11x08: The Fireman

[00:00:00] This podcast contains adult language and content. Listener discretion is advised. If you have a story to share, send it to letsnotmeetstories at gmail.com. Enjoy the show. This story took place when I was 15 years old. I'm currently 25. I have always been on the shorter

[00:00:45] side, especially as a teenager. And at this time, I was extremely petite. I was a cheerleader, and as such, we practiced early mornings in the summer, four days a week. These practices were held outside on the football field sidelines. We did this while the football team practiced

[00:01:03] on the field. Once the school year started, I got wind of a football player that had a crush on me, for this story we'll call him Johnny. Even though Johnny was a sophomore like me,

[00:01:15] he was an asset to the football team because of his size. He was extremely tall and muscular. He was built like a full-grown athletic man. We chatted, had some classes together, and eventually he asked me to homecoming with flowers. It was just my luck that on homecoming

[00:01:33] night I was experiencing heat exhaustion from the cheering and performing in the homecoming game earlier that day. I wound up throwing up in the restaurant bathroom before going to the dance.

[00:01:45] I was humiliated, but Johnny made sure I had plenty of water, and he really took care of me. He asked me to be his girlfriend at homecoming, and I said yes. At first, I was giddy. I really

[00:01:57] liked Johnny, and I really felt protected, cared for, and adored. He would send me texts professing his love to me in his family's native language. He also brought me candy after practice, held my hand,

[00:02:10] and he was my first real kiss. Everything seemed great, but after a few weeks of dating, there were some red flags. The first issue to arise was when he began physically picking me up.

[00:02:24] Constantly, and I mean constantly. It made me uncomfortable, and he never listened to me when I asked to be put back down. He also revealed to me that he had to leave his old school since he

[00:02:35] was getting into too many fights on school grounds. He told me that when he got really angry, he would black out, then hurt people or beat people up. I also knew he and his family enjoyed hunting,

[00:02:48] and he had told me about the many guns that they owned. I hadn't experienced him getting mad at me at this point, but I saw him get angry about other things. He would throw stuff aggressively

[00:02:59] and then apologize to me later. When he got that way, I didn't recognize him. I was beginning to feel scared of him. In November of our sophomore year, I was hospitalized for a week since I had

[00:03:14] to have a major surgery. He brought me flowers and gifts, but I was out of it whenever he came by to visit. My mom said I seemed more nervous and overall uninterested when he was around. He sat

[00:03:28] by my hospital bed and told me that he would be even more protective of me. He made me feel like this fragile, sick little bird. At this time, I didn't have an iPhone. I had an Android. Johnny

[00:03:41] had an iPhone and offered to get me one. Something I should mention here is that he came from a lot of money. He showed me how iPhones had tracking abilities and stated that if I had an iPhone,

[00:03:54] he would be able to always keep an eye on me. I declined repeatedly. He told me how he spotted me during football practice over the summer. He said he watched me for months before talking to me

[00:04:07] and he would get into trouble with his coach since he couldn't keep his eyes off of me. He told me that he knew he would do anything to have me. He, or I guess his parents, bought expensive

[00:04:19] presents for me. I was given designer items that I would never even dream of purchasing myself. My family was impressed and his family loved me. But he would do things like constantly pulling my

[00:04:33] cheerleading skirt down because he deemed it too short. If I wore anything where a bra strap was barely visible for a second, he would quickly fix it while scolding me, telling me he didn't want

[00:04:45] anyone else to see what color my bra was. He always grabbed my wrists instead of my hands. He would grab them so hard that it would leave little red marks. Eventually, I had had enough. I knew I wanted out, but not only was I an anxious, people-pleasing teenager,

[00:05:04] I was also scared of Johnny. I felt trapped. New Year's Eve came around and I had a sleepover planned with my friends. Johnny was out of state at the time but told me that his friends would

[00:05:16] keep an eye on me while he was gone. I was unsure of how that would happen since I never saw or spoke to any of his friends. I felt like he was just trying to make me feel as if he were still watching me.

[00:05:30] He got drunk that night. My friends and I went to bed a little after one in the morning and I woke up the next morning at seven to twenty-nine missed calls, twenty-six voicemails,

[00:05:40] and eighty text messages. Also easily over twenty snaps on Snapchat. The voicemails he left were all over the place. They switched from him being angry at me because he felt I was pulling away

[00:05:53] to sobbing and saying sorry, and then a few of them were absolute gibberish. The same went for the snaps that he was sending. I wanted to wait until he got back in town to talk to him but I

[00:06:03] was scared that something like this would happen again before we had a chance to talk. When I went home that day, I told my mom what was going on. She said that if it came to it

[00:06:14] and I needed to end it over the phone or a text, that's perfectly okay. Especially if I was feeling scared of him. Unfortunately, it did come to that. Johnny didn't do well with the distance and

[00:06:26] insisted that I speak to him on New Year's Day or he would harm himself. My mom, grandma, and I wrote out what I wanted to say on a couple of sticky notes. Then I went to my grandma's room

