16x17: I Thought My House Was Haunted

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[00:00:59] [SPEAKER_08] This podcast contains adult language and content. The stories shared in this podcast are told from the perspective of the authors. Their accounts and opinions are personal and do not reflect the stance of the production team. If you have a story to share, send it to letsnotmeetstories at gmail.com. Enjoy the show.

[00:01:42] [SPEAKER_08] This happened one late night when I was leaving my boyfriend's house. It was around 2am so honestly, I should have stayed over. But I had a busy day the next day, so I wanted to go home and sleep in my own bed. When I was maybe about 5 minutes away from his house, I was stopped at a red light. A car pulled up in the next lane, and an old woman motioned for me to roll down the window.

[00:02:09] [SPEAKER_08] She looked scared and frantic, and appeared to be an unassuming older woman, so I went ahead and rolled down my window. Only after I started rolling it down, did I see someone else in the passenger seat. It was dark, but I could make out just enough details that it was another woman, who also looked to be older.

[00:02:34] [SPEAKER_08] Once my window was about a quarter of the way open, they started talking since they realized I wasn't going to roll it down any further. The woman driving said, My daughter just got in an accident. I need to get her to the hospital, but I'm about to run out of gas. Please, I just need anything you have. I need gas. I can't get there. Now the hospital was very close by. I didn't realize it at the time, but the hospital was closer to where we were than any gas station.

[00:03:04] [SPEAKER_08] If she had turned right instead, she would have gotten to the entrance of the hospital in just a couple of minutes, maybe less. But that isn't what I was thinking about at the time. I was just thinking about how frazzled, frantic, and worried she was. I thought about how my mom can get crazy in high-stress situations. I told them I didn't have any cash on me, but I let them know that there was a gas station about five minutes up the road.

[00:03:30] [SPEAKER_08] I also warned them that, since it was late, I wasn't sure if it was still open or not. The woman in the passenger seat immediately said, It is. Could you meet us there? This was my first real indication that something wasn't right. How would she know that it was open, and why was she so quick to tell me so? And why didn't they have any money on them? At this point, all I thought was that they really wanted money.

[00:04:01] [SPEAKER_08] I didn't want any trouble, so I figured I'd go and get them a 20 from the ATM and be on my way. Besides, what if her daughter really was in an accident and they genuinely needed some help? So, I then started driving, and I called my boyfriend, just to have someone on the phone who would know what was happening. Just in case. He wasn't picking up, though. And even by the third time, he still didn't pick up. I was getting worried, so I called another friend.

[00:04:32] [SPEAKER_08] She didn't pick up either. I couldn't continue without having someone know where I was, so I decided that if no one else was at the gas station, I'd just pull back out and speed away. I probably should have left the situation regardless, but again, I didn't want to get in any trouble. I figured I'd just give them the money, and that would be that. So, we then pulled up, and I saw two cars at the gas station, and one girl standing outside of her car pumping gas.

[00:05:02] [SPEAKER_08] I felt a bit better knowing that there were some people around, so I parked right in front of the little gas station convenience store. The two old women then pulled up to the gas pump closest to me. The woman that I talked to stayed in the car while the car was running, and the other woman got out and started walking towards my car. This was when I started to panic. This other woman, whom I really couldn't see in the darkness at first,

[00:05:29] [SPEAKER_08] turned out to be not very old at all. She was big and looked very strong. She was much bigger than me, and was walking towards my car with a smirk on her face. When I opened my door, I yelled at her and told her to stay back and near her car. She stopped in her tracks as I got out, and I told her that I would get money from the ATM, and that would be it. By this point, the other cars had pulled away,

[00:05:56] [SPEAKER_08] so I really just wanted to be inside with the cashier instead of outside with the lady or in my car. She started to step toward me again and said, I really need money for parking at the hospital. We really need to get there. Our friend is hurt. Please. Their story changed. This was when I absolutely knew that the situation wasn't right. I yelled at her again to stop walking and told her that if she came any closer, I'd call the police.

[00:06:27] [SPEAKER_08] She then walked back to her car, and I ran into the gas station store. As I ran inside, I was crying. I was trying to tell the cashier what was going on, but I could tell that he didn't really understand me, and I'm sure my crying didn't help. A man then came into the store, and I told him what was happening. I told him I was just going to get money from the ATM and give it to them, since I wanted them to leave me alone.

[00:06:54] [SPEAKER_08] I asked him if he could make sure that I got back to my car. He seemed very sympathetic and walked me back to my car. He told the woman to stay away from me, and he even offered to give me 20 bucks. I said no, and I thanked him for making sure I was okay. After I got back to my car, I quickly pulled away. I remember thinking, it's over. But then, as I came out of the parking lot and approached another red light,

[00:07:22] [SPEAKER_08] I could still see the gas station and the woman's car. I watched, as the woman got back into the car with the other lady, money in hand, and they pulled right away from the pump without getting gas. I panicked as they pulled up right by my car at the light. My phone was almost dead at this point, so I couldn't start to call for everyone I know. When the light turned green, I continued down the road, past the turn for the hospital,

[00:07:52] [SPEAKER_08] and I was horrified to see that the car was still behind me. By this point, I was thinking of the worst-case scenario. I didn't even have enough battery on my phone to call 911, so I knew I wouldn't be able to explain the situation, or where I was. Instead, I turned the brightness on my phone all the way up to make it appear that I was on the phone, so that they would think I was calling the police. I guess this worked, because thankfully,

[00:08:20] [SPEAKER_08] after I started pretending to be on the phone, they stopped following me. I drove all the way home, going 80, crying my eyes out. I didn't stop unless I had to. I'm not sure exactly what these women were after, but I felt that they had truly evil intentions, and that it wasn't going to stop after the money. I know it wasn't smart of me to start talking to them in the first place,

[00:08:47] [SPEAKER_08] but when you think it's just an old lady needing help, it's hard to think that they may be wanting to hurt you. I hate telling people not to help others, but if it's dark, don't trust anyone. Stay safe.

