Dead End Apartments

[00:00:03] [SPEAKER_00] Hayley moves into an apartment complex hidden in an old part of town and she eventually realizes that it should have remained that way. My name is Edwin and here is Hayley's True Scary Story.

[00:00:25] [SPEAKER_01] Way back in 2010, my sister was newly engaged. I was living with her in a little house. This is in central Oklahoma. Her fiance moved in. I knew I didn't want to cramp their style. I didn't want to be the third wheel in their house. I packed up, moved out and I took my cat with me.

[00:00:52] [SPEAKER_01] The way we would look for places, even though it wasn't that long ago, there was still a newspaper article that came out for apartments and I just didn't want another roommate. I just wanted to live on my own. I found one, this apartment. It was all bills paid. I love that and very spacious, but the address was weird.

[00:01:16] [SPEAKER_01] It was on the east side of the town, which is a shady part of town. And I just didn't recognize that. I was looking at where it was. It didn't make any sense. I went and toured it. I gave the apartment manager a call and she was brand new to the area and her and some other people had renovated the apartment complex. She was excited. She was going to show me around.

[00:01:42] [SPEAKER_01] The way this town is, apartment complexes were usually by a highway or by a main road. It just didn't make any sense. But I followed the directions. I went into this neighborhood. I remember seeing that the direction said, there's a dead end sign, but keep going.

[00:02:05] [SPEAKER_01] And so I did. And sure enough, I'm facing directly at that dead end sign. Then it says, take a right. And I take a right. There is this apartment complex in the dead center of all these older homes.

[00:02:20] [SPEAKER_01] So they've been there a while. I want to say at least the 60s or 70s. I tour it. I absolutely love the apartments in general. The one I tour is the one that I'm going to take. It was just spacious. It's exactly what I needed.

[00:02:37] [SPEAKER_01] I move in. Everything's fine. But the only thing I couldn't place my finger on was this feeling, this heavy feeling in there, especially in the bedroom. It's the feeling that you're not alone. The feeling you're being watched.

[00:02:58] [SPEAKER_01] About a couple months later, I happened to meet my now husband and we start dating. He starts coming over. That's gotta be when things started. I would wake up, hear things moving. And it's just little things. It's not huge sounds. That's the weirdest part. Little things.

[00:03:26] [SPEAKER_01] And it doesn't make any sense, though. And then there's that overwhelming feeling that I'm being watched, too. So I'd wake up, just clicks, things moving. On top of that, I would look and my cat, the most fat, chilled cat on earth, he would be at the edge of my bed in the middle of the night. It was always 1 a.m. until 5 a.m.

[00:03:51] [SPEAKER_01] He would be at the edge of my bed. Instead of cuddling with me, instead of relaxing, he'd be on the edge of my bed with his ears propped up, right? Listening to everything I would hear. And his head would jerk, too. I remember it was around my birthday one night. And I was always too scared to get up. My husband could hear everything I would hear. He just wasn't affected. He's just one of those guys that'll just roll over.

[00:04:21] [SPEAKER_01] But I was terrified. And I wouldn't get up. I had tissue paper, and I would put that on the floor for my cat to play with. I would hear it at night, moving around the floor. Like, my cat was playing with it. But where is he at? He's still on the edge of my bed, looking down at what I'm hearing. But I don't want to look over the edge of the bed on the floor.

[00:04:43] [SPEAKER_01] I remember my husband looking at him and thinking, that's really weird that he's so alert and hearing what I'm hearing. Noises continued. It was always in the dead of night.

[00:05:02] [SPEAKER_01] One night, the pulley thing for blinds, that in my bedroom, I remember, I never saw it, but I know the sound. I heard it being smacked against, like it was pulled and then thrown against my blinds in my bedroom to the left of my bed.

[00:05:24] [SPEAKER_01] The noises continued. But in my head, I'm like, oh, it's just me. This is just me. This is just weird. It's all in my head. I remember being so scared every night that something would happen. Usually if I have a bad dream or something, I'll wake up if I have a nightmare and like, just watch Family Guy or something funny, and then I'll calm down and then I'll go back to sleep.

[00:05:48] [SPEAKER_01] At this apartment, I would wake up and watch show after show, movie after movie, and I would still be terrified. And I wasn't getting any sleep. I would finally be able to pass out around like five, five in the morning when life starts coming out.

[00:06:10] [SPEAKER_01] My cat, I would come home in the middle of the day and be calling for him. And he's like a dog. He's like there to greet you when you come through the door. But when I would come home from work or something, he would be hiding under my bed. And he never did stuff like that. He would run out and be glad that I'm home. But I'm like, how is he under there? That doesn't make any sense.

