12x03: Lost Stories 20

[00:00:00] This podcast contains adult language and content. Listener discretion is advised. If you have a

[00:00:05] story to share, send it to letsnotmeetstories at gmail.com. Enjoy the show. Hello everyone,

[00:00:39] welcome to The Lost Stories Part 20, the series where we share some classic previously lost

[00:00:44] recordings from the early days of the show. Thanks to the help of our loyal fans, we've had the

[00:00:49] pleasure of recovering these classic episodes which most of you have probably never heard before.

[00:00:54] We're back with another collection of tales from 2018 that are guaranteed to generate a scare. Enjoy.

[00:01:18] This one happened to me a while ago, but I remembered it when I was talking to some

[00:01:22] friends recently and thought that you guys might appreciate it. I attended a small liberal arts

[00:01:28] university between a desert and some mountains in southwestern United States. After a couple

[00:01:35] of years, I opted to move off campus with my boyfriend and we found the cheapest housing

[00:01:40] imaginable in a tiny town across the wash and up against the mountains. Very few people lived there

[00:01:48] and except for us, all of them belonged to two minority groups that hated each other, some of

[00:01:54] which were involved in active gang warfare that I suspected was related to the drug trade in a city

[00:02:01] nearby. A very large and depressed one for the area. We lived in a small gated community complex

[00:02:09] with the sad pool and six studio apartments and things in the area were just kind of strewn around.

[00:02:16] There was no landscaping on any of the properties, just desert sand everywhere. Chickens and dogs

[00:02:23] roamed free and you could hear gunshots nearby sometimes. We lived there because the rent was

[00:02:30] $120 a month compared with $1,200 apartments in any of the nearby towns. I made friends with

[00:02:38] neighbors on both sides of the violence and was treated well by everyone. We just tried to be

[00:02:43] helpful but otherwise kept to ourselves and living there really wasn't bad. The police would take

[00:02:50] forever to appear if you did have a problem, however. This happened early morning on the weekend.

[00:02:57] I was helping some professors with fieldwork in the high desert so I had to head out unusually early.

[00:03:05] I dragged myself into some clothes at 5am, grabbed the equipment I needed and loaded up into my car.

[00:03:12] As I was getting into my car I saw a huge angry looking man heading my way from across the street.

[00:03:20] Early 40s I'd guess, athletic like a bouncer, at least 6'4". I only barely had enough time to

[00:03:28] discreetly hit the lock button before he was right beside the driver's side window.

[00:03:32] It was a good thing I did because he immediately tried the handle.

[00:03:37] What do you think you're doing? He said in a way that sounded as though he really wanted to say

[00:03:43] what the fuck do you think you're doing but thought better of it. I looked around at the

[00:03:49] empty street as if some other person would materialize and make sense of this for me.

[00:03:55] I had never seen this guy before, I wondered if anyone knew I was there.

[00:04:00] Well, he really did look mad and he was staring down at me through the window inches away.

[00:04:07] What? I said placing the key into the ignition to start my car but he put himself so close that I

[00:04:15] couldn't move without the risk of hitting him. You heard me, what are you doing?

[00:04:21] Driving? I said trying to read his expression. The hell you are, get out of the car, now!

[00:04:28] I looked around more frantically but everyone was asleep and behind multiple barriers.

[00:04:35] I began imagining him dragging me into the dark house project across the street. He might not even

[00:04:42] be local, being pulled into a van might be even worse. I wasn't sure what to say so I just stared

[00:04:49] at him, hoping he didn't notice my right hand behind me fumbling for my phone. I said get your

[00:04:57] ass out of that car, get out of the car! At this point he starts pounding his fist on the glass of

[00:05:06] my window, not hard enough to break it but threateningly. I honk the horn once but it's

[00:05:12] quiet and puny and no one appears. Thanks Chevrolet. I finally muster enough confidence

[00:05:20] to say what's the problem here? My thoughts are racing, no one would think twice about a broken

[00:05:26] window. It would take hours for my boyfriend to notice the car is still here. I left my knife

[00:05:33] inside, I gave my pepper spray to a friend I don't have anything here to really defend myself with.

[00:05:40] If you don't get out of the car this instant I'm going to drag your ass out! He's yelling now.

[00:05:47] I feel trapped and frantic for a moment before he continued,

[00:05:51] and I'll get your parents out here and they'll give you a whooping you ain't ever seen. A wave

[00:05:58] of hope crashes over me and I momentarily suspended between fear and relief. What?

[00:06:07] How old are you anyway? Carefully in full view of him I pulled out my wallet and withdrew my license

[00:06:15] placing it against the glass so he could read it and leaning around it so I could see him and so

[00:06:20] that he could see that it was clearly my face on it. He stared at it for a moment and then broke into

[00:06:26] a wide sheepish smile and began backing away. Oh no way really? Oh my god I'm so sorry miss,

[00:06:35] I'm sorry. I thought you were a 14 year old girl, I thought you were taking your parents car to drive.

[00:06:43] I was like no way that kid can drive. You look very young, I'm sorry. He headed back across the

[00:06:51] street then as an afterthought turned and said that hat makes you look very young, have a nice day.

[00:06:59] I tried to smile and wave good naturedly. I realized that the guy felt bad and instead of

[00:07:07] a violent rapey gangster was most likely a thoughtful concerned citizen. He actually

[00:07:13] looked a lot nicer now as he continued to wave awkwardly. I caught my breath and put my car into

[00:07:20] gear and got out of there. This happened to me last night and I'm still feeling pretty uncomfortable

[00:07:39] about the whole exchange. Before I jump into it, I'll give you a little background context.

[00:07:46] I work with a guy named Mike who is two years older than me. Shortly after meeting Mike,

[00:07:51] he friended me on Facebook and I accepted because I wanted to avoid any awkwardness at work

[00:07:56] and don't really use it often anyways. Mike would send me weird messages that were often out of the

[00:08:03] blue and unrelated but nothing creepy or worthwhile. I figured he just wanted an excuse to talk so I

[00:08:11] did my best to give him the hint that I wasn't interested without being too rude by responding

[00:08:16] with one word answers days later or not at all and bringing up the fact that I have a boyfriend

[00:08:22] frequently whenever he spoke to me both in person and online. It hadn't been a huge problem up until

[00:08:29] this point, just more of a mild annoyance that I mostly didn't think about. I also started to

[00:08:36] realize from my experiences with him at work that he may have an issue with social interactions

[00:08:43] which led me to believe he was even more mild than I had previously thought.

[00:08:50] He has a hard time picking up on sarcasm or body language and usually starts conversations by

[00:08:55] bringing up the same topics over and over again. Most of our conversations in person involve him

[00:09:03] asking a series of questions that I answer out of politeness followed by an awkward silence.

[00:09:10] I usually feel forced to end by asking, you? Anyways, last night I was working and he came

[00:09:18] to visit unprompted from a different floor later in the evening when most of the residents

[00:09:24] were already in bed. We are both PCAs. He started up the same way. Have you seen any good movies

[00:09:32] lately? Do you like to drive fast? I've seen you speeding in your car after work. Do you drink?

[00:09:40] Do you go to the beach? I was only half paying attention because I was doing paperwork

[00:09:45] and tried to make it pretty clear with my body language and repeated what responses that I wasn't

[00:09:52] too interested in continuing his interrogation. But then he asks me, have you ever killed a hog?

[00:10:00] I thought I heard him wrong so I ask again, what? And turn to look at him and he repeats,

[00:10:08] have you ever killed a hog? I laugh a little awkwardly because it was unexpected and more than

[00:10:17] a little weird and respond, no? To which he stands there smiling and because it's so awkward

[00:10:26] eventually I stupidly ask, have you? Mike laughs and says simply, yes. This leaves me weirded out

[00:10:37] enough to ask, why? To which he responds, what do you mean why? Me flabbergasted, I ask,

[00:10:45] why did you kill a hog, dude? Mike laughs. I'm confused and desperate for context so I ask,

[00:10:55] you just went out and killed a pig? No, it was for a function. I let out an uncomfortable laugh

[00:11:03] of relief but before things can go back to normal he hits me with, yeah, I was the one that got to

[00:11:10] kill it. I got to see it beg for its life before I cut its throat. At this, I'm completely shocked,

[00:11:19] creeped out and a little worried that no one else is around right now because I know him enough to

[00:11:25] know that he's not joking. Why did you say it like that? Mike laughs even though there's no humor in

[00:11:34] my response or voice and repeats himself, I watched it beg for its life before I slit its throat.

[00:11:43] I responded, dude, stop, seriously. Mike smiles and I pointedly ignored him now as I text my

[00:11:54] boyfriend because I'm pretty thoroughly disturbed. It's quiet for a few moments before he says,

[00:12:00] yeah, it took a long time to bleed out too, much longer than the chicken I killed.