[00:09:21] [SPEAKER_08] I'm 20 years old and from West Virginia, in a town of about 4,000. I have had no contact with my maternal grandmother for over a decade, and will not speak to her again for any reason. She still stalks me and tries to contact me, though. My parents always did whatever they could, so I was always safe at home. Debbie, my maternal grandmother, didn't seem to agree with my parents' decisions,

[00:09:51] [SPEAKER_08] and she ended up taking my parents to court to try and gain grandparents' rights, which aren't a thing in West Virginia. She didn't, and we were granted a protective order due to her harassment. My mom has dealt with being under Debbie's control her whole life, and she has also experienced a lot of intense abuse from her dad. Her dad left boot marks on her ribs. Debbie was a kleptomaniac,

[00:10:20] [SPEAKER_08] very unpredictable, and she also experienced psychosis. I'm not using any of these terms lightly. Our town has a Memorial Day parade every year. It runs through town, and it goes from the school down to the Memorial Cemetery. One year during the parade, we were crossing the bridge on Main Street. My dad was driving his truck in the parade in front of my group, and I heard Debbie yelling for me from the sidewalk.

[00:10:49] [SPEAKER_08] She was pushing people out of the way and making her way towards me. I was doing my best to act normal and continue with the parade. My dad noticed and put me in the truck after calling the cops. I don't remember what happened after that. All I do remember is that it was terrifying and embarrassing. She managed to outdo herself after that when she showed up at my school.

[00:11:17] [SPEAKER_08] My parents had already given the school pictures of her, as well as her full name and the aliases she went by. They also told her everything that could be done to prevent her from getting access to me. She was still let into the school, and when I was called from the office, I refused to leave the classroom and started having a panic attack. Luckily, I had the best teacher in the world, Miss Farley. She put us into lockdown

[00:11:46] [SPEAKER_08] right then and there and called my mom. After that, I believe we were granted a full restraining order. My sister was born a few years later when I was nine. She was a redhead, which was a stark contrast to mine and my parents' hair, which was brown. Debbie told everyone in town she belonged to the mailman and that my mom was on cocaine before getting pregnant with her. My mom has an autoimmune condition,

[00:12:15] [SPEAKER_08] which caused her to undergo radiation. She essentially went through hell and got pregnant with my sister in the middle of treatments while on birth control. As soon as my sister was born, we left the state, but Debbie stalked us for years. She's made hundreds of Facebook accounts, and she has tried to reach me through every person she could think of. She has also created hundreds of email addresses trying to contact me.

[00:12:44] [SPEAKER_08] When I visited my hometown for the first time since I was nine, I went to my old house and I knocked on my neighbor's door. After some catching up, we went back to talking about small-town drama, and he told me how Debbie used to shine a flashlight through our windows at night. I'm not sure if my parents knew about this, but this was new information that I wish I didn't know. So to my grandmother, I wish I never had.

[00:13:15] [SPEAKER_08] Let's not meet again. A few weeks ago, I received a phone call at around 11.20 a.m. I answered this call from a random number that had been calling me, as I had a variety of appointments this month, so I figured

[00:13:43] [SPEAKER_08] it must have been one of them. Plus, I know some clinics, and even my therapist, don't show up with caller ID. As soon as I answered, the caller, who was a woman, asked to speak with me by name. I let her know that it was me, and at first, I thought she was a receptionist for a clinic, just as I had thought. It was tough to hear her, so I assumed this clinic had really terrible phone service,

[00:14:13] [SPEAKER_08] or I thought maybe this lady habitually mumbled. Either way, it sounded like a woman with a low-pitched voice, and the whole phone call sounded sort of muffled. She kept saying that she was hurt and needed help. She told me that she wanted me to come get her. She sounded a bit like my friend, and although this lady was calling from a different number, I still asked her if she was Ray. Now, Ray is just a fake name that I'm using for the sake of the story,

[00:14:42] [SPEAKER_08] but the woman on the phone didn't respond, so I then asked who she was. She mumbled something in response, but it was just so garbled that I couldn't understand her at all. Between the quality of the call, the sound of her voice, and the fact that she seemed so distraught, I couldn't make anything of what she was saying. It sounded like maybe she was crying. I was so scared as I was listening to her that my hands were shaking.

[00:15:12] [SPEAKER_08] The phone call probably lasted about three minutes or less until she hung up, the worst part was that she sounded very sincere. I'm still a bit shaken up and I wonder if she really needed help, but it's also entirely possible that this was some sort of messed up prank call. This woman only kind of sounded like my friend Ray, who has a low-pitched voice, and she didn't sound like any other of my friends or anyone else I know.

