17x19: I Still Wonder What Was In That Basement

[00:00:00] [SPEAKER_01] 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.

[00:00:42] [SPEAKER_01] This is a story 15 years in the making. I work with disabled and vulnerable adults. One time I was grabbing a drink with a friend, Joe, and he asked if I could work for his girlfriend, Jane. Jane and I got on like a house on fire. She had some physical disabilities, but also some mental health issues leading to her being prescribed a raft of antipsychotics.

[00:01:11] [SPEAKER_01] Joe was particularly on top of Jane's meds as he was training to be a mental health nurse. He had me filling in sheets as if I were working in a psych ward at their house rather than a private residence. For context, I usually just make sure the people I work with take their meds. Sometimes, if they're taking controlled drugs, I might need to fill in a tick box.

[00:01:37] [SPEAKER_01] But Joe had full-on sheets that I was expected to fill out as a nurse would. Over time, I realized how controlling Joe was and how much he used Jane's mental health against her. I gradually realized that if he attended doctor's appointments with her, she would get an increase in meds. But if I attended with her, this didn't happen.

[00:02:05] [SPEAKER_01] I was growing increasingly stressed out by how useless Joe was making me feel. He got upset at me for things like not putting items back into cupboards perfectly, or for making spelling or punctuation mistakes on his over-the-top med sheets.

[00:02:23] [SPEAKER_01] I didn't notice quite how off-balance he was keeping me until I grew so stressed out that I had several episodes of insomnia and even hallucinated twice while I was awake. The doctor concluded that the hallucinations were caused by my insomnia and gave me sleeping pills. The hallucinations didn't come back. The first time I saw Joe hit Jane, I called social services.

[00:02:53] [SPEAKER_01] But Jane claimed that it hadn't happened. Joe said I misunderstood what was going on and told me that I didn't have the right to interfere with their relationship. For the first time, Jane left Joe. He claimed I had had undue influence over her, which left me paranoid and double-checking things I said in case I somehow influenced her as a vulnerable person.

[00:03:20] [SPEAKER_01] When Joe pinned me to a wall by my throat because I tried to prevent him from hitting Jane, I knew that I had to leave. I mentally gave Jane until January to leave the relationship. And then I'd stop working there. I also registered a complaint with Joe's nursing course about his treatment of the vulnerable. Jane left him before Christmas.

[00:03:46] [SPEAKER_01] Now that he wasn't influencing her doctors, she was taken off her psych meds by June. She hasn't had an episode since. It's almost as if her stressor was no longer present. Her physical disabilities also improved significantly in the years since she's left, now that she wasn't on unnecessary psych meds. I haven't worked for Jane in years, as she eventually moved away to marry a lovely person.

[00:04:15] [SPEAKER_01] Now I work for a young adult who is apprenticing in a workplace. And for his first six months, he has me in the breakout area identifying anything a disability charity can provide for his access needs. His colleagues chat away with me on their breaks, including one who is very proud of his daughter, a nurse. The daughter has a colleague who, at first, used to tell funny stories about a dumbass who would come into work hungover.

[00:04:45] [SPEAKER_01] Then the colleague turned up to work on a ward while drunk and high. Then the colleague boasted about keeping an ex-girlfriend's interfering friend quiet by feeding her the girlfriend's drugs so she wouldn't call social services on him. The daughter has made a complaint. I then got to see a photo of this colleague. And of course, it was Joe.

[00:05:14] [SPEAKER_01] And now I'm stuck here thinking about those times I hallucinated. Were they really due to insomnia? Or had Joe put something in my tea?

[00:05:43] [SPEAKER_01] This happened when I was around 16 or 17 years old, five years ago. At the time, I lived down the street from a nature reserve, so going there was a regular thing for me. It was an easy way to get some exercise, and as an amateur photographer, I loved capturing pictures along the paths. It was also a well-frequented spot. People were always out there jogging, riding bikes, or walking.

[00:06:12] [SPEAKER_01] Everyone was friendly, and since it was right down the road from my house, I always felt completely safe. This particular day was cooler. Cool enough to warrant a light jacket, but warm enough that anyone actually exercising was dressing down. I was walking down a trail completely absorbed in my phone while reviewing the pictures I had just taken.

[00:06:38] [SPEAKER_01] When I finally looked up, it was just in time to see an older woman speed-walking directly toward me. She looked straight at me, smiled, and said loudly, Hi honey, it's been a long time since I've seen you. I froze completely confused. I had never seen this woman before in my life, yet she was greeting me like I was her own granddaughter.

[00:07:04] [SPEAKER_01] My immediate instinct was to be polite and play along gently, assuming she might be elderly or suffering from dementia or memory loss. But before I could answer, I noticed a man walking behind her. He passed right between us, walking painfully slowly, his eyes fixed on me. I looked back at the woman and offered a confused, Oh hey, yeah, it's been a while.

