11x22: Drop Dead Fred

[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.

[00:00:40] This happened years ago when I was a teen girl who loved walking around the city alone after dark. This took place in Eastern Europe, for context, in a city with a tramway system. On this night, I sat in a tram station waiting to catch the last tram home.

[00:00:59] Three trams stopped at this station, two of which went where I was going, which is important for later. It was around 10pm and as I sat there, lost in thought, I barely registered a man quietly

[00:01:14] walking up and standing nearby. I didn't think anything of it, assuming that he was just someone else waiting for the tram. That is until I started to feel weird. The streets were quiet and dark,

[00:01:29] and there was nobody else in sight. It was just me and this guy. I started wondering why he chose to stand so close to me when he had so much space to avoid dealing with other people. I couldn't

[00:01:43] comprehend anyone wanting to socialize this late at night, given that I wasn't very social myself. So I glanced at him, trying not to overthink it. He was a bald-headed, beady-eyed giant.

[00:01:59] He was quite tall, built like a bear. He had this big belly with big arms and big legs. I was 5'2 and scrawny, but that wasn't what scared me. It was the fact that he was staring right at me,

[00:02:15] unblinking and expressionless. Not even attempting to look away or act embarrassed when I caught his gaze. No, this guy wanted me to feel uncomfortable. I instantly felt weak and shaky. I felt cold

[00:02:32] shivers down my spine since I knew this was not normal. I quickly realized that I wasn't in a good situation, but I couldn't miss the last tram as walking home was out of the question and my phone

[00:02:45] was almost dead. I was a shy kid and I knew that I didn't have what it would take to scare this guy away. I was sure of that, but I had to at least try. I managed to utter a small,

[00:03:00] hi, trying my best to startle him and distract him from whatever he was thinking about, but my attempt failed in the face of his silent and threatening aura. He kept staring and displaying

[00:03:14] no signs of intent to reply. He was enjoying it. Feeling the panic rising inside of me, I told myself to stay calm and think rationally. Maybe he didn't hear me. Minutes passed and his stare continued to burn into my skin. There was no tram in sight.

[00:03:35] I mustered up the courage to speak once again, this time louder. What do you want? Stop staring. No answer. And he definitely heard me this time. I felt myself start to get angry, but I didn't want to let this guy get to me anymore. I didn't

[00:03:54] want to continue to give him the satisfaction of watching me squirm nervously and pretend that this behavior just didn't bother me. I took a deep breath and I forced myself to start

[00:04:07] thinking. I knew what I couldn't do. I knew I couldn't fight him off if he made a move and there was nothing that I could do or say that would get him to stop.

[00:04:20] I didn't know what his intentions were, but I knew that they were not good. If I tried to walk away, he'd probably follow me. I could have ran, but he would have most likely caught up to me before

[00:04:33] I tired him out since his legs were much longer than mine. Even if I managed to somehow lose him, walking through the dark alleys past the junkies that were always prowling about had potential to

[00:04:46] land me in an even worse situation. I could pretend to call someone, but he might feel compelled to act much sooner if he felt threatened. So what could I do? The only thing I could realistically

[00:04:59] do was try to outsmart him somehow. So I started developing a few plans, depending upon which tram showed up. If he followed me onto a tram, I didn't want to let him see where I lived. I knew that I'd have to be prepared to deploy whatever strategy available,

[00:05:18] meaning I needed to stay rational and aware of my surroundings. While I was still thinking, the first tram finally showed up. It was one I could have taken home, but this one pulled into the depot right in my neighborhood which would have forced me to lead

[00:05:34] him to my home. I hoped that he would board it and leave me be, but he didn't. He kept watching me carefully. I let that tram go, desperately hoping it wasn't the last one I needed to take

[00:05:48] to head home. He continued staring. I sensed that he was quite happy with how things were going. I put up with another 15 minutes of this, trying to focus on another plan of action.

[00:06:03] I could now pretend that I needed the other tram, the one going to a different area of the city. I figured I could just ride to the next station, so I wouldn't end up too far from where I was

[00:06:15] going or miss the tram I needed to take. This tram was the next to show up. With my heart in my throat, I boarded it and I sat down by the door. He got on too. He sat himself at the back,

[00:06:32] pretty far from where I was. I let out a sigh of relief, thinking that this still might go well. When the tram reached the next station, I got up to get out, not looking back in hopes that it was

[00:06:47] all over. But when I stepped on the pavement and I watched the tram drive away, I no longer saw him in it. I turned my head slowly and was terrified to see him walking towards me,

[00:07:01] looking slightly pissed off. He stopped just a few feet away from where I was standing and resumed staring. This time his leering was paired with a clear hint of malice as we stood

[00:07:15] there in silence. My vision blurred as I fought back tears of despair. He was not going to let me go. The helplessness I felt was unbearable, but I couldn't cry. But I also couldn't give up.

