When I was 12 years old (now 24), my friends and I used to go to a remote little pond which was located about a mile into a forest around the greater Boston Area. The forest itself is a few miles from our houses, so we always spent at least an hour or two walking to get there (though sometimes we would bike, but the conditions in the forest weren't ideal for this). Their was a small island about 150 feet away from the bay, and somebody had left (or abandoned) a canoe which we would regularly use to carry us to the island. We considered this pond our little secret, as the only person other than us who we had ever seen around it was a nice middle aged woman who would walk her golden retriever in the area. One particular spring Friday, after school had finished for the week, two of my friends and I decided to head for the pond. Once we arrived, we began our usual routine, which was to search for worms, as well as for nice sticks to which we could attached our fishing lines (as we didn't have fishing rods). Once we were all prepared, we hopped in the big (6-8 person) canoe, and made our way to the island. After fishing for about 30 minutes or so, we noticed a strange man (in his late 40's or early 50's, and big enough that he could take on three 11-12 year olds in a physical confrontation) making his way from the forest toward the pond. Maybe he would not have seemed so strange if we had seen other people like him before, but this guy walked out of some totally random shrubs which were nowhere near the walking trail, and he looked like he hadn't showered or changed his clothes in some time. Once he said hi to us and began conversing, it was pretty apparent that we were the reason he came out of the bushes. He tried for over an hour to convince us to go get him with the canoe, so that he could come to the island with us. We went through every avoidance technique in the book, until we ran out of excuses, and decided to start questioning the guy. At first he was insisting that he simply wanted to "fish" with us, but after it was clear that we were looking for a better answer, the. guy started to change/add to his story. He then told us that he had actually recently escaped from a mental institution, which was probably the first thing that he told us which we believed. He went on to shout to us about how bad his life was in the mental hospital, and how he had to leave "that place". After telling us this story, the man had clearly though that we would be convinced of his goodwill, and that we would go get him. But he was wrong, as we actually became even more alarmed by his story. Once he realized his latest tactic had not worked on us, he began to get irate. He told us how we were raised with no manners, and kept swearing angrily. Over the course of eight to ten minutes, this continued, until he clutched his heart, and told us that he had heart problems, and that he needed to be taken to the hospital or he would die. Call me an asshole, but I did not by this, nor did any of my friends. The guy then sat down, right were he was standing, and just stared at us for about 15 minutes. We did our best to pretend like we didn't notice him any longer, and kept fishing. In reality we were whispering to each other to plan our escape route. Cell phones were of no use in the area, as they did not have any reception that deep into a forest. After staring for 15 minutes, the man got up, without saying anything to us, and proceeded down the walking trail. Some time after he left, we decided we would head out, but that we would proceed with extreme caution. I found a nice, hard stick which I gripped firmly, and one of my friends had his pocket knife handy. As we trecked out of the forest, none of us had ever been so paranoid. It felt as though we were walking through a war zone. We looked behind every tree we passed, and we investigated every noise we heard, until we eventually made it out. I am not the greatest of writers, so maybe I was not able to communicate how creepy this was, but believe me when I say that my friends and I felt certain that the man had some underlying motive which was unknown to us. I had never seen any stranger try so desperately to join a bunch of little kids on a remote island. To this day we think he wanted to hurt us, and we debate his intentions quite often. After 12 years have passed, the only thing I can still say is that I hope the man did not have bad intentions, and that he did not suffer any health problems because of our precautionary actions.