[00:12:07] I responded, Mike, stop and he says, I thought you liked horror movies? I say as firmly as possible,

[00:12:16] yeah, I do but this is creepy and you're making me uncomfortable. Mike continues to linger,

[00:12:22] repeating one of those same creepy statements every once in a while but I am now fully ignoring him

[00:12:28] since he has repeatedly disrespected my request for him to stop after I told him I was uncomfortable.

[00:12:33] He finally stops and then again out of the blue, do you have Instagram? Even though I'm pissed,

[00:12:41] I'm more than a little relieved with the change of topic and respond with a very rude and angry

[00:12:47] yep, to which he says, oh cool and then proceeds to go back to his floor. I wish that that was the

[00:12:56] end of it because as if I was not freaked out enough, 10 minutes later the phone at the desk

[00:13:03] rings and I, thinking it is just a resident's family member as per usual, I answer but no,

[00:13:13] it's Mike calling from his floor and he seriously asks me, do you want to go eat octopus later?

[00:13:21] I'm completely done with this dude because I'm angry and responded no, to which he says,

[00:13:27] okay, how about pork? I tell him a resident needs me and hang up, busy relaying my story

[00:13:34] to my boyfriend over text when finally my co-worker on that floor for the night makes an appearance.

[00:13:41] We are sitting together but I refrain from telling him what had just happened because

[00:13:45] he is a lot older, might think it's funny or misunderstand and is friendly with Mike.

[00:13:52] But the phone rings again 10 minutes later and I ask my co-worker to answer the phone this time

[00:13:59] and it's Mike again and I can tell by the side of the conversation, I can hear that he was looking

[00:14:07] to speak to me again and asks about the resident I said I needed to help. My co-worker doesn't know

[00:14:13] about the problem and jokingly tells him to come down and hang out with us and before I can make

[00:14:19] any sort of gesture that says hell no, my co-worker turns to me and says Mike wants to know your

[00:14:27] favorite type of wine so he can bring you some. This guy is relentless, I tell my co-worker I

[00:14:33] don't want any and he relays the message before hanging up a few seconds later. The phone rings

[00:14:39] again before we leave but this time it thankfully isn't him. I'm a little worried about walking out

[00:14:46] to my car at this point because I'm super uncomfortable and he has already made it clear

[00:14:51] that he knows which car I drive so I called my friend to talk to me as I walked through the dark

[00:14:58] in the parking lot. It was 11 p.m and my boyfriend's phone had died but thankfully Mike does not make an

[00:15:06] appearance and I get home okay. Maybe it was an overreaction on my part but the whole thing

[00:15:11] creeped me out and I am honestly worried about the next time I will have to work with him. Let's not meet.

[00:15:34] So I'll just do my best to get into the thick of it. It might seem kind of jumbled, this happened

[00:15:40] three days ago and I swear I'm still shaking from it. I work at my local county animal shelter, done

[00:15:47] it for a few years and while you see a lot of fucked up shit that you would probably go into a

[00:15:53] fit of rage after you hear, you also get to channel that rage into helping lots of awesome critters.

[00:16:00] It's pretty much what it's meant for. Anyway, the way the block is set up it's like one winding

[00:16:07] stretch of county buildings. Basically there's everything on this side from doctors to homeless

[00:16:15] shelters so this block is full of interesting characters. No biggie, I live in a pretty shit

[00:16:23] area so crazy stuff happens all the time. Someone jumped out of their car and stabbed someone in a

[00:16:28] different car in traffic in front of me last year. Didn't even make the news. Took the cops almost 30

[00:16:35] minutes to get there so the cops suck too. Back on track. My job lets me bring my dog to work which is

[00:16:43] awesome. He just hangs out with me or gets put in the doggy play group with his friends depending on

[00:16:49] my day's activity level. He's super nice to everyone but can be a little intimidating to some people at

[00:16:56] first, which is understandable since he's a 95 pound Doberman and they get a bit of a bad rap.

[00:17:03] So a few days ago I was in front of my office on my own since my co-worker was on a break.

[00:17:10] Two guys come in right off the bat. I'm like damn dudes are high as a motherfucking kite.

[00:17:18] Whatever, it happens. We're located next to a large college. It's to be expected. Anyway one of the

[00:17:25] dudes starts asking about volunteering because he has some community service hours due from breaking

[00:17:30] the law and I point him into the direction of the coordinator who does that. He goes. The other guy

[00:17:37] stays and starts making idle conversation. What's my name? My birthday? Favorite color?

[00:17:43] He compliments my tattoos and asks if I got them all for my birthday. I don't know like I said this

[00:17:50] town's weird so I don't question too much anymore. Then out of nowhere he starts telling me how hot I

[00:17:57] am and asks for my last name. I had to give him my first name because it's engraved on my shirt but

[00:18:04] I lied about the last name. I should have told him I was not comfortable with giving my last name but

[00:18:09] I have a too nice syndrome and honestly I didn't want to be harassed any further from saying no

[00:18:16] as I have been in the past. So the other guy comes back. They leave and I take my break.

[00:18:22] Lo and behold not 10 minutes into my break I get a text from my co-worker that the guys came back

[00:18:28] looking for me and not to come back to work. They leave about 20 minutes later. I'm in the clear.

[00:18:36] So fast forward. The day is pretty much done and I'm just closing up shop. A different co-worker

[00:18:41] than the one I worked up front with comes and sees I'm hurrying to leave. They ask me if I want them

[00:18:47] to take the dog out to the yard we have in the front of the property to do his business. I appreciate

[00:18:53] it and agree. The co-worker says he'll put him in my car too since it's parked next to his and he

[00:18:58] doesn't mind. He has the night shift to watch the animals so he's got some time to chill. The co-worker

[00:19:05] is also a homie and knows my routine. I say sure since I have a few binders to carry out anyway

[00:19:14] and hand him my key and off they go. He brings my key back about 15 minutes later.

[00:19:19] I'm the last to leave for the night besides co-worker 2 who is staying overnight till someone

[00:19:25] releases him in the morning. It's about 8 and pretty dark here and the parking lot we have is so small

[00:19:34] employees have to find street parking which is a whole other level of shit. As I'm about halfway

[00:19:40] to my car, probably a 5 minute walk away, I can hear some low talking in footsteps behind me.

[00:19:49] Doesn't ring any bells at first. There's lots of buildings and stuff on the street

[00:19:54] and some homeless people mill about later at night but they're pretty harmless. So I just

[00:20:01] keep on trucking. Not that many steps later I hear the steps speed up and a hand on my shoulder.

[00:20:10] The hand stopped me so abruptly I end up dropping my binders with loose papers I just organized

[00:20:16] so I'm a little irked now. I turn and freeze when I see it's the two guys from earlier.

[00:20:25] Did you need something? I asked while a sinking feeling set in for some reason.

[00:20:32] I just wanted to know why you lied to my brother here about your name. Are you like one of them

[00:20:37] stuck up bitches who think they're too good? The guy who wanted to volunteer asked. I stood there

[00:20:43] with my mouth open like a fucking fly trap. No idea how he knew I lied when the other guy

[00:20:48] answered for me. He told me he found me on Facebook from searching my work and saw me or

[00:20:54] some shit like that. So I came up with the smoothest lie I could and said that I'm not

[00:20:59] allowed to give up my full name to customers for county law safety regulations which is total

[00:21:04] bullshit. But they looked like they believed it. While I'm saying all of this I see his hand resting

[00:21:11] on his pocket and I subtly take in they both have decent sized pocket knives halfway concealed.

[00:21:19] I carry one myself at work just in case an animal ever gets caught on leash or something and we need

[00:21:25] to free them quickly but I'm a 21 year old girl that is 5 foot 2 and 100 pounds. I'm not doing

[00:21:32] shit to two guys if it came down to it. I know that. So I wanted to cry while the volunteer guy

[00:21:40] is going on about how it's good I'm not a stuck up cunt because they don't like stuck up cunts

[00:21:46] and they think they all should be taught a lesson in mannerisms. Gag me with a fucking spoon.

[00:21:53] What a prick. I'm trying to think of how to get the fuck out of here. No one's around. I don't

[00:21:59] want to use my cell phone and call 911 or anyone in front of them and I'm almost in my car so I

[00:22:06] don't want to risk going back to work. The guy who's got the hots for me is staring at me like

[00:22:12] a damn Christmas ham and I want to puke. Then they tell me about this party they're going to

[00:22:19] and that I should come since I'm a good girl and good girls go to parties with them. The way the

[00:22:25] volunteer guy said it made it seem like an order or not a request and the hairs on the back of my

[00:22:34] neck went up. So I get the idea while he's talking and just pray to the almighty and it fucking

[00:22:43] works. I forced a relaxed smile and agree saying I just have to put my binders in the car or my

[00:22:50] boss will kill me. They look stoked on my agreement and proceed to follow me to my car.

