My Son Drew Pictures of a Strange Man — When I Asked Him, He Said, ‘He Comes to See Mommy When You’re at Work’

I was stunned when my son started drawing a grinning stranger. “He comes to see Mommy when you’re at work,” Oliver said innocently. Initially dismissing it as a childish fantasy, I soon spied a mysterious man entering our home, igniting a chilling quest for the truth.

I found the drawing while tidying up the dining table. Most of Oliver’s pictures were what you’d expect from a six-year-old: dinosaurs with rainbow scales, our house with a chimney that looked more like a volcano, and stick figures of our family holding hands. But this one made me pause.

A man frowning at a drawing | Source: Midjourney

A man frowning at a drawing | Source: Midjourney

Among the crayon scribbles was a tall figure with unnaturally long arms and huge hands, wearing what looked like a suit. The figure had an enormous grin that stretched across most of its face.

“Oliver,” I called out, trying to keep my voice casual as my fingers crinkled the edge of the paper. “Is this me in the picture? Who is this?”

My son looked up from his LEGOs, his blue eyes bright with excitement.

An excited boy with a bright smile | Source: Midjourney

An excited boy with a bright smile | Source: Midjourney

The plastic blocks clattered as he dropped them onto the hardwood floor. “That’s Mr. Smiles, Daddy! He’s Mommy’s new friend. He comes to see her when you’re at work.”

My heart skipped a beat. Laura and I had been married for nine years. We’d had our ups and downs like any couple, weathered job changes and family losses, and celebrated promotions and birthdays. But never, not once, did I think she’d…

No, I shook the thought away. There had to be a reasonable explanation. Laura wasn’t that kind of person. We’d built too much together.

A concerned man holding a paper | Source: Midjourney

A concerned man holding a paper | Source: Midjourney

“When does he come over?” I asked, proud of how steady my voice remained despite the tremor in my hands.

Oliver stacked another block on his tower, his tongue poking out in concentration.

“Sometimes in the morning. Sometimes at night. He always makes Mommy and me laugh.” He glanced up, suddenly serious, his small face scrunching with the weight of importance. “But, Daddy, it’s a secret! Don’t tell anyone!

An emotional man standing in a living room | Source: Midjourney

An emotional man standing in a living room | Source: Midjourney

The mention of laughter and secrecy felt like ice in my stomach.

That night, I barely slept, watching Laura’s peaceful face in the darkness. The steady rhythm of her breathing, once comforting, now felt like a taunt. Every time she shifted in her sleep, I wondered what she was dreaming about. Who she was dreaming about.

The next day, I left work early, parked down the street from our house, and waited. The fall air grew crisp as the afternoon wore on, and fallen leaves skittered across my windshield. A little after 3 p.m., a sleek black car pulled into our driveway.

A black car parked in a driveway | Source: Pexels

A black car parked in a driveway | Source: Pexels

A tall, wiry man stepped out and marched up to the front door. Even from this distance, I could see his broad smile when Laura welcomed him inside. The door closed behind them.

I gripped my steering wheel until my knuckles turned white; the leather creaking under my fingers.

“Maybe this is all in my head,” I whispered to myself, watching my breath fog the window. “But if I’m wrong, I need to know for sure.”

A man sitting in a car | Source: Pexels

A man sitting in a car | Source: Pexels

Over the next few weeks, I started buying Laura flowers and gifts, trying to rekindle our bond, but I also began documenting everything.

The evidence piled up: receipts for dinners I didn’t attend, calls she’d leave the room to take, and, of course, more pictures of “Mr. Smiles” drawn by Oliver. Each new piece of evidence felt like another brick in a wall being built between us.

Laura noticed the change in me.

A woman staring at her husband during dinner | Source: Midjourney

A woman staring at her husband during dinner | Source: Midjourney

“Are you feeling okay?” she asked one day, touching my forehead with concern. “You seem distracted lately.”

The genuine worry in her voice only confused me more. How could she act so normal if she was hiding something so huge?

“I… do you have someone else?” I asked.

“Someone else?” Laura stared at me with wide eyes, then shook her head.

A woman looking at her husband with wide eyes | Source: Midjourney

A woman looking at her husband with wide eyes | Source: Midjourney

“Of course not, honey!” She let out a little chuckle. “How could you think that?”