[00:15:41] [SPEAKER_08] I texted Ray who, of course, I know would never prank me because she never plays around like that. She said it wasn't her and also reassured what I already knew. She said that she would never do anything like that, and when I spoke to her, her phone quality wasn't muffled either, so I'm absolutely certain it wasn't her or anyone using her line. But I'm worried because I have this old friend who always mumbled a lot. I haven't seen her since 2024.

[00:16:11] [SPEAKER_08] I was friends with her and I still have her original number stored in my phone. If she is the one who called me, she must have changed her number. But I'm also not sure why she would call me for help, since she has other friends with whom she's closer. We also fell out of touch, so I wouldn't expect to hear from her. I was also teased quite a bit in middle school, so my mind keeps shifting back to the possibility of it being a prank call made by the usual suspects.

[00:16:40] [SPEAKER_08] But that was years ago, and they stopped doing that in high school. The usual suspects were mainly guys, and I can't imagine that they would have gone through the effort of trying to get my number to start this back up. Luckily, I haven't gotten another call like this, but I have been scared and nervous about this creepy phone call ever since this happened.

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[00:19:34] [SPEAKER_08] This occurred in 2009. I was 22 years old and was leaving my home state of California to head east for my corrections job. I was driving down a pretty lonely portion of the highway and it was around 3am on a Sunday. I hadn't seen another soul for at least half an hour. I was getting sleepy but I wasn't tired enough to pull over and take a nap. And then I saw a broken down car on the side of the road. I slowed and saw a woman

[00:20:04] [SPEAKER_08] standing next to the car. I approached the woman with caution, rolling down my window just a bit. Something about her wasn't right. I couldn't put my finger on it then but I know now it was my subconscious screaming red flag. I asked her if she needed me to call a tow truck or a triple A for her and she immediately tried to open my door. I explained to her that I didn't feel comfortable letting her in but I did say I would wait for a tow truck to come.

[00:20:35] [SPEAKER_08] She immediately had this enraged look on her face and she started berating me. You're a big man. What am I going to do to you? She told me that I was cruel for not letting her get into my car and this is when I messed up. I see this very clearly now since it's been over 15 years. I then begrudgingly unlocked my door since I figured maybe she was right. She was at most 5'2". I'm over 6 feet. I have 100 pounds on her

[00:21:04] [SPEAKER_08] while she looked to be about 90 or so. She slipped in and I asked who I could call. This was over 15 years ago so I would have had a little blackberry slide at the time. She then told me that she'd just prefer I'd give her a ride to the next town. I realized right then I had probably messed up because she was avoiding eye contact and she was fumbling in her purse. When I mentioned calling for help

[00:21:33] [SPEAKER_08] she was getting aggressive demanding I take her to the next town. I was so busy trying to think of how to unfuck this situation that I somehow missed seeing a man who was either hiding in or near her car. It wasn't until he was almost to my driver's side door that I managed to catch him in the rear view mirror. When I saw him fight or flight kicked in and I put my car in a drive and sped off as this guy

[00:22:03] [SPEAKER_08] was reaching for my door handle. I drove and I heard a ping noise followed by the sound of my rear view mirror exploding. He was shooting at me. The adrenaline alone had me doing close to 90 and by this time the woman in the back realized the plan did not work. She began hitting me telling me to stop and let her out. She was obviously on some kind of drug. When I reached enough distance

[00:22:32] [SPEAKER_08] I did just that. I pulled over and demanded that she get out of my car. She started going for the oversized purse she had but I had had enough. I was literally shaking with adrenaline but I reached over opened the door and pretty much shoved her out. I tried grabbing her purse but she managed to hold on to it not before dumping half of what was in it on my passenger seat. I then sped away with my door still open

[00:23:02] [SPEAKER_08] and waited until I was a good distance to stop and slam it shut. I clenched my wheel as I continued driving. It wasn't until later that morning when I pulled into Denny's that I realized how close I was to pretty much dying. I had a good cry and then I remembered that a bunch of her things spilled onto my passenger seat most of which were nasty wadded up napkins and a few tubes of lipstick as well as some drug paraphernalia.

[00:23:31] [SPEAKER_08] I had considered calling the cops and finding a highway patrol officer but I naively tossed all her things that had fallen out of her bag into the trash and just threw them away. At the time I had a dream of becoming a cop and I knew that if I was caught with drug paraphernalia that would make my dream impossible. If I were caught with that stuff I didn't think they would believe me if I said it wasn't mine. I noticed a cop at the gas station across from Denny's and I told him what happened.

[00:24:01] [SPEAKER_08] He pretty much berated me for pulling over and letting them in. He did say that he would look into it but I doubt he did. I was so shaken up that I pretty much only picked at my pancakes before leaving to continue on my way. I never did replace that mirror. I ended up selling my car since where I lived didn't require me to have one. Even though it's been so long I still hesitate to stop and help stranded motorists.

