11x27: Lost Stories 19

[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. Hello, everyone. Welcome to another edition of the Lost Stories, the series where we share even more of those

[00:00:44] classic previously lost recordings from the early days of the show. Thanks to the help of our loyal fans, we've had the pleasure of recovering these classic recordings. We're back with some more recordings from 2018 that will surely give you the creeps. Enjoy. I am 25 years old and female.

[00:01:22] I've been living with my boyfriend for the last six years. This was about four years ago. I was online a lot and still am and met a lot of cool people. Many had rough backstories,

[00:01:37] but I always offered a listening ear and tried to support them. I'm going to mention that I have autism and can be pretty naive, so I don't recognize certain bad situations right away.

[00:01:50] I met a 24 year old guy from Australia. I'm from Europe. He had just broken up with his girlfriend that he said was emotionally unstable. And it ended with her wanting to kill herself and him

[00:02:05] not being able to handle it anymore. I talked to him a lot about it and tried to help him cope with the situation. We started to game together online, and I just started to see him as a friend.

[00:02:19] After a while, I started to notice that he was kind of acting like I was his girlfriend. I glanced over it because he knew I had a boyfriend and it might have just been kindness and I mistook it. I'm famous for being oblivious to that kind of stuff.

[00:02:39] He started to tell me that I should break up with my boyfriend, going on long tangents and writing me emails about how my boyfriend was like his ex-girlfriend, that he abused me mentally and

[00:02:52] physically, that he was raping me, and that he was making my life a living hell and was going to kill me one day. Which was all completely absurd, and I kept explaining that to him.

[00:03:05] After a while, it was obvious that he indeed thought of me as his new girlfriend. He made it clear we were going to spend the rest of our lives together and that he would make sure of it.

[00:03:18] He was convinced that me telling him to stop and leave me alone was all orchestrated by my boyfriend and I was actually being held hostage. Luckily, he didn't know my full name, or so I

[00:03:33] thought, or where I lived. I started getting messages from random accounts with pictures of people bloodied up saying, this is going to happen, all with his name on the pages itself. And this went on for a while. I begged him to stop, but he kept pushing.

[00:03:53] I blocked him, but he kept making new accounts to get in contact with me. I decided just to delete my account from that site altogether and not go there anymore and hoped it

[00:04:05] would go away. But then I suddenly started to get messages on Facebook. I never told him my full name and even then I made sure my Facebook is extremely private with a family nickname and I

[00:04:20] only had other family members on there because most lived far away. My boyfriend didn't have a Facebook account and like I said before, I kept my full name and location to myself. He made about 150 pages and profiles and completely directed them to me with pictures

[00:04:39] of people killing themselves, telling me he was going to kill himself, complete with overlays and banners of this is your fault. It seemed like he made it his full daytime job to send me messages on different platforms. Eventually, he started sending

[00:05:00] receipts of his school books that he had sold of his current school year and later one plane ticket to the airport where I actually lived close to and two back to Australia. He kept sending proof

[00:05:16] of him moving out of his apartment and putting his stuff in storage. He told me he was coming to save me from my boyfriend who was keeping me hostage and that he was going to kill him

[00:05:28] and take me back to Australia so I could be safe. He had gotten rid of all ties he had, quit school, quit his job so we could have a blank slate, telling me we'd have to live under

[00:05:44] the radar for a while. All the while, he kept sending me pictures as proof of doing these things because he loved me and wanted to show it. By now, I had blocked every Facebook account with

[00:05:58] his unfortunately and extremely common name and basically deleted every other online account I had. Even though a lot were under different names, he still found me everywhere. Eventually, the day came where he was taking pictures at the airport which he was posting on my Facebook wall and

[00:06:22] he was on the plane which logo I immediately recognized as my country's official airline. He began talking about the actual house I lived in which was kind of a strange place to live.

[00:06:34] I lived on an industrial area in a maintenance apartment inside a huge empty building with only one other office. I was on the lease as a maintenance person but that was purely for legal reasons

[00:06:49] because the owner thought he could make some money on the side. The whole building was open to me and there weren't any people living remotely nearby. He definitely couldn't have known I lived there.

[00:07:02] He started messaging me about how perfect the whole setup was for his plans. My boyfriend was aware of everything that had happened then and thought it was best if maybe we sought out help

[00:07:15] from the police to give us some advice but of course they couldn't do anything and suggested that if we were scared, we'd better just go somewhere else and we decided to stay at my parents.

[00:07:28] We went back the next day since we both had school and work but saw police cars in front of the building. The owner informed us that someone had broken in. This person had tried to

[00:07:40] go into the office next to our apartment and they had an alarm system that went off and alerted the cops. At that point, I wanted to know what the hell was going on and if he had tried to break in since

[00:07:55] that was our first guess. It wasn't hard contacting him since he already sent me multiple messages again on Facebook from several different accounts. My boyfriend contacted him and the guy agreed to

[00:08:09] have a webcam chat and when he turned his cam on, I immediately recognized a hallmark of our city from the window behind him. I silently freaked out, not letting him know I was present. My

[00:08:25] boyfriend then spent more than seven hours talking to him. The guy was furious and still certain my boyfriend was going to kill me with nothing that could change his mind. After more than seven hours with my normally monk calm boyfriend getting pretty annoyed because of

[00:08:44] the most stupid reasoning, the guy copy pasted the whole chat conversation and spend them in crazy ways. The guy was saying that he was disgusted and started to throw out profanities toward him

[00:08:58] about me. Saying that if I was so adamant about staying, I deserved what my boyfriend was going to do to me and he wouldn't mourn me because I had ruined his, my own, and our kids life together.