[00:07:33] [SPEAKER_01] She didn't miss a beat, exclaiming, I'm so glad you made it to the trail. Your grandma has been worried about you. I replied, Yeah, I'm sorry, grandma. And then, in that split second, a quiet understanding passed between us. She knew that I didn't know her. And she knew that I was confused, but she wasn't confused at all. She was being a woman's woman and running interference.

[00:08:02] [SPEAKER_01] As soon as the man walked far enough out of earshot, her expression changed completely. She looked me dead in the eyes and dropped her voice. She asked, Are you here alone? My heart fell as I replied, Yes. She then whispered, That man has been following you for ten minutes. You switched trails three different times and he was still right behind you.

[00:08:29] [SPEAKER_01] I noticed you were alone and I followed you to make sure you were safe. Panic began to set in. She offered to give me a ride home right then and there. Now even though I was scared, she was still a stranger. I told her I didn't really feel comfortable getting into a car with her, but asked if she would keep an eye on me while I walked back home. My house was just down the street and I usually took a dirt path through a tree line as a shortcut.

[00:08:59] [SPEAKER_01] She agreed and she told me that she had pepper spray and a gun in her car and that she would slowly drive down the main road parallel to the trail. Through the thinning trees, she would be able to see me the whole time and could pull over and jump out if anything went wrong. I started down the shortcut path alone. A few moments in, I heard heavy footsteps crunching on the dirt and gravel behind me.

[00:09:28] [SPEAKER_01] My heart was hammering against my ribs. I stopped walking, grabbed my camera and turned around, pretending that I was just spinning to take a picture of the scenery. My stomach dropped. He was right there. Much closer than he had been before. And he was closing the distance between us fast. The moment he saw my camera in my hand and realized I was looking right at him, he abruptly slowed his pace again.

[00:09:57] [SPEAKER_01] So instead of pretending to take pictures, I kept my phone lifted in front of my face and started talking out loud, pretending to be recording a video or live streaming. I broke into a fast walk and made it to a clearing near the road. The woman's car was idling right there. At that point, I threw all hesitation out the window. He was too close and I was not taking any chances.

[00:10:26] [SPEAKER_01] I ran over to her car, opened the passenger door and played the part one last time, loudly stating, Hey grandma, I'm ready to go now. Got a few more pictures like we talked about. I jumped in and she drove me straight to my house safely. Looking back, the details of that man still haunt me. He was wearing heavy, dark boots, not running shoes.

[00:10:54] [SPEAKER_01] With black jeans and a thick hoodie, his hands were buried in his pockets the entire time. The whole outfit was entirely too heavy for the weather, especially for someone allegedly out for a walk or a run on a nature path. And when the woman first approached me and talked with me, I remember the exact look on his face when he thought she was leaving. He looked excited. He had been tracking me.

[00:11:24] [SPEAKER_01] I haven't gone back to that reserve alone since that day. I've always had a fear of being abducted, but you never truly think it will happen until you find yourself being hunted in broad daylight.

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[00:13:33] [SPEAKER_01] This happened in 2011, and I'll never forget it. AOL Instant Messenger was still pretty active during this time, and so was video chatting, like TinyChat, for example. I was on an online dating site, and I was talking to this guy. I was 31 at the time, and he was 28. We talked for about six weeks before I gave him my phone number, and we took it offline to call and text each other for a couple of weeks.

[00:14:03] [SPEAKER_01] Two months after our initial chat, we were texting, and he told me that he was out having a few beers at a bar near my house. He asked me what I was doing and if I wanted to come out. But I had a very long day at work, and I didn't really feel like going to a bar. I'm also not a big drinker. I invited him over to my place after he finished at the bar. I know, I know.

[00:14:30] [SPEAKER_01] But he did accept this offer, and I figured I would be okay since I do keep firearms for protection, and I know how to defend myself if needed. I also had a webcam. I took a shower so that I wouldn't smell like a water buffalo on a hot day due to the air going out at work. Then I put on some makeup, and I got dressed to wait. He then called and said that he was outside my house,

[00:14:58] [SPEAKER_01] so I clicked record on my computer's webcam program, turned off my monitor, and went to let him in. It was around 10 p.m. at this point. He walked in, and we went back to my bedroom because my living room was being remodeled. We were sitting on the bed chatting for about an hour, talking about everything under the sun. The conversation flowed. He was very handsome and so easy to be comfortable with.

[00:15:28] [SPEAKER_01] We got on the subject of firearms. I showed him mine. About 15 minutes later, he asked for some water, so I went to the kitchen to get him a bottle. When I came back, he said he had gotten a phone call and had to leave. After he left, I looked on my nightstand, where I put the firearm, and I noticed that it was gone. I looked everywhere for it, thinking I had put it down somewhere else.