[00:06:39] and called him. My mom had prepared me and warned me that he might start yelling or protesting. She said that I just needed to keep talking and power through saying what was on the sticky notes

[00:06:52] before hanging up. I did just that and as my mom predicted, he did not take it well. He started screaming and wailing, saying he was sorry. He repeatedly requested,

[00:07:02] please don't do this. I said I was sorry and hung up. I cried all night. I dreaded going back to school after winter break. I thanked my lucky stars that even though we were in the same history class

[00:07:16] together the semester prior, we were scheduled for different periods of that class the following semester. Johnny had told me that there was a way for him to work the system so that we could

[00:07:26] continue to be in that class together but I assumed that he would no longer be doing this since I broke up with him. On the first day back after winter break, I was at my locker before first

[00:07:37] period when Johnny walked up to me and tossed a teddy bear that I had given him at me. He then walked away. I was embarrassed and a bit shaky after this but I felt better going to my new

[00:07:48] classes and talking to my friends. That is, until I went to history class. Before the class period started, I looked at the seating chart and scanned the names looking at Johnny's. I breathed a sigh

[00:08:01] of relief when I didn't see it and went to my seat. About five minutes into the class period, the door opened and in walked Johnny. He gave our teacher a note from his counselor saying that

[00:08:13] he was switched over to this period. He stared at me as she looked over the note. His eyes stayed glued to me as he walked to his seat. I instantly started sweating. My whole body was immediately

[00:08:26] getting hot. That day in class, we watched part of a war movie that had a lullaby playing during a gruesome scene. Creepily enough, this was also a song Johnny used to sing and hum to me while we

[00:08:39] dated. I looked up from my desk when the song started playing to see Johnny staring at me, looking angrier than ever. That night, I sent my history teacher an email informing her of what

[00:08:51] happened thus far. I let her know that I was scared of Johnny and I didn't want to be paired to work with him. She was my favorite teacher and I still love her to this day. She responded and

[00:09:02] said that she would make sure that I wasn't in any of the same groups as him and that I didn't sit near him. Also, that she wouldn't let him leave the classroom if I ever asked to be excused

[00:09:12] to go anywhere. She asked me if she could share my message with our school's security and my counselor and I said yes. After that, I started to feel safe again. I would walk into school,

[00:09:22] pass the security desk, and the head security officer always called me by my name and said hi. She would mosey around the hallway outside of my class to make sure that I wasn't being followed.

[00:09:34] At first, I was, but after Johnny began to notice the security presence, he scurried away and stopped following me, trying to intimidate me or whatever the hell he was trying to do.

[00:09:46] I blocked him on everything and I had the luxury of not speaking to him until March when one day he approached me and asked if we could talk after third period. I said fine. He looked me in the

[00:09:57] eyes, apologized, and asked me to take him back. As I was shaking with tears in my eyes, I told him no, adding that maybe someday we could be friends. Then I walked away. I felt guilty,

[00:10:09] like I had done something wrong to hurt him, but I was also scared that if I gave him too much, he would be under the impression that I wanted to get back together, only to be mad at me when

[00:10:20] he realized I didn't. I was dating someone new at this point, but had kept that private. I was scared for both me and my new boyfriend. I felt it was my job to protect us from Johnny, the guy I

[00:10:32] started dating a few months after Johnny also turned out to be an abusive jerk. We broke up after a year of dating. After I moved on too quickly with someone who was now my husband,

[00:10:44] this guy threatened to send around nude pictures of me that he screenshotted without my consent. He said that he was going to spread horrific and embarrassing sexual rumors about me before I had

[00:10:55] to perform with the cheer team in front of the whole school. If there are any teenagers listening, please always tell a trusted adult if anything like either of these situations happens to you. You're more important than any boy, girl, or abusive partner.

[00:11:11] Females ages 16-19 are 4 times more likely than the general population to be victims of assault. 82% of all victims under 18 are female. 81% of students experience sexual harassment in school. 83% of girls have been sexually harassed. 78% of boys have been sexually harassed.

[00:11:31] I wish I couldn't confirm these stats. I wish I would've advocated more for myself and told more people about what was going on, but I felt like I brought all of this on myself.

[00:11:43] I was ashamed. This wasn't true. No matter what they try to tell you, it's not your fault. It's been nearly 10 years since all of this happened. I'm much stronger, older, and supported

[00:11:53] now, so Johnny and the jerk that I dated after him. Let's hope that we never meet again. This story happened in 1985 and started when I was 12 years old and my brother was 15.

[00:12:23] To say the least, it was a different time back then. Around that time, my mom remarried and we moved across the country to live with our new stepdad. He lived up in the mountains in a one

[00:12:35] bedroom cabin. There wasn't enough room for all four of us, so my new stepdad rented another one bedroom cabin down the street from me and my brother to live in. We would eat dinner with my

[00:12:46] mom and stepdad at their house, then we would go back to our house down the street to sleep. Sometimes I would stay at their house if I was scared or just wanted to be with my mom.

