69, which is black, two pink…
- Creepy Encounters
Episode 122: My rideshare driver could not read house numbers at night so I read him every one on three streets to help him find his daughter
Submitted by Lonnie — Tulsa, Oklahoma. 41. I started nights at the hospital in September, and my car was in the shop most of that month, so I was taking a…
- Creepy Encounters
Episode 121: The lady who sold me her sewing machine for 25 dollars on Marketplace still comes over every Tuesday to use it and she told me never to rethread it
Submitted by Bree — Lubbock, Texas. 29. I bought the sewing machine because of trunk-or-treat. If you didn't grow up with it, that's where the church parks…
- Creepy Encounters
Episode 120: There are two kids penciled inside my pantry door from the family before me and I only read the dates during a tornado warning
Submitted by Dee — Wichita, Kansas. 38. I rent a little ranch house on the east side of Wichita, and I have lived in it four years this past August. It has no…
- Creepy Encounters
Episode 119: I kept finding my own cough drop wrappers under my windshield wiper for seven years and I thought it was just the wind off Lake Superior
Submitted by Lindy — Marquette, Michigan. 58. If you park outside in Marquette, Michigan, you stop being surprised by what ends up on your car. The wind comes…
- Creepy Encounters
Episode 118: Every business on Main Street closes on August 11 and somebody has always needed a ride out of town that day and I thought I just had good friends
Submitted by Kit — Traer, Iowa. 51. There's a parade float in the Tolliver barn, out on 180th Street south of town, and everybody in Traer, Iowa knows that. I…
- Creepy Encounters
Episode 117: The first thing anybody at my new church ever asked me was if it was just me and nine years later mine is still the only name on the potluck sheet
Submitted by Nell — Paducah, Kentucky. 61. The first thing anybody at my church ever said to me was, "Just you this morning?" I said yes. I was fifty-two…
- Creepy Encounters
Episode 116: Every babysitter we hired quit after one night and everybody said it was my fault until a sitter's mom at Food City asked me about the monitor in our den
Submitted by Cass — Knoxville, Tennessee. 41. We went through six babysitters in two years, and every one of them lasted exactly one night. I was the only…
- Creepy Encounters
Episode 115: The overnight aide we hired for my dad built him a wheelchair ramp in one night and I did not crawl under it until the spring
Submitted by Shell — Erie, Pennsylvania. 52. My dad fell in his kitchen the Sunday after Easter, and by June he was home again on Wayne Street with a walker, a…
- Creepy Encounters
Episode 114: A home health nurse checked my blood pressure every Tuesday for two years after my gallbladder and my discharge papers say I said no
Submitted by Dot — Tulsa, Oklahoma. 68. I had my gallbladder out at Saint Francis the spring after my husband passed, and the Tuesday after I got home a woman…
- Creepy Encounters
Episode 113: Somebody hung an umbrella on my apartment door every rainy morning for two years and I baked the wrong neighbor banana bread the whole time
Submitted by Tess — Seattle, Washington. 33. I want to start with the date, because for two years I didn't think the date had anything to do with it. It was…
- Creepy Encounters
Episode 112: I joined a little online group that keeps an eye on a girl who jogs the Monon Trail alone and she still has no idea how many of us care about her
Submitted by Lou — Carmel, Indiana. 64. My father had one of those Neighborhood Watch signs screwed to our mailbox post in Muncie, the yellow one with the big…
- Creepy Encounters
Episode 111: I spent every Friday of tenth grade in my homeroom teacher's detention and twenty years later another mom in the pickup line asked if I was one of the Friday kids
Submitted by Toby — Fort Wayne, Indiana. 38. Mr. Hollis was my homeroom teacher for all four years at North Side, and from the fall of tenth grade to the end…
- Creepy Encounters
Episode 110: The best kid at hide and seek on my street won every single game for three summers and his sister told me where he was hiding at the Kroger deli counter
Submitted by Wes — Toledo, Ohio. 41. Every street had one kid who never got found, and on Delmont Street it was Corey. We played hide and seek every summer…
- Creepy Encounters
Episode 109: I kept getting return labels for things I never ordered and the nice lady on the phone said to just mail back anything that weighed about the same
Submitted by Wes — Tulsa, Oklahoma. 63. The first one came about two years after my wife passed, in a plain white envelope with a window. Inside was a prepaid…
- Creepy Encounters