[00:22:56] It's too dark to see inside the windows and street lights are a rare thing on this side of town.

[00:23:02] The businesses are pretty spaced so the streets are not lit well. I get to the back door of my car,

[00:23:09] open it and smile when I see my dog's head pop up from the trunk out of his slumber. I drive an SUV

[00:23:16] so I lay the back seats down and my dog has the whole backseat and trunk area.

[00:23:22] Before I even make a sound his ears go up and he starts growling.

[00:23:27] I hear a what the fuck is that behind me and that's all it took for him to get his ass up

[00:23:33] and lunge for them doing his best to get his large body between me and the door.

[00:23:40] I grab his collar and let him jump out of the car out in front of me and let me tell you he's going

[00:23:46] fucking nuts. He's got Saint Bernard drool flying out of his mouth and he's snapping and barking

[00:23:53] and growling something fucking scary. The guys back up and tell me we can't bring the dog to

[00:23:59] the party and to put the fucking deranged mutt back in the car. I hold back from rolling my

[00:24:06] eyes and apologize saying I'm just going to give him some dog food that I keep in the glove box.

[00:24:14] I shut the door and open the front door. The dog will not get in he just keeps growling

[00:24:18] and snapping at the two guys so I keep a hold of his collar and get into the driver's side first

[00:24:25] then calling him in. Thankfully he reluctantly follows. I shut it as soon as his ass is in the

[00:24:32] passenger seat slightly growling and giving those little boof barks if you know what I mean.

[00:24:39] I hit the lock doors button and turn off my car. As soon as I do that they know I'm not about to

[00:24:45] go to some fucking party with their dumb asses and start banging on my window. My dog goes into

[00:24:50] rage mode and hops in the back and starts going ballistic while I peel the fuck out of there not

[00:24:57] caring if I hit either one of them. Once I'm down the street a bit I see them in the rearview mirror

[00:25:03] just staring at my car. It took the opposite direction in which I normally go home just to

[00:25:08] make myself feel better even though I have an hour commute home. As soon as I get home I deactivate

[00:25:15] my Facebook. I called in the next day and told my boss what had happened over the phone and they're

[00:25:22] working to transfer me to one of the other shelters in the county which is pretty sweet because all of

[00:25:27] them would still be a shorter commute but it still sucks to be afraid to go into work. So fucking

[00:25:34] drug guys let's not meet again because my dog goes everywhere with me and I'm sure he'd love to have

[00:25:40] a second chance at you. Yesterday morning I was unfortunate enough to suffer a power cut and I

[00:26:20] spent most of the day in total darkness and it isn't something that I enjoy. I ended up wandering

[00:26:26] around town throughout the day to kill some time. After spending a few hours at my university I

[00:26:33] decided I should get a hotel for me and my dog as the power outage was expected to last a few days

[00:26:40] and we live in the south where no AC can be a big issue. I finally manage to find somewhere nearby

[00:26:50] that will book me and my pup without costing a few arms and legs and that's when everything started

[00:26:57] to go downhill. I would need to get a cab from my old school back home and then to the hotel.

[00:27:05] Everything is within three miles of each other and I figured it would be simple. I wasn't aware

[00:27:11] that there was a late graduation ceremony going on so every time I tried to call a cab

[00:27:16] they wouldn't show up or someone else would take them. When the sun was starting to set I found

[00:27:23] someone who was a previous classmate of mine. They gave me a ride home and I packed my stuff up

[00:27:29] and called another cab. Lo and behold it didn't feel like coming and since Uber wasn't working

[00:27:37] I decided I would take my bag, my pup, and myself and walk my happy butt the mile or so

[00:27:43] to the hotel so that she could have a good rest. I start walking and about one quarter of the way

[00:27:51] there I hear someone behind me. Enter my nightmare, a six foot something brick house of a person

[00:27:59] with a grisly look about them. They looked me up and down and said, hey there girl where are you

[00:28:06] going? Now let it be known I am new to this area. I'm in the middle of nowhere and this is horrifying

[00:28:13] to me. I decided my options were to be incredibly polite or to run screaming so I fell back on

[00:28:21] politeness. After rejecting him it turns out he was walking to the place right next to my hotel

[00:28:29] so I decided I would try to humanize myself as much as possible and keep a dialogue going between us.

[00:28:36] He asked me questions about my family, friends, and why I was here. I made a bit of a story that

[00:28:42] I had family and I was here for graduation so it seemed like I would have people who knew I would

[00:28:48] be expected. Shortly after this he reaches into his pocket and says you might need this as he hands

[00:28:57] me a small knife not knowing what to say I thank him a few times. Moments later he is talking to

[00:29:05] himself before looking at me and inviting me to live with his niece and her boyfriend.

[00:29:13] Internally I am screaming I know I could do nothing to this guy he has at least a foot and a half on

[00:29:19] me and I'm exhausted. We continue walking as he tells me he gets a good vibe from me and he could

[00:29:27] see us in a relationship and with a family. He keeps muttering to himself about tons of stuff

[00:29:36] people, girls, it was hard to make out. Then he looks at me and says I have epiphany. I realized

[00:29:46] he meant I have an epiphany but that was how it was said. I said oh? He just smiled and did a

[00:29:55] head shake and kind of chuckled to himself muttering good night good night. Figure it's

[00:30:03] all right we're about halfway there and I'm holding a conversation listening to how he went

[00:30:08] to prison for two years over a gun and how Snoop Dogg dedicated a song to him. We get to a very

[00:30:16] dark part of the walk and he looks at something walking towards us and pushes me to the side of

[00:30:22] the sidewalk that is away from the street and says you walk here now because you're mine now little

[00:30:30] girly. Suddenly people walking to their cars from graduation walk past us as I feel safer and I know

[00:30:40] I'm home free. As we approach the hotel parking lot he asks if he can join me. I make up some excuse

[00:30:48] about how it's only booked for one person and it's not in my values. He follows me into the lobby.

[00:30:57] He follows me to the front desk. I am told I can't stay because I'm 20 not 21 and they had a

[00:31:06] recent policy change. My heart sinks he is attached to my side and I can't tell anybody I'm terrified.

[00:31:16] I see a worker at another desk and I say I'm going to the bathroom. I whisper to her

[00:31:23] please can I talk to you somewhere? I'm in a small emergency. She escorts me away and I explain that

[00:31:31] he's been following me. She has me sit down and he's trying to talk another person into using

[00:31:37] their ID for what he is now calling our room. A woman employee walks over and says do you know

[00:31:46] this girl? He replies baffled yeah this is my girl we've known each other for years.

[00:31:53] She looks at him and asks him my name she's my girl he says. She tells him if he doesn't leave

[00:32:01] the lobby police will be called. It ends up that she is the bartender. She sits me down and ended

[00:32:09] up helping me get my room and I fully intend to thank her and the other woman properly. After an

[00:32:16] hour of sitting in the bar and her negotiating my stay she looks at me and says if you wouldn't

[00:32:22] have been able to stay I would have paid for you or taken you home because he's still out there.

[00:32:29] He has still been outside on and off since this morning. So good vibe knife man although you are

[00:32:38] determined to try let's not meet again. Picture it hometown 2003 I was 25 a year out of college

[00:33:06] working on my first grown-up job and had been living alone in my apartment for about six months

[00:33:13] when I arrive home to find my phone ringing. I missed the call checked the caller ID and didn't

[00:33:20] recognize the number. The area code was from my old college town about an hour away. I went about

[00:33:28] my business but within a couple of minutes the same number called again. Unknown caller says

[00:33:35] hey girl how are you it's been such a long time. Um hi who is this? Girl it's Mandy what are you up to?

[00:33:46] Now I knew four Mandys none lived in my college town none called me girl at the time and none

[00:33:55] sounded like a valley girl on uppers. Mandy who? Oh my gosh we have so much to catch up on so you've

[00:34:05] moved back to your hometown that's great where are you working? Are you still dating that guy from

[00:34:11] high school? I so thought y'all would end up together. How are your parents? Where do you live

[00:34:17] in your hometown? What are you up to tonight? Wait this was a fifth Mandy. Mandy Jones from high

[00:34:28] school. I mean we'd been friends when we took dance in elementary school but we'd long since

[00:34:36] touched. Why in the world would she be calling me now? This didn't feel right so I say um hey

[00:34:45] yeah so I'm working at this local business in my hometown uh what are you up to? Oh that's great

[00:34:55] I always knew you'd really be somebody so where do you live now? Are you still dating that guy

[00:35:01] from high school that really cute one? Weird I had one boyfriend in high school he attended a

[00:35:08] different school and we broke up after a couple of months hardly a love story for the ages so I say

[00:35:17] uh so this is Mandy who again? Girl it's Mandy come on now. She continues blathering on asking

[00:35:27] all kinds of personal questions which I kept dodging. She kept wanting to know where I lived

[00:35:34] telling her my hometown wasn't enough and what about the cute guy from school?