[00:12:58] This living agreement somehow didn't seem too crazy to us at the time. It was the 80s after all. However, in retrospect, they could have found a different solution to this. When my brother turned 16, he was very rebellious as 16-year-old boys tend to be. By the time he was

[00:13:16] 17, he had moved out to live on his own. We were already being treated like adults, so it wasn't too surprising. But since he had moved out, this left me, a 13-year-old girl, living all alone for

[00:13:30] another year until my family moved into a bigger house where I could live with my parents under one roof. In those couple of years of living alone in this little cabin, I made friends with

[00:13:41] this girl up the street. We'll call her Ann. She had a brother who was 16, who we'll call Ben. I often spent the night at Ann's house. We lived in the mountains, so at night, the houses were

[00:13:54] dark. Like, scary dark. There were a few nights that I woke up in her house with that all-too- familiar creepy feeling that somebody was watching me as I was sleeping. Whenever this would happen,

[00:14:07] I would strain my eyes to look around, but I never saw anything since it was always too dark. I never said anything to Ann or my parents about my feelings of being watched because I really

[00:14:18] didn't have any proof to back it up. One day, Ann and I were playing outside in the woods as we often did when Ben and his friend, who was 19, we'll call him Steve, came up to us. They asked

[00:14:31] if we would like to see the treehouse that they had built. We thought that sounded fun, so we said yes. It was deep in the woods and very intricate. Both of the guys helped us up and into the tall

[00:14:42] tree and then into the treehouse with a ladder that they had built. It was cool. It actually had two completely different rooms with a door separating the two. Once we were in the treehouse,

[00:14:55] they wanted to show us the smaller of the two rooms. So we two girls went to the small room alone. Once inside, the boy closed the door and locked us inside. There was an opening to the

[00:15:08] outside in this small room, so it wasn't too scary. But we were so high up that we couldn't get out from where we were without falling to the ground from very high up. We thought that they were just

[00:15:19] playing around, so we hung out and laughed, assuming that we were just playing along. At some point, Steve climbed up the tree to the little opening outside of the small room and helped Ann get out

[00:15:31] of the treehouse. But they left me inside. We both thought that they were going to help me out too, but Steve never came back for me. I honestly don't know if Ann went home or if Steve took her

[00:15:45] somewhere else since we never talked this out. Eventually, Ben opened the door inside of the treehouse to let me into this larger room. It was at that point that he grabbed me from behind and

[00:15:58] began rubbing up against me. He wasn't even saying anything. He was just breathing into my ear while rubbing his hands over my stomach. At 13, I had never experienced anything like this or even been close to a man, but somehow my 13-year-old brain knew exactly what he was planning.

[00:16:18] I also managed to stay very calm. I said, Ben, you don't want to do this. Please let me go. I'm not sure how long we stood there in silence as I was being manhandled, but eventually he let me go.

[00:16:31] I got myself out of the treehouse and ran home. For some reason, I never told anybody what happened. This was probably because I felt very adult at this point in my life and always felt like I could

[00:16:43] take care of myself. A few months later, I was walking home from Ann's house on a weekend afternoon. It was sunny outside and I didn't have a care in the world. As I said, we lived in the woods,

[00:16:55] so I had to walk through a lot of forestry to get home, but it was only a 15-minute walk. As I was walking out of nowhere, Ben jumped out from the bushes and dragged me deeper into the

[00:17:06] woods. We fell down and I was now laying on top of him with my back against his front, just as we were standing in the treehouse months earlier. The same thing happened again. He was

[00:17:19] rubbing up against me and breathing in my ear without saying anything. Echoing myself from before, I calmly said again, Ben, you don't want to do this. Please let me go. After some time,

[00:17:32] eventually he did. Just like before, I ran home and never told anyone. A few more months passed and by this point, my brother had moved out, so I was officially living by myself. I didn't mention this before, but in this single bedroom cabin that we lived in,

[00:17:49] I used the living room as my bedroom since my brother had been using the bedroom. There were lots of windows in the living room, but it had never occurred to me to close the blinds since

[00:18:00] the windows faced the woods and there were no houses back there. I assumed that nobody was ever back there, so there was no reason to be concerned about somebody looking through them.

[00:18:10] One night, when I was home alone, I heard voices in the woods behind my house. I could tell that there was more than one person out there, and for the first time it occurred to me that people

[00:18:21] were back there trying to look through my windows. I realized at that point that I had probably been watched for longer than I realized. I was freaked out but not enough to do anything about it.