[00:09:14] I only heard from him one more time after that. A short video of him being in the hospital saying he had tried to kill himself and it was all my fault and I was going to bring darkness over this

[00:09:27] earth instead of light like I had promised according to him. He said stuff like that often and other weird spiritual promises he said that I made. I got scared again for a while but it got

[00:09:42] silent after that. Even though it was years ago, I'm still afraid the guy isn't over me and will come after me. But as far as I know his parents had him locked in a nursing home for the mentally ill.

[00:09:58] I got this info a year later when his older brother finally responded to my Facebook messages to him telling him to speak to his brother because he was not okay. So crazy guy, please let's not ever

[00:10:14] ever meet again. At one of the lowest points in my life I ended up in a psychiatric facility for two weeks. It doesn't sound like that long but when you have nothing to do in a small building all

[00:10:38] day every day it feels like months. You really get to know people in there in a short amount of time. Some kind people and some I wish I'd never met. I was with an abusive guy at the time but that's

[00:10:52] another story. My teacher had discovered my plans for suicide and I was baker acted. It's basically where someone can call and report if someone seems unstable or wanting to harm themselves

[00:11:06] and they take you to the facility for up to three days if they believe you have a mental illness. At nine in the morning I was questioned by police. I was taken to the hospital after for a general

[00:11:17] exam. It was 3 p.m. by the time I was taken to the facility. The building didn't look like much from the front. I remember walking in and being escorted through a series of long hallways. Eventually I was placed in a waiting room with several other people,

[00:11:34] just barely enough seats for everyone. I took the only open seat beside an old man who promptly started touching himself under his blanket. I just leaned really far over to the wall and didn't look

[00:11:48] at him, trying to ignore him. Thankfully he was soon called out one by one. The people in the room were escorted out. I was the last one there and it was now night time. They turned the lights off

[00:12:03] in the waiting room and I got a little worried. I just sat there like, of course they forgot about me. I'm that unimportant. There were no supervisors around or anything but there was a camera.

[00:12:16] Eventually someone was leaving to lock up and they saw me there. They got me squared away. Halfway through the process I heard very angry screaming and saw orderlies running towards it.

[00:12:30] They tackled a patient and took him out of the main floor. Soon I was strip searched and I was given temporary clothes in a room in the women's ward. It was 11 p.m when they released me into

[00:12:42] the main facility. I remember wondering how I never noticed how big this place was from the outside. Lights out was at 10 p.m but one of the doctors gave me a plate of food since I had not eaten that

[00:12:56] day. Immediately I was greeted by another patient, an elderly black lady who was so sweet. She told me she was pregnant and that she was eating for two and asked for my pudding. I chuckled assuming

[00:13:10] she was joking and I did but as she spoke I realized she wasn't joking. She thought she was pregnant and her husband was coming to get her soon. She was kind of sad but harmless. The first night

[00:13:26] I didn't sleep a wink. Another woman was in my room and she had to be on 24-hour watch. The first few days were very surreal. Wake up at 7 a.m, take vitals and medicate. Afternoon vitals and medicate.

[00:13:43] Night vitals and medicate. There was nothing to do there all day every day. In the adult facility the women's ward was on the left and the men's was on the right. Patients were allowed to intermix during the day. Rowdy or dangerous patients were not allowed to interact and

[00:14:05] were in quiet rooms. Quiet rooms were two rooms between the wards that had windows on the doors and they were soundproof. Some particularly bad patients were strapped down and sedated. I had already made friends with some of the patients. In the ward we all exchanged phone

[00:14:23] numbers as a gesture of friendliness. It was understood that nobody actually keeps them after they get out. It was just a basic way of conveying that you are not my enemy. And believe

[00:14:36] me, though many people came and left once their baker acts ran out, there were cliques and groups, drama and factions. I tried to be cool with everybody and so most of the patients and

[00:14:49] staff liked me. That's when I met Alfons. Alf was a big burly guy with a lot of anger issues. I've always favored the underdogs and so I made friends with him. We exchanged numbers

[00:15:06] to show that we were cool with each other. After, things got a bit strange. I learned that he was the one that the staff had tackled on my first night. He would commonly yell and throw things

[00:15:18] at the staff. The furniture in the ward was blocky kit furniture that was filled with sand. I'm not exaggerating when I said that they were hard to push around. Alf once picked up a sand

[00:15:31] filled chair and threw it at one of the orderlies, missing and slamming against the wall. He was very strong. Eventually, the doctors convinced me to sign a voluntary admittance since my baker act was

[00:15:45] up. They said I wasn't ready to go home. Honestly, I felt like I wasn't either. Though the ward had its issues, I'd rather have been there than with my abuser at the time. So I stayed. It sucked too

[00:16:01] since it was over Christmas. But I'm getting off track. Alfonse, who proclaimed to be homosexual, started magnetizing to me. It was clear that I was his only friend in there. He started questioning

[00:16:16] what it would be like to be with a woman and that I could be his first. Obviously, I was not interested and loyal to my current relationship. His advances didn't stop. He would talk to me

[00:16:30] about running away together, living together, and tried to get me in the bathroom with him daily. It was starting to get to the point where it was freaking me out. He started getting angry when I

[00:16:41] talked to other people in the ward. One day, I was playing cards with some nice people in there that I became pretty close friends with in a short time. Alf came over, looked right at me and said,

[00:16:54] you're a fucking traitor, bitch, and proceeded to kick our table over with massive force. Like this damn table went flying. He stared at me, but the orderlies were quick to grab him.