[00:07:31] I had to find a way to get home. At that moment the prospect of what could possibly happen to me was becoming all too real. My head was full of unanswered questions, regrets and horrible

[00:07:45] scenarios. I wanted so badly to not have to think anymore or fight back tears or stay composed, but I knew that allowing myself to react would be his cue to enact whatever messed up plan that he

[00:07:59] had in mind. I couldn't let that happen. Then I saw the final tram approach. It was the last possible one that I could take before the tram service would cut off for the entire night.

[00:08:13] I got on as quickly as my trembling legs would allow me to. When I was in the bright lights of the tram enveloped me. My mind snapped out of this nightmarish spiral of fear and allotted

[00:08:25] me a moment of clarity. I had three stops to figure this out. I sat down at the front and looked at the driver. He was a frail old man, blissfully unaware of my distress, so getting

[00:08:40] his attention was a no-go. We passed one stop where there was no one else waiting to come aboard. I turned around fully expecting to see that this psycho had followed me again, but I did not expect

[00:08:56] to see him sitting right behind me. It seemed like he wasn't taking any chances. He was making sure I wouldn't try anything like last time. I shot him a hateful glare. As I allowed my anger to

[00:09:12] overcome my fear, I stood up and purposefully walked to another seat in the middle of the tram car. I wanted to make it clear I would not be putting up with his BS any longer. He got up as

[00:09:26] well and slowly walked to a spot diagonal from where I was that was two rows behind. He then sat down with the tiniest arrogant grin on his face. I shot up and stood by the middle door instead,

[00:09:40] determined to keep him on his toes. I figured that if I stood right by the door, he wouldn't have any idea which station I planned to get off at. He remained where he was this time. After all,

[00:09:55] this really was the last tram. There was nothing else I could do to possibly escape. My defiance seemed like a funny act to him. This was my last chance to do something. I had to take

[00:10:08] the risk and it had to work. There were three doors on the tram, all three opened and closed at the same time, staying open for about five seconds before closing again if people weren't

[00:10:20] detected on the threshold or if no buttons were pressed. The next stop was the only one left before mine. It came into view as the tram slowed to a stop. The doors opened and I made no move.

[00:10:36] After five long seconds passed, the doors started to close. I bolted for the back door as fast as I could and of course he got up from his seat as well. Before I hopped off the train, I slammed

[00:10:49] the button to reopen the door. My whole body was tense with adrenaline. I waited a long painful second before jumping back in. I kept my head low while I held my breath and crouched behind the

[00:11:02] nearest seat. I shut my eyes tightly and exhaled slowly and thanked the gods that I didn't believe in for making sure that that button on the tram was working as it so often was out of order.

[00:11:17] I wished with all my might for him to have not seen me duck back into the tram. My eyes were still shut as I was waiting to hear footsteps approaching. Did he also get back on the tram

[00:11:30] or was he catching his breath on the pavement at the last station with his mad eyes searching in the darkness for me? As the tram continued its loud journey banging and clanging in sync with

[00:11:43] my heartbeat, I dared to smile to myself imagining him frantically looking for me at the previous station. I was picturing what the expression on his face must have looked like when he realized

[00:11:56] he messed up. With my hand on my chest, I did my best to look around the tram. I found that no one was looking back at me. I stood up in excitement and I threw myself at

[00:12:09] the fogged up window in the back and there he was standing alone and victimless at that slowly fading out of sight station. He was watching me leave him and his vile plans behind. Giving someone

[00:12:25] the middle finger never felt so good. I made it home and I didn't tell anybody the story. I feared that I'd be admonished for my naivety. All that mattered was that I was safe. I was proud

[00:12:38] of myself and I learned my lesson. To that creepy stranger, I hope the events of that night taught you not to underestimate girls and I also hope this somehow prevented you from becoming a criminal

[00:12:52] for the rest of your life. Let's never meet again. This story is something that I think about from time to time and still creeps me out. I decided to write this out to get it off my chest.