[00:15:56] [SPEAKER_01] But no, I couldn't find it anywhere. I played back the recording of my webcam, and sure enough, it showed him grabbing my gun and putting it in his hoodie. I was terrified at this point. He knew where I lived. He had my firearm. And he had left his phone on my bed. Right then, the phone rang. I answered it. It was his wife, wondering where he was.

[00:16:26] [SPEAKER_01] Yes, it turns out, he was married. I told his wife everything, including the fact that he stole my gun, and I had video evidence of the theft. I let her know that I was calling the police on him. The next thing I knew, he was banging on my door with the firearm in his hand, asking for his phone.

[00:16:48] [SPEAKER_01] Not opening the door, I yelled through the window that he needed to take the magazine out of the firearm, empty the chamber, and throw the magazine in the bushes. Then take the one in the chamber, across the road, and put it in the ground. He declined, yelling, No! Give me my phone! I replied, I'm on the phone with your wife at the moment, and I have video footage of you stealing from me.

[00:17:14] [SPEAKER_01] I then put his wife on speakerphone, and she proceeded to string together a whole bunch of expletives. My door was still closed, so I couldn't see his face, but I imagine he looked like the shocked Pikachu meme. He ran, got into his car, and then quickly returned, and said, I threw your gun in the ditch. At that point, I made him empty his pockets, and take his pants and hoodie off to show that he didn't have the firearm on him.

[00:17:43] [SPEAKER_01] All the while, his wife was still on the phone. I went outside, and got into his car in the driver's seat, and told him to direct me to where he threw the firearm. He proceeded to tell me that I didn't know how hard it was for him, being a felon, to own a firearm. He said he wasn't allowed to own one because of a mistake he made. The mistake was domestic violence involving a firearm.

[00:18:10] [SPEAKER_01] We went up the road, and he pointed out where my firearm was in the ditch. Then I realized the situation I was in. I could have gotten out of the car to go get it, but that would have left him to do whatever he wanted, if he chose. This guy was 6'4", 225 pounds, versus 5'3", me. I was 135 at the time.

[00:18:34] [SPEAKER_01] My other option was to make him go get it, which was riskier since it would have given him a chance to seriously hurt me. I took that risk, since I was still on the phone with his wife, while also on my phone with 911. He retrieved my firearm, brought it back to the car, then I drove back to the house to wait for the police. I got out of the car, and he got back into the driver's seat.

[00:19:01] [SPEAKER_01] I was still on the phone with 911 when I walked around the back of his car to get his license plate number. He put the car in reverse, hit me, and then took off. The police found him later that evening. He still had the magazine, as well as the one in the chamber in his pocket. So now he's enjoying time in prison. I'm so glad I never have to meet that person again.

[00:19:40] [SPEAKER_01] This story happened a few years ago. I was in my early twenties, and studying in Paris, France. I was heading back home from university. Usually, I took a short bus ride, and then walked the rest of the way. That day, though, I felt slightly uncomfortable. I could sense that this guy was looking at me intensely. I was used to unpleasant, unsolicited gazes, but this time his gaze felt wrong.

[00:20:09] [SPEAKER_01] It's hard to explain why, but I felt like prey being stalked. I decided to get off the bus a few stops early. I wanted to try and avoid him, and I didn't want him to see where I usually got off. As I learned in the movies, I waited until someone else pressed the stop button, and waited until the last moment to stand up and leave. I didn't notice him getting off the bus.

[00:20:37] [SPEAKER_01] Just as I was feeling the relief of having escaped an uncomfortable situation, I looked over my shoulder, and there he was, just a few meters behind me. I had the distressing feeling that he had quickly looked away the moment I turned and saw him. I walked into a shop, took my phone out, and pretended to be taking a call. When I couldn't see him anymore, I exited and made my way home as fast as I could.

[00:21:05] [SPEAKER_01] I kept looking behind me in the busy street. I zigzagged and crossed the street at every intersection. Finally, I believed that him getting off at the same stop as me was just a coincidence. When I reached my building, I looked back one last time. There he was. His gaze was locked on me and he was smiling. I ran up to my apartment, taking multiple stairs at a time.

[00:21:33] [SPEAKER_01] When I reached the top floor, I squeezed through my door, locked it, and froze. My intercom was ringing. Don't ask me why I picked it up. I regretted it the moment I did. I could hear the opposite flat intercom ringing as well. He had pressed all the buttons one by one, hoping somebody would answer. But now, he knew my name, because he said, Gabrielle?

[00:22:02] [SPEAKER_01] I felt like a deer in headlights. Just frozen. In a pleading voice, he continued, Open the door, please. I just want to talk to you. I couldn't move or speak. He then added, Come to the window. Look at me. You'll see. I'm not a bad guy. Then something clicked. He wanted to locate my apartment in the building, but I was not going to make that mistake.

