To the person in my front yard who convinced me to let him in the house in the middle of the night

This is a story I wrote for r/scarystories a couple months ago that I'm reposting because it's relevant to this sub.<br><br>*-*-<br><br>I was 14 years old and in 8th grade at the time, this happened in 2003. One night I woke up to someone knocking on the front door. I live in a small town in Middle of Nowhere, USA, where nothing ever happens, especially at 2AM. I didn't feel unsafe or anything opening the door since I figured it was a neighbor or one of my cousin's trying to freak me out.<br><br>So I go to the front door and see a man standing there with his head down and his arms crossing his chest. He looks up at me and raises an eyebrow "You doing ok kid?". I was so dumbfounded at the time I couldn't really say anything. There was something about him that stopped me from saying no or closing the door. I could see he was shivering a little even though it wasn't that cold out. He looked at me for a while longer, then said "Mind if I step inside for a sec? Its freezing and I can't find my friends." He didn't seem threatening, and was actually very well dressed, like he just left a party or something. So I said yeah its fine, and stepped aside letting him in. <br><br>He moved around the living room, rubbing his hands together, then looked at me and said "You’re cold, why don’t you get a coat or something?”. I wasn’t cold; it was actually pretty warm in the house. I was just a kid at the time, so the way he talked to me like he was an adult and I was the kid startled me. I shook my head no and asked him if wanted anything to drink. He said yeah that would be great and ask me to bring him a glass of water. <br><br>I went into the kitchen and got him a glass of tap water, then brought it back to him. Before I gave it to him, he said "Oh, hey l, would you mind if I used the computer up stairs real quick? I want to find out what happened to my friends". I didn't really care, I had a desktop in my room and my parents let me have friends over to hang out while they were away sometimes, so I said sure and walked him up the stairs to my room then signed into my computer. He thanked me and sat in my desk. I noticed his clothes were pretty soaked and muddy. I asked him if he needed a towel or anything but he said no, it's fine, I'll be gone as soon as I find out what happened to them.<br><br>I walked back down stairs for a few minutes and played video games on my console. I don't know why, but I didn't feel right about the whole situation. Maybe I was just being paranoid, but something felt wrong. I didn't shake it and couldn't focus on what I was doing. So I gave up and thought that I would just go back to bed. So I turned everything off, grabbed my stuff and walked back up stairs and I couldn't see anyone. I thought that maybe he left, so I walked over to my bed to put my stuff away and that's when I noticed something not right. I remember setting my alarm clock to 9AM the night before, since it was a weekend and we didn't have school. But this night the clock said 3:33AM, and I don't remember setting that. I brushed it off thinking it maybe was a malfunction or something. <br><br>Then I heard someone in the bathroom. It made a weird whooshing sound. I heard footsteps outside the room and the man came through the door with a really confused look on his face. I don't know how I didn't think about it before, but something about him just seemed off in a weird way. But he just looked at me asked if I was ok. I said yeah I'm fine, just a little confused as to why you're in my room. Then I noticed the window open all the way to the side and the blinds almost ripped off the ceiling. I didn't remember opening it, so I asked him what the hell was going on. He ignored me, then moved around the room filling up trash bags with random stuff like empty chip bags, pieces of broken things, bottle caps, and even some old toys. I could tell he was agitated, or high on something. He looked at me again and told me to go back to bed and don't come back down till morning or I'd be in trouble. I was really freaked out and didn't know what to do.<br><br>I slowly made my way back down stairs. I peeked around the corner to make sure he wasn't behind me. When I got back to my original spot I decided to call the cops. I didn't have a phone right there so I got my phone book and looked up the local police station and called them. They said they wouldn't be there for 30 minutes or so. I didn't want to wait that long so I called my mom at her work. She was really concerned and told me to wake up my dad. My dad is a big guy, who isn't to be trifled with. I started looking for him around the house, starting from the front door, then the living room and dinning room. My heart was pounding the whole time as I expected the man upstairs to come out from around the corner with a knife. I walked up to my parents bedroom door then stopped. For some reason I got scared. I don't know why, but I didn't want to open the door to the bedroom because my dad wasn't going to be there, or something worse.<br><br>I slowly turned the knob and opened the door. At first glance, I didn't see my dad or mom. I called out his name and still, nothing. Then on a hunch I walked over to the side of the bed and looked to the floor. There he was. Dead. Cold. Bleeding. His eyes glazing over staring up at me. I heard my mom call my name from behind me, I looked up and saw her standing in the doorway, a little confused and worried look on her face then she saw my dad and screamed. I heard her scream and I started screaming. We were both screaming for what felt like forever then something grabbed me. I struggled and tried fighting it off but it held me in place. My mom was still screaming. I saw a police man walk in and he looked at us and said "can you stop screaming?". It was weird that he said that, because I didn't realize how loud we were being.<br><br>He let me go and I turned around to look who held me and I didn't see anyone. He walked outside and I saw him and a few other police talk to some people standing in the yard. My mom stopped screaming and started crying. I walked through the house and it was absolute carnage. Every room smashed up, broken stuff everywhere and blood stains on the walls. This happened at my old house, we moved after this. My mom almost had a mental breakdown after that night and is still afraid of strangers. My dad didn't last one night in the hospital. This is the first time I've written down what happened. I'm just glad I made it out alive that night.