[00:17:10] I was protected in there and he was in isolation for a couple of days. Once he got out, he seemed genuinely sorry and asked me to forgive him. I said sure because what's the harm, right? Better not to

[00:17:23] have massive angry enemies in small spaces. His sister even called and thanked me for being his friend because he never really had any. It seemed good for a while, no happenings, but his sexual

[00:17:36] advances started again. Some sounded like hints of threats and he started to get angry when I would refuse him. But the day finally came and I was cleared for release. Out of the ward,

[00:17:51] finally home, I didn't really look back, but calls started coming in. It was Alf using his phone time to call me. At first, I thought he'd forget about me in a couple of weeks without being there or

[00:18:05] talking much, but he didn't. Alf Fonz called for about two months until I finally stopped answering. Then I got a call from an unknown number one day. It was him. He was released from the ward.

[00:18:19] He would call me from different phone numbers, pressuring to find me and start a life with me. By this point, I was pretty scared of him. I told my parents and boss in case he ever found me or

[00:18:32] showed up at my work. I never went to the police though because nothing technically happened. He'd become irate and scream on the phone, then make inappropriate comments a lot, but nothing physical. It's not like he knew where I was. I had accidentally destroyed my phone and was without

[00:18:53] it for a year. Once I'd gotten a new one, I had forgotten about all this. I never thought he'd be back, especially calling the deadline for so long. But right after I got a new phone with the same

[00:19:05] number, calls immediately started again from Alf. Like, he was just calling every single day and waiting. It's like nothing had changed. The comments, the anger, the wanting to run away together.

[00:19:21] I got spooked again. Finally, the last time that he called me, he informed me that he was in the state mental hospital. Generally, it's the next step from the ward that I was in.

[00:19:34] My phone was soon deactivated and I've not had one since. About three years now. I got a Google voice number and have never heard from him again. I am afraid that we might run into each other

[00:19:48] again someday. I've met many people in the ward, some far gone and some just down on their luck. A lot of humbling experiences and good people, but Alf was the one, the only one that scared me.

[00:20:05] Though he never got a chance to hurt me, I always wonder what he could have done. His temper was so unpredictable and nasty, and he was such a big guy. I'm really glad he never found me outside of the ward, and I hope we never meet.

[00:20:35] After the events that took place when I was eight years old, things went back to normal for my friends and I. The guy who had tormented us was gone and we were pretty much safe again.

[00:20:46] This continued until we finished primary school. When this happened, we didn't see each other very much apart from a few who went to the same school as I did. Up until that point, my best friend

[00:21:01] was Jake. He ended up going to a different school, so we only saw each other twice since we finished school. When we were both 13, we had moved on and weren't friends anymore. So one day when I was 13

[00:21:16] or 14, I met up with an old friend. His name was Ethan. He had also been friends with Jake. When we met up, we decided to go to a large park that was located between our houses.

[00:21:29] We walked, went on the swings for a while, but left after a girl started shouting at us. We walked to the basketball court close to the exit as we made our way towards Ethan's house.

[00:21:42] This area was surrounded by thick bushes and trees that are easy to hide in, so we had no idea what was about to happen. We weren't paying much attention to our surroundings as

[00:21:55] we had a lot to catch up on. We didn't notice a group of masked people dressed completely in black approaching us until it was too late. We were surrounded and we saw that they were all armed

[00:22:08] with kitchen knives. There were six or seven of them surrounding us when one of them spoke. He demanded all of our money and our phones. He said that they would kill us if we refused

[00:22:21] or tried anything. His voice sounded familiar, and when I got a better look at him, I realized that it was Jake. I don't think he recognized me because he pointed his knife right at me

[00:22:35] and demanded our stuff again. At this point, Ethan had also realized who it was. Simultaneously, we both told him who we were. He looked at us for a second and then pulled his mask off

[00:22:47] and greeted us. He told me that I hadn't changed much before telling us that we were lucky and to get out of there. We started to walk away, and as we reached the exit, we turned and saw them

[00:23:01] running into the bushes. Freaked out, we ran to Ethan's house and didn't leave for hours. When it came time for me to leave, I ran straight home, avoiding the park.

[00:23:15] I saw him again after that, but I always avoided him. I almost never went out on my own again for the next few years. So my childhood best friend, who was like a brother to me, almost mugged me.

[00:23:28] If he hadn't realized who we were, things could have been very different. The people with him actually seemed ready to stab us even if we did what they wanted. He had screwed me over and dragged me into bad things before this, but I can't forgive him even

[00:23:44] though he let us go. He wasn't exactly a good person to begin with, but this was way too far. I did recently hear that he has turned his life around, but I am done with him and hope that

[00:23:55] I never see him again. Let's not meet. This happened a couple of weeks ago. I'm 17, and my parents were out of state for the month on vacation. I live in a small, nice neighborhood that

[00:24:29] has quite a distance from any other neighborhoods around us. My neighborhood likes to be involved with each other, so there's always a neighborhood summer barbecue and neighbors parties now and then. Everyone always attends these, and this is relevant to the story, because I'm very familiar

[00:24:49] with who lives in the neighborhood as I can name off a majority of them. My neighborhood is always dead quiet after 9pm as the kids are inside by then and families are usually heading off to bed.

