Thriller Thursday 10-10-24 WINNER

.............................................Today's Winning Story Is.................................................................................................................................................................................................... Field Of Screams! "We built a house a few years ago. It was the perfect location, being far enough from city limits but not too far from the interstate. It was also nice to have more space between our neighbors, unlike the neighborhood that we used to live in. Our new neighbors are really nice and friendly, although the people who live behind us are interesting. They're an older couple and their backyard connects with ours, and it’s about three acres. We actually went by their house one day to see if they would be interested in selling a portion of their land, so that we could have a bigger backyard. They owned about 3/4ths of the field between our houses, so I wanted to see if we could buy a quarter of it. They immediately refused, and the way they reacted to us asking about their land seemed like they were really offended. They told us “NO, and please do not ever ask us again.” Maybe we were out of line? My wife and I just felt weird about the conversation once we left their house. Afterwards, we never really spoke to them again, until one late evening.I was tucking my two year old daughter into bed one night. My wife and I took turns for this bedtime routine; bath, story, and then we would sit outside her room as she fell asleep. We would turn off all of the lights in our house, so that she wouldn’t see us walk out of her room. The curtains to our windows are usually slightly open in our house, letting any sunlight in during the day. As I was playing on my phone, I noticed something moving in the backyard.At first, I thought it was the glare from my phone, but there was light moving really slow and far away from the house. I approached the window of our backdoor and watched this light for a very long time. After a few minutes, I realized it was a flashlight and the person holding it was headed towards our house. The strangest thing about this was how the person was walking. They were walking in a zig-zag pattern towards our property. I stood there watching silently before the person was in our backyard. During this time, I had found some binoculars from our pantry to see if I could see any facial features from the person. He was wearing a hat but I couldn’t tell what his face looked like. He kept walking closer and closer to our backdoor. I eventually ran back into the kitchen and grabbed the first big knife I saw and returned to the door. When I returned, he had started walking back to where he came from. I just continued watching until he was almost out of our backyard. I decided to be bold and turn on the back porch lights and walk outside. I kept the knife behind my back as I walked outside onto the porch. The person kept walking back up the field with their flashlight. I eventually shouted “HEY! Do you need something?” I wasn’t sure what to say to this person. Were they looking for something? After I shouted, the person ignored me and kept walking.“HEY! WHO’S OUT THERE?” I yelled one more time at them to get their attention. They continued walking as if I wasn’t there. I walked back into the house and grabbed the binoculars again. I watched them walk toward our neighbor’s house behind us. They continued their weird walking pattern as they wandered away. I kept wondering if that was the neighbor that lived behind us. I wasn’t completely sure but it sort of looked like the man living there. I continued to follow him with my binoculars, as he slowly reached the neighbor’s house, he walked to the front of their house and disappeared. There’s been a couple of other interesting things that have happened since I saw the man with the flashlight. There was another night where I got up in the middle of the night to use the restroom and noticed that one of the houses across our street had all of their outside lights on. I couldn’t remember exactly what time this was, but it had to be past midnight or so. The neighbors living at that house were walking around in the front yard. It was hard to see what they were up to, but it looked like they were looking for something or someone…The worst nights are when I wake up in the middle of the night and hear our daughter on the monitor screaming about lights in the room. Anytime I go to check on her, her bedroom is always completely dark. She’s always saying “Mama, Daddy, please turn off that light”. Anytime I ask her where the light is coming from, she always points to the window…"See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.