I did as well! The description of the plastic carpet runners was perfection, and the sound of the picture frames being lifted up and set down again, one by one, was eerie.

What’s unnecessary is for you to be so rude. You aren’t being asked to critique a novel. This isn’t even a yelp review. I’m sorry for whatever shittiness currently exists in your own world, but spreading it around never  helps.

I’d be willing to bet this person works this type of #NotAllMen diatribe into almost every conversation, no matter how relevant or appropriate.

So well told.  Please tell me you and your partner and dog now live in relative peace? You’re definitely owed.  

Still fascinating, imo, and well worth the, what, fifteen minutes of following along. And all the more impressive that it’s being related in a second (or third or fourth) language.  How many of us could even attempt that? 

Or it might be even more credible, since real life is messy and difficult to relate and resolve in a few short paragraphs. You missed out on the best story in this entire thread.

This was an amazing story, and you told it very well—I could imagine every little piece (poor Maryam! How awful for everyone.) Just when I thought it couldn’t get any freakier, THE VULTURES CAME! I am a horror novel and movie buff—I’m tough to scare, and this was chilling. The negative commenters are likely too…

The parallel story coincidence sort of stole my attention, but I had originally wanted to comment that your FLDS story was even spookier, especially bc of your observations about how going to Short Creek was even more oppressive than Saudi Arabia. As a first generation Arab-American female, whose father traveled to…

Yes! Good catch—it makes rational sense if both “Sara”s are still close as adults and share Jezebel’s annual spooky story link. If not, it’s a much more eerie, though somewhat lovely, coincidence.

I’m so sorry you experienced all of those traumas, especially with s sick infant and stepson that had been abandoned by his own father. You sound like an amazing mother, and don’t need to justify any of your actions/reactions to strangers online (or in real life for that matter). Your story was both straightforward…

She was caring for a very sick infant, in an out of the PICU, and a five year old whose father, and her husband, had turned emotionally and physically abusive and, oh yeah, also being fucking terrorized by inexplicable and menacing phenomena. And she was supposed to focus on getting video evidence for a complete…

Um, that’s a little ghoulish, no? At the very least it’s pretty personal/intrusive.

Not everyone needs a thesaurus. . . 

This. Fifty percent of Gazans are CHILDREN. No child chose or deserves this.

“Good”? Do you even hear yourself? That’s how genocide spreads and metastasizes, not only by the terrorism of the IDF or Hamas, zealots on both sides, but much more effectively by bystanders like you who see more carnage ahead, especially of children, and say with apparent glee and satisfaction, good.” I guess vowing…

Did your mother ever apologize? I can’t imagine one of my kids reacting to, well, anything, in such a terrified manner and my response being to suck it up. Also, why did she want you to sleep in there? Wouldn’t it have made more sense for your mom and sister to take the primary (presumably larger) bedroom in the…

Yikes.  Incel ghost that possesses another student to become a twisted incel is a deeper level of spook.

Agggghhh! Did you stay?

Ok, you had me terrified at the creepy voice whispering “let’s all go to bed now”—and then you and Leigh KEPT LIVING THERE (sorry, I’m truly not blaming the victims—I’m just not that brave.)

Such a lovely series of interconnecting memories.  But also curious about Anna and Steve’s surviving wife.  Different people?