Maybe I should’ve confronted her then, but all my evidence was circumstantial. I needed cold, hard proof.

One Friday evening, I told Laura I’d be working late. Instead, I set up a hidden camera on the bookshelf in the living room and watched the feed from my car parked around the corner.

A bookshelf in a living room | Source: Pexels

A bookshelf in a living room | Source: Pexels

The screen of my phone cast a blue glow across my face as I waited, my coffee growing cold in its cup holder.

Right on schedule, Mr. Smiles arrived, and Laura greeted him with that same warm smile that used to be reserved for me.

But then something strange happened. He didn’t settle on the couch or share a private dinner. Instead, my sister walked in, and Oliver came bounding down the stairs with a beaming smile. More people arrived: neighbors and friends!

A man looking at his phone in confusion | Source: Midjourney

A man looking at his phone in confusion | Source: Midjourney

They all knew about this? And worse, they were having a secret get-together! I watched in stunned silence as Mr. Smiles, now wearing a festive party hat, juggled three oranges for Oliver and made him laugh.

“What the heck is going on?” I muttered, fumbling with my car door.

Rage and confusion propelled me toward the house. The evening air felt thick and heavy as I stormed up our front walk. I burst through the front door, making everyone freeze mid-conversation, the cheerful music cutting off abruptly.

A group of people in a living room staring at someone in surprise | Source: Midjourney

A group of people in a living room staring at someone in surprise | Source: Midjourney

“Alright, you won,” I said, my voice trembling. “Everyone here knew, didn’t they? Even Oliver? Even my sister?”

“No, no! Please, stop!” Laura’s face had gone pale, her hands clutching a roll of streamers that cascaded to the floor.

I turned to Mr. Smiles, who had stopped juggling and was staring at me with wide eyes.

“You’ve disrespected me as a man, and you’ve got no business being here! It’s my house! It’s my…”

My voice trailed off as I spotted something shiny on the floor.

A man speaking angrily to someone | Source: Midjourney

A man speaking angrily to someone | Source: Midjourney

A banner, not yet hung, with golden letters that read “Happy 10th Anniversary!” The metallic paper caught the light from our living room lamps, throwing sparkles across the ceiling.

The room went completely silent. Laura’s hands covered her mouth, tears welled in her eyes, and she smudged her carefully applied makeup. Mr. Smiles cleared his throat and stepped forward, his famous grin nowhere to be seen.

“Sir, I think there’s been a misunderstanding,” he said softly, his professional demeanor never wavering. “I’m a wedding planner and party animator. Your wife hired me months ago to plan this event — your wedding anniversary!”

A man speaking in a living room | Source: Midjourney

A man speaking in a living room | Source: Midjourney

“You thought I was cheating on you?” Laura’s voice cracked with hurt and disbelief, each word falling like a stone between us.

I felt the floor shift beneath my feet. The room suddenly seemed too bright, too crowded, the decorations garish and mocking.

“I… I didn’t know what else to think,” I stammered, my collar feeling too tight. “I saw him coming here, and Oliver said a man kept visiting while I was at work, that this man made you laugh…”

An emotional man looking confused and shocked | Source: Midjourney

An emotional man looking confused and shocked | Source: Midjourney

“Oliver said he made me laugh because he does magic tricks for him when we plan,” Laura interrupted, her voice rising. “I was trying to do something special for you, and you thought I was unfaithful?”

My throat felt tight. “I’m sorry,” I managed to say, the words feeling inadequate. “I was wrong. I let my insecurities get the better of me.”

Laura wiped her eyes with the back of her hand, leaving a dark smudge of mascara. “How could you think that? After everything we’ve been through?”

An emotional woman speaking to her husband | Source: Midjourney

An emotional woman speaking to her husband | Source: Midjourney

The party guests began quietly filing out, murmuring awkward goodbyes, their shoes shuffling across our carpet.

My sister squeezed my shoulder as she left, whispering, “Fix this.” Oliver looked confused and scared, so Laura’s mother took him upstairs to his room, their footsteps echoing in the tense silence.