[00:13:23] Nearly three years ago, when I was 17 years old, I was accustomed to being in horrible situations. All I had was my mother who couldn't hold down jobs for too long because she had her own issues

[00:13:38] and she was trying to tackle them. So as I was growing up, we moved in and out of a bunch of different roommates' houses. And at times, we didn't have a place to stay at all. We never really had our

[00:13:52] own place to stay. Well, there were two instances where we had a living situation where it was just my mom and I, but neither lasted long. We moved often and it felt like we were always being forced

[00:14:06] into new environments at the snap of a finger. When I was 17, my mom and I were led into a situation where we were going to be homeless again. I was used to it as I had slept in the street

[00:14:20] more than I'd like to admit by this point. The day for us to move out of our roommate's house came. My mom was able to stay at her boyfriend's trailer, but I had nowhere to go as I had no

[00:14:32] friends. I ended my friendships because they were bad for my health and mental state since they were overall very toxic. My mom offered for me to go with her, but I didn't want to as I felt

[00:14:45] like I'd be getting between her and her boyfriend. It would have been kind of weird to go with her. Plus, I was used to the streets and I didn't think that it was as bad as it was at the time.

[00:14:57] So after we moved out, I was dropped off at McDonald's where I ate some burgers before going back out into the streets. Eventually, the sun set and darkness was all that remained,

[00:15:10] so I looked for a place to sleep for the night. I tried to settle into many different spots that night, but none of them were working out for me. Some spaces were too hot, the lights were too

[00:15:22] bright, or there would be too many mosquitoes biting me. That's when I remembered an unoccupied house flat that I used to go to chill at. This house was under construction and nearly finished,

[00:15:38] so there were no mosquitoes there. I walked to the house and entered through the back as I always did. I made my way upstairs and then settled into the bathroom since there was less debris on the floor.

[00:15:51] So I lay there and tried to sleep. I started to hear some sounds coming from downstairs, but I didn't think anything of it at the time. I figured it was the door that I came through,

[00:16:04] swinging open and closed or something like that. I was still awake after lying there for more than an hour, so I opened up my phone and looked at old photos of my life, thinking about how messed

[00:16:18] up it was that I got to this point. I lost everything. The noises were still happening this entire time, but I paid no mind to it. I just couldn't sleep, so I got up and went to

[00:16:32] go outside on the back porch. I went back downstairs and out the back door. I was messing around on my phone for maybe five minutes when it happened. I saw a movement to my left,

[00:16:45] coming from the back door that I had just exited. I glanced over and time itself froze. At first I thought that it was an illusion, but it wasn't. I saw a man, shrouded in darkness,

[00:17:00] peering past the wall inside. He was gazing at me. The lower half of his figure was behind the wall entirely, so I couldn't see anything except for his upper body. The rest was leaning to the left.

[00:17:17] He was peeking at me from behind this wall, almost like he was trying to not let me see his full body, as it would make his presence known. The man was a pure black silhouette and I couldn't make out any features. After noticing him,

[00:17:34] I just sat there and stared at him for what seemed like forever, but it was probably just a minute or two. I expected him to come outside and talk to me because I normally talked

[00:17:47] to a lot of other homeless people. I assumed that this man was homeless as well. He didn't come outside though. He had not moved at all actually. He was as still as a statue,

[00:18:01] as quiet as a mouse. After a few minutes of staring at him, I got up, I got my bicycle, and I tried to make my way off the property. As I was walking out of the backyard, I peered

[00:18:14] through the window that was next to the door that I saw the man in. The moonlight revealed the man. He was still there, only now he was watching me walk away from the property, from the window.

[00:18:27] I could tell because the moonlight glimmered, displaying the top of this man's head. I saw his left eye leering at me in the moonlight. I could tell that he was very tall and had a

[00:18:40] jacket of some sort. I couldn't make out any other details because he was still otherwise cloaked in darkness. After getting a glimpse of him, I moved a little faster to get out of there.

[00:18:53] I got to the front of the house and on the street. Then I looked inside to see if I could see him again. I could not, but I waved goodbye to the house because I figured the man was still

[00:19:06] watching me. I got on my bicycle and pedaled away. For the rest of the night, I couldn't sleep. I tried two different spots but had no luck. This is where the story ends. I know I didn't

[00:19:20] have a crazy chase or a fight to the death or anything like that, but this was real life. I don't know what that man was doing there. I assume he was trying to sleep just like I was,

[00:19:33] but the way that he was staring at me was so unnerving. It makes me wonder how long he was in that house. I also wonder what would have happened if I actually fell asleep.

