“The attacker was in the closet with a loaded gun the whole time, not 15 feet from us.”

I'm a Senior Staff Writer based in New York City, where I've been covering classic BuzzFeed-style content since 2020.

"We watched it cross the highway behind us as we sped off. If we hadn't left when we did, we would have been right in the path after it formed."

"She got a horrible feeling that she couldn't explain, but also couldn't shake. She looked at Penny and said, 'I'm sorry. I dont want to be here. I have to go.' Penny knew my mom was not dramatic or finicky by nature. So when she saw my mom's face, she just said, 'Okay. Let's go.' And she kissed her boyfriend goodbye, and they left.

My mom couldn't forget that guy's face. For some reason, it burned a hole in her mind, and she wondered for a long time why she had reacted that way to a perfect stranger that she had never even spoken to. Maybe she was just wary because of what had been happening around town that year, she thought.

But a little over a year later, she saw that man again...splashed across the headlines. His name was Ted Bundy."

"We kept moving, and he started hollering questions up at me. 'Did you make it to the top? How far did you get? Any good swimmin’ holes? How deep were they? Deep enough to jump?'

I kindly answered all of his questions but picked up the pace in a beeline to my truck as he continued towards us, clearly running out of breath. That’s when I noticed the small jackknife in his hand. As I got closer to my truck, I swung my pack around and rooted around for the key, but fumbled to find it like a character in a horror movie. I got to the truck and could see the guy in my periphery coming toward me and considered going for my bear spray for a brief second before I found the key, loaded my dog, and got the fuck out of there. As we were driving away, I saw the guy in my mirrors running full throttle meth speed after the truck.

Regarding the hypothetical bear vs. man choice for a wilderness encounter, I'm a six-foot dude and would choose the bear every time."

"Teach your kids what to do if this situation happens. Get the license plate, the guy's face, the car type, and what to do if something does happen. If I had known to snag his plates, we might have had a chance at catching him, but I only knew to 'say no!'"

"I look him dead in the eyes, ready to fight for my life. As I did this, my mother answered her phone, and I said, 'Hi, Mom.' He slowed right down to a light jog and said 'evening' as he jogged past me. I asked my mom to stay on the line. Her boyfriend came out to meet me at the top of the hill. The guy was nowhere to be seen. He was definitely running up behind me to strike me, and by turning to face him, I'm certain it threw him off."

"As the three of us sprinted and dove out of the way, we heard a thwip and crack, and sure enough, the line we were under came loose and stayed connected to the power pole. If I hadn't got that chill, chances are we would have had three fried firies."

"After a few minutes, he said one of his friends wanted to hang out with us, so we walked to that friend's apartment. My friend and I stayed outside, but the guy went inside the building. He came back outside to tell us his friend wanted us to meet him inside. He insisted a lot. My friend was about to follow him, but I had a bad feeling. I whispered to my friend that we should run. So, as soon as the guy was turned around, we ran back to my house. It's been more than 10 years, and I still don't know if he had bad intentions, but I'm glad we did not go inside."

"We started running away from them and saw a girl standing outside the building trying to call an Uber. It was 10 p.m. on a holiday, and we were out in the country, like 2-3 miles from town, and there was no service and zero chance she was getting an Uber. We told her to come with us and run to the car. She asked why, and I said, 'Those guys are going to come after us, and if you stay, there will only be you. I’ll drive you home. Run now!' She hesitated but then started running. We barely made it in the car when we saw them running toward our vehicle. I whipped out of that parking lot, and we all made it home safe. It was traumatizing, but it could’ve been 1000x worse. That's how we learned not to comfort incels at the risk of our own safety."

"We had three long years of issues with our neighbors. They repeatedly came into our property and were pissed that we put up a nine-foot fence to keep them out. This attempted break-in happened right after the fence went up and two days before they all moved out. I'm glad those pieces of shit are long gone."

"We did make a complaint to the university, but nothing came of it until a victim was brave enough to go to law enforcement. We heard similar stories from other people who also complained years later, but multiple congruent stories don't seem to be enough."

"He lingered around for a bit while we looked for some rocks and then wandered back over to his truck. We were up on some hills, so we finally got a second to talk to each other without him around, and agreed to try to lose him and started planning how we'd get back to my truck, when suddenly we saw another truck come barreling through the desert towards the guy. We immediately started running down this gravelly, sage-bushy hill towards my truck and sprinted the whole way.

All of it felt so sus. Being in the middle of nowhere as three women with no self-defense and shoddy cell service was definitely not smart. No clue if they had been following us or what."

"When my boyfriend got out, they realized I wasn't alone, and they hesitated. We started walking towards the building, and when I looked back, the guys were talking to each other quietly and then started following us.

My boyfriend immediately put his hand on my back and started propelling me a little ahead of him, without saying anything; we both clocked what was going on. We got to our apartment building's exterior door and inside, but I heard the guys speeding up and trying to catch up to us. When we got upstairs and looked out the window at the door, the guys were arguing with each other, and pretty clearly were pissed they didn’t catch up to us.

I found out later that people were getting robbed in that lot by two guys with a knife, and a girl who had been alone was almost assaulted. Definitely made me realize things can happen anywhere, realized how lucky we were to make it to the door, and if I ever feel that feeling, I trust it immediately."

Submissions have been edited for length/clarity.