[00:25:04] I'm into spray paint art, and I decided I wanted to work on my painting in the garage, which is a well-ventilated area. This was around 10pm because it was cooler by then.

[00:25:15] Mind that the garage door is fully open. I'm setting out a tarp so I can start painting when I hear someone walking on the sidewalk. I look up expecting to say hi to a neighbor

[00:25:28] going on a late night walk around the neighborhood. Instead, it's a man, and I thought I couldn't recognize him at first glance due to it being dark and the only decent light source around was

[00:25:40] from the garage. He was at least 6'3", lanky, and looked to be completely normal from what I could see. The man stood at the end of my driveway facing me. With the little light stretching

[00:25:55] across the driveway hitting his face, I really didn't recognize him. I live in a very friendly state where we're usually nice to strangers and make conversation. I thought nothing suspicious

[00:26:08] as he could have been a neighbor I wasn't familiar with, so I struck up a conversation like I usually do. Hi, how's it going? Uh, hi. It's going good so far. Sorry, I really don't recognize you because

[00:26:23] it's so dark. Oh, I'm Xavier. Xavier? I don't think I've ever met you before. Did you just move into the neighborhood or something? Uh, yeah. I moved into the corner house up the street.

[00:26:40] You moved in with the Millers? Yeah, the Millers. I moved in with them. They're my cousins and they're letting me stay with them until I figure things out. I thought nothing of this as it seemed

[00:26:53] normal for a family to let a member of theirs stay with them for a while and the Millers are just those kinds of people. Well, I better be going. I need to finish something. It was nice

[00:27:04] meeting you, Laney. I never introduced myself, I think. Oh, the Millers told me about you. I thought nothing of this as well because I would babysit the Millers' kids frequently and my family

[00:27:20] is very close with them. Xavier kept walking and I thought nothing of what just happened and started painting. The next morning, I went on a run to my high school that was about three miles away.

[00:27:33] My high school is on a common road that always has cars on it. As I was nearing the school, I heard a car pull up behind me. I stopped running and turned around to see a beat-up car

[00:27:46] with the windows rolled down. A smiling man was sitting in the driver's seat. He looked to be in his mid to late 20s and he had a fairly handsome face. Hi. I probably had a confused look on my face

[00:28:01] as I didn't recognize the man but I knew his voice from somewhere. Xavier, we met the other night. Oh, hi. Sorry, I didn't recognize you. It's fine. Hey, you're pretty far from home. That's quite a

[00:28:16] long run. Aren't you tired? I can give you a ride home if you'd like. Oh, no, it's fine. I like running. Thanks for the offer though. Want to go out for a cup of coffee? No, thanks. I don't drink coffee.

[00:28:31] We don't have to get coffee then. I'll pay for you. Come on. I want to go get something with you. No, thanks. I'm really not interested. Oh, come on. Let's go hop in. He reaches over to open the

[00:28:45] passenger's door and beckons me to come in. At this point, it is clear that I don't want to go and I step off from the grass and back onto the sidewalk. I said no, sorry. Come on, just get in

[00:29:01] the fucking car. It's not a big deal. I gotta go. Some friends are expecting me. That's when I full on sprint to the school's track and called a friend to pick me up. While waiting at the track for my

[00:29:15] friend to pick me up, Xavier's beat up car goes down the road away from the direction of my neighborhood. Few bad things happen in my city so I don't think much of what happened and shook it

[00:29:28] off, which was stupid of me to do. A couple of days later, there was a neighborhood barbecue. Although my parents weren't home, I didn't mind going to the barbecue alone because it's always

[00:29:39] a blast. I hung out with my neighborhood friends like I usually do. I saw the Millers and had a friendly conversation with them which soon turned to, oh, I met Xavier the other night.

[00:29:53] The Millers didn't know who I was talking about. They said they didn't know Xavier. No family member moved in with them. No one moved in with them. I told them about what had happened at the

[00:30:06] school the other day while I was on my run. The Millers and I are freaking out about now. They call over one of our neighbors who's a cop. Now this cop neighbor lives a couple of houses

[00:30:19] down from me. I tell him about the confrontations I had with the guy and what he looked like. He told me to call him or the cops if I didn't feel safe or if I encountered the guy again.

[00:30:32] The police neighbor patrolled around our neighborhood for a few weeks. Neighbors kept a lookout for Xavier and didn't let their children out late. There was no sign of Xavier for two weeks. I got back from a friend's house late at night. I pulled into the garage and went

[00:30:52] inside. I turned on the lights and I was making something to eat. Then there was a soft knock on the front door. It was late. I got back from a friend's and my guard was down so I walked across

[00:31:06] my house like I usually do. From the front door, you can hear footsteps as if someone is walking to the door normally and not trying to hide their steps. I thought it was just a friend. I looked

[00:31:19] through the peephole and saw a wide smile that belonged to Xavier. He was at my door late at night and he had a large backpack with him. He heard my footsteps and I could hear him say,

[00:31:35] I'm sorry about last time. I didn't mean to be like that, Laney. It was just a bad day through the door. I wanted him to go away. I meant to yell, get the hell away from me

[00:31:48] through the closed door, but all that came out was a lame whimper. I just came to apologize. Open the door. I don't mean any harm. He tries to wiggle the doorknob. His voice and constant pestering gets louder and louder. At this point, I'm freaking out and I