[00:19:46] Would he have just stared at me while I was asleep? Or did he have other intentions? I'll never really know, but now I don't go into unoccupied houses like that anymore, not after this experience. So to the man shrouded in darkness, let's not meet again.

[00:20:15] Nearly five years ago, I went to work at a warehouse in a small town that I'm from. I decided to leave this job after my physical health worsened. I was diagnosed with panic disorder and severe anxiety after experiencing a situation that I'm going to tell you about.

[00:20:37] This changed the way that I developed friendships on the job, that is for certain. I started this job on April Fool's Day in 2018. I didn't have any high expectations of the job.

[00:20:52] All I wanted was to do my job, to get paid, and to go home as I had two children there. The job wasn't hard, and it made pretty good money considering the duties that I had,

[00:21:04] so I really didn't complain. I worked second shift for about five months before moving to the day shift. While working on second shift, I kept to myself mostly, until one day. I met

[00:21:18] someone from one of the lines after we struck up a conversation about gaming. For the sake of anonymity, we'll call him Jeff. Jeff was a pretty good guy, and we had a lot of things in common.

[00:21:33] I went home that night, and he popped up as a friend suggestion on Facebook. This struck me as slightly odd since we had just started talking, but I decided to add him. I was a little nervous

[00:21:48] after adding him, we started talking more at work. We talked so much that he suggested that we should hang out outside of work, and we did, pretty frequently. We had been friends for about a

[00:22:02] month when he decided that he was going to introduce me to his partner. She seemed decent at first, she was really nice, and didn't seem to be a judgmental type, so I was cool with her.

[00:22:15] From then on, I would hang out with him when my kids were spending time with my mother. Shortly after I had met Jeff's partner, we went to a restaurant. We were talking,

[00:22:28] and he started to vent to me. Dude, she is so awful to me sometimes. The other day, I forgot to take the trash out, and she threatened to stab me if I didn't. I've never been in a

[00:22:40] relationship with someone who threatens me, but she's got good intentions. When he said that to me, I was concerned, but of course, we had only been friends for about a month. I thought that

[00:22:55] maybe he was joking or exaggerating, so I chuckled at him. But he gave me this stern look and said, I'm not joking, she really threatened me. After that, things seemed to cool down a bit.

[00:23:11] About 8 months after we had that conversation, they were still together, and we hung out pretty regularly. I started to forget the things that he told me at the restaurant until he seemed

[00:23:23] a little off one day. We were hanging out with his partner, and I asked him what was wrong in front of her. He flashed me a smirk and said, nothing dude, I'm just a little tired.

[00:23:37] He wasn't looking at me as he responded though, he was looking at her after I asked that. When we went to work the next day, I asked him again, dude, what's wrong? He replied, do you promise to keep this between us? Of course, I agreed.

[00:23:55] Then he told me, he was breaking up with her, she went a little crazy. He said that she grabbed a gun, pointed it at him and said, if I can't have you, no one will. He said that he defused this

[00:24:08] situation and was trying to look for a way out. Not really knowing what to say, I just said, you'll figure it out man, if you need somewhere to go, you can come and stay with me until you

[00:24:20] get her out of the house. Now fast forward another year, he's decided to leave her. When he did, she flipped out again, but this time when he told her that he was leaving her,

[00:24:34] he told her through text. She replied saying she was going to find and kill him. He had taken a vacation day so he wasn't even at work. He gave me the heads up and texted, hey, let me know if she comes into work looking for me.

[00:24:52] It was very strange to me as I had no idea of the situation that was unfolding. She did actually come into our job, I was outside when she pulled up in her car and asked me where

[00:25:05] he was. I said, I have no idea, I thought that he was with you since he took the day off, I assumed you guys went out of town or something. All she did was roll up her window and drive off.

[00:25:18] I called him and told him that she had come by, and he called the police who found her up the road with a loaded gun in the car. Two months after that, he decided to talk to her again and after he did,

[00:25:33] he had something to tell me. He called me and asked me if I had seen her around and I said that I had not. He then said, I would take some vacation days if I were you.

[00:25:44] Dumbfounded, I asked him, why? He said, because she's out of jail and her cousins are in town trying to track down the people she has personal vendettas with. Apparently you're one of them.

[00:25:59] At that point I was terrified. I grabbed my kids and got out of town. I took two weeks off of work. Then, come to find out, the day after Jeff and I had that conversation,

[00:26:13] his unhinged partner and her cousins went to the next town over. They shot three people in an apartment and killed them. I got the news about it the day after it happened. The reason why he

[00:26:27] knew that they were coming after me was because they made a group chat on Facebook Messenger that he was included in. In this group chat, they talked about their plans and sent a list of names.