[00:35:41] So I responded okay look I don't know who you are and I have no idea how you got this number.

[00:35:50] She says Mandy! Mandy Roper! Girl I know it's been a while but you should know that we played

[00:35:57] volleyball together. You wrote this number in my yearbook and I just came across it and thought

[00:36:02] we should catch up. All red flags. A few things you should know about Mandy Roper. She sounds less

[00:36:11] like a chirpy valley girl and more like someone who started smoking a pack a day at the age of four.

[00:36:18] Two, while we did play volleyball and softball and other types of ball together I guarantee that

[00:36:26] if you ask her Mandy would tell you we played basketball together mostly because three,

[00:36:33] basketball is the reason Mandy Roper hated my guts. I was one of a handful of freshmen on the

[00:36:40] varsity team and within two weeks of joining the team had made an enemy of the scariest bitch on

[00:36:46] the team. It's a very long silly teenage girl drama that isn't relevant to the rest of this tale

[00:36:54] but just keep in mind that Mandy would rather have told me to go fuck myself with a rusty spork

[00:37:00] than have tea and a chat. Number four, I had gotten that phone number when I moved into my

[00:37:07] apartment six months prior so I could not have given it to her in high school. Also I would have

[00:37:14] faked my own death before purposely giving that crazy lady my number so I told this quote-unquote

[00:37:22] Mandy Roper this much. You don't sound like Mandy Roper. I couldn't have given this number to you

[00:37:30] in high school because I've only had it for a couple of months and Mandy Roper hates me. She

[00:37:36] is the last person who would ever give a crap about what I am doing right now. Who is this really?

[00:37:43] There was no answer. Seriously, who are you? There was only one reply. Fuck you and they hung up.

[00:37:56] Over the next week maybe two I had several hang-ups at my office and a rose was left on my

[00:38:03] doorstep that my then boyfriend denied having left. I was literally clueless about stalking

[00:38:10] and harassment and whatnot so I really wasn't sure what to do. After it seemed like the hang-ups

[00:38:16] weren't going to stop I called a friend who still lives in my college town and asked her cop husband

[00:38:24] what I should do. He took the number and looked it up for me then called the house. The most he

[00:38:31] could figure out is that it was a little old lady who lived alone and seemed thoroughly confused by

[00:38:38] the whole story. Also, he swore that no one else could have used her phone. My dear, dear friend

[00:38:47] Mandy must have been someone close to this little old lady because all of it stopped after he made

[00:38:54] the call. It wasn't until years later that I realized why someone chose to pretend to be

[00:39:02] Mandy Roper. We played volleyball together one single year and it just so happens that we were

[00:39:09] seated next to one another in the team photo in the yearbook. We were both smiling in that picture.

[00:39:16] We'd simply gotten used to ignoring each other by then. So someone somewhere got their hands on an

[00:39:23] eight-year-old yearbook from someone I went to school with, looked me up, picked the person

[00:39:29] sitting beside me in the team photo, then called and harassed me for a couple of weeks. I sit here

[00:39:36] 14 years later still unclear on the who, what, when, where, why, and how but Mandy Roper let's

[00:39:46] not meet. Also, P.S., I figure there will be a lot of questions so here are my answers. I have

[00:39:54] no reason to think that this cute boy from high school was actually involved. We had broken up

[00:40:00] nearly seven years prior and had no contact after we graduated. Initially, I thought it was my then

[00:40:06] boyfriend's ex Becky who he dated before me and had always disliked me. She still lived in my

[00:40:15] college town but could never tie her to the little old lady in the phone number in question. Also,

[00:40:21] Becky was way too timid to try something like that. She'd be more likely to cry and write

[00:40:26] volumes of poetry while listening to Jewel. I eventually, belated of course, realized it had

[00:40:33] to be a direct result of dating my then boyfriend Joe Dirtbag because I'm fairly certain he had a

[00:40:40] girl in every port so to speak and most of them were as crazy as a cat in heat. Mandy Roper faded

[00:40:49] into the ether. I do see the real Mandy Roper though. We avoid one another at the grocery store.

[00:40:57] She still looks like she wants to hunt me down and stuff me in a locker.

[00:41:16] I've been reading everyone's amazing stories for years and felt like it was only fair that

[00:41:22] I contribute something back. Allow me to tell you about the time I dated a guy on Myspace for two

[00:41:28] years that nearly ended up getting my entire family murdered, me stalked by a psycho and everyone

[00:41:36] involved nearly losing their minds. I've never written this down before or told many people

[00:41:42] that I would even trust. It's all just too painful and quite honestly unbelievable to tell often.

[00:41:51] If it didn't happen to me, I probably would not believe it either but unfortunately it did.

[00:41:57] I promise you what you are about to read is 100% the absolute truth. I hope you find it interesting.

[00:42:06] Let me give you some background for this story. I'm an almost 28 year old gay male who was born

[00:42:12] and raised in the Appalachian Mountains which for my friends not in America that's in the south

[00:42:20] more towards the mid-Atlantic region. I usually don't just throw being gay out there but it's

[00:42:27] important to my tale and to understand why I made such insanely poor choices in my teenage years.

[00:42:35] I know almost everyone does but this really takes the cake. Follow me back to when I was 16,

[00:42:42] just about 12 years ago. I was a junior in high school, had plenty of friends and no trouble with

[00:42:48] bullies, at least not while I was at school. My parents are now wonderful people who greatly

[00:42:55] regret the way they treated me when they found out that I was gay. At the time I hated them for

[00:43:00] being so horrendous to me but as I got older I finally understood that their reaction was just a

[00:43:06] product of the strict religious movement that they and myself were brought up in. Mild disclaimer,

[00:43:14] I do not have any hatred in my heart for any religion no matter what its views are. Whatever

[00:43:20] you choose to believe in is all right by me. I'm more of a treat people the way you'd like to be

[00:43:26] treated kind of guy. This just doesn't happen to be my parents' reaction so don't judge them too

[00:43:33] harshly. Also, I don't want comments to turn into a religious debate or some LGBT rights discussion.

[00:43:42] This post is none of that. It just so happened to be my circumstances.

[00:43:49] My parents, who at the time firmly believed that this would send my eternal soul into damnation,

[00:43:55] pretty much only allowed me to stay at our house a couple of days a week. For at least a year I was

[00:44:02] living on friends' couches and off of the kindness of their parents. I was in what I can only describe

[00:44:09] as the worst state of miserable major depression that I have ever been in my life. I had tried to

[00:44:15] commit suicide the year before with a very serious overdose that cost me nine days in the ICU.

[00:44:22] I should have died but your liver is an amazing thing and it started to regenerate on its own.

[00:44:30] A year to that date, literally to that day, the first guy I ever fell in love with

[00:44:36] was killed in a tragic car accident. My parents had zero sympathy for my feelings.

[00:44:42] They were the immoral feelings of the blasphemous son so this person didn't count, I guess.

[00:44:50] I remember coming back home from his funeral that night and my father asking me,

[00:44:55] why are you so upset? Were you a fag with that boy or something? I didn't even respond,

[00:45:02] just walked right past him and straight into my room where I proceeded to cry myself to sleep.

[00:45:07] Again, don't judge them too harshly, they were different people back then.

[00:45:12] Needless to say this sent me completely spiraling downwards in the worst way possible. Drugs,

[00:45:18] alcohol, you name it, I did it. Anything to stay numb and keep myself from feeling the immense

[00:45:25] amounts of pain I was in emotionally every single day. To have your situation go from

[00:45:34] a year before seeing your father cry for the first time as you lay dying in a hospital bed

[00:45:42] to him spewing so much malice and hatred towards you,

[00:45:46] let's just say it was enough to make anyone have a mental breakdown.

[00:45:51] I had friends who cared about and loved me deeply, I don't know why that wasn't enough,

[00:45:56] it just wasn't. I felt like no one truly loved me or ever would. Hell, if my own parents couldn't,

[00:46:04] then what were my chances of finding a soulmate? Would I just be alone forever, as miserable as

[00:46:11] I was then? At the time, in my angsty teen mind, that's exactly what I felt.

[00:46:20] Which finally brings us through my background and mindset leading you into the pure,

[00:46:26] unadulterated hell that was soon to follow. In the midst of my deepest, darkest despair,

[00:46:33] the brightest idea anyone has ever had on the planet popped into my head. Well,

[00:46:39] if no one around here will ever love me then I'll just go online and try to meet someone who will.