[00:24:38] [SPEAKER_08] This happened in 2016. I was a 17 year old first year college student in film school. For context I'm a woman and I'm now 22. I lived alone in my first ever apartment. It was really small but I was proud of my independence. I never felt unsafe in this apartment for several reasons. There were multiple gates in the residence that needed to be opened with a code that only the people who lived there knew. Also, my door had

[00:25:07] [SPEAKER_08] three different locks and it was right next to the university so most people who lived in the neighborhood were college students. Nothing bad had ever happened in the neighborhood before so it felt like a safe place to be. I've always been very careful with locking the door when I leave my home and I always double check it since I have OCD. But this one time when I was leaving to go to class I tried to lock my door but for some reason I couldn't get the key out

[00:25:37] [SPEAKER_08] of the lock. It was completely stuck so I went to get the caretaker of the building to help me but he wasn't there. I was running late for class so I went to class and left the key in the lock but I took off the key chain first so it would be less noticeable. When I got home the caretaker was back so he came to help me but we still couldn't get it out. Somehow after 15 minutes he finally did. He told me that the lock was damaged

[00:26:07] [SPEAKER_08] but he said that I didn't necessarily need to change it if I only locked it once instead of twice. I just said okay and that was the end of it. I wasn't really worried about it because of how safe I felt in the building. Flash forward to two months later. I was taking out the trash one night at 11pm while on the phone with my sister and I remember telling her that I was taking the trash out and I said that I was going to take a shower

[00:26:36] [SPEAKER_08] afterwards before heading out to a party. As I previously said I always locked the door locked to take out the trash but because my lock was damaged I only locked it once. When I got back to my apartment I found that the door was unlocked. This was immediately alarming. However I went inside and locked the door right away with three different types of locks. When you walked into that apartment

[00:27:05] [SPEAKER_08] which was only 215 square feet there was the main room in front of you and the bathroom door was directly to your left. I had left the bathroom door slightly opened and when I looked inside I could see a man in my shower. He had his back turned to me. Naturally when I saw this I tried to open the door and leave as quickly as possible except my main lock was so damaged I couldn't get it open no matter

[00:27:35] [SPEAKER_08] how hard I tried. In this moment all I could think of was the fact that I had to get out of there as soon as possible. So I just jumped out the window without really thinking. looking figured it was the only solution except I lived on the second floor so I completely smashed my ankles upon landing. Even so I started running in whichever way I could and when I got a bit further from the building I

[00:28:18] [SPEAKER_08] He was going to be intimidated by the height and be stuck in my apartment. Thankfully, he picked option two. I finally hid in a bush a bit further away and called the police, who arrived only ten minutes later since I lived so close to the station. They pushed my door open, and the man was there, just sitting on the couch. He was holding a kitchen knife, probably waiting for me to come back. I guess he didn't think that I would call the police.

[00:28:48] [SPEAKER_08] They arrested him and later told me that he had already been arrested for sexual assault, attempted kidnapping, and attempted murder. They also told me how everything had happened. As I said, it was a very friendly neighborhood with mostly college students, so he got inside the building since another resident held the door for him. He then overheard me telling my sister I was going to take a shower, which is why he was waiting in the bathroom for me.

[00:29:17] [SPEAKER_08] He picked my lock while I was taking out the trash. He noticed me on school campus and followed me to my home several times before successfully gaining entrance into the complex. Also, he said he stayed inside waiting for me because I had recently changed my phone, and my old phone was still on the table, so he thought I didn't have my phone to call the police. I don't live there anymore, but after that, to get into the building,

[00:29:45] [SPEAKER_08] we all needed identification proving that we lived there. Building IDs were created, and we had to scan them every time we entered the complex and our building, and it was the only way to get inside. Nothing bad happened in the neighborhood after that. It went back to being very peaceful and friendly.

[00:30:23] [SPEAKER_08] I live in the south, in a town that was built along the Natchez Trace. For anyone who doesn't know, the Natchez Trace is a very long stretch of road that runs almost the entire length of the United States from north to south. It was used by tribes way back when to quickly get around the country for trade. And during the Civil War, it was used by both Union and Confederate soldiers for travel.

[00:30:51] [SPEAKER_08] It's federally protected land now, and it feels very isolated. No one is allowed to build anything within a mile of the trace, and there are no streetlights out there. It's just a desolate two-lane road that's dark after sundown. There are also burial mounds, unnamed Civil War graves, and lots of offshoot hiking trails out there.

[00:31:16] [SPEAKER_08] Since it's federally protected, it is extremely illegal to dig anything up. In my town, it isn't uncommon to go hiking out there because it's absolutely gorgeous. But there were cautionary stories floating around. Warnings to those who go out there to be careful. For example, I remember in the 90s, a young woman was killed out there while hiking, and there were all sorts of boogeyman stories about how no one should be out on the trace after dark.

[00:31:45] [SPEAKER_08] Hiking the trace was something that some friends and I used to do a lot when we were young. We used to go off-trail often, because you can find some really cool stuff back there. One day, a buddy and I were out there going through some trails and checking stuff out like we always did. It was in the spring and not quite summer yet, but the days were starting to get longer.

[00:32:12] [SPEAKER_08] It wasn't really late, but we were out there later than we usually were on this particular day. It was just barely dusk. We were about an hour or two into hiking and had gone off-trail like usual. We came upon this break in the trees that opened up into this big field. There was an old truck out there. That alone was a huge red flag because you can't use any vehicles off-road there.