[00:18:35] Then, I heard footsteps on the roof. I wasn't sure if they were trying to come in through the chimney or what. Then there was knocking at the front door. I obviously didn't answer and it

[00:18:47] didn't take long for me to figure out that it was Ben and his adult friend Steve creeping around the outside of my house, on my roof, and now at my doorstep. For some reason, I didn't think to call

[00:19:00] my parents. They were just down the road and could have been at my house in less than a minute, but again, due to living separate from them, I always felt like I could handle things by myself. I never

[00:19:10] opened the door, but through the door I said that same phrase again. Ben, you don't want to do this. Leave me alone. Neither Ben nor Steve said a word. They eventually left. The next morning,

[00:19:24] when I opened my door, I found flowers on my doorstep but no note or anything accompanying them. They were wildflowers that had been picked from around the neighborhood. I'm not sure why,

[00:19:35] but for me, this was the final straw. I knew I finally had to tell somebody about what had been going on with Ben. I knew that by them coming and trying to get into my house that things were only

[00:19:47] going to progress. It was clear that both Ben and Steve were going to keep taking this further and further. I still didn't feel like I could tell my parents though. I think I was a little

[00:19:59] embarrassed about the situation, so instead, I chose to tell my brother. Since Ben and my brother went to school together, my brother confronted Ben at school. He slammed Ben up against the

[00:20:10] locker and said, if you ever touch my sister again, I'll kill you. At least, that's what my brother told me he said. Ben deserved it, so I honestly hope that that's what he said. In any case, this confrontation went down and the stalking ceased. Thankfully, this story didn't

[00:20:28] escalate into something much, much worse, although it definitely could have. Shortly thereafter, my mom and stepdad bought a new house that was big enough for all of us, so I didn't have to

[00:20:39] live alone anymore, and I never saw Anne or her creepy brother again. I think I waited until I was in my 30s until I told my mom this story. She, of course, was shocked and asked why I never told her.

[00:20:52] I was honest and I told her that I felt like an adult since I was being treated as one at the time, but I think that the blame was too much for her to accept, so I just dropped the whole thing.

[00:21:03] The lesson here is make sure to remind young girls, no matter how strong or independent, that they are not adults. They aren't invisible. They shouldn't tolerate any kind of abuse, and it's totally safe to inform an adult about what's going on. The kind of abuse and stalking

[00:21:21] I experienced is not normal. It's not acceptable, and young girls shouldn't have to hold the burden alone. As a side note, had I reported the stalking, the older boy Steve could have

[00:21:33] potentially been arrested since he was an adult, but I just didn't think about that at the time. So Ben and Steve, perhaps you were arrested and jailed at some point, and I really hope you were,

[00:21:45] but let's never meet again. This story happened a long time ago, in the 80s when I was about 16 or 17 years old. I was a relatively cute athletic blonde girl who made friends pretty easily.

[00:22:11] According to my mother, I was too young to work summer jobs, so I mostly made money babysitting in my condo complex. The condo complex was very upscale. There was a communal pool, tennis courts, and a fishing pier, since the community was situated right along the Delaware River.

[00:22:29] It was a gated community. This complex had a lot of upper middle class residents, and because of the amenities, lots of kids. So I made pretty good money babysitting. I used the community bulletin board to post my name and phone number for parents looking for an

[00:22:47] experienced local babysitter. I honestly can't imagine my kids doing something like this now, but this was way back in the day before cell phones. At the time, this worked out well for me though. I gained several new clients, in addition to having several repeat clients, including my

[00:23:06] own orthodontist, a cop and his wife, and two different local theater couples. One of these local theater couples was married, a husband and wife, and the other was an actress named Kathy and her boyfriend. I interacted with Kathy's boyfriend so rarely that I can't remember his

[00:23:23] name, so I'll refer to him as the fireman. Kathy was relatively young. I remember thinking she appeared to be in her mid to late twenties, and she had two really young boys. Her boys were sweet,

[00:23:37] but while they were sweet, they were still little terrors. The fireman was an older man who was short with gray hair. At least I assumed he was older due to his hair color. He also had a very

[00:23:50] full mustache. Since the fireman was at the station for extended periods, if not days at a time, they needed a sitter for when Kathy had theater show dates. Her rehearsals were held during the day,

[00:24:04] but they only needed me in the evenings when she had a show or a cast meeting. Sometimes these show nights would run late, often until 2 or 3 am, but they paid me well since the evenings they needed

[00:24:17] me were usually Friday and Saturday nights. One evening I was babysitting for Kathy, and I got the boys to bed so all was well on the home front. I settled down in one of their comfy chairs with a

[00:24:30] book because it was only about 10 pm, and I still had several hours to go before I expected Kathy to return home. As a reminder, there were no cell phones or internet at this time. How did we ever

[00:24:44] survive? I fell asleep while I was reading, and I woke up at around 4 am, but there was no Kathy. I still wasn't really worried at this time because this was only slightly later than usual.

[00:24:57] I figured sometimes things happen. So I continued to wait. Then 5 am rolled around. Then 6. Now 7. Still no Kathy. It was then that I began to panic since her kids, who I put to bed last night,

[00:25:14] would be waking up any minute fully expecting to see their mother, only to be greeted by me, and I knew this would worry them. Finally, at about 7.15 there was a call. I was expecting it

[00:25:27] to be Kathy calling to tell me that her car broke down, she couldn't get to a phone, or something, but it was the fireman. He was honestly surprised to hear me pick up the phone,

[00:25:39] and he asked to speak with Kathy. I was kind of embarrassed to tell him that she hadn't arrived home from the night before. I told him that she has never been this late before, and I let him

[00:25:50] know that I was really worried. I guess he clocked that as an emergency since he said that he would be home soon. The fireman finally arrived home a little after 8 am. The kids were still not up.

