2x04: Let Me In

[00:00:00] My name is Andrew Tate and this is Season 2, Episode 4 of Lets Not Meet, A True Horror Podcast. Throughout high school my cluelessness and naivety rarely got me into trouble. In fact I firmly believe now, as an adult, it probably saved me from a lot of potential misfortune.

[00:00:44] That doesn't mean it didn't also contribute heavily to a close call that I had with a real life monster. Our math teacher sophomore year I found particularly annoying. One of those educators who always seemed to kind of be put out that she had to teach a

[00:01:03] class and made comments about how she felt like she was always babysitting. One saving grace was that my best friend Nick was in my class. I remember being grateful that I had a friend in class who would not only provide me with

[00:01:18] a sense of familiarity, but also was quite gifted with numbers and I figured it could help me ace my math course for once. On the first day Nick and I walked to class and when we saw that the room was set up

[00:01:31] with chairs and sets of two around the room, we were pleased and immediately sat down next to each other. Once that teacher entered, however, our hopes were dashed. She immediately organized us in alphabetical order and Nick was now two rows behind me.

[00:01:49] On the other hand, there was no one next to me so I thought, hey I'll take it. About 15 minutes into class, the door opened behind me and when the whole class turned to look, in walked the school weirdo.

[00:02:03] He was a tall goth kid who wandered the halls blasting metal from his headphones, never speaking to anyone and gave off a very finite, fuck-off vibe. His hair was dyed black, he had piercings and tattoos and those unforgettable jean coat jeans. You know the kind.

[00:02:19] Our instructor asked his name and when he stoically lifted his class schedule up so she could read it, she directed him to his chair. He sat next to me, not saying a word, music still blasting.

[00:02:33] He eventually shut off his headphones, removed them and pulled out a pen, but no paper. I immediately hoped this kid wouldn't try to copy my work or we would both fail class. Math has never been my strong suit, even though I was constantly mistaken for a smart kid.

[00:02:53] I don't remember how it happened, but over the next few weeks we exchanged a few words, greetings at the beginning of class, updates about our weekends and never more than what you would normally consider to be pleasantries between acquaintances.

[00:03:08] His name was Paul and a few weeks before Christmas break, he confided during class that he was in love with me. I had no idea what to say. We weren't friends, we didn't hang out together outside of school, had never exchanged

[00:03:24] phone numbers, hadn't ever even waved hello in the hallway. How was he in love with me? Even though I had noticed his bright blue eyes and straight, intensely white smile, I hadn't ever thought of him that way.

[00:03:41] Hell, I considered it a great improvement that I wasn't completely terrified of him like all the other kids were. Even still, I blamed myself. I must have done something to make him think I was interested or that his feelings would be welcomed.

[00:03:56] I can't remember if I was more kind to him during this interaction than an adult version of myself would have been because I viewed directness as being rude or if I was still kind of scared of him.

[00:04:11] For the next 18 days of school before Christmas vacation, Paul asked me to be his girlfriend. Every single day he would ask, either during math class or on alternating days when we had different schedules.

[00:04:24] He would wait for me outside my British literature class and follow me to French, asking me over and over, begging. My friend Nick eventually became concerned and began walking me to class as much as he could.

[00:04:37] When he was otherwise engaged, he would send another one of our friends to look after me. It didn't deter Paul in the least. Two days before break, my best friend and I came up with a completely juvenile plan to solve the problem.

[00:04:52] I would say yes to Paul the day before break and then break up with him two weeks later before school started again. He would get to call me his girlfriend for that time. I wouldn't have to see him and everyone gets what they want, right?

[00:05:05] I enacted this plan and it seemingly went off without a hitch. I did have to make the sacrifice of giving Paul my phone number, not considering any future issues this might cause. He called me every day and texted me constantly.

[00:05:21] I wouldn't always answer and I would state that I was busy or got in trouble or had to turn my phone over to my parents when I did. I eventually ramped up my indifference and avoidance towards the end of the break and

[00:05:33] finally told him two days before we were to return to school that I didn't want to be his girlfriend anymore and that we were over. I hung up the phone. I felt guilty for being so callous, but it had to be done.

[00:05:46] It was like ripping off a bandaid. I went to school the following Monday and after first period was over, I walked to math class with Nick who was none too pleased about the plot my girlfriend and I had contrived to carry out.

[00:06:01] Everything seemed normal aside from when I sat down next to Paul. He didn't look up or say anything to me. His In Flames record was blaring from his headphones. As the class started, the music turned off and he took out his headphones.

