Gym Creep Horror Story

FEMALE:
MAIN
MALE:
CREEP

MAIN:

CREEP: SKIN COLOR, MAKE SCARY LIKE THIS:

I live in a condo association in Tampa with a fairly nice gym near the leasing office that’s open to
residents 24/7. It’s free and less than a minute from my front door, which makes it a very nice amenity
to take advantage of whenever I want. Since I work long hours on the day shift as a nurse, I tend to work
out at night, and typically, by the time I get to the gym, I’m the only person there.

I wouldn’t have been half as comfortable being there by myself or with just one other person if
it wasn’t basically a part of my home. In fact, all of the people I saw in there were my neighbors, and I’m
very friendly with them.

Well, actually, I thought that all the people in there were my neighbors, but not much was ever
stopping any random person from finding their way in, I just never thought anyone would. Of course, I
was wrong.

I followed my gut the first time I saw this particular guy and managed to avoid trouble. When I
got to the gym, I saw him through the glass door before I went inside, and I immediately sensed that he
didn’t belong.

He wasn’t working out, and judging by how skinny he was, it didn’t look like he ever worked out.
Plus, he wasn’t wearing any sort of gym clothes, only jeans and a long sleeve t-shirt. He just sat hunched
over on the bench press, without a single weight near him, on the bar or on the ground. All he did was
turn his head to stare at me.
 I automatically scanned my key fob and started to go inside, but I never opened the door. I
stopped myself for a few seconds with my hand on the bar and looked back at him, and when I saw that
he wasn’t looking away and was instead staring me down without the slightest bit of embarrassment, I
got a strong gut feeling that I should call off going to the gym while he was there, and that’s exactly what
I did.

I walked away, acting like I forgot something, but I never went back that night. I told myself that
I’d be fine missing one workout if I went tomorrow.

The next day, after an exceptionally mentally taxing day at work, I was looking forward to the
stress relief of some physical exercise more than usual. I had my fingers crossed that the guy from last
night wouldn’t be there, but I was also telling myself that I didn’t even care if he was there, because I
wanted to blow off some steam so bad that I would override my instincts if I had to.

Thankfully, the gym was totally empty when I got there. I put my headphones in and started
warming up with some light cardio on the treadmill. After a few minutes my mind was already going
blank and I was entering that therapeutic flow state, when all of a sudden I caught something out the
corner of my eye.

In the reflection of one the windows I could see behind me to the door, and right there was that
guy from last night! My heart skipped a beat as I jumped off the treadmill and turned around to look at
him. He was looking right at me with the same thousand-yard stare… I paused my music and took out
one of my headphones, then shrugged at him and mouthed the words of something like, “Can I help
you?”

That’s when he lifted up his weird, bony hand, pretending to hold onto something, then swiped
around at the fob reader, as if to tell me that he had forgotten his key.

I considered for several seconds whether I should ignore him or not. I still didn’t feel right about
him, but I knew he got in last night, so I figured he had a key and just left it in his apartment, which
meant that if I gave him the cold shoulder, I would be forcing him to go all the way back to get it, and
when he eventually got inside anyway, that would make it much more awkward.

With that in mind, I walked over to open the door for him, and just to make things less
uncomfortable, I tried to make small talk.

“Did you forget your keys?”

(Acting confused/out of it) “What? Oh, uh, yeah… My keys.”

“You didn’t lock yourself out of your apartment, did you?”

“No, but thanks for letting me in.”

“Yeah… No problem. Well, anyway, happy hunting!”

The attempt at conversation didn’t go well, so I walked away abruptly and went to the far side of
the gym. My heart was racing from being startled, so I was done with cardio. There were a few different
machines in that area, but on that night I chose to use the erg.
 I was only a few minutes into using it when I started glancing over to that guy, and I noticed that
he was again not really doing anything. I had the feeling that he was watching me, too, but I wasn’t able
to catch him staring.

I tried not to let him get in my head, though. I really wanted to exert some energy to improve
the mood of my crappy day, and I was going to be very annoyed if some skinny creep got in the way of
that. Still, I felt the hairs on the back of my neck start to stand up as it became clear that he was getting
closer. At first he was just loitering, but then he was wandering, meandering through all the equipment,
gradually making his way toward me.

Finally, I was about to say enough is enough. I stopped what I was doing on the erg and turned
my body around to face him, but just to see that he had snapped and started running toward me as
soon as I stopped!

(Sounds of struggle from both throughout following sequence)

I didn’t have enough time to stand up and get out of his way before he got to me and grabbed
me! Then we were immediately locked into a fight! He was trying to pin me down to the ground and
immobilize me, but I used every self defense trick I knew to fight back against him, from gouging at his
eyes to straight up jiu jitsu techniques to break free from his grasp. I broke free once or twice, just for
him to run after me and take me to the ground again!

“GET OFF ME!!”

Luckily, he was scrawny and out of shape and I’m built from all the time I spent in that gym, so
after several minutes of fighting, it was clear that he was getting worn out and exhausted while I still had
a lot of fight left in me. Eventually, I pushed him off one more time and managed to run off. I looked
over my shoulder as I went out the door and saw that he still hadn’t got back on his feet —that’s how
bad I beat him just by outlasting him.

He didn’t follow me outside, so I ran straight home to my condo and locked up before calling the
police. When they arrived, they took hold of all the security footage, saw what they needed to see, then
had that creep arrested the very next day.

However, the story doesn’t quite end there. As it turns out, when they did a further
investigation, they found that he had been stalking several young women in that gym for months,
finding out when each of them routinely went and going in after them for the sole purpose of watching
and waiting for them to leave so he could follow them home…

Apparently, I was the first person he tried anything violent with, and I’m glad it was me and not
anybody else. He made a huge mistake trying to mess with me.