[00:26:04] He said he wasn't prepared to pay me, and asked if he could call me later to come and get my payment from him. I agreed because I didn't want to be there if Kathy returned and be in the middle

[00:26:15] of what would for sure be an argument. Plus, I was exhausted and I just wanted to be in my own bed. I can't remember if this happened later that same day or the next day, but the fireman called me and

[00:26:30] said that he had my money. He asked me to come over so that he could pay me. As I was walking over, I remember thinking that I better be getting paid for the almost 15 hours I stayed with those kids,

[00:26:44] which I did. When I got to their place, the kids weren't there. The fireman told me that Kathy went out after the show with her ex who was the father of their kids. He didn't elaborate on the subject,

[00:26:59] so it was a bit awkward. He had a bunch of photography equipment out and a bunch of wildlife and scenic photos scattered on their dining room table. The photos were very good to my untrained

[00:27:12] eye, and I asked him what kind of camera he used and what the speed and aperture settings were. He moved some of the photos and a camera over to the coffee table so that he could show me some of

[00:27:23] the shots that he liked the best. I thought I did great with changing the awkward subject. I am by no means a naive girl since my own parents were divorced, but I did not get any red flags from

[00:27:37] the setting or the placement of the photos. This interaction just felt like one photography hobbyist talking to another. Until it didn't. I had some photos in my hand when he gently

[00:27:51] pulled them away from me. I looked at him and he tried to kiss me. I stood up quickly and said I had to go. He followed me to the door and handed me the money that he and Kathy owed me for

[00:28:04] babysitting, then I left. I never told anybody about this because at the time there was no Me Too movement, and girls, even younger girls, simply had to put up with unsavory situations like this all the time. I never saw Kathy or the fireman ever again after that encounter.

[00:28:23] I never heard from them again. So, to the fireman who attempted to kiss an underage girl who babysat, his girlfriend's kids, let's not meet again. I've been listening to this podcast

[00:28:51] religiously at work for the past few weeks and it's made me think of a lot of uncomfortable and downright scary experiences that I've had with strangers. So, I decided to write about an

[00:29:02] experience that I had at the ripe age of 17. This took place in 2017 at a place called White Rock Beach, about an hour away from Vancouver. This beach is very popular, especially amongst tourists,

[00:29:18] as it is the longest pier in all of Canada. My best friend and I used to go to this beach every day after school during our grad year to smoke weed, listen to music, and take naps on a

[00:29:30] huge rock that we claimed as our own. On the main strip of the beach, it's generally pretty safe and I haven't had to deal with too many experiences there, but this took place further down the beach.

[00:29:43] Partying on the main beach was doable, but as rowdy 17 year olds, we liked to go way far down on the beach, well past the paths and groups of people. Since we were so far down, there was only

[00:29:57] one way out of there that we knew of, which was back the way we came. Going out as far as we were wasn't by any means unheard of, but it was uncommon for most people which, to be honest,

[00:30:09] made it slightly unsafe. Being that far out, we had scary experiences once in a while, but the lack of regulation by patrol officers made it possible to have bonfires, do a little underage drinking, and enjoy smoking pre-legalized weed. What I'm saying is, at the time, it was worth

[00:30:29] the risk. So on a nice day after school, my friend, her boyfriend, and I didn't think twice about going to our spot far down the beach to have a little fire and picnic. We reached a decent spot

[00:30:44] after walking for a while, so we stopped and put our stuff down. This spot had a couple of logs facing each other to sit on. One of the logs had its back to a slightly wooded area with a large

[00:30:57] amount of bushes and trees. Across from this, and to the back of the other log, was the ocean. I chose to sit on the log facing the water with its back to the trees and shrubbery.

[00:31:09] After hanging out for a while and getting high, we decided to get some pizza. The only thing is that to retrieve this pizza, we'd have to walk all the way back down the beach from where we came

[00:31:21] and then walk about 10 minutes to the fresh slice that was on the opposite side of the boardwalk. To have some time alone, my friend and her boyfriend went to go get it.

[00:31:32] I don't know why I stayed alone or why I didn't insist that we stick together since the sun was setting. Choosing to be alone this far out where we had already experienced some bad situations

[00:31:44] was a bad idea. Nevertheless, I let them go and accepted that I would be chilling there alone for at least half an hour. We had a speaker playing music so I turned on some chief keef to make

[00:31:57] myself feel less anxious about being alone as it got darker and darker. I was still sitting against the log and enjoying the smoke when I looked up and saw something that made my stomach drop.