[00:06:18] Wanting to potentially test the waters or apologize in some small way, I sort of nudged his arm and said, hey, how's it going? He jerked his arm away as though I had burned him and after he sat staring forward for a

[00:06:32] minute or two, he looked at me and said, I love you, but that's never going to be enough for girls like you. He reached down into his shabby black backpack that was sitting on the floor, propped up next to the legs of the desk.

[00:06:48] He came back up a few seconds later with a paperclip. I sat looking forward but watching him out of my periphery. He unfolded the paperclip into a straight wire, rolled up his sleeve and started cutting himself.

[00:07:03] Cutting might not be the correct word for what a paperclip does to your skin, but in any case, he sat there for a while, sawing at his arm with the pointy end of the paperclip and then quickly rolled his sleeves back down. I was completely freaked out.

[00:07:20] When the bell rang and class was over, Paul got up quickly, grabbed his bag and then while turning to look back at me, rolled up his sleeve and shoved his forearm in my face. My name was now carved into his skin.

[00:07:38] Finals were over two weeks later and the new schedule began the following semester. I didn't see Paul much after that aside from the few times in the hall when he would be sulking in the black hallways under the stairs with some other goth metal kids.

[00:07:53] I figured it was over. Six years later, I was at work one day when my phone rang. It was an area code from a neighboring town about an hour away. I ignored it, thinking it was a debt collector or a wrong number.

[00:08:10] It rang again and again and again. I finally stepped out of my office aggravated and answered. Hello? Hey, it's me. Who? Look, I'm kind of in some trouble. If I sell my truck for some cash today, can you come get me and we can just take off somewhere?

[00:08:30] Please? Wait, who is this? It's me. I don't know who the fuck this is. It's Paul. I was completely dumbfounded. I hung up. He then texted me the same message asking for help and telling me it was time for us to run away together.

[00:08:52] I told him frankly I had no idea why he would think that this was something I'd be into since I hadn't even talked to him or seen him in such a long time.

[00:09:02] He seemed irritated with me and started explaining about how I had always been the one, as if it would trigger some long dormant passion for him I had simply not yet realized.

[00:09:14] He even told me about how often he spoke of me to his long-term girlfriend and when he decided he could no longer fake it after two years with her, he concocted a story about an illicit affair he and I had been having behind her back.

[00:09:32] He figured this fabrication was the most logical way to rid himself of her affections permanently. I was shocked. I was scared. He had fictionalized an entire relationship between us full of stories and romantic meetings.

[00:09:48] An unrequited love story that we had both been waiting anxiously to make work one day when the timing finally allowed. Now I was being called upon to make his fantasies a reality. Thankfully, I remained firm in my resolution to ensure beyond a shadow of a doubt that

[00:10:07] he absolutely understood that I was not interested. I was sick of this shit. This time he would understand that no amount of courtship or time was going to change the way I felt, or rather didn't feel. I texted back,

[00:10:23] Paul, I'm sorry that you seem to be having a rough time. I hope you can figure things out, but I want nothing to do with whatever you're involving me in. I apologize if I've given you any ideas that I'm interested in you romantically.

[00:10:39] I want to be clear, I am not. Please do not contact me again and good luck with everything. I was proud of myself. I even called my phone service provider to have his number blocked. This was back in ancient times when you couldn't do it yourself.

[00:10:54] I moved on with my life, got married, moved north of the city and forgot about Paul. Last year I received a text from Nick. Holy shit, have you seen this? I had to make sure it wasn't you. What followed was a link to a news story.

[00:11:12] I clicked on it. Paul had been arrested for kidnapping a woman from a Starbucks, driving her around while sexually assaulting her multiple times. While stopped at a gas station, the woman was able to mouth for help to an attendant and the police were called.

[00:11:30] He has been charged with 8 counts of aggravated sexual assault, attempted murder and second degree kidnapping amongst other charges. He is now awaiting trial in the Supermax facility in Colorado. You're probably asking yourself why Supermax? Paul also had two pre-existing sexual assault convictions of underage girls.

[00:11:53] This is his third offense. I immediately clicked on a link in the news story that took me to the prison inmate's search page. I typed in his name and upon seeing his mugshot and those piercing eyes, I got chills.

[00:12:08] Although none quite as intense as the shudder I felt when reading through his notable tattoos and markings, one of which reads, in scarring, Anna on his right forearm. Paul, let's never meet again. This happened to me about a month ago.

[00:12:36] For some context, I'm a woman in my mid-twenties who lives alone in a cozy flat in the attic area of an old Victorian building. It was the old servant's quarters. I guess that's where I belong.