[00:26:40] Everyone assumed it was spam and decided to disregard the message until they realized that three of the names on that list were the names of the three people that they shot. My name was also on that list. After this happened, Jeff decided to go public about the group

[00:27:00] and they were all charged with three counts of first-degree murder. From then on, I've been very careful about who I stick my neck out for and who I become friends with while at work.

[00:27:15] Jeff and I aren't friends anymore and I feel like I've dodged a bullet, literally. Everyone, stay safe. I lived in the rural Midwest about 10 years ago. I lived in a house right off of the highway.

[00:27:39] My house was situated right at my town's edge so my house bordered the next town over. I was almost right on the county line. My house had a big circular driveway. If you pulled into the driveway

[00:27:52] and drove straight, you would be going towards the barn. If you followed the curve to the right, you could pull into the garage. If you continued past that garage, the rest of the circle would

[00:28:04] direct you back to the front of the house so you could pull back onto the road where you started. My house had two large double doors in the front which were rarely used. The door that was inside

[00:28:16] of the garage was the main point of entry for me and my family. One night, when it was very late, the doorbell rang. My husband, my three-year-old daughter, and I were all asleep. It woke me up

[00:28:31] and at first I thought that maybe I was dreaming, but then it rang again. I woke my husband up and he told me that I was probably just hearing things, but then it rang again. It was very dark out,

[00:28:44] but we have a dusk to dawn light outside so most of the driveway was pretty illuminated. Unfortunately, there weren't windows or anything to help us see outside of our front door.

[00:28:56] The only option was to open the door and look out. As I said, our front door is a double door and since there were latches on the top and bottom, we had the ability to open just one at a time.

[00:29:11] My husband got up and I followed him. He decided he was just going to go for it and open the door. My instinct was to call the cops because we lived all the way out on the county line

[00:29:23] so I knew that it would be a while before they got there. He opened the door to a girl who was maybe in her early 20s. She seemed normal with the exception of standing at our door in the middle of

[00:29:36] the night. I looked right past her out at the road and the driveway. I noticed that her car was pulled into the driveway just barely off of the road. She didn't continue up the driveway to the house or go

[00:29:49] around the circle or anything. She said that she needed to use the phone. She said, my car battery died or something. She wasn't sure but she said that she couldn't get her car started again. I whispered to my husband, no way, this is how horror movies start.

[00:30:11] We offered to call the cops which would be the county sheriff but she continued to ask over and again to come in. But I was not letting her in. We didn't budge and we told her that we were going

[00:30:23] to call the police. She kind of stomped off after that. We watched her walk back to the car which was maybe about 50 feet away. I could see her car and I could see her so I called the cops and they

[00:30:40] said that they would be there as soon as they could. About 15 minutes passed and the cops hadn't arrived yet so I guess they didn't seem very concerned about the situation. They probably figured it was just some girl. I then assumed she probably did indeed have a dead battery

[00:30:57] since she hadn't left yet. As I watched her, she opened the trunk of her car. Some cars' interior lights will come on if the trunk is open but the lights inside the car didn't come on.

[00:31:11] She rummaged around in the trunk. Then the driver's side door opened and a man stepped out. Then the rear passenger door opened and another man stepped out. The three of them all rummaged

[00:31:25] around in the trunk. I couldn't hear them talking. I couldn't hear anything so I couldn't tell what they were doing. And then they all got back into the car. At this point I was silently praying for

[00:31:40] the sheriff to put his foot on the gas and get out here as quickly as possible but I knew it would be another 10 minutes or so. I watched as they just sat there in the car with the lights off.

[00:31:53] They were sitting very still. I didn't see them move at all but I knew they were there. And then I saw somebody walking towards their car from the right. This person was coming from the

[00:32:06] direction of our barn. Once my eyes focused in the dark, I saw that it was another man. I had no idea who this man was. Our closest neighbor was at least a mile away and this man

[00:32:20] was walking out to the car from the back of our property which ends in a creek. He stepped into the driveway right under the dusk to dawn light and walked straight to their car. He didn't look

[00:32:34] at our house at all. He just made a beeline for the car and hopped into the back seat. Then they started the car and they slowly backed out of the driveway. No dead battery at all.

[00:32:48] The cops arrived 10 minutes later. I was freaking out. They searched around but they didn't find anything. They asked us if we got a license plate but they were parked too far away.