[00:46:46] Pure stroke of genius, right? It made such absolute biblical sense at the time. I felt

[00:46:52] like the only gay teen in the whole damn state, like the only person who really understood was me,

[00:47:00] and only ever would be me. That in order to find someone to love me, I would have to search far

[00:47:07] and wide beyond the borders of this mountainous fortress that I had resided in my entire life.

[00:47:14] Proud of myself for having such an ingenious idea, I immediately hopped on Myspace. Facebook

[00:47:21] for us old people, for all the young folks saying, what the fuck is Myspace? I spent the next hour

[00:47:29] making it as badass looking as I thought I could. You could customize just about everything on your

[00:47:35] profile, so of course mine had to accurately reflect my emo feelings and the darkness in my soul.

[00:47:44] Word to the wise, and something I wish I realized back then, if you're trying to attract the darker

[00:47:49] things in society, you're probably going to get back exactly what you're sending out.

[00:47:56] I know I sure as hell did. It all started out innocently enough. I clicked on one of my gay

[00:48:03] acquaintances profiles, and for some reason the guy on his top 8 just flew right out at me.

[00:48:10] His name was Jacob, he was gorgeous dressed all in black, and that was pretty much all I needed to

[00:48:16] know at the time. I saw he was from Maryland, several hours away from me but far enough to

[00:48:24] possibly not be like everyone else. Far enough to hopefully have exactly the kind of mentality

[00:48:32] that I was looking for in another human being, so I sent him a message. Something lame in the effect

[00:48:37] of, hi what's up? I just saw you on my friend's top 8 and thought you were cute so I figured I

[00:48:43] would say hello. I wasn't expecting a response, none whatsoever. He was so gorgeous and seemed

[00:48:51] way too cool for me, so why in God's name would he message a guy like me back? And then it happened.

[00:48:58] Within a minute of me sending that message, I got one back. And it was from him. Not gonna lie,

[00:49:05] I exploded in joy on the inside. Something that I hadn't felt in years and years. It was just

[00:49:13] something like, hey you're cute, how are you? But it was enough to send me over the moon.

[00:49:20] I felt alive again, but what I really felt was hope again. We talked the rest of the day and night.

[00:49:28] We talked about each other, and how much life sucked. How bad we wanted to be away from our

[00:49:35] hometown and our lives. You know, the usual teenage gay boys living in repression. I fell

[00:49:44] for him hard. Too hard. I mean hook line and sinker. We chatted for maybe a week before he

[00:49:51] asked me out. I had no problem with dating online. Hell, that was the whole point of me doing this

[00:49:57] in the first place, so I eagerly said yes. We had only been dating for a week after that, so

[00:50:05] when he introduced me to the rest of his friends, I met his ex-boyfriend Zachary and their best

[00:50:12] friend Josie, who I quickly became best friends with, along with about 10 other girls and guys.

[00:50:19] Josie was a cool chick, and she had known these guys for years. Who better to give me all the

[00:50:27] dirt on them? During the course of the next month, Josie and I became the closest friends

[00:50:32] out of everyone he introduced me to in what turned out to be a gang. They were mostly just

[00:50:39] a group of suburban white kids who called themselves the elites, and just drank and smoked a lot of

[00:50:47] weed. I heard some crazy stories here and there about them beating up people and some of them

[00:50:54] taking the gang things way too seriously, but I didn't really think too much of it.

[00:51:00] Josie and I had been talking over the phone every single day, and I really made a genuine connection

[00:51:05] with her. She had my sense of bizarre humor, was extremely intelligent, and still liked to have a

[00:51:11] crazy good time on top of it all. During this period, Jacob and I were doing great, but there

[00:51:19] was one little problem. I started to fall in love with his ex Zachary the more I talked to him.

[00:51:26] Jacob would be intense and at times violent when he was angry, from what I heard. But on the other

[00:51:33] hand, Zachary was his complete opposite. He was too kind for his own good, an extremely caring guy,

[00:51:40] and he wrote the most beautiful piano music I had ever heard. Being a musician myself,

[00:51:46] french horn for 10 years, I was immediately endeared to this guy. The more and more time

[00:51:52] I spent online talking to Zachary, the less and less I felt like talking to Jacob. Eventually,

[00:51:59] Jacob kind of figured out what was going on, and to my shock, he let me know he was cool with it,

[00:52:05] and wished us the best. That's how, after about two months with Jacob, I started dating his ex

[00:52:13] Zachary. This would be the guy I would date for the next two years, and with whom the worst times

[00:52:19] of my life would be spent. Josie was clearly thrilled for me. We still talked every day online

[00:52:26] and on the phone. Sometimes I talked to Zachary on the phone, but more often than not, we just

[00:52:32] kept our communications to AOL Instant Messenger. When we started dating was when everything started

[00:52:39] to collapse. Jacob, who has initially said he was okay with everything, ended up exploding. He

[00:52:47] completely tore me a new one online, and then proceeded to go and kidnap my current boyfriend.

[00:52:54] Josie called me up, freaking me the hell out, saying that he'd taken Zachary and no one knew

[00:52:59] where they were. This clearly sent me reeling from shock. I guess all of the rumors I had heard

[00:53:05] about Jacob were true, and now because of my actions, the guy I'm in love with is in danger.

[00:53:13] I quickly contacted some older guys in the gang and let them know what was going on.

[00:53:19] Their response was basically, ah shit, not again, which caught me off guard. Again? You mean this

[00:53:28] happens frequently? I talked to Chaz, the leader of this gang, while he sent some guys out to deal

[00:53:35] with Jacob and retrieve my boyfriend. He basically told me in a nutshell that Jacob has been and

[00:53:42] always will be obsessed with Zachary. That when he gets wasted on whatever, he goes cuckoo for

[00:53:48] Cocoa Puffs and sets out on some wild mission to kidnap and apparently violate my new boyfriend.

[00:53:55] I couldn't believe it. I mean, I was in complete and total shock.

[00:54:00] But apparently this situation was resolved easily, and he handed over my man without

[00:54:06] too much incident. He also received a healthy ass beating to remind Jacob that it's not nice

[00:54:13] to go around kidnapping people just because you can. This was the first, and certainly not

[00:54:19] the last, incident I can remember where a pattern I'm all too familiar with now

[00:54:25] would develop over the next several years. Jacob would get drunk and jealous. He would do something

[00:54:32] completely insane to me or my boyfriend, and then after all the freaking out and worrying

[00:54:38] was over with, he would come crying back to me begging mine and Zachary's forgiveness.

[00:54:45] This became a weekly routine and it began to wear me out mentally, very quickly. Fast forward

[00:54:53] around a year after I had sent my very first message to Jacob, I was still with Zachary and

[00:54:59] still best friends with Josie, and was still dealing with Jacob's craptastic insane plots

[00:55:05] to ruin my relationship and give me a stroke before the age of 20. None of this craziness

[00:55:14] set off any red flags in my head. Not one. As a matter of fact, nothing period during that

[00:55:21] entire year gave me a second thought about anything going on, really.

[00:55:27] That day to day, the sky is falling lifestyle had become the norm for me, and I was used to it.

[00:55:35] Several of my friends, however, had their doubts, though they were polite enough to keep them to

[00:55:41] themselves for the time being. This was when the first true danger that threatened me and my family

[00:55:47] ever arose, and it led to a night that I will never forget as long as I live. Cut to me as a 17 year

[00:55:55] old who in the span of one year had accomplished everything he set out to do. I had the perfect

[00:56:01] boyfriend, even if I'd never met him, didn't care. I had an awesome new best friend, Josie,

[00:56:09] and we'd hung out a few times at that point, and I adored her. And I had joined a group of my own

[00:56:16] in my hometown. My parents were going to throw me away just because of who I loved.

[00:56:22] Well, then I was going to throw away every single religious thing I had ever been taught

[00:56:27] and go to the dark side. I became a Luciferian, otherwise known as a Satanist,

[00:56:34] and boy oh boy did I think I was a badass now. When it comes to the coven I joined in my hometown,

[00:56:43] that could fill a completely different story in an entirely different subreddit.

[00:56:48] Maybe I'll post that experience sometime, but the point of me telling you about them was so

[00:56:54] that you could understand what happened next. I received a call one night around 12am from Josie,

[00:57:01] who was almost beside herself, very out of character for her. I mean hell, Zachary had been

[00:57:08] kidnapped over 40 times in the past year and she hardly batted an eye. But this was different.

[00:57:15] She explained to me that Jacob had really outdone himself and lost his mind this time.

[00:57:23] He had hired a guy from the elites named Sean to come down to my house and kill me and my mother,

[00:57:31] father, and younger sister. My sister is about 7 and a half years younger than me,

[00:57:39] and from the day she was born I have always been fiercely protective over her. She was and still is

[00:57:46] my beautiful baby sister and surely the only one in my household that I loved at the time.