[00:22:29] [SPEAKER_01] I hung up, in shock, and I waited by the door without moving for what felt like hours. When I finally managed to calm myself, I called my long-distance boyfriend. He immediately told me to call the police. Why didn't I call the police? I don't know. Today, it would be the first thing I would do, but I guess I was afraid of making a big deal out of something that wasn't too important, perhaps. What an idiot I was.

[00:22:59] [SPEAKER_01] I called my best friend instead. I just didn't want to feel alone. I told her all about it, and after a while, I felt better. I felt safe. And we started laughing. Suddenly, the intercom rang again. This was two hours later. I answered. The voice said, Gabriel, please, open. I still remember the chills I felt.

[00:23:29] [SPEAKER_01] He was still there. He had been there the whole time. I was silent and terrified. He was silent, but I could sense his trepidation. Then he said, Gabriel, let me in. I'm so thirsty. Just give me a glass of water. This broke the tension and I hung up. I curled up in a corner, literally in the recovery position.

[00:23:58] [SPEAKER_01] I waited, terrified. I was so scared to make a sound. I knew he couldn't hear me from downstairs, but I was scared to even breathe. The intercom rang again and again, but I wouldn't answer it. I crawled over to the sofa and I fell asleep from exhaustion. I heard the intercom ring one more time in the middle of the night.

[00:24:27] [SPEAKER_01] I woke up in the morning, afraid to leave the apartment. I called my dad who came to pick me up. There was nobody in the hall, but there was a note on my mailbox. It said, Gabriel, I am a nice guy. You should have opened to me. We immediately went to the nearest police station. The police listened and, of course, told me that I should not hesitate to call them.

[00:24:52] [SPEAKER_01] My dad called the locksmith to install a digicode on the building door the same day and wrote a message to each of my neighbors asking them to please not open the door to anyone they didn't expect. He sat in the cafe in front of my building with two friends every evening for more than a week. I never saw the stalker again. After this episode, I used a different route to and from university every day.

[00:25:21] [SPEAKER_01] I kept my phone tightly in my hand and I looked back every few meters. Today, I'm still very observant of my surroundings. I never answer the door if I'm not expecting someone. So, people, if you ever find yourself in any kind of uncomfortable situation, call the police. Don't be an idiot like me. Be safe, everyone.

[00:25:43] [SPEAKER_01] I'm a 36-year-old woman, but back when I was 18, I worked the graveyard shift at a fast-food restaurant. I'm a night owl, so I preferred the overnight shift. Plus, I had a couple of super cool managers, and I loved my bar crowd rush at 2am.

[00:26:11] [SPEAKER_01] I already had a deal with the police escorting me home for several weeks the previous fall thanks to a stalker, who luckily ended up getting arrested on robbery charges. But even after that, I never felt very unsafe. My now-husband and our dog were always waiting for me when I got home. Plus, I grew up in rural Idaho. So, I had guns and I knew my way around them.

[00:26:38] [SPEAKER_01] All of this, plus my youth, made me feel invulnerable. I was a man. And I wasn't scared during the stalking stuff. My manager that night was a super chill guy. He was in his late 20s. Was super fun to work with. I'll call him Paul. He was a stoner and really laid back. He always made sure my very petite self was safe from rowdy assholes that came to the drive-thru when the bars closed.

[00:27:07] [SPEAKER_01] He had worked graveyard shifts for years and never flinched at anything. And never liked to involve the police. This was because marijuana was, and still is, very criminal in Idaho. And as I said, he was a stoner. He avoided calling authorities unless things were dire. And up to this point, that had only been two times.

[00:27:33] [SPEAKER_01] When I had the legit stalker, and the time, one of our co-workers got hit by a truck as we were coming on shift. But this story is different. Late one night in spring of 2009, I had the back door cracked so that Paul could smoke a blunt as he mopped the back. It was after the bar rush. The bars in that area closed at 2. And after about 2.45, it was always dead.

[00:28:01] [SPEAKER_01] So that was when we did all the maintenance and cleaning for the restaurant. It involved taking apart and cleaning the shake machines, steam cleaning the grill hoods, sometimes draining and cleaning the fryers, scrubbing the grill surfaces, whatever. At around 4 a.m., I'm scrubbing the grills and my headset dings. This indicated that somebody had triggered the drive-thru sensor. I hit the button and gave the little welcome script. Then asked, what can I get you?

[00:28:32] [SPEAKER_01] No response. Suddenly, the back door slammed shut. I heard Paul through the bolt. Then, he hustled over to lock my drive-thru window. This was weird because we only had one window. Then, he went and checked all of the doors, which were locked because the lobby was closed. He looked white as a sheet.