When we were finally alone, Laura sat on the couch, her shoulders slumped. The streamers lay in tangles around her feet.

An upset woman sitting on a sofa | Source: Midjourney

An upset woman sitting on a sofa | Source: Midjourney

“I spent months planning this,” she said quietly. “I wanted it to be perfect. Remember our first anniversary? When you surprised me with that picnic in the park? I wanted to do something just as special.”

I sat beside her, careful to leave space between us, the cushions dipping under my weight. “I ruined everything.”

“Yes, you did.” She turned to look at me, her eyes red but fierce. “Trust isn’t just about believing in someone when everything’s perfect. It’s about believing in them when things don’t make sense.”

“I know,” I whispered, feeling the weight of my mistake. “I forgot that somewhere along the way. Can you forgive me?”

A couple having a serious conversation | Source: Midjourney

A couple having a serious conversation | Source: Midjourney

Laura was quiet for a long moment, her fingers tracing patterns on the fabric of her dress.

“I love you,” she said finally. “But this isn’t something I can just get over. You need to understand how much this hurts.”

I nodded, feeling tears start to fall. “I’ll do whatever it takes to make this right.”

“It won’t happen overnight,” she warned, her voice stern but not unkind.

A stern-looking woman speaking to someone | Source: Midjourney

A stern-looking woman speaking to someone | Source: Midjourney

“I know. But I’m not going anywhere.” I reached for her hand, and after a moment’s hesitation, she let me take it, her fingers cool against my palm. “Happy anniversary,” I said softly.

She gave a watery laugh that held both forgiveness and reproach. “Happy anniversary, you idiot.”

Upstairs, we heard Oliver laughing at something, probably one of his grandmother’s stories. The sound filled our living room, reminding us of all we had to lose, and all we had to save.

A couple in a living room glancing upwards | Source: Midjourney

A couple in a living room glancing upwards | Source: Midjourney

This work is inspired by real events and people, but it has been fictionalized for creative purposes. Names, characters, and details have been changed to protect privacy and enhance the narrative. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental and not intended by the author.

The author and publisher make no claims to the accuracy of events or the portrayal of characters and are not liable for any misinterpretation. This story is provided “as is,” and any opinions expressed are those of the characters and do not reflect the views of the author or publisher.

12 People Who Were Right to Trust Their Gut Feeling

Listening to what your intuition is telling you might just keep you safe from harm or sorrow. That’s what people online found out the hard way, when trusting their gut feeling meant a completely different outcome in a serious situation. Their stories are an important reminder for us to believe in our own inner voice.

  • I would always walk down the hallway in the night without turning the lights on. One night I get to the end of the hallway and have a sudden urgent feeling that I need to turn the lights on.
    I go all the way back to my room and turn the hallway light on and go back.
    Just in front of where I had decided to turn around was a huge and deadly Taipan snake making its way from one room to another across the hallway. If it had bitten me in the dark they wouldn’t have been able to get me the correct antivenom. © risska / Reddit
  • I was mowing my backyard with a ride-on mower, and I began to get an overwhelming feeling of being watched. I started looking around and thought I saw a figure in the upstairs window. I tried ignoring this as no one was home and continued with mowing when I started to feel an unbearable sense of dread.
    This made me immediately stop. As I did so, the ground in front of me gave way forming a 15-foot wide 12 foot deep sinkhole. If I hadn’t stopped immediately I likely would have been crushed by the tractor. © MujimIsYou / Reddit
  • My wife and I rented a really nice cabin in Big Sur, California, for a few nights. She woke up panicky and crying (which she never does) over a bad dream. I had an awful feeling after waking up and told her we could go for a drive.
    The further we went, the better we felt. We ended up staying in Monterey for the night. The cabin we were at burnt down. I still get chills writing this years later. © Unknown user / Reddit
  • I asked my mother to take me home early from boy scout camp because I was afraid of bears. A bear ravaged the camp the night I left. Luckily, it didn’t hurt anyone. It just tore everything up from what I was told. © SenatusRomanus / Reddit
  • I’m a firefighter. We got called out to a tree fire started by fallen power lines. We pull up in the truck, and I’m trusting that my driver and crew leader are doing their job and have good situational awareness. We get out of the truck, and we’ve parked next to a set of power lines (not fallen). It’s a very windy night and I can see the lines swinging, so I voice my concerns to my crew leader who says it’ll be fine.
    We get our hose out (risk of the tree fire catching onto a house outweighing potential risk of arcing plus the line disconnected when it fell) and I’m on the branch ready to start putting it out with two others near me when I get a chill. I look up to see the lines swinging violently and yell, “everyone move”. As the three of us sprint and dive out of the way we hear a thwip and crack and sure enough the line we were under came loose and stayed connected to the power pole. If I hadn’t got that chill chances are we would all have died. © DYESMOD / Reddit
  • My daughter was a year and a half at the time. She had a cold, but bedtime went off without a hitch. I woke up in the middle of the night that night, really uncomfortable and anxious. Something was off, and I couldn’t put my finger on it. I got up, had a midnight snack, tried to calm my nerves. I decided to check on my kids, who shared a room, before trying to go back to sleep.
    I get in there, and immediately I hear a light sound coming from her crib—wheezing. It was so quiet, there was no way to hear it outside of the room. I got her up and saw that her breathing was fast and labored. I took her to the hospital, where she ended up with an overnight stay, oxygen, and nebulizer treatments because her oxygen had dipped. She was diagnosed with Reactive Airway Disease due to the cold (which triggered an asthma attack). © Thr33wolfmoon / Reddit