[00:32:09] couldn't think at all. I couldn't remember where I put my phone. My family doesn't have a house phone either. Xavier began pounding on the door and repeatedly pushing the doorbell and kept repeating, open the door, Laney. Open the door. They're waiting for us. The dog heard the ringing

[00:32:30] of the doorbell. I don't think he heard the soft knock because he was upstairs somewhere, but when my dog hears the doorbell, he's always excited to go and look at the front window to see

[00:32:40] who's standing on the porch. If it's someone he recognizes, he'll just stand there quietly looking at them until one of us opens the door. When it's someone he doesn't recognize, he barks. He's a

[00:32:52] German shepherd and his aggressive bark is very loud. My dog comes running down the stairs, looks out the window and doesn't recognize Xavier. So he starts barking at him from the window. Xavier

[00:33:06] laughs and I hear him say, they never told me you had a dog. You're smarter than they said you were, Laney. With my dog barking, I guess I snapped back into my senses. I realized I left my phone

[00:33:20] in the car in the garage. I called the cops as well as my neighbor who's also a cop. By the time they got there, Xavier was gone. I gave my description to them and they drove around the

[00:33:31] area for an hour looking for the guy, but they never found him. I stayed at a relative's house for a couple of days until my parents got back and we changed all of the locks in the house

[00:33:43] and installed a security system along with floodlights. My parents currently have me on lockdown. I hate remembering the sound of his voice saying my name. I get physically ill when I think about it. To think, I thought the bastard had a handsome face too. My neighbor cop patrols

[00:34:06] around the neighborhood for a while after his shift ends every night now. What still scares me though is how he said they. I hope it was just a way for him to scare me and there's not a cult

[00:34:19] that's against my existence or something. When I was growing up, my dad was a single parent who worked long hours and all his family lived back in Ireland. As a result, during the summer holidays,

[00:34:45] my brother and I were pretty much left to our own devices even when I was 7 and he 13. This got us into a few scrapes down the years, but one that really freaks me out is Greaves Hall.

[00:35:00] If I remember correctly, Greaves Hall used to be an asylum but has since burned down a few times and lain derelict for the last few decades. It was also one of very few points of interest in banks

[00:35:16] during the short period of time in which we lived there. Last I saw of it, they were building a new housing estate there so hopefully they've pulled it down, but I've not been to banks for years.

[00:35:29] It's shit. As I'm sure you'd expect, the site has a reputation as being haunted. Anyway, one day when England was experiencing its annual two weeks of summer, my brother and his mates decided to go

[00:35:45] down to Greaves Hall. Normally it was to kick a football about, but we all knew what they were really there for was to stare at the ruin and make up some arbitrary reason for why they all bitched

[00:35:58] out of going in. Being the bratty little sister, I was kind enough to point this out. Unfortunately, Big Bro is also a twatty older brother and basically called my bluff after I'd spent several

[00:36:13] minutes calling them fannies. So with a sinking feeling in my stomach, I set off with them. We stopped by the corner shop for some 90s approved levels of sugary snacks and one of my brother's

[00:36:27] mates slipped the guy some cash for two massive bottles of white lightning and some fags. This made me very excited because I was convinced I was going to get to drink and become really good at

[00:36:39] pool. My dad used to tell me stories about how he'd win in pool games when he'd had a few pints. In hindsight, the stories were very similar to Popeye but with rampant alcoholism instead of

[00:36:52] spinach. So we walked to the hall, my brother, his five friends, and me tagging along at the back. I tried to be involved in the conversation but they maintained it was for adults only and went

[00:37:07] on talking about She-Ra's boobs. I think they were starting to regret bringing me. Things settled down once we got onto the grounds. We had a 30 minute kickabout during which I bagged a hat trick in hindsight entirely due to my brother's threats to batter anyone who tried to

[00:37:26] tackle me and nearly ravenellied into a tree. After the game, we poked around the grounds. There's loads of outbuildings around the main hall in various states of disrepair. One of my brother's friends got very interested and a tag someone had left on one of the walls

[00:37:46] of what looked like a barn or a depot or something. It was hard to tell what its original purpose had been. We stopped by the water tower where Big Bro managed to hook a used condom

[00:37:58] on the end of a stick and chase everyone around with it. Next came an e-number and alcohol-laden lunch. I wasn't allowed any of the booze so no sick pool skills were required. And then,

[00:38:12] just as the heat of the day passed, we found ourselves with nothing left to do but head to the main hall. Go on then, Big Bro said, nodding towards the building. After you, I replied, proud of myself. I'd been working on that one all afternoon.

[00:38:29] Having mugged Big Bro right off, I let him lead the way with a shamble to his step and Dutch courage in his heart. The rest of us filed in behind. To be honest, the hall itself was disappointing.

[00:38:42] It looks very scary from the outside, crumbling away and fire damaged with foliage overgrowing the outside of the building. Most of the windows were long smashed, leaving these gaping black spaces even on the sunny days. Inside though, it was just a building. Kind of like any building

[00:39:04] that age. You could tell it had been grand once, but now the paint was crumbling and the floor peeling up. My brother and friends got bored of poking around the ground floor quick.