[00:28:57] [SPEAKER_01] I followed him with my eyes, which is when I saw some guy on one of those motorcycles with the fat tires. He had a white bandana pulled up over the bottom of his face, and he was wearing a black hoodie and black cargo pants. He also had a really big fire axe strapped to his back. The guy was periodically stopping the bike, pulling a can of spray paint out of a lower pocket in his pants,

[00:29:26] [SPEAKER_01] and spray painting crude smiley faces with X's for eyes in the parking lot and on the sidewalk. He was also playing a game of tic-tac-toe with himself. He would ride around the restaurant, over and over, and at one point he stopped in front of my drive-thru window and tried to open it. We heard it rattle, and that's when Paul said, Fuck this, I'm calling the cops. Go shut yourself in the freezer. I'll padlock it.

[00:29:54] [SPEAKER_01] It was the one place I would be totally safe, and he told me where he was putting the padlock key, so I could text that location to my boyfriend. That way, in case something happened to Paul, my boyfriend or I could tell the cops where the key was, and they could still get me out. I had never seen this guy so scared before. In the meantime, Fire Axe Guy was now tapping on all of the windows and glass doors with his axe.

[00:30:24] [SPEAKER_01] I grabbed my sweater and I went into the freezer, which also meant that I couldn't hear anything that was happening outside. After I was there for about 25 minutes, scared out of my mind, Paul opened the freezer and said, He's gone. The cops came and searched nearby for him. And someone is staying in the lot tonight. Nobody was ever caught, but several other local businesses had reported the same guy that week. Then, it all just stopped.

[00:30:55] [SPEAKER_01] Nobody was hurt. There was minor paint vandalism, but no attacks. No smashed windows or places broken into. It was probably just some asshole kid trying to scare people. However, it worked. We were scared. I sometimes wonder what he would have done if he had been able to open the drive-thru window. Shortly after this, I moved to a different city and was so relieved to leave that job.

[00:31:25] [SPEAKER_01] And that was the only time I was locked in the freezer. Remember being a kid around the holidays? Anytime you asked for something, Mom would say, wait until the holidays.

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[00:33:22] [SPEAKER_01] This happened when I was 8 years old. At the time, my family lived in a townhome complex in a small town where literally everybody knew everybody. It felt like the safest place in the world. Our complex had a little neighborhood park that sat literally right outside our back door. Because of where it was positioned, my mom could easily glance out the kitchen window while cooking to keep an eye on me.

[00:33:48] [SPEAKER_01] The park was right next to a wooded area that bordered our town's water tower. Everyone called it Smiling Tower because it had a massive, bright smiley face painted on it. Teenagers in town were always sneaking up near it, and as an 8-year-old, I thought the whole area seemed cool and mysterious. It was a normal afternoon.

[00:34:12] [SPEAKER_01] My older brother, who is 3 years older than me, was upstairs in his room playing video games, and I was swinging by myself on the swing set near the tree line. After a few minutes, I heard voices coming from the woods near the water tower. At first, I didn't think anything of it. I assumed it was just a few older kids from my school hanging out.

[00:34:37] [SPEAKER_01] But as I kept swinging, I heard rustling, and it was getting closer. And then a single voice called out to me. I turned my head toward the tree line. Standing just inside the shadow of the trees was a man. He was staring at me and smiling. Now being an 8-year-old, raised in such a close-knit town where everybody was friendly, I didn't feel alarmed. I just smiled back.

[00:35:07] [SPEAKER_01] He called out, Hi honey. Are you having fun? Do you want to play? I shook my head and replied innocently. My mom told me I'm not allowed to go into the trees. That's why I have to play right here. He replied, Oh, well, we won't go too far. Even at 8, I had a gut feeling that told me to obey my mom and stay put. I told the man,

[00:35:35] [SPEAKER_01] No thank you, but if you want to come swing with me you can. Looking back it frightens me how quickly he agreed. He stepped right out of the woods, walked onto the playground, and sat down on the swing next to mine. A few minutes later, a couple of my neighborhood friends came over to join us. To us, he was just a nice adult playing at the park.

[00:36:02] [SPEAKER_01] We laughed, swung on the swings, and interacted with him like he was just one of the kids. Eventually he left, and when it started getting dark, I went inside for dinner. That night my family was sitting around the TV watching the news. A breaking news report came on. A man had been taken into custody for attempting to kidnap an 8-year-old child just down the street from our complex.

[00:36:31] [SPEAKER_01] They flashed his mugshot on the screen. My heart did a strange little drop. I looked up my mom and I said, casually, Hey, I know that guy. We played on the swings together earlier today. I'll never forget the way the color completely drained from my mom's face. She turned a ghostly white.

[00:36:53] [SPEAKER_01] Staring at me in absolute horror as the realization hit her of just how close she had come to losing me. It turned out he wasn't from our town at all. He was a predator, wandering around the area looking for an easy target. After that day, my mom never let me go to the park alone again. Even if it was right outside our back door.