[00:32:59] We couldn't see it. One of the cops concluded by telling us to call them back if the car returned. Sure buddy, thanks. They left and my husband made sure to get his shotgun before we tried

[00:33:12] to go back to sleep and thankfully they never came back. I don't know who those people were and I have no idea what they wanted but to the girl at my door, those two guys and the third guy

[00:33:26] who emerged from my property to leave in a car with a quote-unquote dead battery that miraculously came back to life. Let's never meet again. This story happened when I was 14. I'm a female and I live with my mother, sister, and Maine Coon cat. After moving into our house

[00:34:02] and getting to know our neighbors, my mom and sister went on vacation for five days. I was staying with my friend who I'll call Kate. Our neighbor across the street, a man named Fred

[00:34:14] in his 60s, was given a spare key so that he could feed and check in on our Maine Coon. The night before my mom and sister were going to fly back, Kate had to start packing since she was

[00:34:26] going on vacation with her family so I went back to my place. At around 1 in the morning, I was in the bathroom that connected to my bedroom on the second floor of the house.

[00:34:37] I was scrolling on my phone when I heard the door to my room creak open and then shut close. My cat has a high-pitched meow and rarely ever meowed at the door opening but she started

[00:34:52] freaking out. I peeked around the corner, clutching the first thing that I could find as a weapon which was a pair of scissors. I'm very jumpy, resulting in me always being ready

[00:35:04] to kill someone if necessary for the safety of myself and my cat. When I peeked around the corner, I saw my neighbor Fred. He opened my hamper containing my clothes that needed to be

[00:35:17] washed and started smelling them. I wanted to scream but I stayed quiet since he left my room and my house fairly quickly after that. After he left, I was lying on my bed thinking maybe

[00:35:33] he was confused but I was freaking out, still clutching the pair of scissors that I had been holding with my cat on my lap. As I was lying in bed, my mom called me and told me that their

[00:35:47] flight home had a major delay so she and my sister would be extending their trip for an additional day or two. I told her about Fred coming into my room, smelling my clothes but she brushed

[00:36:01] it off saying that he's old and probably confused. She also advised to lock the door. I fell asleep at some point but I woke up at five in the morning and decided to get up and get something to eat

[00:36:15] then grab the mail. As I said before, Fred's house was directly across the street from ours. He had a big front window which always had a clear view of his living room. I happened to glance

[00:36:28] over and what did I see? Fred watching me through binoculars. I was even more freaked out so I rushed back into the house and into my room. Finally, about a day and a half later, my mom

[00:36:44] and sister returned home. We went over to Fred's to get our spare key back which he willingly returned. My mom mentioned that she's glad that we could trust him to come over and just check on the

[00:36:57] cat and she said that in a very passive aggressive tone but it went over his head. He didn't seem to get it. I laughed awkwardly and then we went back home. Even though my mom and sister had just gotten

[00:37:12] home, they needed to leave again since my mom needed to take my sister back to her dad's house that night so I was left at home alone with the cat once again. I felt slightly reassured that

[00:37:26] I wouldn't have any issues with Fred since we had gotten our spare key back but you know what I heard later in the evening? The front door unlocking. I was on the couch so I quickly rolled off of it

[00:37:40] and I scrambled to hide myself. I watched Fred's feet as he walked into the house. Maybe I should have stayed where I was but something came over me as I was very angry about

[00:37:52] what happened. I came out of hiding, yelled at him to get out and took the copy of the key that he had apparently made. I was thoroughly creeped out so I told my mom what happened then we stopped

[00:38:06] talking to him altogether. About a year passed without anything major happening until one day when I was at home alone again. I had just turned 15 and I moved into a different room in my house

[00:38:19] that was downstairs. I was on my bed painting my nails and facetiming with my boyfriend at the time when I heard somebody breathing outside of my open window behind me. I shrieked when I turned around

[00:38:33] and saw my neighbor, Fred, standing there holding a knife. I slammed the window shut, crawled under my bed and I cried on the phone to my boyfriend until my mom got home. Ever since that happened I've been receiving random notes and items addressed specifically

[00:38:51] to me in the mailbox. These pieces of mail never have any return information on them but I think it's pretty fair to assume where they're coming from. It's all very bizarre because

[00:39:04] Fred never talks to me, he just comes outside and silently watches whenever he sees that I am out there. I'm almost 17 now and I still live in this house and Fred still lives across the street to

[00:39:19] this day. In case you're wondering about my Maine Coon, the cat has moved to my grandma's. He's 20 years old now and still doesn't like dudes. I'm a 36 year old female and I wish that this wasn't

[00:39:46] real. Let me start by saying that it's crazy how children are so trusting. When I was 7 years old, my parents and I were living in a basement level apartment in the Bronx. The way that

[00:40:00] the apartment was set up had my mother and father's room at one end of a short hall, the bathroom in the middle, and my room at the other end. One thing you should know about

[00:40:12] the basement level apartment is that it doesn't take much effort to enter through the window. One very early morning, possibly at around 7 or 8, I was woken up by an intense and sharp pain.