[00:06:35] [SPEAKER_01] So I always had the feeling that something really bothered him. One night when things really started to get worse, because I lived in my own denial with the noises, I woke up. I thought I heard something in the house. My husband was staying over, but I didn't want to wake him up.

[00:06:57] [SPEAKER_01] I got up. I went to turn on my light. And I was touching the light, right? And it would not click on. I'm looking around and I realized, oh, am I still dreaming? But it was so real that I couldn't turn on my light.

[00:07:15] [SPEAKER_01] I know something's there. I know something's in my house. I have a feeling I'm being watched and I hear something in the hallway, my doorway to the hallway. There's a mist, a dark mist punched over. And I just know it's there. And I know it's staring at me, even though it's just this black mist.

[00:07:39] [SPEAKER_01] I think that I'm dreaming. And so I want to wake up. I'm horrified. I want to wake up. Since I was little, if I'm having a nightmare, I confront the monster and I wake up. I turned to it and I said, what do you want? And I took a step forward to walk toward it and confront it.

[00:08:03] [SPEAKER_01] And it rushes at me. And I get knocked over. I feel like I'm knocked back into my body. And I sit up straight. I can barely breathe. I have a hard time making my heart just calm and to go back to normal.

[00:08:25] [SPEAKER_01] And my husband wakes up and he remembers me just being absolutely horrified. When I talk to people about that experience, I've never heard of this in my life. But when I talk to people about that experience and everything was normal in my room, except it was really dark and I couldn't turn the light on, they believe it was astral projection. And I had never done that in my life. It felt so real. And it scared me. And of course, I didn't sleep that night.

[00:08:53] [SPEAKER_01] And so that's going to be a common theme is me losing sleep, me losing what you need every single night to focus and be functioning. My dreams got worse and worse. Usually I'm a very vivid dreamer and usually they're just chaotic. It's not really anything there.

[00:09:18] [SPEAKER_01] But the dreams I would have, it's very hard to explain. And it's almost embarrassing how bloody and like just body parts, heads, everything laying around. It would only be, I'd be in the apartment looking around

[00:09:39] [SPEAKER_01] and there was just gore, just absolute terror in the house strewn about. And it didn't make any sense to me when I would just wake up horrified. But it would always be in the apartment. Another night, I was having this dream that I'm in my apartment and it's all dark. This time I'm walking around in my living room because I think I hear something.

[00:10:08] [SPEAKER_01] I'm walking towards my kitchen and I see something in the corner of my eye run across the room, a shadow and duck in a corner, like in a dark corner behind my couch. I'm so tired and fat up that I say, hello, I saw you. And I'm just mad, this thing crouching there.

[00:10:33] [SPEAKER_01] And once again, it runs at me and it just feels absolute hate. I wake up again, barely able to breathe, the same feeling. But one night I woke up and I felt like I was being watched like usual, but I can't really move.

[00:10:57] [SPEAKER_01] It was more of a sleep paralysis. I just can't move. My eyes are open, but I'm not moving. I see like a white light above me, orb kind of light shining down. And it didn't make any sense. And it's really a small part of the story, but I've never forgotten it. Then I just close my eyes and I'm able to wake up and it's gone. I can't tell you how much denial plays a part.

[00:11:28] [SPEAKER_01] Like whenever people are like, why don't you just move out? I'm telling you, your own mind is your own like worst enemy because you think it's you. Like you're going crazy. Things are going to be fine. It's always the next night will be better. You're just hoping for that to happen.

[00:11:45] [SPEAKER_01] I have my Halloween decorations out at this time. I remember that very clearly because I love Halloween. After these experiences, it started to not be so fun anymore.

[00:12:10] [SPEAKER_01] I didn't like seeing certain things because it reminded me of this apartment. But in my head, I'm like, it's going to be fine. Let's go have a date night. And we did. We came back to my place. We made a pallet on the floor. And I remember we were going to watch Beetlejuice and just have this great time. We start watching the movie. And I remember feeling so sick. Sick to the core. Body aches.

[00:12:40] [SPEAKER_01] Fever. My nose started bleeding. And all I can remember is I'm going to have to call into work. Like you're going to have that immediate thought that I need to call in. Oh no, what am I going to do? I was just absolutely miserable all night. I pass out at some point. I wake up. Soon as the sun is up, I'm fine. I'm not sick.

[00:13:09] [SPEAKER_01] And when I get a fever, I'm done. And so it was really crazy. I decide to break my lease and move out. I save my cat. And he comes with me to my husband's house. Because he has one and I got permission to move in with him and everything for my parents. I let the apartment manager know. I said, I just want to let you know it's a great apartment.