[00:37:34] [SPEAKER_01] A few years ago I owned and operated my own pet grooming salon. Because it was a business that was open to the public, I typically didn't keep the front door locked while I was working. One day, a new neighbor who had just moved into the complex came to my door. He introduced himself and told me that he was opening a meat shop in one of the units nearby. At first I was completely friendly.

[00:38:00] [SPEAKER_01] He was a new neighbor and I figured it was nice to welcome him into the complex. He came inside and started making conversation, but the questions quickly became more personal than I had expected. He asked me if I worked alone. I told him that I was alone at the moment, but that my work partner was currently on lunch and would be back in 20 minutes. This was a lie. I was actually alone.

[00:38:31] [SPEAKER_01] Then he asked if I had a boyfriend. Then, whether I lived with my family. Looking back, those questions make me uncomfortable in a way that they didn't at the time. After taking a few minutes, he asked me if I'd like to see his new meat shop. I thought, sure, why not? He was my new neighbor, after all, and I was trying to be friendly. So I followed him over.

[00:39:00] [SPEAKER_01] And when we walked inside, there was almost nothing there. The place was completely empty aside from three enormous chest freezers in one room. They were massive, easily big enough for me to fit inside. The other room contained a walk-in freezer slash refrigerator. But there was no meat. Not a single package. Not a single package. He started telling me about the meat he was supposedly going to be selling,

[00:39:29] [SPEAKER_01] and then asked if I wanted to look inside one of the chest freezers, because apparently there was a good deal on meat. I immediately said no. I remember thinking it was strange because there wasn't even any meat in the store yet. Then he asked, do you want to see the basement? I said no. He asked again, and I said no again.

[00:39:56] [SPEAKER_01] I had absolutely no interest in going into the basement with the man that I had met minutes earlier, especially when I was alone and his new business was essentially an empty building containing several enormous freezers. But he kept trying to convince me to go downstairs. At that point, every alarm bell in my head was going off. I started making my way back toward the exit, and eventually I managed to get out of there and back to my grooming salon safely.

[00:40:26] [SPEAKER_01] My landlady, who lived in the basement of the unit I was renting, also returned, which made me feel safe once again. But I've thought about that encounter many times since. I don't know what was in that basement, and I don't know why he was so interested in getting me to go down there. I don't know why he needed to know whether I lived alone or had a boyfriend, or if I worked by myself.

[00:40:51] [SPEAKER_01] And I certainly don't know why he wanted me to look inside an enormous empty chest freezer in a business that didn't contain a single piece of meat. Maybe there was a completely innocent explanation for everything. Maybe he was just an incredibly socially awkward guy with a strange way of welcoming his new neighbor. What I do know is that I was very, very glad I had told him that my co-worker was coming back in 20 minutes,

[00:41:21] [SPEAKER_01] because when I think about that encounter now, I can't help but wonder what might have happened if I had told him I worked completely alone. When I was 13, I used to leave school during the lunch break and accompany my friend who ate her lunch at home.

[00:41:50] [SPEAKER_01] Then we would come back to school once lunch had ended. I wasn't supposed to do this, but my friend always pressured me to join her. Her house was only a two-minute walk, and you had to pass an alleyway to get to the top of the street. Then you'd turn left and be there. The alleyway itself was creepy, and it always gave us an unsettling feeling.

[00:42:16] [SPEAKER_01] One Friday night, I really didn't want to leave with my friend, but she peer pressured me, like always. I remember the weather being really bad. It was raining heavily. The sky looked gray and dull, and there were huge gusts of wind outside. I kept telling my friend that we should just stay at the school, but she insisted that we go to her house. We exited the school gates and walked up the street toward the alley.

[00:42:47] [SPEAKER_01] I was casually walking, but suddenly noticed that my friend was no longer beside me. She had a deer-in-headlights look and was frozen. I followed her eyes to a guy in the alleyway, walking in our direction. He was covered in all black, and only his eyes were visible. My friend tapped me on the shoulder to turn around. She started speedwalking back towards school, and I followed closely behind.

[00:43:14] [SPEAKER_01] It obviously did not take us long to get back, and my friend started running and screaming as we approached the school gates. I asked her what was wrong. It turns out the man had been carrying a knife. This completely freaked me out. Back at school, we told a friend about it, who said to tell our teachers, who then called the police. When we were both back at our homes, the police took our individual statements.

[00:43:42] [SPEAKER_01] They later stated that we were lying because our answers didn't match up. Now, I don't remember all the questions they asked, but I remember their wording was really confusing. Like, they asked how many feet the man was from us, and would tell me to compare my answer to a bus or a car. I was embarrassed that the police didn't believe me, and my parents held that incident over me for years.

[00:44:10] [SPEAKER_01] The same year, two elderly women were stabbed to death near that alleyway. So that whole area continued to freak me out. During my early twenties, I did volunteer work at the hospital, and one of my routes home went through that area. Even years later, I still feel freaked out, and I've decided to never go there again.