[00:32:38] [SPEAKER_08] But there were two guys next to the truck with shovels and enough dirt to them that you could tell they had been digging a pretty big hole for quite a while. The bed of the truck was open, but we couldn't see inside of it from where we were. They looked up at us, and there was this weird second or two where no one said anything. I don't remember who moved first, but I do remember that the guys both jumped into the truck,

[00:33:08] [SPEAKER_08] started it up, and drove full speed toward us. My friend and I ran back into the trees in a panic because we thought for sure they were going to run us down. I remember hearing the truck stop at the trees behind us as we ran, and we heard them get out and start yelling. We ran for a solid couple of minutes before we jumped into a deadfall of broken trees and stayed as quiet as we could.

[00:33:35] [SPEAKER_08] We could hear them a ways off, and could hear dogs barking as well. At some point I remember hearing one of these guys yell, I can't see you, but I can hear you, and my dog is going to get you. We stayed quiet, and we didn't move, but we never heard them get close enough to spot us. Eventually we heard their truck start up again in the distance, but we stayed out of sight until we couldn't hear it anymore,

[00:34:02] [SPEAKER_08] and then we carefully walked back to the car without saying a word. I remember the whole ride home. We were quiet, and every pair of headlights that we saw made me almost have a heart attack because I thought it was going to be those guys looking for us. I never found out what they were doing out there, but it must have been something bad, especially considering how illegal it is to dig out there. When I was younger, my brain always went to the obvious cliché, like somebody hiding a body,

[00:34:33] [SPEAKER_08] mostly because it would be a good spot to do it. No one looks out there. But as I got older, I began to think that it could have possibly been dirty money or drug stashes. The town is small enough that I wondered if I ever ran into those guys in public without knowing it. Maybe I've seen them again as I was getting groceries or running errands. How many times had I come across them in traffic? To this day, thinking about it scares me.

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[00:37:20] [SPEAKER_08] This happened to me when I was about 12 or 13 years old, which was probably about 15 years ago. I'm a woman, and the town that I live in has developed a lot since this happened to me. But at the time of this story, there were a lot of factories spread out with lots of land in between them. There was a Walmart being built in the area, but it had barely started construction.

[00:37:45] [SPEAKER_08] There was a main highway that ran through there, but my mom didn't like taking it, as traffic would get bad most of the time. The side streets that we would take were desolate and not very well lit. There were also very few cars taking these streets. I can't remember where we were coming from that night, but in the car that night was my mom, my brother, who was three years younger than me, and me. My mom was driving.

[00:38:13] [SPEAKER_08] I was in the passenger seat, and my brother was sitting right behind me. My mom is the sweetest person ever, but is very adamant that she will never stop to help somebody on the side of the road or pick them up, especially if she has her kids in the car. She does, however, make a call to the police when she sees someone that needs help. It was around 9pm, and we were going home when my mom and I spotted someone on the side of the road with their hood up.

[00:38:42] [SPEAKER_08] This seemed like nothing out of the ordinary, so my mom slowed down a bit, since it was dark outside, and she didn't want to harm anyone who had just been trying to fix their car. As soon as we were close to the car, this guy stepped out from around the hood of the car, towards the street, and was waving us down. I don't remember much about how he looked because I wasn't paying too much attention. Plus it was dark, so I could barely see the man.

[00:39:11] [SPEAKER_08] But I do remember feeling bad that we didn't at least stop to see what he needed. The man then stepped out into the middle of the road and waved his hands. As we came up to his car, we didn't see anybody else around. And my mom swerved around him. My mom told my brother to find her phone in her purse so that she could call the police to help the guy. I looked at my mom as she looked in the rearview mirror, and her face went white. Her eyes grew wide.

[00:39:41] [SPEAKER_08] She then slammed her foot on the accelerator. This was highly unusual for her. She is a very careful and very good driver. She's always driving the speed limit. At this point, I knew that something was wrong. My mom's voice cracked, and in a high-pitched, panicked tone, she asked my brother where her phone was. I yelled, What's going on?

[00:40:08] [SPEAKER_08] All this chaos was freaking my brother out, and with him being so little, he was crying, and he couldn't find her phone. My mom kept her eyes on the road. However, she kept glancing up at her rearview mirror until she finally answered, He's following us. I wasn't sure what she meant by that, but I knew that we were not in a good situation. My mom was speeding towards the highway, and thank goodness, there was no traffic.

[00:40:37] [SPEAKER_08] I looked in the back window, and I saw somebody passing cars trying to keep up with my mom. I asked her where she was going. She told me that she was headed to the police station. As we were getting close, my mom told me to jump out as soon as I stopped the car and grab my brother from the back seat while she ran around the car to meet us. My mom stopped right in front of the police station and didn't even wait for the car to fully come to a stop before she threw it into park.

[00:41:06] [SPEAKER_08] I opened my car door as fast as I could, and I grabbed my brother, who had quickly opened his door. I took off in a full sprint with my brother in one hand and my mom holding the other. Once we finally talked to a police officer, I understood the full extent of what had happened. My mom told the police officer that once we passed the guy with the broken down car, he quickly ran to the hood of his car, slammed it shut, and then got in and sped after us.