[00:32:12] There was now another person on the beach, only about 10 to 15 feet away from me. They were just a few steps away from the bushes on my left. I sat still for a minute. I really

[00:32:23] couldn't make out any of this person's features due to the lighting, but they were just standing there. If they had come from the main beach, I would have heard or seen them coming as they

[00:32:34] would have to pass right in front of me to get to where they were standing at that moment. This person had to have come from the bushes. Feeling a sense of anxiety and dread,

[00:32:46] I decided to do the only thing I could think of. I was going to scare them away with a noise as if they were a bear. I put my hood on and blasted chief keef as loud as I could and I tried to make

[00:32:59] it look like I was some rowdy, unpredictable teenage boy who this person wouldn't want to mess with. To my benefit, I'm a 6'2 woman and half of my clothes look like men's clothes. I thought that

[00:33:13] this would help, but thinking back now I'm sure this person already saw me without my hood, so I'm sure that they knew I was putting on an act. Either way, this was all that I could think

[00:33:23] of to do at the moment. I continued blasting the most aggressive songs that I could think of while nodding my head along to the music, trying to make myself appear tough. I guess at some point,

[00:33:35] it kind of worked. For a while, at least. Since the next time I looked up, the person was gone. I felt a wave of relief wash over me as I continued to blow up my friend's phone,

[00:33:46] asking her when she and her boyfriend were going to be back. I told her I was scared. Eventually they returned and the uncomfortable situation was all but forgotten about. We ate our pizza, smoked some more, goofed around, and it ended up seeming like it was

[00:34:02] going to be a great night. That quickly changed after an hour or so though. By this point, there wasn't much light out, if any at all. I was higher than a kite, slumped against the log, when my friend and her boyfriend quickly started gathering our stuff.

[00:34:19] We should go, they quietly suggested with urgency. I brushed it off a bit and told them that we should stay a little while longer. My friend looked at me and quietly but sternly said,

[00:34:31] we need to leave. Her tone concerned me, as we usually kept things light, so I listened to her and her boyfriend, and I got up assuming that something wasn't right. We walked back to the

[00:34:45] main beach and they quickened their pace. I finally asked, so what's up? Why did we have to leave? They responded, there was somebody in the bushes, right behind you. They clearly had a

[00:34:58] knife. I was confused, which was most likely due to the inebriation, so I asked them to explain what happened again. They repeated themselves, telling me that there was someone in the bushes

[00:35:10] behind me with a knife, watching us. My back was to the bushes, so I saw none of this. The thought of this sent chills down my spine. Was it the same person who appeared near me on the beach when I

[00:35:24] was alone earlier? Why did they have a knife? The person didn't say anything or do anything to me earlier when I was trying my best to seem intimidating. They didn't even acknowledge me.

[00:35:35] Thinking back to that time, after many years, I want to scold my younger self for being so reckless. I knew that the area we liked to hang around wasn't the safest, but at the time, the freedom

[00:35:48] outweighed the fear of potential danger. I felt invincible at the time. I haven't been that far down the beach in years since my last experience when somebody ran towards a bonfire party with an

[00:36:00] axe and we had to run. So, as a lesson, especially to any teenage rebels listening right now, be safe, be aware of your surroundings, and for the love of god, bring pepper spray or something

[00:36:12] to protect you if you decide to prioritize fun and freedom over safety by going somewhere that you shouldn't. My friends saw this person, so I got lucky. I genuinely wouldn't have known that

[00:36:25] there was somebody there with a knife behind me until it was too late if it weren't for them. So, to the creeper in the bushes that was armed with a knife, let's never meet. I'm a 21 year old

[00:36:45] female living in India. I live with my parents and sister, and I have a pug. I have listened to this podcast and never thought that I would have a story to share. This incident took place recently.

[00:36:58] My mom, my sister, and I had gone to the railway station to drop off my dad. There weren't any parking spots available in the railway station, so we parked our car on an adjacent road that

[00:37:11] ran parallel to the station. I also brought my pug with me, so I decided to stay in the car with my dog as I wasn't sure if dogs were allowed inside of the station. After everyone else left,

[00:37:23] I locked the car doors, connected my bluetooth, and started jamming to some music. Around 15 minutes had passed when I received a call from my mother saying that they had found seating inside the

[00:37:33] station and were waiting for my dad's train to leave. The train wasn't scheduled to embark for another half hour. My sister told me that she would come to the car so that I could go into the

[00:37:43] train station to see my dad off. As I continued sitting in the car waiting for my sister, I heard a knock at the window next to me. I was sitting in the passenger seat. I looked up,

[00:37:55] and it was a woman. I instantly got a weird feeling from her. She asked if I had some spare change, but I politely declined because I didn't want to lower my window. She kept persisting and knocking

[00:38:07] on the window while I kept refusing. I wasn't even lying. I truly didn't have any spare change. The dog was sitting on my lap the whole time. She is a friendly dog and has never displayed any

[00:38:20] aggressive behavior. My dog must have picked up on something since she started scratching at the window and growling at this woman. Thankfully, my sister arrived and asked me to open up the driver's side door. I hesitated for a second because I knew that if I opened the driver's

[00:38:35] side door, all of the doors would have unlocked automatically. My intuition told me not to open the door, but I did it anyway so my sister could get into the car. In the next fraction of a second,