I was riding my motorcycle with a friend on the back. We were going down a country road behind a truck hauling a bunch of old car tires when all of a sudden I decided we shouldn’t be there, so I slowed way down to let the truck go ahead of us. Just as I did, one of the tires fell off the truck and landed right where we would have been. © d***eyeAZ / Reddit

  • When I was two or three, I had nightmares. One night I woke up, went to my foster parents’ room, and informed them that there was a bee under my pillow. “No, there’s not, Arwen. Go back to sleep,” they said. Cue the rivers of tears. Finally, my foster mom goes into my room, switches my light on, says, “There aren’t any bees in here. Look!”
    As she picks up my pillow lo and behold, a bee flew out. My mom shooed the bee out the window as I was sobbing hysterically. She gave me the strangest look and asked how I knew the bee was there. I had no idea. My nightmare was completely unrelated. © Unkown user / Reddit
  • I was like 5 or 6 when my mom and sisters wanted to go for a drive out of town. I cried and cried because I just didn’t want to go with them for some reason, and decided to go with my other sister in her car. Turns out, my mom and other sisters ended up crashing, and they said, “If you were in the car, you would’ve had to sit in the middle, and you would’ve died.” Luckily my family was okay though. But I sure did feel really cool after that. © SnowLeopard000 / Reddit
  • I was driving on the road one night and I saw a car in the middle of the road with two people lying on the ground. My gut feeling was that something is suspicious here, and I decided to act on it by driving past the car and the two people.
    I stop to take my phone out and call the police and I look at my rearview mirror to see the two people lying on the road stand up with five other people coming out of the bushes. © Naweezy / Reddit
  • I met this cute girl on Halloween night, so I invited her to a party I was going to later. She drove with me to the party and I took her two friends too. We talk a little, but we ended up working the room and got split up. I had this sudden overwhelming urge to find her and I ended up getting a little worried.
    Some guy had moved in and had brought her outside and taken her to a semi private area underneath a patio balcony. I didn’t really care what he thought, grabbed her by the hand, acted like it was important and led her out of the party and in to the front yard. We both heard a massive crash as the very large patio collapsed above where she was standing three minutes before.
    I know most certainly that if I hadn’t grabbed her, she wouldn’t exist today. I ended up marrying her, and imagining how it almost never happened in such a dreadful way terrifies me. © Unknown user / Reddit
  • My mom tells this story a lot. She was working in an office, and she suddenly had a powerful urge to leave her cube, just to leave and be somewhere else for no reason. Not a minute later, a fifteen-foot-wide section of the ceiling collapsed, burying the floor in metal and plaster. © Kaleon
    / Reddit

We all have personal stories we’re afraid to share because they sound unbelievable. But some people feel better sharing them anonymously online. We gathered a few of those eerie stories in this article, and they prove that anyone can be deeply affected by spooky situations.

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