[00:39:17] They went up the rotten staircase one at a time, but I was confined to the ground floor. This might sound like my brother being protective, but he's used me to test similar staircases in

[00:39:28] the past, so I think he just wanted rid of me. Anyway, my dad always bullocks me if I don't do as my Big Bro says, so I kicked my heels downstairs for a while. There was a big room which I think

[00:39:44] might have been a canteen once, but even now you could tell it had been posh. Tile floors and such, so I passed some time twirling around pretending to be a ballerina. The others must have found something because they were gone a while, so eventually I got bored

[00:40:03] and went back to exploring. I was just investigating a particularly gnarly looking black fungus growing out of the walls when I saw that one of the doors that was either locked or swollen shut

[00:40:16] had a hole in it just wide enough for a scrawny 7 year old. With the minimum of grunting and no concept of tetanus risk, I managed to scrape my way past the door into a moldy smelling room

[00:40:32] with a load of cleaning equipment. There were a lot of round pellets on the floor which I now realize were rat droppings. The ceiling was partly collapsed and one corner as well,

[00:40:45] so naturally I decided it would be totally safe to climb onto an old basin then a locker and scramble up the wall until I could pull myself onto the next floor. I was quite pleased with

[00:40:58] myself at this point, lying on the damp floorboards in a room that was empty other than an overturned bed. I pretty much jumped straight up when I heard my brother and his friends laughing,

[00:41:11] already hatching plans of how I could fuck with them in this haunted asylum. Then I saw something outside the window. There was a man, dressed in a black overcoat and a hat standing just inside

[00:41:26] the tree line of the woods. Hard to judge heights when you're a runty little girl, but he looked well over six feet tall and wide. I remember that vividly. He wasn't fat per se,

[00:41:42] he was just incredibly broad shouldered. Looking back, I assume he was a homeless guy or something, but he looked neater than a homeless man, and his posture didn't strike me as that of someone

[00:41:56] living in the streets. He stood up straight, staring through the empty window into the room where I could hear my brother and his friends laughing. Being chronically thick, I pretty much

[00:42:09] ignored this dude, under the cast iron logic that he wasn't supposed to be here because if he was, he'd be wearing a high-vis jacket. I went back to looking around the room. That's when I saw

[00:42:22] the stuff. It had been hidden behind the rusted bed frame, but now as I walked over to it, I saw and smelled the signs of someone living there. There was a sleeping bag that smelled bad enough

[00:42:38] to make me gag, a few scraps of newspaper, a tow rope, a tangled heap of clothes, and beside it all, a big mean-looking fucker of a knife. I remember pondering to myself whether it was a sword

[00:42:55] or a knife at that size, and looking back, I think the blade must have been a good 18 inches. It was covered in a black oily substance and what looked like crusted blood. I was reaching down to pick it up because no sense of self-preservation when I remembered

[00:43:18] the dude in the tree line. I froze, doing the arithmetic needed to work out just how thoroughly fucked I might be. That sort of turned into paralysis of indecision and fear that rooted me

[00:43:33] to the spot for a full minute. Then I heard the sound of feet scraping against stone at the bottom of the window by my head. As is my default response, I turned tail and ran out of the room

[00:43:51] along a molded hallway into the room where my brother was. I want to go home, I managed to mumble. How did you get up here? He was going to take too long

[00:44:02] to agree I knew it if I told him about the man, and at that point I was absolutely convinced that this big bear of a guy was going to come and gut us with his knife any minute.

[00:44:13] I tried a different track. I want to go home now, I said looking down at my feet. It was a look I'd perfected after years of asking to sleep in his bed if we'd watched a scary film. Who's the fanny now, Sam? My brother's fat friend said.

[00:44:30] Belt up, she's just a kid, big bro replied. Normally I'd have gone into full brat mode at that comment but I was desperate to leave so I let it slide. I pretty much dragged them out

[00:44:43] of the place, even with the fat friend taking his sweet time getting down the stairs. We got outside, I grabbed the bottle of white lightning from my big bro and took off towards

[00:44:55] the entrance, boasting about how I was going to give it to dad. It had the desired effect of getting them all to leave as fast as their legs could carry them. I tried not to look back

[00:45:05] because I knew I'd piss my pants if I saw the man, but as we rounded the corner leaning back to the street I couldn't help myself. Truthfully, I don't know if I saw him. All I saw was that big

[00:45:18] scary building with its pitch black windows. He could have been in any one of them. This happened back when our family moved to our new house in 2001. I was 8 years old and my sister

[00:45:42] was 10. Since we had just moved, my mom really wanted some new furniture to make our new home look nice. We weren't well off in the first place but it was our first home, meaning it wasn't a

[00:45:56] cruddy mobile home for once. We drove to a little value furniture shop that had a bunch of things to choose from. Of course my sister and I, being typical siblings, were joking around with each

[00:46:09] other when she called me an ugly freak and I told her that her face was fat. Just normal things. Unfortunately, my mom couldn't find anything that she liked so we left empty handed.

[00:46:22] When we got into the car, she wanted to go to the grocery store to pick up a few things so the trip wasn't a total waste. My sister and I noticed a brown car following us, turning every corner,

[00:46:33] making every light, etc. We pointed it out to my mom and she just blew it off. Don't worry about it guys. We were young and we completely forgot about it when we went to the general store and

[00:46:46] grabbed our snacks. We got into our car and left for home. And again, the brown car started following us. My mom was getting a bit worried since we lived in another town 20 miles away. She told

[00:46:59] us it had to be someone we knew. We had relatives living in the town, just not anyone we were close to. Like they did before, they copied our route. The closer we were to home, the more paranoid my

[00:47:11] mother became and in turn fueled our fear. She told us to copy the license plate but tried to assure us that it was probably our cousin Jessica or something. When we parked in our driveway,