[00:57:54] When I heard that my ex had taken it so far to hire a hitman to come after my family,

[00:58:00] I threw into what we around here call a mountain rage. It didn't matter to me if someone simply

[00:58:07] came after me, but to target my precious sister who had nothing to do with any of this

[00:58:13] was the boiling point for me. And even though I despised my parents at the time,

[00:58:18] I'm still a southerner and when you mess with a southerner's family,

[00:58:23] then all the crap you're fighting about goes out the window.

[00:58:29] Complete and total defend the homestead mode kicked in. I asked Josie when he left Maryland.

[00:58:36] She told me she found out that he started driving towards my house maybe an hour ago,

[00:58:43] and as soon as she found out she called me immediately. Okay, so that meant I had at the

[00:58:50] most 6 hours to prepare and at least possibly 4 if you got a good head start. She also informed

[00:58:57] me that Sean was a former army guy but got kicked out for failing several psych tests

[00:59:04] and being completely sociopathic in general. I'm not a big guy and at the time I weighed even less

[00:59:11] than I do now. I was 5'7 and maybe weighed 130 pounds soaking wet, but my first thought

[00:59:18] didn't require brute strength to beat back this attacker. I called up my coven leader,

[00:59:25] Brandon who lived not even 10 minutes away from me and explained the situation. I told him I

[00:59:31] needed to borrow his favorite toy and I promised that I would bring it back in good condition

[00:59:37] with as little blood on it as possible. He agreed. About 30 minutes later I was back home in my room

[00:59:44] cleaning and loading an extremely nice over and under pump action shotgun. Like I said,

[00:59:52] no brute force required. I called Josie back up and got the details on exactly what he and his

[00:59:58] car looked like. Then around 4am I told her I would call her back and crept out into my front yard.

[01:00:05] Now, for people who had never been to my house, they always got where to park at wrong. They always

[01:00:12] ended up in front of the house down a hill instead of in the driveway on the side. This little detail

[01:00:19] was stuck in my mind and probably saved my life. In the very front of my yard there was a huge oak tree

[01:00:27] that was big enough for my skinny, girl jean wearing emo ass to hide perfectly behind. All I

[01:00:34] had to do was wait and hope that he did exactly what I thought he would do. I got so lucky. He

[01:00:42] parked exactly behind the opposite side of the big tree I was hiding behind. I heard the car door

[01:00:48] open and someone step outside the vehicle, shortly followed by the unmistakable cocking of a 9mm

[01:00:58] handgun. While that sound may have struck fear in the hearts of others, it absolutely enraged me to

[01:01:04] the core. So I replied in kind with the sound of my own. As I stepped from around the side of the

[01:01:13] tree he was directly in front of his car, gunned down by his side. In one motion I simultaneously

[01:01:21] pumped a shell into the chamber of my shotgun and raised it direct level with his head about 10 feet

[01:01:29] away from me. This caught him off guard and completely by surprise. I didn't hesitate. I

[01:01:36] simply told him the God's honest truth. I said, buddy you've got one of two options right now.

[01:01:44] Either you get back in your car, turn around and drive straight back to Maryland without stopping

[01:01:49] or you can so much as flinch in my general direction and I will splatter your brains

[01:01:56] all across that great state of, insert my state. You have five seconds to decide.

[01:02:04] What's it going to be? I kid you not. The most sickly smile spreads across the psycho's face and

[01:02:12] for a moment I thought we were about to reenact the movie Tombstone. Unfortunately, he had much

[01:02:20] more of a sense of self-preservation than I had thought someone who just drove 8 hours to kill a

[01:02:26] family would ever have. All he did was give a little chuckle and said, you're a cool dude.

[01:02:34] See you around. He then walked backwards very slowly, my gun following him the entire way,

[01:02:42] got back into his car and drove off. Right then and there I made up my mind.

[01:02:49] I had to tackle the beast head on. I was always raised that if you have a problem,

[01:02:57] be a damn man and take care of it yourself. I had to go to my enemy, Jacob's home turf

[01:03:05] and bring this war to his doorstep. Just like he brought it to mine. It was time to go to Maryland.

[01:03:15] After all the drama of nearly being murdered by a nut job, I had really had enough of Jacob's

[01:03:21] bullshit at this point. I got online and cussed him out until a fly wouldn't land on him,

[01:03:27] making a point to let him know that his little plan backfired. He wasn't dealing with some

[01:03:32] poor little boy that couldn't fend for himself. And each and every crazy situation that evolved

[01:03:39] had made me a stronger person. If not a little bit more of a mentally disturbed person every

[01:03:45] time I told him he was going to regret the day that he ever crossed me and my boyfriend,

[01:03:52] instead of apologizing, like usual, his true colors finally came out. He laughed at me.

[01:03:59] He freaking laughed at me. He told me I was cute when I was angry and said,

[01:04:05] what a damn shame it was that I didn't have a bullet hole in my head.

[01:04:10] He wished I was dead and that he never spoke to me in the first place because he was still in love,

[01:04:17] more like insanely obsessed with his ex, my current boyfriend of a year, Zachary.

[01:04:24] He informed me that the war was just beginning and he would do everything in his power to win

[01:04:29] Zachary back like he was some kind of adorable trophy you won for baking the best freaking pie

[01:04:36] at the county fair. I was completely livid and brimming to the edge with fury. I told him to

[01:04:43] watch his back because I'm coming for him. I called Josie and told her everything that had happened

[01:04:49] and asked if I could come stay with her for a week. She excitedly agreed. Zachary was asleep

[01:04:56] for this whole ordeal and blissfully unaware that anything had happened. When he found out

[01:05:01] the next day, I think he was even more angry than I was. Fortunately for us, the gang's leader Chaz

[01:05:08] liked Zachary a whole hell of a lot more than he did Jacob, so we hatched a plan with him.

[01:05:14] The idea was for them to kidnap Jacob just like he had Zachary so many times before.

[01:05:20] They would be accomplishing this task while I was on my way up to Maryland

[01:05:24] and when I got there, he would be mine to do with as I pleased. You can imagine on the 8 hour drive

[01:05:30] up there all the hideously brutal ideas that were going through my mind. I was going to inflict

[01:05:37] maximum amounts of pain on the guy that had caused so much in my own life and I would relish every

[01:05:43] second of it. Unfortunately or fortunately depending on how you look at it, my dreams of

[01:05:48] reviving the Spanish Inquisition on my ex's head never came to fruition. When I arrived in Maryland,

[01:05:55] Josie came skipping out to greet me, happy as a lark like always to see me. She had some good

[01:06:02] and bad news. I always ask for the bad news first and the bad news was that Jacob had gotten tipped

[01:06:08] off by Kenny. God, I freaking loathed that guy, always meddling where he didn't belong. He told

[01:06:15] him that I was coming for him. He made a hasty retreat and had intended to kidnap Zachary and take

[01:06:22] him on the run too, but that was the good news. Before he could get to him, Zachary had hopped on a

[01:06:27] bus and headed to New York to stay with his mom while things cooled off. As sad as I was that once

[01:06:33] again I had missed seeing him for the first time, I was just relieved that he was out of harm's way,

[01:06:40] safe and sound. Again, no alarm bells going off that for the second time that I had made the trip

[01:06:47] up there, Zachary was not around. Josie called him on her cell and he apparently picked up his mom's

[01:06:55] because he never had his own cell and we got to enjoy one of the rare times we actually spoke

[01:07:01] on the phone. All was well. Now for a week of fun and plotting on what we were going to do to Jacob

[01:07:08] the next time he reared his ugly head. Later on that week, Josie wanted to drive to an old

[01:07:14] colonial part of Maryland and go ghost hunting on these abandoned railroad tracks. However

[01:07:21] uneventful that may have been, we did end up inviting Sean to go with us. Turns out,

[01:07:28] Psycho Dude actually felt bad. Well, almost. He blankly told me that if I didn't have the balls

[01:07:36] to stand up to him, he would have killed me and my whole family for just $500. Instead of killing

[01:07:42] him on the spot, which every fiber in my being was telling me to do, I decided to play nice and get

[01:07:49] him on my side. That way, if Jacob ever tried that crap again, he would definitely tell him no because

[01:07:56] I'm the quote unquote cool dude. Sometimes you catch more flies with honey. Anyways, the rest

[01:08:02] of the week was normal and a damn good time. Josie and I said our goodbyes and we parted ways,

[01:08:09] wishing each other a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year. The next couple of weeks were semi-normal.