[00:41:35] [SPEAKER_08] That was when my mom knew that the guy had horrible intentions for us. She said he kept trying to speed up to get on the side of us, but she was able to keep her speed and prevent him from doing that. Once my mom turned toward the police station, she said that the guy had stopped following her, but she still wanted to get to the police station in case he was still watching us. She gave the best description that she could of the guy in his car,

[00:42:02] [SPEAKER_08] but because everything happened so fast and because it was so dark, she didn't have much information, and she didn't get a license plate number. I'm pretty sure that the police never found him, and I'm not sure what the guy had planned for us, if we had actually stopped the help, but I know it couldn't have been anything good. To the guy who faked having a broken down car on an empty street, let's not meet again.

[00:42:38] [SPEAKER_08] Back in 1985, when I was in junior high, and around 11 or 12 years old, I decided to go on a long bicycle ride on a Sunday afternoon. I planned a route that would take me to my grandparents' cabin, five miles from town, and back. So I filled my water bottle, grabbed a few snacks, and hit the road. I lived in a small Iowa town with a population of 6,000, so it wasn't long before I reached the city limits.

[00:43:08] [SPEAKER_08] About a mile beyond the city limits was a small river access park where I decided to stop and rest and look out across the river. The park consisted of a large green space. On one side, there was a jetty from which people could fish, and on the other side, there was a small concrete structure with public toilets. I had been there for a while, eating a snack and drinking some water,

[00:43:34] [SPEAKER_08] when I saw a red mid-to-late 1970s Chevy Monte Carlo driving into the park. The car circled once, and the driver parked and got out. It was a man, perhaps in his mid-30s, with dark hair and a full beard. He approached me as I sat at the picnic table and started chatting me up. He asked me what I was doing and how old I was. As a naive youngster, I told him I was out for a bike ride and had just stopped for a quick rest before moving along.

[00:44:03] [SPEAKER_08] I also told him my age and some other things. He then said that he needed to use the restroom, so I pointed him towards the other side of the park, where the public toilets were, which were visible from where we were. He then excused himself and walked that way, disappearing inside. I continued to watch the boats on the river for about 5-10 minutes before I glanced over at the restroom. I saw the man standing just outside the restroom door, but it looked like he was completely nude.

[00:44:32] [SPEAKER_08] I thought that I could see his hairy chest and groin, though I wasn't certain. In my mind, I thought there was no way he could be nude, because who does that? So I then looked away for a couple of minutes, and when I looked back towards the restroom, the man was gone. He hadn't left the park yet because his car was still there, so I assumed he was still inside the restroom. I then decided to continue on my bike ride, dismissing what I had seen a few minutes before.

[00:45:02] [SPEAKER_08] Thinking nothing of it, I continued on my route. It wasn't long after I left the park when I heard a car approaching me from behind. When it passed, I saw the red Monte Carlo. I just waved and continued on my way. Then maybe 10 minutes later, I saw the red car driving towards me. As it passed, I again waved to the man driving, and he waved back. Around that time, I began to think that something wasn't right.

[00:45:30] [SPEAKER_08] Why had he driven past me twice already? I wondered, could it just be a coincidence? I wanted to think that it was, so I just kept going and continued heading towards my grandpa's cabin. Then, after several more minutes, the red car passed me for a third time. By then, I was starting to get scared. I was closer to my grandpa's cabin than I was to town, so I decided it was best to try and keep going until I got there.

[00:45:59] [SPEAKER_08] However, the closer I got to the cabin, the more remote the area became. Another 10 minutes passed, and I saw the red car driving toward me. This time, it was driving much faster. I waved at the man again, thinking that if he was a bad guy, he would know that I saw him, and if I waved, he'd know that I was aware of his presence. Sure enough, after another 15 minutes or so, the man drove past again, from the other direction. At this point, my route had changed from a paved highway to a gravel road.

[00:46:29] [SPEAKER_08] Once the road changed to gravel, it was surrounded by a wooded, low-lying river bottom. The road crossed the river about a quarter of a mile after it turned to gravel. My grandpa's cabin was about a mile and a half south from there. As I rode south toward the cabin, the man drove past me again, going very fast. This time, he drove much closer to me. I thought he was trying to hit me. He kept driving away from me, though.

[00:46:58] [SPEAKER_08] I was very frightened, but knowing that I was so close to the cabin, I rode my bike as fast as I could since I was trying to reach the cabin before the man returned, and thankfully, I did. Once I made it to the cabin, I discovered that there was nobody there, and it was locked up tight. My water bottle was empty, and I wanted to refill it before riding back to town, so I poked around, trying to figure out how to get in. I thought maybe I could get in through a window or another door.

[00:47:28] [SPEAKER_08] As I was looking around, I saw my great uncle, my grandpa's brother, who also had a cabin nearby. He was walking toward me, and I greeted him, saying hello, expecting that he would recognize me right away. Instead, he started yelling at me for trespassing on private property, accusing me of trying to break into cabins. I didn't expect my uncle to rage at me like he did. So, when he finally asked me who I was, I simply told him my name.

[00:47:58] [SPEAKER_08] When he realized who I was, he immediately changed his tone and apologized. I told him I was trying to get some water before riding back home, and he invited me into his cabin. I was pretty upset after getting yelled at by an elder relative, so I declined his offer and immediately left for home on my bike. Since I was so upset, I didn't tell my uncle about the man in the red car. I hadn't made it more than a couple of miles after leaving the cabins when I saw my mom driving toward me.

