True Scary Stories - Jumped twice in one night/the guy in the woods

The following story takes place back in April of 2010. At the time, I was working as an overnight security guard for a dairy manufacturing facility located in Boyle Heights, California. Having worked there for just about over a year, I had grown accustomed to my job and its surrounding environment. Or so I thought. The facility was part of a decent size industrial area. Directly across from this facility sat a housing development surrounded by a small neighborhood. Although the housing development was called Ramona Gardens, it was most commonly referred to as the Hazard Projects. This urban nickname was attributed to a local street gang. My means of getting to work involved either public transportation or lengthy recreational walking. Whichever I chose, my trip would always culminate in a shortcut through the back of the Hazard Projects. My mother, who was greatly familiar with the area, would constantly express her concern over me working there. After all, the area was known for its fair share of gang activity. She would even go as far as evaluating my route to work. Once she caught wind of my shortcut, she wasn’t exactly thrilled. I’m not suggesting that she had little faith in her 21-year-old son. She was just being my mother. (Let me take this opportunity to apologize for any lack of detail when it comes to describing the following incident. Given the circumstances of the situation, I hope you could understand.) It was a Friday evening and I was relatively early to work. I was less than a block away from the shortcut with a little over an hour left to spare. Before stepping onto the much traveled path, I hesitated. I am not a habitual smoker, yet here I was, with the odd craving for a pack of cigarettes. The nearest liquor store was a just a block away and had I had given in to my unusual temptation, I would’ve avoided the shortcut. Emphasis on the word avoided. I stepped onto the path preoccupied with my cellphone. I was in the middle of a texting conversation with a friend of mine. Suddenly, my path was cut off by a teenage boy riding a scooter. He was no older than 16, Hispanic, roughly 5’3”, shaved head, wearing all black baggy clothing. He stared me down intently before asking in an aggressive tone, “Where the *** you stay at, dawg?!”  For those of you who are not familiar with this situation, it usually means bad news. I ignored his question and tried to walk around him. Once again, he cut off my path and repeated the question. “I’m not from around here. I’m just trying to get to work.” I responded in an unaggressive manner. Once again, he stared me down intently. He shot me a look of a malicious intent as he responded with, “Give us your ***!” That's when I had realized that he wasn't alone. His four friends, all presumably the same age, revealed themselves at the appropriate time. I acknowledged their presence with a heavy sigh. I responded firmly with, “I'm not giving you my ***, man.” One of the other four boys drew closer to the scene. “He ain't gonna give up his ***, let's ***' take it then!” He proclaimed. The odds were obviously not in my favor. Be that as it may, I knew I had no choice but to stand my ground. There was an awkward moment of silence before someone had decided to make a move. Unfortunately, that someone wasn't me. The boy who had confronted me in the first place took notice of my cellphone being held in my left hand. He smacked it out of my hand. As it fell to the ground, I stupidly allowed my head to follow it's path. Suddenly, my face was met with a right hook. I was circled by the five boys as each of them began to strike me on multiple spots of my body. “He's not going down!” One of them yelled in desperation. In my moment of misplaced awareness, my adrenaline began to run its course. I knew if I was somehow able to prevent them from taking me to the ground, maybe I could have a chance. I began to swing wildly until I hit something. I struck one of the boys on his chin. As he staggered backwards, I grabbed him by his collar and began to repeatedly strike his face without mercy. Why I focused all my aggression on only one of them, I have no *** clue. Suddenly, I felt a great blow to the back of my head. The impact was sufficient enough to knock me off my feet. They had taken me to the ground. I could barely feel they're strikes as they began to viciously stomp on my body. Before blacking out, I remembered feeling one of the boys reach into my pant pockets. They made off with my cellphone and wallet. The wallet must have been an incredible steal. After all, it did have $300 in it. When I had regained consciousness moments later, I wasn't able to immediately react to the situation. Once I had become fully aware, I decided to assess the damage inflicted on my body while taking in my surrounding area. I wasn't alone. I was cautiously approached by a much older gentlemen. Thankfully, his presence was of good intent. He carefully helped me to my feet. He shot me a look pity as I told him of the situation. As I began to regain my composure, I had made the sudden realization that my wallet had been stolen. The old man was caught off guard as I began to scream out violent threats intended for my aggressors. He tried to calm me down and suggested that I should walk away. At first, protested. He grabbed me by the shoulder and said in a firm tone, “I know you're angry, but you can't be stupid. You told me your job was around the corner. I suggest you go there and get help. Just walk away.” I took his advice with a grain of salt. Before going our separate ways, I expressed my deepest gratitude. Before I could even collect my thoughts, I was met with an outrageous *** you. The same five boys who had attacked me earlier had returned for an encore performance. They wanted my backpack. Something both parties