[00:38:48] I saw the lady giving me this creepy smile as she opened my door. I freaked out and pulled the car door closed. I was shouting at her to let go of the door, but she was holding onto it so

[00:38:59] strongly while trying to open it. My sister saw what was happening and jumped out of the car to confront the woman. She finally let go of the car door, laughed, and asked why I was getting scared

[00:39:10] for no reason. She said all she wanted was money. Then my sister went to the back seat and opened her purse to give the woman some change. The woman then asked to see my sister's purse so that she could

[00:39:22] bless it. My sister refused, but the woman pulled out a coin from her blouse and demanded for my sister to open her purse. My sister slowly opened her purse, exposing an area where she didn't have

[00:39:34] any money stored. The woman grabbed my sister's purse and asked her to be shown where the money was. My sister asked her to just bless the purse and leave. The woman refused and asked her to show

[00:39:46] her where that money was. My sister yanked the purse away from the woman and sternly asked her to leave. The woman then cursed at us and left. We both immediately locked the doors and sat in

[00:39:57] the car in silence, processing what had just happened. We made sure that she left and was out of view before we went into the railway station to meet with my dad and mom. When I saw them, I

[00:40:09] informed them of what happened. They were shocked, but they were proud of me and my sister for handling the situation without escalating it. So, to my sister who's always there to protect me, thank

[00:40:19] you, and to the lady with evil intentions who claimed to open my car door for money, let's not meet. Last year, I submitted a story about how I unknowingly befriended my stalker and ended up

[00:40:49] in a hotel room face to face with him. It was a story titled, My Stalker Pretended to Be a Friend from Season 8, Episode 24 of Let's Not Meet. But for a quick recap, I once had a high follower

[00:41:02] count on social media and that led me to acquire a stalker. He secretly weaved his way into my friend's circle and used my vulnerability to get close to me as my best friend. We planned a trip

[00:41:15] together, and he finally snapped and revealed himself to be the person that was sending me and my partner creepy text messages signed with the pig face emoji. The events I'm going to describe

[00:41:26] have taken place over the last few weeks and months. A few months ago, I became friends with a guy on Twitter who called himself Reggie. We would talk about anime, video games, and various

[00:41:38] old black and white movies. He invited me to join a chat group that he called The Birds in the Rear Window, an obvious reference to the Hitchcock movies of the same title. I was intrigued since

[00:41:51] I don't ordinarily find folks around my age that are interested in older films, but due to the trauma I experienced with my stalker and the old group chats that he used to put me in, I declined

[00:42:04] and Reggie accepted that. In April, Reggie asked me if we could video chat. I agreed, something about receiving a text message from him during my work hours. It just seemed urgent. So I told

[00:42:17] my co-worker I was going to take a 15. I stepped outside of the front gates of the hospital where I work and told Reggie he could call. I answered, and he had a very confused look on his face,

[00:42:28] like he was deep in thought and trying to connect a bunch of different things at once. Hey Reggie, what's wrong? I asked. Someone in the group chat said that they knew you when I told them

[00:42:41] I was going to invite you into the chat. He said some things that have me questioning if I really know you. Reggie explained. What kind of things is this person saying? I inquired. He said that you like collecting people's numbers and sending them harassing text messages. Reggie replied.

[00:43:00] When Reggie said that, my heart sank into the pits of my stomach. Was it Laz? Reg, what is this person's name and do you have a picture of them? I asked. I think I have a pic.

[00:43:14] We call him Javi. His name is Javier, he said. I waited for Reggie to send the picture and breathed a sigh of relief. The guy in the picture was not Laz. In fact, I had never seen this Javi guy before

[00:43:28] in my life. I decided to tell Reggie the entire story about Laz after work. He seemed genuinely shocked by everything that I told him, and I even shared a few screenshots with him. Wow, this guy really sounds like a whack job. Reggie empathized. Yeah, he really was. He

[00:43:45] practically ruined the following that I had. All I ever wanted to do was help other people through their depression and make them laugh. I said. Have you received any pig emoji messages since

[00:43:55] you saw him in person? Reggie asked. Honestly, I got them for quite some time after, but I changed my number and he disappeared. I explained. A few weeks later, I was checking the mail with

[00:44:08] my partner. We were standing in front of the apartment's complex mailbox area while I sifted through the piles of junk mail. A letter fell out of my hand, and when I reached down to pick it up,

[00:44:19] I froze for a moment. My partner ended up picking it up, and we both looked at each other. A sticker was attached to the letter with my name written in red ink beneath it. The envelope had

[00:44:30] no postage or sender. How did it end up in my mailbox? The mail carrier and I should be the only ones with the access key. You don't have to open it, my partner assured me. After what

[00:44:44] seemed like an eternity of staring at the smirking pig face glued to the front of the envelope, I ripped it open and pulled out a poorly handwritten letter. I hope you have been in good

[00:44:56] health. I'm happy to see that you are slowly building up your social media following again after our little lover's quarrel. I hear you and your placeholder boyfriend are getting married in the springtime. How precious! I hope you remember that I own you. I own your body, your

[00:45:13] heart, and your soul. I will be expecting an invitation to your little after-wedding event. I hope you will save me a dance and a slice of cake, and I sure hope that it's red velvet. Red

[00:45:26] has become my favorite color. He signed it with yours truly along with a tiny sticker of a pig face. My eyes filled with tears and my partner wrapped his arms around me. I hadn't felt this

[00:45:40] fear since 2019 when he confronted me in the hotel room and I locked myself in the bathroom waiting for the police to arrive. How did he get our address? I cried on my partner's shoulder.