[00:48:27] [SPEAKER_08] She stopped and we loaded my bike into the car before heading home. My mom told me that my uncle had called her and said that I had ridden my bike to the cabins. He told her that he confronted me and that I was upset when I left. She gave me holy hell for not telling anyone where I was going before I left the house. She was also mad that it was starting to get dark, and I could have been hit by a car. Since my mom was so mad at me, I decided not to tell her about the man in the red car either.

[00:48:58] [SPEAKER_08] I thought that if she knew I had been followed by a stranger, she would never let me ride alone again, so I simply buried the memory and forgot all about it without telling a soul. In hindsight, I wish I had told someone, because around that same time, two kids around my age went missing in Iowa. To this day, I wonder if the man in the red car could have been the person who abducted those other kids.

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[00:49:53] [SPEAKER_01] warm hospitality, vibrant culture, and breathtaking beaches. It's everything you could want in a vacation. And the best part? No passport is required when traveling from the U.S. No hassle, just easy travel. Whether it's the world-famous Trunk Bay in St. John that was voted the best beach in the world, the picturesque Megan's Bay Beach, or the stunning Point Udall, America's easternmost point, USVI will take you to a place that no other Caribbean destination can match. For most,

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[00:51:03] [SPEAKER_02] Hey there, it's Ryan Seacrest

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[00:52:07] [SPEAKER_08] In 2011, I was apartment hunting, and I found this one place that seemed perfect. There was a main house, and behind it was a guest house that had been recently renovated into a duplex. The ground floor of the guest house had been converted into a large, covered three-car garage that also had a ton of space for storage. It was musty, had a terrifying spider population, and lacked working lights. A flight of wobbly wooden stairs

[00:52:36] [SPEAKER_08] led up to a second-floor deck where there were two side-by-side entry doors leading into separate units. When I first moved in, the guest house had just finished renovations, and the rental agency hadn't found anyone to rent the other one yet, so I enjoyed the peace and quiet, which was perfect for studying. But then, a few months after school started in fall, a new girl moved in. She introduced herself as Angela and said that she went to the same school as me.

[00:53:06] [SPEAKER_08] She was studying biology, and she was a freshman. She seemed nice and was pretty quiet at first. However, of course, after the first month, cue the start of the nightmare. I started hearing an annoying clopping noise emanating from her apartment. It sounded like she had cloven hooves. She had wood floors, so the sound echoed like crazy. This sound would start suddenly at 3am, and it would wake my dogs,

[00:53:35] [SPEAKER_08] and then they would start howling. Soon after that, I started hearing the most comical sex noises ever. It sounded like the cheesiest, loudest porn in existence with never-ending fake orgasms. This went on every day, multiple times a day. Initially, I thought, hey, good for her. But, after the third day, I was tired of it, and it was goodbye perfect study environment. One day, when I was getting ready

[00:54:05] [SPEAKER_08] to step outside to grab the mail, I heard voices out on the deck talking. It was one mail and Angela. I peeked through my peephole, and I saw an older guy who appeared to be around 60, maybe 65 years old. He had a belly, white hair, and he was wearing a sweat-stained undershirt. This was maybe 10 minutes after one of the comical sex routines. I assumed she just had an old sugar daddy and waited until they left

[00:54:34] [SPEAKER_08] to grab my mail. A week later, I pulled into the back alley that led to the garage entrance, and I saw a car parked in the front of the garage, blocking the entrance. I assumed Angela had a friend over who decided to park there. I knocked on her door, and she answered in feathered lingerie and clear platform stripper-style shoes. A very sweaty and out-of-breath older guy said that he would move the car. By this point, I realized that Angela was probably a sex worker.

[00:55:05] [SPEAKER_08] I texted my friends the news, and we talked about it. The next night, it was very dark out. I had gone to the grocery store, and when I got back, I pulled into the back alley. The floodlight wasn't working, so it was unnervingly dark. I always hated pulling into the garage because it was insanely creepy, especially when it was that dark out. However, I opened the door, slid my car in, and then got out to unload my stuff.

[00:55:33] [SPEAKER_08] A dark shadow stood at the garage entrance next to my trunk. It said, Hello. This was unexpected. I was scared. Though I liked living in this guest house, it wasn't in the best neighborhood, so I was convinced I was going to get mugged. Instead, the man made some small talk with me and asked if I lived next door to Angela. He also asked if I was a student, how I liked the area,

[00:56:03] [SPEAKER_08] if I had a boyfriend, etc. He told me I was beautiful and said that he'd always wanted an Asian girlfriend. I walked closer to him and realized he was the man I had seen the other week with the sweat-stained shirt. I was evasive and I asked him if he needed any help. He then said he just wanted to get to know me. I said, No thanks. He then told me he would pay me, so I think he probably thought that I was a sex worker as well.

[00:56:32] [SPEAKER_08] I quickly told him to fuck off and I rushed past him and went upstairs, leaving my groceries in the car, in the garage, with the door wide open. Shortly after this, I started noticing that things went missing. Stuff would be moved in my apartment. A bunch of my clothes also went missing. I'd hunt desperately for a pair of leggings or a dress or a bra and I would never be able to find them, even after searching through the laundry hamper.