[00:40:28] On my right backside, I got up thinking that our cat had gotten into my room and had bit me as she used to nip hard and attack at whatever and whenever she felt like it. I jumped up looking

[00:40:42] for my cat, only to see a grown man sitting on my bed. I remember being upset and asking him why he pinched me. He hushed me and said something about being thirsty. I then asked him if he wanted juice

[00:40:59] or water. I wasn't scared at all, more surprised and mad that this man had pinched me so hard. He said that he wanted juice, so I left my room and closed my door, leaving him in there,

[00:41:12] still sitting on my bed. I walked into the kitchen and got him some juice. As I was bringing the cup back to my room, I looked at my parents' door and thought that I should wake them up, but I can't

[00:41:24] remember why I decided against it. I ended up going back into my room and giving the man a cup of juice. He drank it. He told me that he was lost and asked me if I could help him find his friend.

[00:41:38] My parents and I had just moved into this apartment two weeks earlier. My dad had told me that I wasn't allowed to go outside with him or my mother as they were worried about this being

[00:41:49] a new, unfamiliar neighborhood for all of us. I remember being scared to go outside because I didn't want my parents to be upset with me, so I told him I had to wake my parents up to ask.

[00:42:02] The man said that it would be real quick because he knew his friend was somewhere in the area and we could find him quickly. I, once again, said no and I told him I wasn't allowed to go

[00:42:15] outside without my parents, so he said that he didn't need help anymore and that he would find his friend himself. He asked me to lock the door behind him, so I walked him out, waved him goodbye,

[00:42:29] then locked the door. I tried to go back to sleep but it was too late. I was wide awake. I started watching cartoons, but the volume happened to be louder than I expected and my mother woke up. She asked me very angrily why I was awake so early.

[00:42:48] I told her all about the man who had pinched me. At first, she didn't believe me and she thought that I just had a bad dream, but then she lifted my nightgown and saw what must have been a bruise

[00:43:02] from the pinch. I will never forget how quickly she calmed down. She smiled warmly at me and sweetened up her tone as she asked what happened, what he looked like, and what he was wearing.

[00:43:16] I answered her questions and then she left the room for a moment before coming back with my dad. My mom then told me to tell my dad everything. I didn't understand the situation but I also

[00:43:28] didn't think that I was in trouble or anything. I honestly thought that I had made a new friend. After telling them about my new friend, they got dressed and I went with them as they started

[00:43:39] searching the building. It didn't take us long to find him since he happened to be related to the building's superintendent. When I saw him, I immediately shouted, Hey friend! And my parents told me to go back inside the apartment.

[00:43:56] Maybe an hour or so later, my parents returned with McDonald's for me but they seemed so angry. Before the end of the day, my father put a padlock on my door and told me that when I go to sleep,

[00:44:11] I must always lock my door as our kitchen windows did not lock. That's how he got in. Years later, when I was 15, I found out that the guy was mentally ill and he had been sent away from

[00:44:25] the Dominican Republic by his family so he wouldn't get arrested for something that he did out there with another girl. It still surprised me that I wasn't scared of the situation. If you or anyone you know lives in a basement or ground level apartment or a flat, please

[00:44:44] triple check that all the window locks work and keep your windows locked up. This happened when I was around 12 years old. My family and I lived in a small but cozy apartment. We knew some of our neighbors in the building and thought that they were great people.

[00:45:15] We got along well with some of them and would sometimes even invite them to our place. At the time, I used to sleep in my brother's bedroom. I felt safe in his presence. I felt like nothing bad could happen to me if he was there with me.

[00:45:32] The only thing that I can say that was bad about this apartment was that our bedroom was directly across from the bedroom of our neighbors. Their bedroom was lofted so it was a little higher than ours. If we wanted to look through

[00:45:47] their window to see their room, we needed to climb a chair or something. But from their angle, they could see almost our entire bedroom with no effort. Despite this being a bit of a freaky

[00:46:00] layout, I didn't think too much about it. After all, like I said, I had my brother sleeping in the same room and felt like nothing could go wrong. How innocent I really was. Well,

[00:46:14] one evening after a long day, I had barely finished my dinner and decided that I would go to sleep early. I went into our bedroom alone so my brother wasn't in the room.