[00:13:38] [SPEAKER_01] But I'm going to sound crazy. But this has been happening. This kind of stuff. It's so hard to explain to her. And she seemed pretty open. She was like, oh my gosh, I had no idea. Like she just said she'd ask around. So I'm moving out. A guy friend comes over because he's going to take my couch. This is in the middle of the day. I'm just talking about different things with him. We go into my bedroom, which is basically empty except a couple of things I'm giving away.

[00:14:07] [SPEAKER_01] And we're talking. And then two lights go out as we're talking. It's from the ceiling fan. And he and I don't even talk. Like we don't say anything. They go out. He walks over. Checks the light bulbs. Two light bulbs had been twisted out at the same time. They don't fall to the floor. They just go out.

[00:14:34] [SPEAKER_01] So he goes over and twists them back in. And they turn on. And he goes, he's very country, my buddy. He goes, just so you know, that happens again. I'm running. I start living with my husband. And he is, he's in a great house. That was our first house together. And that's where we had our baby and everything. And great memories. But when I moved there, I was still having sleep paralysis.

[00:15:03] [SPEAKER_01] But it was horrifying. I didn't see anything. I would just be stuck. And I would hear voices that were hard to make out. But I had to take sleeping pills. I, even though I was in a new house, I always felt scared. I still had that feeling of just not ever being able to calm down. And like I said, I love Halloween. I couldn't even watch scary movies anymore. Especially not alone. I was always anxious to the core.

[00:15:31] [SPEAKER_01] I have a friend that blesses homes and stuff. And I always thought it was interesting. But I didn't really know much about it. But he's with a group that blesses homes. And I never thought to call him. I just wanted to get out of whatever was in that apartment. I remember telling him that I am still not okay. I'm still scared all the time. When he came over. They left. Him and my husband left to go somewhere. I don't remember.

[00:16:00] [SPEAKER_01] But I was at the house. And he did text me. The guy that blesses homes. And he said, there is. There's a young man or young boy. I don't remember. But a young man has followed you there. And he seems lost. But don't worry. I took care of it. Or I sent him on his way. So maybe my friend was like dealing with that. Without trying to freak me out.

[00:16:29] [SPEAKER_01] I don't know. Because of what I experienced at the apartment. If it was like. I became more vulnerable to other things. Other spirits. Other whatever. Seeing me more as a beacon. I'm not really sure. I had been out of the apartment for a while. And I get a call from the old apartment manager. And she was just trying to settle something else. With my lease. But she said. Oh.

[00:16:56] [SPEAKER_01] I asked around to people that have lived in those apartments. Since they were built. And she said. I found out about where you were living. And she had talked to the man across the hall from me. I never got to really meet any of my neighbors. Or anything like that. But she talked to this older man. And she said. A woman had lived there with her husband. This woman got cancer. Stage four. Her husband packed up and left her.

[00:17:26] [SPEAKER_01] They would hear her. And I remember the walls were very thin. Because I could hear upstairs. Like neighbors. Everything. But her husband left her. When she had stage four cancer. And they could hear her. Crying at night. All the neighbors could hear her crying at night. She passes away. She dies in the bedroom. The apartment gets cleared out. And after that. All the neighbors would talk about it. All the neighbors could still hear her crying at night.

[00:17:59] [SPEAKER_01] I immediately got goosebumps. All down my arms. Because it started this whole time. I'm the one that's crazy. I'm the one. There's something wrong with me here. But it all made sense. I felt like I was being watched. That was the heavy feeling. The apartment complex manager put it together too. She said. I have a single woman living in there right now. As long as she stays single. Maybe nothing will happen to her.

[00:18:29] [SPEAKER_01] Because we put it together. That I brought over my boyfriend. My now husband. And things started to really take a turn. I'm very lucky that I found some sort of answer. Maybe what was happening to me. Because I was in complete denial. That it was all me. Me and my husband get married. I find out I'm pregnant. Immediately. I don't have sleep paralysis anymore.

[00:18:59] [SPEAKER_01] And I'm able to sleep. I'm able to rest. I'm able to have peace at night. Whenever I've talked about it with other people. Or I've really thought about it. What I believe in my heart. Is that my baby. Like absolutely blessed me. And some people have told me. Like of course babies are so protected. I felt such a sense of peace. Pregnancy makes you so uncomfortable. In so many ways. But hey. I was able to sleep. And I got the rest. That I definitely needed.

[00:19:39] [SPEAKER_00] Thank you Haley. For sharing your experiences with us. If you or someone you know. Works the night shift. And has a true scary experience to share. Please send them to. TrueScaryStory.com. And fill out the form. But it's open to anyone of course. If you're following the show. I'll be back next week. With another story. Thank you very much for listening. Keep it scary everyone. See you soon.