[00:57:02] [SPEAKER_08] Things like mail or books would be moved from one room to the other. My dogs and cat also started acting really skittish. Sometimes I'd catch them staring intently at every corner, like they were waiting for someone. One night, I woke up at around 3 a.m. to hear intense scratching noises coming from the living room. It sounded like a large animal with big claws was digging away at something. I mumbled, Muffin, stop. And then I felt a paw on my arm,

[00:57:32] [SPEAKER_08] so I slowly opened my eyes. Muffin was on the bed with me, looking at me nervously. I sat up and looked around. My other dog and cat were both sleeping soundly on my bed. What was in the living room making scratching noises? I noticed that my bedroom door was wide open. I had shut it when I went to sleep. I had never been one to believe in the supernatural, but I was pretty convinced

[00:58:01] [SPEAKER_08] based on the signs that there was a ghost living in my apartment. I was scared, so I put on my headphones to drown out the noise and I stayed up all night doing paranormal research on my laptop. I never got out of bed to check out the living room. I was too terrified. The next day, I crated my dogs and cats and went to school as usual. When I got home, I noticed the wall next to the front door had some really deep scratches on it. The drywall and paint

[00:58:30] [SPEAKER_08] were ruined. These hadn't been there the previous day and my pets had been in their crates while I was gone. I could not figure out where these came from. Must be ghosts, I thought. The landlord had told me previously that there were paint cans in the garage, so I figured I would try to hide the ghost's mess with some paint. So I then went down into the garage and right in front of my parking spot inside the garage, there was this weird little workspace that someone had constructed

[00:59:00] [SPEAKER_08] before I moved in. I never looked inside, it was maybe 6x4. It had walls made of particle board. I didn't see any cans of paint on the garage floor, so I figured the workspace must have been the storage room for stuff like that. So I went ahead and opened the makeshift door to the workspace, and the first thing I saw was shelves of paint cans. I was happy since I had found what I needed,

[00:59:29] [SPEAKER_08] but then I looked down and I saw a blanket, pillows, a flashlight, a giant plastic canister of cheese balls, a screwdriver, and a Velcro wallet. There was also a set of weird pull-down stairs at the top of the workspace attached to the garage ceiling. They were the kind that you would use to get into an attic. I picked up the wallet and looked inside. There was a photo ID of that creepy

[00:59:58] [SPEAKER_08] sweat-stained shirt guy. I left the garage and I went to my apartment to call the cops and report that it seemed like a man had apparently moved into my garage. The cops came to investigate and they found that the pull-down stairs led up to a door in the ceiling that resembled a ceiling tile. When you lifted and moved the ceiling tile aside, it gave you access to an unused utility closet inside my apartment.

[01:00:28] [SPEAKER_08] The cops asked if I had ever noticed anything strange in my apartment and I told them all of the stuff that went missing and the things that had been moved. Apparently, the screwdriver found in the workspace had flecks of paint and drywall on it. I don't know why someone would sit in my living room and scratch at the wall with the screwdriver in the middle of the night, but I'm so glad I never left my bedroom to look at the quote-unquote ghost. The cops never found the missing clothes,

[01:00:57] [SPEAKER_08] so the cops also never found or caught this guy. I tried to confront Angela about all of the weirdos that she was bringing to our building and I told her about how one had been living in the garage and breaking into my apartment. However, she mysteriously disappeared. After she was gone, there were no more comical sex noises and no platform shoes clopping around. Her mail piled up in the mailbox, though. Then randomly, a month later,

[01:01:26] [SPEAKER_08] a new guy was living there. I was weirded out, so I called the landlord, who said that the guy was a new tenant, but they wouldn't give me any information on what happened to Angela, which was very, very strange.

[01:01:56] [SPEAKER_08] Stick around after the music of your patron for your extended version of this week's episode. If you want to get access, go to patreon.com forward slash let's not meet podcast to sign up and support the show today. You'll get access to ad-free versions of all of our episodes at a higher bit rate, plus bonus stories that you won't hear anywhere else in those extensions every single week. And be sure to send your stories in to letsnotmeetstories at gmail.com if you'd like to hear them on the show. Check out the new episodes of my other podcasts like Odd Trails and the Old Time Radio Cast

[01:02:24] [SPEAKER_08] at crypticcountypodcasts.com or wherever you get your podcasts. And be sure to follow me on Twitch at twitch.tv slash crypticcounty. This week you have heard Never Roll Down Your Window at a Red Light by Kay Follin My Grandma Tried to Steal Me by Hairy Legs Creepy Phone Call by Mysterious Wreck A Terrifying Ride Down Route 50 by DuckDuckGoose91 Never That Safe by Zone The Day I Was Almost

[01:02:54] [SPEAKER_08] Murdered by I Make Da Monsters Guy Fakes His Car Being Broken Down by Baby Cake 818 Stalked By a Creeper When I Was a Kid by Hubs 50644 And Finally I Thought My House Was Haunted by Pizza Succubus 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 Again, send your stories in to

[01:03:23] [SPEAKER_08] letsnotmeetstories at gmail.com to hear them on the show We'll see you next week Everybody stay safe

[01:03:28] [SPEAKER_08] I'm a 23 year old woman and I live in a small town that is considered

[01:03:58] [SPEAKER_08] quite safe

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