[00:44:42] [SPEAKER_01] I've always been hesitant to share this story because of how naive I was at the time. It's been a couple of years, so let's do it. I do want to mention that I am autistic, and at the time, I was a bit gullible. I think this is important to mention because I've read that autistic women experience sexual assault at an alarmingly high rate, somewhere around 88-90%. But I digress.

[00:45:10] [SPEAKER_01] I was not violated in this way from this experience, but it's relevant to my behavior. I was 26, and had just left my husband due to domestic abuse. I'm okay, and honestly, I just needed a big wake-up call that I couldn't write off or justify. I'm very happy to have survived that day and to be here.

[00:45:33] [SPEAKER_01] I had been with my husband from the ages of 20 to 26, so I was very unfamiliar with the apps and dating scene. At this point, I was coming up on 9 months single and decided to try Bumble. I immediately matched with a pretty handsome man. We seemed to really get along. He kept pushing me to go on a date that same day.

[00:45:57] [SPEAKER_01] Now, I mandated 3 days notice to avoid low-effort men hitting me up solely to get in my pants. You've got to plan a date with me in advance. I don't do same-day anything. He was really pushy, but I said no. It was a Saturday morning and we kept flirting and chatting. Eventually, after the third time he asked me, I said yes.

[00:46:23] [SPEAKER_01] See, my friends had been encouraging me pretty heavily to be more spontaneous, and I decided a spur-of-the-moment midday date might actually be nice. He asked, You want to meet me at a public place, right? Now, I never said this, so I assumed he was confusing me with another woman, but I did want to meet in a public place, so whatever.

[00:46:49] [SPEAKER_01] He told me he worked between my state and Colorado and had recently been in an accident in Colorado that left his car in the shop there. He would need a ride from a friend, and he'd also broken his ankle, but he asked me to go on a walk at the lake. The lake paths were highly public and very open. They were popular. We don't have a ton of trees around, and it's mostly restaurants and a few parks.

[00:47:20] [SPEAKER_01] I immediately asked about his ankle. He told me it was fine and that he didn't want it to lock up. This made absolutely no sense to me, but I certainly wasn't being paid to parent an adult, so whatever. We set a time and I got ready. He told me he needed to secure the ride. I said, okay, sure. I arrived at the lake, stayed in my car, and texted him. No reply.

[00:47:49] [SPEAKER_01] After 20 minutes, I told him that if I didn't see or hear from him in the next 10 minutes, I was going home. He finally texted me and begged me to come to him instead. Apparently, his ankle was hurting more than he thought, and he didn't think he could walk. He had taken painkillers. His profile said that he lived in a neighborhood I knew well.

[00:48:16] [SPEAKER_01] He also said I could share his address with my friends if it would help me feel safe, and that he genuinely just wanted to watch a movie. That's usually code for a hookup, but that was flat out not happening with me, and I was not going to be assaulted, so I brought a switchblade. This next part is hard for me to recount because I sound super dumb.

[00:48:42] [SPEAKER_01] I assure you, I am intelligent, and I never did that again. Friends, never go to a stranger's house for a first meeting. Do not do it. The risks are just too high. I sent his address to seven of my friends. Maybe he didn't expect me to actually share it, and hoped that just giving me the option alone would be enough to reassure me. I don't know. But I decided to go.

[00:49:12] [SPEAKER_01] The address he gave me was much farther out of the way than I anticipated. Eventually, I found myself on dirt roads, and my GPS was taking me toward a crossroads. A lot of rural addresses are non-specific like this, though. Sometimes you just have to pull up to a house or trailer. On the way, I told him that he would have to call me as I got closer because there wasn't a direct address.

[00:49:41] [SPEAKER_01] He then texted me back. You'll have to share her with me. I asked him what the fuck he was talking about. He said he meant his puppy. Apparently, she's a sweetie who wants all his attention and will be thrilled to meet me. A dog was not in his photos, by the way. Well, obviously at this point, I'm feeling a bit freaked out.

[00:50:08] [SPEAKER_01] When I was about 15 minutes away, I called him. He didn't answer. I did eventually find the house and could see a dog in the fenced-in yard. There was also a black truck in the driveway. I parked, but by this point, I decided I was remaining fully inside my locked car. So I texted him that I was there and told him to come outside. Five minutes passed.

[00:50:37] [SPEAKER_01] I texted again and told him that if he didn't come out, I was leaving. Finally, he shuffled out, walking perfectly fine. I rolled my window down less than an inch. My car was running and I had my knife in my hand. He looked completely disheveled. Dirty hair, dirty clothes. Not at all ready for a date. Worst of all, he looked visibly guilty.

[00:51:05] [SPEAKER_01] He could barely make eye contact with me. And I don't even like eye contact. He told me we needed to run an errand. Apparently, we just needed to pick something up that he forgot down the road and come back. I said absolutely not. And asked about the truck, which he told me belonged to a buddy. I told him I could wait until he came back, but I wasn't going anywhere with him. Then I asked about his neighborhood.