Episode 108: A seasonal guy at my tax office refilled my stapler every Monday all winter and I barely ever said two words to him
Submitted by Tess — Toledo, Ohio. 41. I have worked the front desk at a tax office in a strip mall on Monroe Street for six seasons now. January to the middle…
- Creepy Encounters
Episode 107: My boss said I had the best eyes in the building for catching mistakes on expense sheets and the state unemployment office read me who made them
Submitted by Ronnie — Wichita, Kansas. 46. I worked accounts payable for a heating and air distributor in Wichita for fourteen years, and for nine of them my…
- Creepy Encounters
Episode 106: My neighbor put a trail camera on the birch between our yards for the deer and showed me every picture it took for four months
Submitted by Rae — Gaylord, Michigan. 52. I bought the house outside Gaylord the spring after my divorce, three acres and a pole barn and a back line of birch…
- Creepy Encounters
Episode 105: My roommate had a chore wheel on the fridge with my name already on it and the leasing office says there was never a second bedroom
Submitted by Tess — Columbus, Ohio. 26. I found the room on a Facebook group for Columbus apartments, the kind where half the posts are people subletting for…
- Creepy Encounters
Episode 104: My ex said I would let my mother's funeral lily die and it has not wilted once since he moved out
Submitted by R.T. — Omaha, Nebraska. 38. The peace lily came from my mother's funeral. If you have been to a funeral in this country you know the one I mean…
- Creepy Encounters
Episode 103: My husband kept the mileage log for my job for eight years and the girl in payroll says I never turned in a single mile
Submitted by Ren — Wichita, Kansas. 46. I was a home health aide in Wichita for eight years, and here is the part nobody tells you: you drive. Your own car…
- Creepy Encounters
Episode 102: My grandmother made my tea from a separate pot on the highest shelf every summer and I have been making it for my son
Submitted by Rae — Springfield, Missouri. 39. My grandmother lived outside Ava, Missouri, on forty acres that were mostly cedar and rock, and my mother sent me…
- Creepy Encounters
Episode 101: My brother checked under my bed every night for nine years and I found out what he was doing under there when we took the bunk bed apart
Submitted by Marnie — Kalamazoo, Michigan. 41. My parents sold the house on Westnedge last May, and my brother Cal and I drove in from opposite directions to…
- Creepy Encounters
Episode 100: My dad drove me to school a different way every morning for nine years and the whole town knew why except me
Submitted by Dee — Oskaloosa, Iowa. 41. My dad drove me to school every morning from first grade until I got my license, and he never once took the same way…
- Creepy Encounters
Episode 99: Somebody at our bus barn has been badging in at four in the morning for a year and every one of us thought somebody else had scheduled it
Submitted by Junie — Salina, Kansas. 46. I have been the dispatcher at our school district's bus barn for nine years. I badge in at ten to six. That is the…
- Creepy Encounters
Episode 98: My sister has always described a kitchen with yellow tiles we never had and my parents told me to stop upsetting her for thirty years
Submitted by Bree — Lansing, Michigan. 40. My sister Leah has always talked about a kitchen we never had. When we were kids it was a thing she did at the…
- Creepy Encounters
Episode 97: The motel in the town where I was working washed and filled up my rental car every single night and I thought it was the nicest place I ever stayed
Submitted by Wes — Springfield, Missouri. 46. I adjust hail claims for a living, which means that when a storm goes through a wheat town in Kansas, I fly into…
- Creepy Encounters
Episode 96: I shared a missing woman's flyer in our county Facebook group and the man whose number was on it came to my porch to thank me
Submitted by Gina — Georgetown, Kentucky. 44. I am the kind of person who shares things. My husband calls it my civic duty voice. If a dog gets loose on…
- Creepy Encounters
Episode 95: The unit next to my storage unit had the same padlock on it for thirteen years and the manager only told me whose it was after it went to auction
Submitted by Lorna — Tucson, Arizona. 47. My mother died in June of 2013, and in Tucson you do not leave a dead woman's piano in a garage in June. Everything…
- Creepy Encounters
Episode 94: My Airbnb host texted me from four states away to say I left the porch light on and I had never once touched the switch
Submitted by Gwen — Columbus, Ohio. 38. I booked the cabin outside Boone for two weeks in October because I had a grant report due and a house full of…