[00:45:53] We have to go to the police. This counts as a threat, he said to me. My partner grabbed the letter from me and flipped it over. There was something glued to it. It was hair, and it

[00:46:04] definitely looked human. The next morning we went to the local police station and they took the letter as evidence and I filed a report where I mentioned everything that happened. I felt both a sense of

[00:46:16] relief and embarrassment. After some time passed, a detective called me into the police station on a Friday. They ran some tests on the letter. They couldn't match the handwriting to anyone that was

[00:46:27] in the system, but they explained that the hairs glued to the back were human pubic hairs. He asked if I was willing to give them a sample of my own and requested that my partner also give a sample.

[00:46:41] I was confused by this, but we both agreed. Tests were conducted over the weekend and on the following Monday, the results of the samples came back. The detective said that he was letting

[00:46:51] me off with a warning for making a false police report. I was in shock since apparently the pubic hairs glued to the letter belonged to me. How was that even possible? On the drive back home,

[00:47:06] I gazed longingly out the window. I was confused, hurt, and afraid of what Laz was capable of. I lay in bed that night trying to figure out how he obtained my pubic hair of all things. Then

[00:47:22] something in my mind suddenly clicked. I was missing several pairs of undergarments after that trip to Atlanta years prior. That creep stole my underwear and he kept my pubic hair for four

[00:47:35] years. The next day, I reached out to Reggie and I told him everything that happened. He asked me if I happened to have Laz's full name and the phone number that he had when we were friends. I told

[00:47:48] him that I had that information on my old iCloud account and he insisted that I give him the information. He began typing on his laptop and a smirk crawled across his face. Everything good, Reggie? I asked. Everything is perfect, he replied. Hey, I'm gonna head out for

[00:48:06] my afternoon jog. I'll get back to you later, okay? A few hours later, I got a Snapchat notification. I received a snap from somebody I wasn't even following who had the username piggod32. I opened

[00:48:20] it and it was a video of someone using a branding iron on a pig. This video was paired with a message that said, Remember, you belong to me, my love. Disturbed and upset, I turned my phone on

[00:48:34] and do not disturb for the rest of the day. The following day, I woke up to several missed calls from Reggie. I called him back and he revealed that after using a certain website, he was able to

[00:48:46] track down Laz's address. Reggie and a group of his friends from a local gym went over to Laz's house and confronted him. It didn't take much for Laz to sing like a bird. Laz revealed that he used

[00:48:58] the same website Reggie used to get my contact information. Then he bribed his friend that worked at the post office to deliver the unaddressed letter without postage. He even admitted that he stole several things from me in Atlanta, claiming that he wanted to have souvenirs to remember his

[00:49:15] time with me. I finally got him with this so Laz confessed everything to the detective that issued me the warning for filing a false report. There's now a court date and a trial scheduled to ensure

[00:49:29] he gets what is coming to him. So Laz, old buddy, old pal, after the approaching events, I hope we never meet again. Don't forget to stick around after the music if you're a patron for your extended

[00:49:55] ad-free version of this week's episode. If you're a patron who listens to the regular podcast or other podcasts on Spotify, you can now listen to all of your Patreon bonus content on Spotify. Simply

[00:50:08] search Let's Not Meet Patreon Content. You'll be able to pull up the unique Patreon-only feed of the podcast and there will be a button where you can link your Patreon with your Spotify to get all

[00:50:19] of the updates immediately on your Spotify app. I know this has been a deterrent for some that would like to support the show and get the bonus content because they want to listen to their podcasts on

[00:50:30] Spotify so this is a great solution. I tried it out myself and it works just fine. If you'd like to join the Patreon and support the show, head over to patreon.com forward slash let's not meet podcast

[00:50:40] to sign up and support the show today. This week you have heard High School Nightmares by Anonymous, A Teenage Stalker by Amanda, The Fireman by Karamist, Armed Creeper in the Bushes by Sophie,

[00:50:51] The Woman at the Train Station by Cookie11, and finally The Pig Returns by Demir. All of the stories you've heard this week were narrated and produced with the permission of their respective authors. Let's Not Meet, a true horror podcast is not associated with Reddit or any other message

[00:51:05] boards online. As always if you have a story to share send it to letsnotmeetstories at gmail.com. Don't forget to check out the new episodes of my other podcasts like Odd Trails, my true paranormal

[00:51:15] podcast. Welcome to Paradise It Sucks and the Old Time Radiocast all at crypticcountypodcasts.com or wherever you get your podcasts. See you all next week. Everyone stay safe.