[01:08:16] No word from Jacob at all. Not even a peep. What a gift, I thought. I'll take it. Two years of my

[01:08:23] relationship began quite happily, believe it or not. Even my birthday month of January was an

[01:08:30] unusually good one. Then came the next couple of months, two months which quite vividly live within

[01:08:37] me to this day. They also defined my life for the next several years. This is when the sky stopped

[01:08:43] falling and my world completely crumbled underneath me into utter devastation. At the beginning of

[01:08:50] February, Josie had a sudden and urgent impulse to get away from her parents. Now I could completely

[01:08:58] understand that, so I happily agreed to let her come stay down south with me. I borrowed my best

[01:09:04] friend's car and drove a 15 to 16 some odd hour round trip all the way to Maryland and back. My

[01:09:12] parents were less than thrilled. They told me she couldn't live in the house with us, so I said fine

[01:09:18] and shelled out my own money to a local La Quinta Inn where she and I lived for almost two weeks

[01:09:24] before my parents caved in and let us come back in my house. Now I forgot to mention something

[01:09:30] extremely important earlier about my boyfriend Zachary. He was very sick, I mean terminally ill,

[01:09:37] but we thought it wouldn't be for years. I was told that he had cystic fibrosis and he needed a

[01:09:44] double lung transplant in order to live much longer. He was hospitalized in the beginning of February

[01:09:51] and rushed up the transplant list because his condition was so grave. I can't even begin to

[01:09:56] tell you how after the year we'd been through together, how badly I wanted to be by his side.

[01:10:03] Unfortunately he was at a hospital in a part of the country that specializes in treating

[01:10:08] CF and was way too far for me to travel. Josie kept me in pretty good spirits about the whole thing.

[01:10:16] She had a lot of experience with cystic fibrosis since her sister died from it several years

[01:10:21] earlier. She reassured me that since he was so young and tried to take such good care of himself

[01:10:27] that he would probably receive donor lungs very soon and be just fine. I tried not to worry too

[01:10:33] much, but in reality I was worrying my ass off. Losing him after getting him out of harm's way

[01:10:40] so many times before was not an option in my mind.

[01:10:45] How could we have overcome so much only for him to succumb to this disease?

[01:10:50] Zachary and I talked constantly when he felt like it, and even though he was scared and alone,

[01:10:58] he said he felt like a million bucks knowing I was supporting him with my love no matter where I was.

[01:11:04] That made me feel wonderful being able to comfort him from so far away,

[01:11:08] and for a couple of weeks my comfort seemed to be doing the trick until one day. That day.

[01:11:15] My boyfriend died suddenly on February 14th of 2008. His lungs filled with fluid, he suffocated

[01:11:23] and died. There was nothing anyone could do. I was completely and totally lost.

[01:11:31] Josie broke the news and I collapsed into the biggest mess you've ever seen in your life.

[01:11:36] She was still living with me at the time, so she tried to console me as best as she could

[01:11:42] while she was shedding her own tears at the loss of her best friend. That forever ruined

[01:11:47] Valentine's Day for me. To this day it only reminds me of loss and death. You don't realize

[01:11:53] how fragile your heart truly is until you've experienced a loss like that. Little did I know

[01:12:00] that even worse moments in my life were about to occur a month later. I was headed on a course

[01:12:07] for total destruction and still blissfully unaware of the one person who had been driving this crazy

[01:12:13] train from day one. Skip forward to March, St. Patrick's Day to be exact, a little over a month

[01:12:20] since Zachary had passed. Josie had forcefully been returned to Maryland by her parents seeing

[01:12:27] as how she had practically ran away. I was off in la-la land of booze, drugs, and more pain than

[01:12:35] either of us could cover up. I was chilling with my Satanist posse doing what all normal American

[01:12:42] teenagers did on St. Patrick's Day, pretending like we were Irish and testing the limits of

[01:12:48] alcohol poisoning. My alcohol tolerance back then was ridiculously high, so I had already drank an

[01:12:55] inordinate amount when my phone rang. It was Josie. I slurred my words as something to the

[01:13:02] effect of, hey girl, what's she doing? And it came bumbling out of my mouth. I announced to the room

[01:13:09] it was Josie, to which everyone replied, hey! She had lived with us for several months and,

[01:13:17] love her or not, she had become an honorary Southerner. The next words out of her mouth

[01:13:23] once again sent my head spinning off into space and my world into complete chaos.

[01:13:30] Zachary is not dead. I stopped breathing for a moment, and when I caught my breath I asked her

[01:13:39] to repeat that again. She did, except this time she added the fact that his life had been in danger,

[01:13:46] that he had to hide even from me. Jacob just had to think he was dead. I could literally feel my

[01:13:53] brain dripping out from my ears as my mind turned into mush with every word out of her mouth.

[01:14:00] Then for the real kicker to my drunken mental meltdown, Zachary got on the phone. Sure enough,

[01:14:06] it was his voice. He apologized for what he had to do. I apologized for what I was about to do,

[01:14:14] which was scream and yell my lungs out, throw the phone into the wall, smashing it into a million

[01:14:19] pieces, and then proceed to go from being super hammered drunk to completely shithead wasted.

[01:14:27] I drank everything that wasn't nailed down. Who knows what other drugs I did on top of that,

[01:14:32] because I sure don't remember. I was literally having a complete and total mental breakdown.

[01:14:38] The last strand of sanity in my brain just snapped. I did this for a couple more hours until

[01:14:44] I somehow drove back home, put on my work clothes, and tore out of the parking lot to go to my job

[01:14:50] in a city half an hour down the interstate with people chasing me trying to stop me.

[01:14:55] I don't recall any of what happened next, but apparently this is what I did.

[01:15:01] I showed up to work completely wasted and got fired from a damn good job. I called my father

[01:15:08] freaking out in the parking lot of said job. He realized I was drunk and told me to stay there,

[01:15:14] and he would come get me. Oh how I wish crazy drunk me would have listened. Instead of doing that,

[01:15:21] I started driving on the interstate again not caring if I lived or died, and obviously not

[01:15:27] caring about anyone else. According to the police report, I was tearing down the interstate at 130

[01:15:33] miles per hour. I apparently hit two mile markers on the side of the road and blew both my right

[01:15:40] hand tires, but continued on driving with sparks shooting 50 feet out of the back of my car. I took

[01:15:47] the exit to the hospital going that fast and had spun out and completely totaled what was left of

[01:15:53] my car. According to the bystanders, I then proceeded to exit my vehicle and run across the

[01:16:00] damn interstate towards the hospital with people chasing after me. Once I got to the ER doors,

[01:16:08] I heard the now familiar whoop whoop of a police cruiser. I was so arrested for driving under the

[01:16:16] influence, I blew a .2 about 12 hours after having my last drink. If I had blown a .21,

[01:16:26] I would have gotten a felony charge. That led to years of failed drug tests,

[01:16:31] violated probation, and ultimately a year in jail down the line. After that, I decided enough was

[01:16:39] enough. These crazy people from Maryland and their insane concept of living could all go to hell as

[01:16:46] far as I was concerned. It had been nearly two years of torment, fear, and unimaginable pain.

[01:16:53] Worst of all, it was starting to cost me my mind and my freedom. I was done listening to Josie

[01:17:01] and ready to start listening to some of my actual friends in town who had been begging me to stay

[01:17:06] away from those people for a long time now. Some good friends sat me down and started to tell me

[01:17:13] the inconsistencies in all their stories over the last few years. At first, I didn't want to listen,

[01:17:20] but then eventually there was too much evidence not to listen. Finally, I opened my ears and

[01:17:26] mind to what was really going on. I decided to figure this one out once and for all.

[01:17:32] I got on MySpace, Facebook, and every other social media I could think of.

[01:17:36] I typed in Josie's full name into the search bar of every single one.

[01:17:41] What I found to this day still makes me want to turn my stomach contents inside out. There,

[01:17:48] on every social media possible, by using her name and a few email addresses I knew she had,

[01:17:55] I found dozens and dozens of accounts linked to her email. Duplicate after duplicate of Zachary's

[01:18:03] full name on accounts with pictures of her. And the same thing with Jacob and every single

[01:18:10] solitary other person in the supposed elites. That's when it finally, after years of denial

[01:18:18] and torment, it finally freaking hit me like a railroad car full of bricks. Holy shit,

[01:18:26] she's every single one of these people. She's absolutely and unequivocally made up every single

[01:18:34] solitary one of these people and has been pretending to be a dozen or more people over two years.