- Creepy Encounters
Episode 93: A man waits outside my office every morning and leaves me a coffee on the railing and everyone at work thinks I am lucky
Submitted by Dana — Omaha, Nebraska. 31. I work at a title company in Omaha, in an old brick building on Maple Street. There's a concrete ramp up to the side…
- Creepy Encounters
Episode 92: My landlord has called me by the last tenant's name for five years and I let him because I figured she had been there a long time
Submitted by Junie — Queens, New York. 38. I moved into 4C in the fall of 2019. It's a one-bedroom on the fourth floor of a six-story building in Jackson…
- Creepy Encounters
Episode 91: An airline agent rebooked me onto a different flight three times in a row and I wrote the company two paragraphs about how nice he was
Submitted by Dee — Omaha, Nebraska. 52. My dad moved to Mesa, Arizona, in 2019 after my mom passed, because he said he had shoveled his last driveway. I live…
- Creepy Encounters
Episode 90: My handwriting turned into my trainer's handwriting in about three months and everybody at the laundry thought it was cute including me
Submitted by Kit — Toledo, Ohio. 39. In 2009 I got hired on second shift in the laundry at a hospital in Toledo. The time clock in the basement had been broken…
- Creepy Encounters
Episode 89: Our church has taken up a second collection for the Hollis family every month for fourteen years and I am the one who counts it
Submitted by Marnie — Lubbock, Texas. 58. At our church, the first Sunday of every month, the plate goes around twice. The first time is the regular offering…
- Creepy Encounters
Episode 88: My old babysitter has my kids school pictures on her refrigerator and I am the one who has been mailing them to her
Submitted by Shay — Chattanooga, Tennessee. 41. Every fall the elementary school sends home a picture day packet, and every fall I check the box for Package C…
- Creepy Encounters
Episode 87: A guy I matched with knew which laundromat I use before our first date and I thought it meant he had read my profile really closely
Submitted by Lacey — Minneapolis, Minnesota. 31. I don't have a washer. I have never had a washer, not in any apartment I've rented in Minneapolis, so for six…
- Creepy Encounters
Episode 86: The same six people have gotten off the train at my stop every night for nine years and not one of them lives in my town
Submitted by Dee — Oak Park, Illinois. 41. I close at a restaurant in the West Loop, and for nine years I have taken the 10:52 out of Ogilvie home to Oak Park…
- Creepy Encounters
Episode 85: My manager sent me to every meeting she did not feel like going to and I thought it meant I was her favorite
Submitted by R.J. — Indianapolis, Indiana. 31. I worked for Denise for four years at a regional insurance office on the north side of Indianapolis, and for…
- Creepy Encounters
Episode 84: My grandmother's Christmas cards still come every December three years after her funeral and I am the only one in the family who still gets one
Submitted by Cass — Tacoma, Washington. 36. My grandmother sent a Christmas card to everybody she had ever met. She kept a spiral address book by the phone in…
- Creepy Encounters
Episode 83: My piano teacher left me nine years of tapes in her will and my daughter was the one who noticed I never finish a song on any of them
Submitted by Junie — Muncie, Indiana. 41. I took piano from the same woman every Thursday from the time I was seven until I was sixteen. She lived four blocks…
- Creepy Encounters
Episode 82: My dad says we never had a station wagon but it is parked in the driveway behind me in every picture he ever took
Submitted by Lorna — Grand Rapids, Michigan. 44. My dad took every picture of my childhood. My mom hated being behind a camera, so it was always him, with a…
- Creepy Encounters
Episode 81: A lady at my grandmother's nursing home said my name every Sunday and I kept visiting her for three years after my grandmother died
Submitted by D.W. — Fort Wayne, Indiana. 38. My grandmother lived at Maple Crest in Fort Wayne for the last two years of her life, and we visited every Sunday…
- Creepy Encounters
Episode 80: My roommate can say my mom's bedtime story word for word and I thought every kid in America went to the same book fair
Submitted by Tess — Richmond, Virginia. 31. My mother read me the same book every night from the time I was four until I was almost ten. It was a thin…
- Creepy Encounters
Episode 79: I changed schools eight times growing up and my third grade best friend is in every one of my yearbooks
Submitted by Shay — Albuquerque, New Mexico. 41. My mom was a travel nurse, which means a thirteen-week contract, then another one, and every summer, sometimes…