[00:47:25] the car parked behind us, the engine still running. Our mom ordered us to stay in the car while she went to talk with our quote-unquote cousin. My sister and I watched from the rear

[00:47:38] window as my mom went to speak with her. After a few minutes, we heard the woman from the car yelling, gesturing to us inside of the car and then back to my mother. She peeled out of the

[00:47:50] driveway, almost running over my mother's feet. A few seconds later, my mom was crying hysterically and ordered us to get into the house. She pushed us into our rooms and spoke to our dad even though

[00:48:03] we could hear everything. Apparently, this woman had thought we were insulting her while we were at the furniture store and threatened us. She said that she would throw nails in our driveway and

[00:48:17] poison our dogs outside. She insisted that my mother beat us for talking to a complete stranger in such a way and if she had the chance, she'd break our little fucking necks if she heard us

[00:48:30] talk about her again. My dad wasn't very happy that my mom brought her all the way to our house but stated it probably wasn't a big deal. The next day, my sister and I were walking to our bus stop

[00:48:43] when we saw the brown car parked across the street from our house. Sis immediately ran back inside to tell her dad and he walked us to our bus stop and waited until we were safely on the bus.

[00:48:57] My mom wanted to do something about it but my dad was against it. He assumed that the police wouldn't do anything since they were just threats. So, the creepy stalkerish behavior continued without interference. She began showing up every morning watching us as we waited for the bus but

[00:49:16] she was coming onto our property and making her presence known. My mom found a bottle of antifreeze near the dog's fenced area. It hadn't been opened but we were told to bring their bowls in every

[00:49:29] night just in case. Food wrappers and half empty cups of soda were thrown on our lawn. The air valve caps and lug nuts on our tires were missing from the tires. One of our outside cats died but

[00:49:42] we couldn't pinpoint what happened. Then, my older brother did something really stupid. My dad was tired of walking us to the bus stop so he asked my older brother to do it. Spotting the car in

[00:49:55] its typical spot, he decided the smart thing to do was to throw up the middle finger at her. This fucked her up. She ran out of her car cursing and yelling at us. She said we were crazy and

[00:50:07] needed to learn our fucking place as children. She was screaming and threatening to beat us and spitting at us. I was bawling my eyes out and my brother had to pick me up because I just

[00:50:19] couldn't move. We stayed at home that day and my mom finally called the police. We gave them her license plate number and they said they would visit her in a day or two. My mom didn't tell me much

[00:50:32] but when they confronted her about it, she went into a total rant about how kids are just dirty bastards and she'd kill every last one if she could. They didn't arrest her but a few days later

[00:50:45] the police called my mom to inform us that the lady was admitted to a psych ward. There were no more details unless my mom didn't want to share them and we never heard from her again. And for

[00:50:57] the people wondering why my mom drove all the way back to our house instead of the police station, my mom is kind of an airhead. She wasn't 100% sure just who it was even though she suspected

[00:51:09] it was my cousin. She just didn't consider that it could be someone with ill intentions. I guess. I'm not on good terms with her now since she's become a recluse so I'm just wildly guessing

[00:51:23] based on her past experiences. My dad did let me know it was really stupid later on but that was the end of it. Luckily nothing like that ever happened again. Let's not meet. I had just moved

[00:51:51] out of my parents and in with my very wealthy girlfriend named Brittany. We were both young and able females just out of high school and wanting a taste of freedom with some well-deserved

[00:52:04] love on the side. So together we found a pretty nice two-story house that was going for a good price. It was even in a great part of the city which was convenient for Brittany's job at her

[00:52:17] father's office. We should have known that the price was a little too good to be true but at the time we naively jumped at the chance in a heartbeat. As we were moving our stuff in,

[00:52:29] we were immediately greeted by Gracie. Gracie was our middle-aged next door neighbor who was just dying to know all about us at the moment we arrived. I still remember her short brown hair that set upon her head in shambles as it matched her equally colorless clothing.

[00:52:48] Her formal attire made me feel like I had just walked into a job interview instead of the new neighborhood. She insisted on bringing some of her pastry dishes for dinner that night but as we had

[00:53:01] made plans to eat out already, we promised her another time. Looking back, I wish we hadn't made that promise. The next day Brittany and I were working in the living room when a happy three

[00:53:12] note knock came at the door. It was Gracie with several small cases of bread and other pastries inside. Before I could make two cents of the unexpected arrival, Gracie was already making

[00:53:26] a beeline to the kitchen insisting we eat some dinner. I wasn't exactly pleased by this but Brittany assured me she had good intentions. So after whipping up a few sandwiches from the fridge,

[00:53:37] we sat down at the small kitchen table with her. Boxes and boxes of our unpacked things crowded the kitchen making for a cramped space but Gracie didn't even seem to care as she rattled off

[00:53:51] question after question. It wasn't long until she started talking about the church she was a part of and how she had been going to it for decades. It was fascinating and a little unsettling how

[00:54:05] she talked about the church watching her eyes look up as if she was preaching the direct word of God. It didn't take long for Gracie to ask us to come by the church this coming Sunday. She even gave a

[00:54:18] sly smile and said the choir boys there were a fine sight to behold alone. It was at this moment that Brittany replied that if there were any choir girls there that were as fine as the boys, she'd

[00:54:31] definitely stop by. Immediately Gracie's smile became a state of silent shock and turned to a look of utter disgust. Oh I see, she muttered quietly. In what felt like a flash, Gracie picked up her now

[00:54:48] empty cases and headed straight to the door. It was quite obvious that we had offended her but I still felt the need to go after her. As I called out her name she spun around as her narrow stare

[00:55:01] met my eyes. This house is damned! And with that, Gracie smashed one of the glass cases onto the floor and made her way out. As I went closer to the door, Gracie was screeching what I thought

[00:55:14] were scriptures from the Bible as she stormed down the sidewalk. As I cleaned the glass, Brittany was laughing uncontrollably at what had just happened. While Gracie was certainly out of line, I didn't see any humor like Brittany did. Just two days in and the neighbor already hates us.