[00:12:49] The design of the roof hanging over my window and the high driveway walls means that I get some interesting acoustics. During the night, when it's quiet, the sounds bounce up from the whole long street, even

[00:13:03] from out of sight, and I can hear the footsteps and conversations of passerbys crystal clear as if they were in the room with me. Yet standing down on the drive, you can't hear them at all. It was almost 4am and pitch dark outside.

[00:13:19] I had been finding it hard to sleep properly the last few nights, so I was still up and pottering around in my PJs with the lights on. I had a window cracked and the blinds half-open to get some fresh air in.

[00:13:33] I usually keep them closed if I have a light on at night. You can see right up into the room from the street and the houses across, which I sadly did not realize for my first couple of months while living there.

[00:13:47] Sorry neighbors if you saw me dancing around and cooking in my underwear. However, I was so flustered from not getting to sleep and desperate for air, I thought everybody else would be snoozing. I had done the same thing for the previous three or four nights. Sleepless nights.

[00:14:07] I had just made some tea and settled down to read a book when I heard my door buzzer ringing. I remember thinking that it was odd that I had not heard anybody approaching as I was just sat by the window, but I brushed it off as being sleep-deprived.

[00:14:24] Nobody who visits me ever rings the door buzzer. They call me on my phone. So I grabbed my phone to check if I had missed something from a friend or family. No. There was nothing.

[00:14:37] I ran to the window to look down at the porch, but unfortunately I could only see the steps leading up to it. The motion sensor light was on and I could hear a strange scuffling noise and then some thuds.

[00:14:51] I figured somebody had called the wrong flat by mistake and was probably drunkenly stumbling around. Even with my rational explanation, a strange sense of unease overwhelmed me. I felt on edge after I heard the thuds and turned my lights off so that I could gawp

[00:15:09] through the windows and the blinds without being seen, but unfortunately I couldn't see much. After a few minutes, the noises stopped and the motion sensor lights turned off. Although I didn't see anybody come back down the steps, I figured I had either missed them

[00:15:27] in the dark or the person they were looking for had let them in. After 20 minutes or so, I relaxed and turned my lamp back on to potter around again. About a minute later, my buzzer rang again.

[00:15:42] This time it was ringing repeatedly, as if someone was aggressively holding the button down. I froze and stared at it for a while, unsure of what to do. It was starting to get annoying and I began to worry that it might actually be somebody

[00:15:58] I know who needs help. Why else would they be ringing my door past 4am in the morning? I plucked up the courage to answer, albeit with a shaky hand. Hello? No reply. I hear somebody breathing heavily through the phone static. It sounded like a man.

[00:16:19] Who is this and what do you want? Again, no reply, just heavy breathing. I hung up, thinking that they'd got the wrong flat or the telecom was playing up again. I stayed by the wall phone for a few moments, staring at it, unsure of what to do.

[00:16:36] The buzzer went off loudly again and I about jumped out of my skin as I was so tense. Who is this? Why do you keep calling me? All I could hear was static again, thinking that I was getting knocked down gingered and

[00:16:52] This is ding dong ditched for my US friends across the big pond. I went to hang up the phone again. Just before I did, I could hear a muffled voice and I whipped the phone back to my ear and demanded to know who it was. What was that?

[00:17:11] I asked. Let me in. Huh? Who are you? Let me in, please. His voice starts breaking into panic. I'm not letting you in. You haven't said who you are. There's people coming to get me. They tried to jump me and I ran away.

[00:17:34] It's not safe out here, please. You've got to let me in. Let me in. Help me, please. Immediately I hung up the wall phone. There was no way I was letting a strange man into my building who wouldn't identify himself,

[00:17:49] especially as I had to leave the safety of my own locked flat to physically go down to the front porch and open it. My gut told me that his story was complete bullshit, but on the off chance that it was true, I was worried.

[00:18:06] There was about to be a crazy fight on my driveway. I grabbed my mobile phone and dialed 999 as I ran to turn my lights off and shut the blinds again peeking out through the crack.

[00:18:18] The man had been ringing my buzzer nonstop since I hung up, but shortly after I turned the lights out, it stopped again. The weird shuffling and thumping noises on the porch started up again and I explained the situation to the emergency operator on the phone.