- Creepy Encounters
Episode 78: There is a man standing behind my uncle in my sister's wedding picture and I married him four years after it was taken
Submitted by Kat — Billings, Montana. 46. Ben does the pictures in our house. He always has, since the first apartment, when the pictures were four snapshots…
- Creepy Encounters
Episode 76: A retired electrician rewired my kitchen for free and handed me an invoice that said zero and I did not ask him why until last fall
Submitted by Tess — Meridian, Idaho. 46. We bought the house in Meridian in 2015, a two-story in the first phase of a subdivision called Sagebrush Meadows, the…
- Creepy Encounters
Episode 77: My neighbor always tells me it was quiet while I was traveling and the city sent me fourteen fire reports that say otherwise
Submitted by Roz — Broken Arrow, Oklahoma. 54. I sell surgical staplers, which is less interesting than it sounds, and for nineteen years it has meant I'm gone…
- Creepy Encounters
Episode 75: My dentist showed me the same two sets of x-rays every three months for fourteen years and the new office says my chart was closed in 2011
Submitted by Bev — Wichita, Kansas. 61. His office was in a strip mall in Wichita, between a nail salon and an insurance agent, and I sat in that chair every…
- Creepy Encounters
Episode 74: My sister texts me pictures of her Sunday table and I never counted the plates until her neighbor said something at the car wash
Submitted by Corrie — Grand Rapids, Michigan. 41. My sister lives eleven minutes from me. I want to say that first, because people hear the rest of this and…
- Creepy Encounters
Episode 73: I called the county about the kids down the street and the whole road brought that family groceries every morning for a year and I took Thursdays
Submitted by Bev — Corbin, Kentucky. 58. Our street was nine houses on a hill outside of town, and the one at the bottom was a rental, which where I'm from…
- Creepy Encounters
Episode 72: The same account has commented nice on every single thing I have posted for seven years and I thought it was a kid from my graduating class
Submitted by Kit — Des Moines, Iowa. 33. I should say up front that I don't post much. A picture of my dog. A casserole. The sunset over the parking lot at…
- Creepy Encounters
Episode 71: My ex has paid my phone bill every month since I moved out and I only found out because I tried to add my son to the plan
Submitted by Dee — Columbus, Ohio. 40. I have had the same phone number since I was sixteen. It is a 419 number, which does not match one thing about my life…
- Creepy Encounters
Episode 70: My name is in a bed and breakfast guest book four times from Octobers I was never there
Submitted by Birdie — Little Rock, Arkansas. 51. I have gone to the same bed and breakfast in Eureka Springs the first weekend of March since 2006. It is three…
- Creepy Encounters
Episode 68: My landlord has painted my whole apartment every spring for nine years and I was the one who kept leaving town for it
Submitted by Tess — Toledo, Ohio. 36. I have lived in the top half of a two-family on the east side of Toledo since I was twenty-seven. My landlord goes by…
- Creepy Encounters
Episode 69: A woman has told me I look well in three different grocery stores over nine years and I was always glad to see her
Submitted by Bets — Lubbock, Texas. 58. There is a woman who tells me I look well. She has done it three times that I know of, in three different grocery…
- Creepy Encounters
Episode 67: My pharmacist had my prescription ready on the counter for eleven years and I never once read the label until he retired
Submitted by Deb — Quincy, Illinois. 57. There is an amber pill bottle on the shelf above my kitchen sink, and there has been one up there, more or less…
- Creepy Encounters
Episode 66: I filed a complaint about the way a manager spoke to a woman at my office and it took eleven years and one question from a temp for me to understand what I did
Submitted by Lou — Salina, Kansas. 49. I've been in the same building off Ninth Street in Salina for nineteen years. Claims processing for a regional insurer…
- Creepy Encounters
Episode 65: A driver locked the doors at every red light for two years and every single person I told said that was just good sense
Submitted by Rae — Tulsa, Oklahoma. 33. I closed at a steakhouse off Eleventh for about two years, and the last bus out of downtown Tulsa runs at eight, so…
- Creepy Encounters
Episode 64: The man who sold me my truck still texts every few months to ask where it is parked and I answered him for six years
Submitted by Wes — Springfield, Missouri. 41. I bought the truck six years ago this fall, off a man out past Republic Road here in Springfield. Ninety-nine…