[01:18:42] As you can imagine, my jaw hit the damn floor. Thank God I had some close friends there who kept

[01:18:49] me from falling apart and helping me find every single fake profile she had ever created. I was

[01:18:56] dumbfounded. Profile after profile after profile that had her pictures but the names of people

[01:19:04] I thought were entirely real. Prototype accounts before she ended up making the actual fake

[01:19:11] accounts. All of this just had to be one psychotic joke. I was too shocked to be enraged yet,

[01:19:19] but don't worry that's coming. I diligently copied every link, every single one of her profiles and

[01:19:25] everything into my AOL instant messenger. Then I called her. Hey, how are you? I'm all right,

[01:19:32] I guess. Just bored. You? Nope, definitely not bored over here. Get on aim chat and I'll show

[01:19:39] you something really interesting. I was nearly hysterical at this point and I could tell she

[01:19:45] knew something was up. When she was online, I simply asked her, hey Josie, what are these?

[01:19:52] Then I sent her every link to every single fake profile that she had ever created in her miserable

[01:19:59] life and a few from email accounts I didn't even know belonged to her. The silence on the other

[01:20:05] end of the line was deafening as I heard her clicking through link after link. Her two-year

[01:20:13] long mental game was over and she finally realized it. Her words? Well, fuck man. Guess you got me.

[01:20:23] Then she started to laugh, genuinely laugh as though something remotely funny had just occurred.

[01:20:30] I don't recall what I said, but apparently it was bad enough for my friends to take away the phone

[01:20:37] and have to hold me down. Catfish the show or movie wasn't around back then, so I had unwittingly

[01:20:44] become one of the first hardcore victims of a stalker in the internet age. Worse than that,

[01:20:50] I had talked to, lived with, and even befriended the girl who had been stalking and trying to ruin

[01:20:56] my life for over two years. It was literally and still is the single biggest mindfuck I have ever

[01:21:02] had in my entire life. Thousands upon thousands of messenger conversations, hundreds and thousands of

[01:21:10] hours of phone conversation, countless amounts of cash being spent to drive up several states away

[01:21:16] just to stay with my psycho stalker every single time. Even bringing her down to live with me for

[01:21:24] months, having $5,000 mysteriously vanished out of my bank account. Everything was starting to make

[01:21:31] sense. There was no Jacob, there was no Zachary, and there was no gang. What there actually was

[01:21:39] was one completely batshit insane girl with more mental problems than I could fit in an encyclopedia.

[01:21:47] She was the only person I ever talked to, she was the only person I ever saw, and even worse,

[01:21:52] she was the only one that paid Sean to come down to my house with a gun to try and kill my entire

[01:21:59] family. Josie, the only person in these last two years that had orchestrated any of this.

[01:22:07] From all the fake kidnappings and boyfriend drama, to faking the death of someone I had fallen in

[01:22:13] love with and bringing him back just to screw with my head. Who the hell does that? All the events of

[01:22:20] the last two years came flooding back into my mind as I realized each and every one, it was solely her

[01:22:27] and no one else but her. So many questions raced through my head, and least of all, why me?

[01:22:36] I deleted my Myspace and made my Facebook profile private. I only accept friends that I know are

[01:22:43] real. I fell completely off the wagon and out of my head. Drugs, alcohol, more drugs. That's all I

[01:22:52] could do to cope. Here I was, a gay man that had unknowingly fallen in love with a straight woman,

[01:22:59] and regardless of whether or not I thought it was a gay man, which I wholeheartedly did,

[01:23:05] that shit still fucks you in the head pretty bad. I didn't think I could ever be close to someone

[01:23:12] again. My world had been rocked and ruined. To this day, all these years later, I still don't

[01:23:18] trust people. I don't think I will ever be able to trust someone ever again. Can you blame me?

[01:23:25] Well, turns out, she came down here. You heard that right. That bitch moved into my sister town

[01:23:32] not even half an hour away from me. I bumped into her by accident and we started talking. Again,

[01:23:38] as much as I wanted to stomp her into a bloody pulp on the ground, you can catch more flies

[01:23:43] with honey. I wanted answers. Hell, I deserved them. I told her I was just trying to forgive her

[01:23:51] and I needed answers to my questions in order to do so. I asked her if she would sit down with me

[01:23:58] and tell me everything and she reluctantly agreed. I politely informed her that this forgiveness

[01:24:06] was not for her, but it was for me so I could stop holding onto and living in the past. I explained

[01:24:14] she nearly killed me and ruined my life and what she did was the most personal and horrific thing

[01:24:20] one human being can do to another. Especially after I was so damn good to her. She was polite

[01:24:28] and let me get what I needed to off my chest. I tried to be calm and not be rude so that she

[01:24:35] wouldn't run away. I did get closure somewhat and answers to everything. Here's her explanation.

[01:24:46] It started out as a joke when she was in high school. There was a girl who was being mean to

[01:24:51] her and bullying her so she thought she better get back by getting her to like a guy online

[01:24:57] and reveal the awful truth later. She had a bunch of prototype profiles and eventually

[01:25:04] almost 20 in total so it looked like this group of people had the same friends and they were all real.

[01:25:11] She just pulled pictures off of freaking google. She knew none of these people in real life.

[01:25:17] She was having a good old time tricking this girl when along comes a spider to mess up her web. Me.

[01:25:26] She said she thought she would just mess with me a little bit and let me know that she was

[01:25:31] actually a girl. But after talking to me she unintentionally fell in love with me.

[01:25:38] Whether or not that's true I don't know what to believe. If she really did love me then why put

[01:25:45] me through all this pure freaking hell for two years? She said she wanted to tell me a million

[01:25:52] times but it just got out of control and before she knew it she was really getting into being

[01:25:58] these people and somewhat believed she was them and they were real. Again this chick is the world's

[01:26:05] best bullshitter all I wanted to know was how did she get the music and how did she sound like a guy

[01:26:13] on the phone? The music as she shockingly demonstrated to me was actually hers. She's an

[01:26:20] amazing pianist and guitar player. I saw this with my own eyes and even heard it with my own ears.

[01:26:27] Zachary's voice on the phone wasn't very complicated. She paid this guy friend a few bucks to be in on

[01:26:34] it with her which this jerk-off eagerly agreed to. Ruining someone's life for a few bucks how sweet.

[01:26:43] Sean was all her she paid him 500 bucks to do that and she had zero explanation as to why.

[01:26:50] She knew he wouldn't do it. He's just as much as a psycho as she is. The rest of it is purely

[01:26:58] fantasy and imagination all dolled up to be extra crazy so I would care more about Zachary and give

[01:27:05] her more attention. As lie after lie was finally revealed and the truth brought to life I had heard

[01:27:12] enough after around eight hours of this. I'd heard everything I really ever needed to hear and wanted

[01:27:18] to hear. My life was nearly destroyed, my family nearly killed, my mental and emotional health

[01:27:25] scarred forever and ever simply because she wasn't getting enough attention in her life.

[01:27:31] Neither was I when that all started but I didn't go about like a human wrecking ball trying to

[01:27:37] make myself feel better. I'll never be able to comprehend or understand the mind of someone like

[01:27:43] that. People who derive pleasure from other people's pain and misery. I'll never be able to

[01:27:50] fully trust not in that way that's required of a true partner and companion. I just can't do that

[01:27:57] again. If I'm mortally betrayed again I know the next time will kill me so as I write this in my

[01:28:03] apartment a little over a decade after this all happened I am alone. One good thing that did come

[01:28:10] of this it sure as hell made me the person I am today and it strengthened and toughened my resolve

[01:28:18] into tempered steel. I learned to be okay with myself and to finally love myself after so many

[01:28:24] years of self-loathing. I'm a pretty amazing person, I don't need a man to define my life and who I am

[01:28:31] in any shape warm or fashion. Obviously I'm worth something otherwise this psycho chick wouldn't

[01:28:37] have latched on to me for years and ended up moving eight hours away from her home to be 30

[01:28:42] minutes away from me all this damn time. What she stole I will never get back but what I gained

[01:28:50] she can never take away from me again. Thanks for listening and make sure you stick around

[01:29:17] after the music if you're a patron for your extended ad-free version of this week's episode.

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[01:29:28] support the show today and get access to hours and hours of bonus content and stories you won't hear

[01:29:33] anywhere else. This week you have heard Get Out of the Car by Sign Knox, I watched it beg for its life

[01:29:39] before I slit its throat by Selfish Machine, Adopt a Dog They Just May Save You by Adobe Girl One,

[01:29:47] You Might Need This by Hiding is Safe, Mandy Roper by See Nikki H and finally Two Years of Hell

[01:29:55] by Sosa Various. All of the stories you've heard this week were narrated and produced with the

[01:29:59] permission of their respective authors. Let's Not Meet a True Horror Podcast is not associated with

[01:30:05] Reddit or any other message boards online. As always if you have a story to share send it to

[01:30:09] letsnotmeetstories at gmail.com. Finally make sure you check out the new episodes of my other

[01:30:15] podcasts like Odd Trails, my True Paranormal podcast and the Old Time Radiocast at crypticcountypodcasts.com

[01:30:23] or wherever you get your podcasts. We'll see you all next week. Everyone stay safe.