Get ready to leave MoHi behind and enter The Twilight Zone with this scary story.

Leo Bevilacqua recounts a true bizarre happening that occurred between the hours of 6 and 7 in the morning last Tuesday, not far from 116th and Broadway. 

Heading to an early morning class at Equinox, I left McBain sometime around 6:30 AM. It was a chilly morning, and I was bundled in a warm pullover. Particularly disheveled due to having stayed up late finishing up a term paper for Lit Hum, I pushed the hair out of my eyes as I searched for my phone in my gym bag. As I uncovered my phone and put in my headphones, I headed down to the subway.

I turned on Tame Imapla’s “Love/Paranoia” and was already starting to wake up a little more. As I looked around at all the closed store fronts and the emptiness of the damp street corners, there was a peacefulness to the city. However, the mirage dissipated as a sudden and seemingly irrational pang of fear gripped me. I glanced around to check for followers and quickened my gait towards the 110th subway stop.

As I began to near the subway entrance, I spotted the familiar glow of orange light coming from the underground opening which brought me some sense of safety and calm. Before I could enter the subway, however, some strange urge stopped me in my tracks. I lowered the volume of my music, and as the chords of the song fell away, I heard it. It was a loud, high-pitched voice. I yanked my headphones out and dropped them in my gym bag, the paranoia and fear rising again. I felt my blood run cold and my heart skip a beat as I began to fully comprehend what I beheld. A strange, bedraggled, middle-aged woman was following about a block behind me, repeatedly screaming my name, “Leo.” Over and over again, I heard the two-syllable blare of my name.

Petrified, I watched the woman’s mouth move as she enunciated each syllable. Snapping out of my surprise, I bolted into the subway entrance and swiped my Metro Card through the turnstile. I ran down the station, comforted to find a nice group of strangers waiting near the end of platform. Listening to Tame Impala’s “Past Life”, I tried to place who this woman was. Was she an old teacher? A long lost relative? Or was it just a passerby that got lucky with my name? The train soon arrived, and I was whisked away to 96th.

Photo courtesy of American Horror Story: Asylum