[00:51:34] [SPEAKER_01] He told me this wasn't actually his house. It was his friend's house. The entire time he looked so guilty and ashamed. I was very uncomfortable and beginning to get anxious. Eventually, he told me that he needed to go inside for a minute because of his foot. At this point, I started texting all of my friends asking if I should leave Murderville. Of course, they all said, get out.

[00:52:03] [SPEAKER_01] I was texting them. I noticed two huge older men, probably in their 50s, come out of the back of the house. They got into a golf cart and drove off somewhere for about three minutes before returning. I was still texting my friends. When they came back, both men walked toward my car. The older one approached my window with so much vile lust in his eyes.

[00:52:32] [SPEAKER_01] And this is the part I'll never forget. The way both men looked at me made me feel deep in my soul that I was about to be assaulted. And that I would probably die if I wasn't extremely careful. He approached my window and, in a commanding, aggressive tone, asked me why I wasn't inside. I decided my best option was to play dumb and pleasant.

[00:53:00] [SPEAKER_01] I told him, he said you guys had an errand to run and that you'd be right back. He looked at me, clenching his teeth, and in a demanding, authoritative voice said, You're supposed to be inside. He said it slowly, forcefully. I can't emphasize that enough. Like he assumed this would make me comply.

[00:53:25] [SPEAKER_01] I essentially repeated the same thing I had already told him, pretending that everything was perfectly normal. Looking back, I realized that if I'd simply walked up to the door, three men would have been waiting for me. We were out in the middle of nowhere. The older man was visibly angry now, and he told me he was going to go inside and talk to my date. I decided I did not need a second opinion on not dying.

[00:53:54] [SPEAKER_01] I genuinely felt that these men would have assaulted me or murdered me. I was leaving. I started driving, but I went the wrong way, and that's when I realized that someone had blocked off the dirt road with stacked cinder blocks. It felt intentional. You couldn't see the blockage from where I had parked because we were up on a hill. But seeing that road blocked off really solidified my belief that these men intended to hurt me.

[00:54:25] [SPEAKER_01] I made a fast U-turn, and I hauled ass. As I was leaving, I looked behind me and saw all three men come outside, get into the black truck, and then start following me. I decided to say fuck it. And when I tell you that I caught air because I was going 80 down those dirt roads, I'm not kidding. I eventually lost them, but I didn't go home. I drove around the city for three hours.

[00:54:54] [SPEAKER_01] I just couldn't stop driving. I couldn't handle the idea of them following me home or finding my neighborhood. At the time, I didn't go to the police because I honestly didn't know if they would even care. No crime had been committed that I could prove. And from a previous stalking case, I knew that sometimes they didn't seem to care much unless you had already been hurt. I did report him the bumble, and his profile disappeared.

[00:55:22] [SPEAKER_01] Either they took it down or he blocked me. But here's the kicker. He texted me and tried to reschedule. I guess I appeared more stupid than intended. Anyway, these days, I'm in a loving relationship with a man who is thankfully not a killer, and I carry protection. To the three men waiting for me to come inside that night, let's not meet.

[00:56:07] [SPEAKER_01] If you want bonus stories every single week and you don't want to listen to ads, head over to patreon.com forward slash let's not meet podcast. To sign up and support the show today, you'll get ad free versions of all of our episodes at a higher bit rate for the best listening experience. Plus, you'll get extended episodes with stories you won't hear anywhere else. Again, that's patreon.com forward slash let's not meet podcast. If you're already a patron, make sure you stick around after the music for your extended version of this week's episode.

[00:56:37] [SPEAKER_01] And be sure to send your stories in to let's not meet stories at gmail.com if you'd like to hear them on the show. Check out the new episodes of my other podcast, the old time radio cast at crypticcountypodcasts.com or wherever you get your podcasts. And follow me on Twitch at twitch.tv slash crypticcounty. This week you have heard it just kept getting worse by anonymous. The time a stranger saved me from being stalked by Samantha. It could have ended badly by the Beatty Bunch.

[00:57:06] [SPEAKER_01] Open the door by Meanwhile in Paris. Fire Axe Guy by I'm Really Not Carl. I met a serial predator when I was 8 years old by Samantha. I still wonder what was in that basement by loud hiccups. Man with a knife by Mahogany Rose. And finally, Three Men Waiting for Me to Come Inside by Rosemary and Mint. All of the stories you've heard this week were narrated and produced with the permission of their respective authors.

[00:57:33] [SPEAKER_01] Let's not meet a true horror podcast is not associated with Reddit or any of the message boards online. We'll see you next week, everybody. Stay safe.

[00:57:41] [SPEAKER_01] Back in 2022, I worked as a hostess.