[00:55:35] It wasn't two months later that we heard from Gracie again. It was nearing Halloween and I was setting up decorations in front of her house. Pumpkins, skeletons, the whole works. As I was pasting some stickers onto the window, I heard a familiar voice from behind me.

[00:55:52] It's not too late you know. I turned to see Gracie dressed all in black like she was going to a funeral. The Lord will forgive you and your friend but you must listen to me. I still felt bad for

[00:56:07] before and wanted to try rebuilding a healthy relationship with this neighbor so I asked her what she wanted to do. She apparently needed to bless us and our house as well as put us on

[00:56:20] strict religious regiments. I calmly told her that we needed to find an alternate non-religious way to make things right. Gracie would never hear of it. She threw a small Bible at me telling me

[00:56:34] to read the word of God and that she would be back the next day. Then briskly walked back into her house. I didn't even bother telling Brittany since I knew she'd just make it worse. Well,

[00:56:46] the next morning Brittany and I were awoken to loud noises coming from the front yard. Brittany decided to check it out as I still wanted to sleep. It wasn't long before I heard Brittany

[00:56:59] yelling profanity outside so I brought myself out of bed to see what was going on. And what I saw was shocking. There were pumpkin and skeleton pieces all over the front yard, ripped orange and black

[00:57:12] steamers blowing away in the wind, and torn stickers on the front porch. Lo and behold it was Gracie as she held streamers and pumpkin pieces in her hands. Brittany was yelling right in her face.

[00:57:28] Did this woman really destroy all of our decorations? Gracie saw me and demanded to know if I had read the Bible. I couldn't even get a word in. Brittany was demanding she leave at

[00:57:39] once or the police would be called. Gracie, obviously not wanting that, tore off back to her house. It was at this point that I realized that this was a problem that I didn't want and certainly

[00:57:53] didn't need. After that, Gracie resorted to putting Bibles on our doorstep every night and sometimes even preached in front of our house. This was usually met with Brittany running out and scaring Gracie away. This made me very uneasy and Brittany especially angry.

[00:58:12] We tried going to the police but they seemed reluctant to do anything. They constantly promised to go talk to her but I don't think that they ever did. Part of me thinks it's because they

[00:58:23] had bigger problems than little old ladies that threw Bibles and glass cases, but another part of me thought mine and Brittany's sexuality could be a factor as well. I spent numerous nights crying

[00:58:35] as Brittany held me. This wasn't the dream we envisioned, living together. Things came to a boil a few days into December. I was just finishing snow shoveling when I found myself being pushed out of the way as Gracie headed towards my house. I didn't even notice her coming.

[00:58:54] I demanded to know what she was doing and she made her intentions clear as day. She was going to bless us and the house whether we liked it or not. I wasn't having any more of this.

[00:59:06] No, you may not bless us or our house, I said. Gracie shook her head and said we would thank her eventually. It was then Brittany came outside and kept Gracie from going into the house

[00:59:21] as I called the police. What I didn't notice was that Gracie went for the snow shovel until it was too late. She began trying to smash the living room windows which I assumed she was

[00:59:35] doing for a way to get in. However, she only managed to shatter a few small panes before she could do no more. Brittany ripped the shovel out of her hands. With that, Gracie fled to her

[00:59:47] house screaming, Lord cleanse my soul, beasts, beasts and slammed the door. After that, we decided it was best to move in with Brittany's family as we looked for a new place to live. Yes, we were

[01:00:02] doing nothing wrong and could have kept fighting but we didn't want things to escalate any further with Gracie. We were out at the end of December but that whole month we didn't see Gracie at all,

[01:00:16] that is until we drove away from the house one final time. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Gracie speaking some words through her front window. Was it another bible verse? A death threat?

[01:00:31] Hell, maybe a moment of clarity asking for forgiveness. I don't know for sure. But there's one thing I do know. Gracie, let's not meet again. Thanks for listening and make sure you check out patreon.com forward slash let's not meet podcast

[01:01:00] to sign up and support the show today. You'll get access to ad free versions of our episodes all at a higher bitrate for the best listening experience and hours and hours of bonus content stories you won't hear anywhere else. Again, that's patreon.com forward slash let's not meet

[01:01:14] podcast. This week you have heard coming from the other side of the globe to save me by anonymous, my time in the ward by tales of the past, why I avoid my childhood best friend by professor milk

[01:01:27] milk. Open the door they're waiting for us by RxD Laney, Greaves Hall by Javier. She thought that we were making fun of her by Miss blister. And finally no you may not bless us or this house

[01:01:41] by Rhapsody 18. 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 boards online. As always, if you have a story to share,

[01:01:55] make sure you send it to let's not meet stories at gmail.com. And don't forget to check out the new episodes of my other podcasts, odd trails, my true paranormal podcast and the old time radio cast

[01:02:06] all at cryptic county podcasts.com. Everyone have a wonderful and safe Christmas. I'll see you all next week.