WRONG TURN,RIGHT ON TIME PART II

I told myself it was nice to know someone was close by, even if I didn't plan on meeting her. I didn't even bother looking in the basket. I just set it down in the living room and forgot about it. There was a thunderstorm that night, which is extremely rare for Oregon, but it does happen. I lit a few candles and curled up on the couch with a book, trying to ignore the fact that the power was flickering every few minutes.

Some of you might find that kind of isolation scary, but I actually loved it. For some reason, my brain wasn't freaked out by the natural sounds of the thunderstorm. It was actually that specific storm which gave me that realization. I listened intently to everything outside, and it was, dare I say, soothing. But of course, that peaceful feeling didn't last. A few hours after the storm started, there was a knock at the door that nearly made me jump out of my skin.

I say knock, but it was really more of a banging. It was loud and definitely not natural, like whoever it was didn't care that it was pouring outside. My heart started pounding, and I began to feel that god-awful, tingly sensation in my chest. After hesitating for a few seconds, I grabbed a flashlight and got up to check who it was. I looked through the little glass windowpane next to the door. It was Michelle, soaked to the bone and clutching a flashlight.

I opened the door, and she spoke before I even had a chance to greet her. She blurted out that she saw someone near my woodpile and that I should know about it. I was beyond confused, but her words were incredibly concerning, and that took precedence. I stepped out onto the porch, shining my flashlight into the rain, but I couldn't see anything but trees. I asked her if she was sure, and she nodded. Her eyes kept darting to the woods like she was expecting someone to emerge from it any second.

The whole thing was pretty freaky. I kept looking around, but there wasn't much I could make out between the darkness and chaos of the storm. Before I could say anything else, she told me to be careful and began walking away without waiting for a response. I watched her head back down the path toward her cabin, clearly unfazed by the pouring rain. I stood there until the glow of the flashlight disappeared out of sight, and then I went back inside. The literal second I shut the door, I realized her story was riddled with holes.

How could she have seen someone near my woodpile if her house was 10 minutes away? She must have been on my property to begin with. Why the hell would she be snooping around my cabin during a thunderstorm? Was she lying? It didn't sit right with me, but marching over to her house in the middle of a thunderstorm was the last thing I was going to do. Still, I had to do something. I locked up the cabin as securely as I could and sat in my room, listening. 

 The storm started to die down after a while, but I still felt pretty uneasy. A few more hours passed without incident, so I decided that it was probably safe to go to sleep. I can't remember exactly what time it was, but sometime after midnight, I woke up to the sound of a branch snapping just outside my bedroom window. I'm a really light sleeper, so I was 100% positive it was a branch snapping and not something else. I froze in place for a few tense seconds, listening. Eventually, I crept to the window, half hoping I wouldn't see anything. 

 At first, I didn't, but then I spotted her. Michelle. She was standing at the edge of the woods, her body angled away from my house. I could tell it was her because her hair was so long and disheveled. I strained to make out more, but being as there was only moonlight to help me see, it was no use. I saw her beginning to turn around, so I ducked beneath the window before she could catch me looking at her. I stayed crouched there for what felt like forever.

When I finally mustered the courage to peek again, she was gone. I genuinely didn't know what to do. I hadn't exactly pegged her as dangerous, just weird, but at that point, I was having second thoughts. It didn't make sense. Why would she try and warn me earlier if she was the one poking around? I didn't sleep for hours. I was pretty dead set on just staying up until sunrise. A few hours passed, and I was starting to get tired.

As I finally began letting my guard down, there was a knock at the door. It wasn't like the banging from earlier. It was actually kind of quiet. Still, I wasn't going to get up under any circumstances. The pins and needles started up again as I quietly made my way over to the door. I took an inconspicuous glance through the pane and frozen horror. It wasn't Michelle. It was a burly-looking bald guy with a thick beard. I had to fight every bone in my body not to yell out in fear.

The situation instantly went from a 6 to a 10. As quietly as I could, I retreated to my bathroom, locked the door, and called the police. As I was on the phone with them, I started to hear banging on the front door, like someone was repeatedly smashing it with a heavy object. The operator told me help was on the way and instructed me not to hang up. I sat there more terrified than I'd ever been in my entire life. Eventually, the front door gave way, and I heard it crash open.

I genuinely thought I was going to die. That man, whoever he was, started smashing things in my cabin. At least, that's what it sounded like. All I could hear was the sound of glass breaking and wood splintering. I didn't dare make a sound. Luckily, that man didn't seem to look for me, because I never heard his footsteps leave the living room. Eventually, the smashing sound stopped, and I was sitting in complete silence again. They had been fighting off a panic attack the whole time.

To my surprise, the police actually arrived pretty quickly, but not soon enough to catch that guy in the act. He was long gone. I pleaded with the officers to help me out, but they were downright useless. They did a pathetic search of the surrounding property, but that was it. They wouldn't even agree to search the woods, saying that it was too dense and they were unlikely to find him there anyway. I begged them to accompany me to Michelle's house, at least, which they agreed to.

When we got to her property, my jaw literally dropped. The entire cabin was abandoned. The cops confirmed this and said no one had lived there in decades. I told them they had to search it for squatters, but they told me there was no reason for them to do that. They tried to tell me that there were no clear signs of habitation, so it would be a waste of time. I damn near lost my mind when I heard them say that. I tried to argue, but they more or less told me that living in the woods was a risk I was taking and was not their problem.

They left after that, which infuriated me. I obviously moved out of that cabin, but not before spending one more night there. It was awful, but I made it through without anything happening. Things have been good for me since then, but I still constantly think about this experience. Some of my superstitious friends have theorized that Michelle was actually a spirit that was trying to protect me and that she was really just trying to watch over my property for whatever reason.

I don't believe in the paranormal, so I think it's much more likely that two people, her and that man, had been squatting in that abandoned cabin.I just still don't understand why they decided to target me or why Michelle would bother to warn me if she were planning on breaking into my house. I don't think I'll ever know. My name is Luke. My girlfriend Catherine and I met three years ago as freshmen in college. We go to Stanford, which has been my dream school since I was like 8. Neither of us are from California, pretty far from it actually.

We're both from Ohio, her from Cincinnati, and me just outside Columbus. I think that's a big reason we were so attracted to each other. I think people from similar areas are naturally drawn to each other for whatever reason. Stanford's not a huge school, but most of the student body is originally from California, so us being from the Midwest definitely differentiates us. One of the traditions we've created is how we split Christmas between our families.

THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR READING👄