re: Need to Kill Time: What's a story that you've heard that still gives you chills

So, I have several stories that creep me out. None are paranormal, just creepy and frightening to think about. I grew up in a small neighborhood on the grounds of Southeast Hospital, 1978 – 1996(see pic below). My dad was the head doctor of psychology there. I have two brothers and two sisters, but I’m the baby. I guess I don’t ever think of it as creepy as outsiders to live there, because it was all I knew and I had an amazing childhood, I loved every second of it. We rode our bikes wherever we wanted, and while there was a small guard gate team there, they didn’t carry guns and couldn’t really control what we did, although they tried. They tried to come tell us that we weren’t supposed to be in a particular area, but we just ignored them.

My dad didn’t talk about work a lot, so I never really knew a lot about the patients or the hospital and as a kid, I really didn’t care. I did know that patients could admit themselves, there were some that were not considered violent I guess and were allow to walk around freely. Occasionally a patient would walk into the neighborhood area, but we never had any violent encounters and my mom would call the guards and they’d drive over and pick them up and take them back. I guess I assumed that the violent ones were on a strict lockdown. I also assumed that if there were any that would be dangerous, they wouldn’t hang around, being in the middle of the state park, they’d just hit the woods and get as far away as possible. Perhaps my parents hid a lot from me or I was just naïve, or both.

A couple of the things that still chill me to the bone when I think about them:

Our house was at the end of a dead end street right next to the woods. In our house we had a huge plate glass window, size equivalent of a sliding glass door. My mom would always leave the curtains wide open. I had to walk by this window from my bedroom to get to the kitchen. Some nights I’d get up to go to the kitchen and everyone would already be asleep and all the lights off except for maybe a lamp. It was always a freaky window because there was an orange streetlight at the end of the street and pitch black woods beyond. I’d sneak up to the side of the window and close one curtain and then have to get to the other side to close it. Most of the time this was scarier than just walking by it, but when coming back from the kitchen, it was dead in front of me.

Well one night, I went into the kitchen and didn’t close the curtains. I walk back to my bedroom and in full stretch against the window is an escaped patient. Arms up high and spread eagle. His eyes were wide open and his face looked like he was begging me for help. I freaked the hell out and my dad came running. Called the guards, he got in the patty wagon and that was it. No big deal but I hated that freaking window even more after that.

Every year for my birthday we’d play what we called Bounty Hunter in the woods. We had an outdoor fire pit so we’d cook hot dogs, roast marshmallows and just hang out all night. After we ate, I’d go inside for five minutes while my brothers, sister’s boyfriends, sisters, bro-n-law, sister-n-law, etc would go hide in the woods. I’d go out with a flashlight and find people. Then once you found someone, they helped you hunt. I had a sister-n-law that loved to play pranks on my friends, so every year, she would dress up in some crazy attire and put a panty hose on her head and scare my friends. So there would be people all over the woods with flashlights and she’d go out there and just appear from behind a tree to one of my friends.

One of these occasions, she was not there. I was searching and had found a couple people. So part of our strategy sometimes would be to turn off your flashlight and sit down and let another hunter flush someone towards you. My brothers would constantly be on the move when they were hiding and wouldn’t use flashlights. You couldn’t hear them walking over your own footsteps. So I had sat against a tree and was waiting for one of them to walk close to me. Sitting there for about five minutes, I could hear and see my other family members through the woods searching. I heard footsteps. They were flushing someone towards me. It was getting closer. I was about to flick on my light and catch one of my brothers. Since you had to physically tag the person for them to be caught, I waited until I felt confident I could grab them. 20 feet away I was getting antsy. 10 feet, that was probably good. I flicked on my flashlight and shown it right at the creepiest looking woman (probably more creepy because of the situation). I held it on her for a second, thinking that maybe it was my sister-n-law that had shown up and put some crazy outfit on and snuck in the woods. But I realized it wasn’t and then the woman started to walk towards me. I screamed and ran back to the house. We called the guards but I can’t recall if they found her.

Those kinds of stories happened often. One time driving around the hospital, I was in the bed of my brother’s truck and we stopped at a stop sign. A patient with sores and blood on his face started walking towards me like a zombie. I started screaming and my brothers were just laughing. He finally took off at the very last second before the dude grabbed me. There was also a crematorium there for patients who had died and had no family. It was especially creepy.

But the one time that creeped me out the most...

I guess I was about 10. My three oldest siblings had moved out. I wasn’t home, but thinking about it even though I wasn’t there, makes my blood run cold. My mom and sister were home and my sister was asleep; she was about 18 at the time. It was the middle of the day. My mom walks into the living room and there is a giant black dude standing in the middle of the room. Apparently, after dealing with this kind of thing for so many years made my mom cool under pressure. But this is the first time a patient entered our house. The conversation went something like this.
Mom: “Hello, can I help you.”
Patient: “What are you doing in my house?”
Mom: “Oh, I just wanted to ask you if you would show me your garden outside.”
Patient: “Oh sure, let’s go.”
They go outside and look at the garden and the patient asks my mom if she has a cigarette. She says yes but they’re inside, I’ll go get one.
She goes inside, locks the doors, calls the guards and they come pick him up without incident. Creepiest thing…my mom goes to wake my sister up to check on her and the guy’s patient ID card is on my sister’s bedside table. He was in her bedroom standing over her while she slept. This guy, according to my mom, was 6’3”+, 250+lbs

I’ll never trade growing up there for anything, but sometimes I wonder if I was naïve or everyone outside was just paranoid.

Green dot is where my house was.