had overlooked earlier. Not even two minutes earlier, I was ready to fight to retain what was rightfully mine. Let's just say reality hit me like a ton of bricks. As the five boys approached me demanding my backpack, I had realized that I was no condition to put up a fight. Naturally, I was knocked to the ground. Before taking the backpack, they once again stomped on my body viciously. Getting back on my feet proved to be much more difficult this time around. It didn't help that my sense of equilibrium was completely worth ***. Nevertheless, I had somehow managed to make it to my work. In order to gain access to the facility, my co-worker would have to unlock the staff entrance gate. Luckily, he had just returned from a perimeter patrol. As he spotted me crossing the street, he approached the gate with a childish smile on his face. Mind you, the streets were dimly lit. When he had noticed my disoriented walking, he assumed I was *** around. Once I stepped into the light, his smile quickly faded. He fiddled with the lock as he began to frantically ask, “What the *** happened?!” Within ten minutes, a black and white approached our property. The LAPD had been contacted by my supervisor once he was notified of the incident. I was met by two young officers. One took my statement, while the other took a look at my injuries. He strongly suggested that I seek medical attention. For some reason, I tried to reject it. The officer looked me dead in the eye, “Listen. You're in pretty bad shape. You've suffered major head trauma and a broken nose. How you managed to walk here in your condition is a *** miracle.” I had been transported to White Memorial Hospital. The next thing I remembered was waiting patiently in urgent care. The officers who had tended to me earlier were present at the hospital. They were having a lengthy discussion with my examiner just as my mother had arrived. She was accompanied by my uncle, aunt, and cousins. The examiner took time to discuss the injuries with my mother and me. He indicated that I had received blunt force trauma to the back of my head. Thankfully, there was no immediate sign of potential brain damage. The swelling on my face would most likely go down within a couple of days. The following week, I was set to visit an ENT specialist regarding my broken nose. On top of that, they were also going to perform an additional CAT scan for safe measure. A few days after the incident, I had met with my employer at their regional office. Their first course of action was to transfer me to another work site. My manager had arranged for me to receive a check for compensation. Since then, I have not once returned to that part of the neighborhood. My attackers were never caught and the identity of the good samaritan remains a mystery to this day. It might've been in bad taste at the time but I remember sharing an off color joke. That's when one of the officers made a chilling remark to his partner. “It's amazing that this kid hasn't lost his sense of humor in all this. He was practically left for dead.” I am a 17 year old male, living in the midwest United States. Last year during my sophomore year I decided to join the track team in the Spring. I wanted to increase my stamina so I joined the long distance team. Being on the long distance team, I would have to run a couple miles every practice. Near our high school was a small forest with biking trails that led to a little lake our track team would run to. As I said before, I was trying to increase my stamina so I was always farther behind the other runners. The little forest was dense with a lot of wild life, most commonly deer. To give a quick layout of the trail; imagine a forest that slopes with a dirt bike trail carved into the side of the slope. As usual I fell pretty far behind the other runners; I was exhausted and I had to stop to rest as I was breathing heavily. As I was taking a break I heard some twigs snap from behind me. When I turned around I expected to see a deer, but instead I saw a man at the top of the slope. This man was pretty tall; around six feet. He was wearing bleached jeans and a dark red shirt. I thought it was pretty weird that a random guy would be off trail and at the top of a slope in the pretty dense trees. I felt as if all time stopped while we just stared at each other. Suddenly my flight or fight kicked in and I bolted down the trail. I turned around as I was running and this guy was running down the slope at an angle; he was doing this to cut me off from the trail. The weirdest part was that this man was using the trees to propel himself down the slope. At this point I was beginning to tire to the point I could no longer run. I decided that now that I couldn't run I was gonna have to fight this dude. I have been training in martial arts since I was three and, at the time, I was a second degree black belt in Taekwondo. Keeping in mind that I was tired, I ripped off a stick from a broken branch and was ready to bash this prick's head in. The man got down the slope blocking my path. He had an unkept beard, his hair was greasy and tangled, and from the distance we were standing I could smell his terrible BO. He smiled with yellow and brown teeth, eyes wide, and began to slowly walk towards me. I raised the stick and warned him to "*** off". I will never forget the words that came out of his mouth next. He simply said "oh thats too bad. all I want to do is play". With a yell, I closed the rest of the distance and I brought down the stick as hard as I could. The man moaned and fell back, giving me time to run past him. I just ran as fast as I could, crying and in shock. As I neared the end of the woods my coach was waiting for me. I decided not to tell her about what happened until after we got back. I'm not sure what my school did but for the rest of the track season we did not run in the woods again.