Let's Not Meet~ Reddit Horror Stories

I Almost Shot A Man

This happened about 10 years ago when I was living in a not so great neighborhood in a not so great 1920s style house.

The house, despite being pretty rundown, had a really neat design. It had a huge front porch that was screened in and large picture windows on all sides. The front of the house faced a main road through a pretty rough neighborhood, which meant some interesting scenes went down right outside of our front door, such as high speed police chases.

During that year or so that we lived on the street, there was a homeless man that would walk down sidewalk in front of our house. He was over 6 feet tall with a head full of dreadlocks and wore a large trenchcoat even though it was Florida. He would slowly pass in front of our house every few days, dragging a large plastic outdoor trashcan, usually muttering to himself. He never really bothered me or made me uneasy, as I have a soft spot in my heart for the homeless, especially those who seem mentally ill.

I was off of work one day, home alone, waiting for my boyfriend to get home. It was still the early evening and daylight outside, so I had the blinds up and some of the windows open. I was at the computer in our living room, when I heard the man outside dragging the trashcan, talking to himself. By this time, we were so familiar with the sounds of the man that I didn't even go to the window to look.

It goes away from my mind and about an hour passes by, when I randomly notice that I never heard him actually PASS my house. As I mentioned, I have become very familiar with the sound of him walking past our house so when I realized that I hadn't heard him go from one side to the other I got goosebumps all over my entire body.

Because of my severe anxiety, I am basically frozen in my chair at this point. I know that the front blinds are always closed because we usually have a bong on the table so I cannot tell if there's anyone in my front yard without getting up out of my seat.

I slowly stand up and approach the door, look through the peephole and to my horror, the man is staring right back at me. He'd been standing there staring for an hour. I know this because as soon as he noticed my shadow obscure the peephole he started pounding on the door, pulling at the handle, and screaming nonsense at me.

I completely panicked. I had no idea what this man was capable of but, as a survivor of sexual assault, I tend to immediately fear the worst. As he continued to pound on the door and yell, I ran to my bedroom to get our gun.

Back in the living room, gun loaded, pointed at the door, I screamed for him to go away. He continued without any pause, as if he didn't even hear me. I repeated myself and added that I had a gun. Literally no change. Finally, I screamed that I had the gun loaded, I was terrified, and would shoot through the door if he did not leave. After this, silence.

I was too scared to check the peephole after our face to face encounter, so I called 911 and begged them to hurry. They caught up with the guy at the end of the road and drove me down to identify him.

The cops were COMPLETE jerks. To me. Apparently they knew this guy, as he was a regular trespasser at local businesses. I explain the story in detail to the police officers. I was visibly shaken and crying. I explained that I almost shot this man and probably would've killed him. They tell me he's harmless and I'm overreacting.

Maybe I was overreacting, but I'm not sorry. Would I have been absolutely heartbroken if I'd hurt this man, who was obviously not in his right mind? 100%

Would I have regretted NOT acting this way if he'd gotten through my door? Most likely.

Either way, let's not meet again trashcan guy.