[00:46:27] Everything seemed fine until I woke up and saw something that still gives me chills to this day. I saw the silhouette of a person right next to my bedroom window. While I couldn't see this

[00:46:40] person's face at all, I knew that they were staring at me. I remember screaming as loud as I could and running desperately into the living room where my mom was watching TV. I explained what happened to her, but she didn't seem bothered. She just said, She just said,

[00:47:00] and continued watching TV like nothing happened. Things calmed down for a bit after that, so I was feeling a bit better. But I decided to start keeping the curtains closed at all times, just in case. But then, one day, I woke up in the middle

[00:47:20] of the night, and for some reason I really wanted to open the curtains. And when I did, the silhouette I had seen before was there again. I could tell that it was a woman.

[00:47:33] She was just standing there outside of my window, staring at me once again. I couldn't see her face at all since she was shrouded in darkness. She was just this dark black figure.

[00:47:48] I don't know how many times this woman stood outside my window staring, but in the following days, I would wake up a couple of times every night. Even though the curtains were always closed,

[00:48:00] I would have this feeling that she was just there on the other side, trying to peer in and watch me sleep. A few days later, I decided to tell my parents everything, and this is when things got

[00:48:16] creepier. My parents told me that the apartment right next to ours was an elderly woman's apartment who was sick and had her son taking care of her. My parents said that when they would

[00:48:30] leave to take out the trash, she would sneak up behind them. Whenever they would look at her, she would just smile while patiently waiting for them to turn back around. I tried telling them how I felt paranoid that she was always watching me, but they brushed it off

[00:48:48] and said that she's a sick old lady. Scaring people is probably the only highlight of her week. Just ignore her and go back to sleep. I remember being very angry with them for not helping me,

[00:49:01] but I did exactly as they said, and I just ignored her every night. It took some time, but I finally started to forget about the old lady and this whole experience. That is until

[00:49:15] a few weeks later, when things took a turn for the worse. From my mother's perspective, our family was always different from others. My mom was the one working all day while my dad would be at home

[00:49:30] with me and my brother. My dad would always bring me and my brother to school and then pick us up at the end of the day. Well, one day I was at school waiting for my dad to arrive when a friend

[00:49:41] approached me and said that I could get a ride home in their dad's car. I completely forgot my father was coming to get me, so I said yeah and I followed her to her dad's car.

[00:49:54] When I got home, I knocked on the door, but other than my two dogs barking, there was no response. I started to get anxious, so I kept knocking over and over until I heard a big sound coming

[00:50:08] from the old woman's apartment. That's when I realized I had made a very big mistake. As soon as I heard the sound coming from her apartment, I ran to the elevator and smashed

[00:50:20] the down button as many times as I could. Our elevator had windows in the center of the doors, so I was terrified her face would show up with her staring at me through it.

[00:50:32] Thankfully, it didn't. When my dad came back to the apartment building, I ran to him and gave him a big hug. I apologized for accidentally getting a ride home from my friend and told

[00:50:42] him about running outside to get away from the old lady. He said, everything's okay now. I was expecting my father to scold me, but he was very calm. After that experience, I was even more terrified of the old woman.

[00:50:57] Eventually, we moved into a house, and I never saw her again. Not that I'd be able to recognize her, since every time I saw her at my window, her face was concealed by the darkness. This week you have heard The Last Tram by Typical Television 9.

[00:51:46] I Thought I Was Alone, So I Tried To Sleep. I Was Wrong by Reddit892. I Was Almost A Victim Of A Killer by Scare Country. The Girl At My Door by CC8873. Drop Dead Fred by Abigail. Still Don't Know Why I Wasn't Scared by JustTanny.

[00:52:06] And finally, She Would Watch Me Sleep by cgovernment8802. 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

[00:52:21] any other message boards online. As always, if you have a story to share, make sure you send it to letsnotmeetstories at gmail.com. Don't forget to check out the new episodes of my other podcasts

[00:52:32] like Odd Trails, My True Paranormal Podcast, Welcome To Paradise It Sucks, and The Old Time Radiocast, all at crypticcountypodcasts.com or wherever you get your podcasts. I'll see you guys next week. Everyone stay safe.