[00:18:34] She urged me to stay calm and stay on the phone with her and said that the police were already aware something was happening. Somebody else in my building had called her earlier to say that a man had been trying

[00:18:43] to break in the front door after trying all of the ground floor windows down the side and back. They had had a similar call a few nights before as well. That explains the weird noises I kept hearing and why I didn't hear him approach from

[00:18:58] the street at the front. The noises had now stopped, but I was beginning to panic hard. I asked the lady when the police would arrive. She said that they would send out a unit as soon as one was available and to stay inside with the door locked.

[00:19:14] After about 10 minutes of no activity outside, the motion lights went off. The lady said to stay in the flat again like I was going to do anything else and to call

[00:19:23] back if he reappeared and that they'd escalate it on their end if he made it into the building and she ended the call. I sat by the window watching and sure enough a few minutes later the noises started again and the light below came on.

[00:19:40] I don't think he ever left or even went down the side to the car park at the back. I still couldn't see what was going on because of the angle of my window.

[00:19:51] I was about to call the police again when a taxi driver passing by slammed on his brakes and shouted out his window. I stopped to listen. Hey you, what are you doing over there? I dropped you off on the other side of town an hour ago.

[00:20:07] The taxi driver knew this man. What a twist. Oh hey, I lost my keys. My friends live here and I'm trying to get a hold of them to let me in. I see the shoulder and leg of the man come around the corner slightly.

[00:20:23] You told me you were going to sleep it off and you wouldn't be causing any more trouble like earlier. I asked you to get out and you begged me to drop you off at home so I did and now you're not at home.

[00:20:34] I just said I had no keys to get in. I'm trying to stay with my friend. They live here. You could hear that the man was getting agitated and an edge was creeping into his tone as he lied again.

[00:20:46] So why are you skulking down the side and making a ruckus instead of ringing the bell? What's going on? What are you really doing? The man gets angry at this and storms down the driveway to confront the taxi driver.

[00:20:58] This is my first time getting a proper look at him, although I could only see the back. He looked like a normal, well-presented young man with brown hair, a black t-shirt, jeans and trainers. I was surprised.

[00:21:12] Based on his appearance, I would not think of him as somebody I would normally avoid late at night. I couldn't really make out what was said next as they were both shouting over each other but I could hear the taxi driver yell, Police!

[00:21:26] The man suddenly leapt towards his car door. The taxi driver quickly screeched off down the road, leaving the man standing there swearing and seething. It was at this point that I realized that I had been an idiot, frozen by the window

[00:21:41] watching the scene unfurl beneath me without calling the police to let them know that he was back. I ducked down to pick up my phone, which I must have dropped amidst the commotion. As I spoke to a different operator, the man turned around and strolled down the driveway

[00:21:58] a little bit, but seemed to hesitate and stopped, staring up at my building. I tried to get a good look at his face but it was too dark to make out very much detail.

[00:22:10] He stood there for almost ten minutes, just standing there and staring up at my window, occasionally swaying from side to side. I knew rationally that he couldn't see me peeking out but I could swear he was staring

[00:22:24] right at me and I knew that he knew I was there. He stopped looking at my window and turned to stare at the door for a few moments. I was begging the emergency operator to get the police out here sooner as I was worried

[00:22:39] he was going to try the door again. However, I think the confrontation with the taxi driver made him lose his nerve and he was worried about the police showing up. I could hear him make an odd huffing, snorting noise of frustration as he turned and left

[00:22:53] my driveway, slowly walking down the street and out of sight. I updated the emergency operator with the direction he headed off and ended the call. About ten minutes later, I saw the police car cruise by with its headlights off, heading the way he had gone.

[00:23:11] Unsurprisingly, they never found him as it had been too long and there were too many side streets and alleys around for him to slip away down. He didn't come back again but I stayed vigilant by that window until sunrise, crying my little

[00:23:23] eyes out and chain smoking like hell. I didn't sleep properly for weeks afterwards and I get extremely paranoid walking to and from my building now. I've stopped taking the bins down, even if the light is setting slightly.

[00:23:37] Luckily I had already begun the process to move elsewhere for unrelated reasons so I have to live here for a couple more weeks before I move to a big house with some friends. I liked living on my own before this.

[00:23:50] Now I'm very grateful to be losing my privacy to have some backup. Shout out to the brave taxi driver who stopped to confront him. You were more helpful than the local police and I don't know if he would have left if you had not scared him off.

[00:24:04] I wish I could ask you what the hell happened when you met that man earlier that night. So strange man trying to trick me into thinking that you were in danger so that I would let you in. Let's never, ever meet.

[00:24:20] Thank you for listening to this week's episode of Let's Not Meet, a true horror podcast. This outro has been recently re-recorded as some changes were made at the request of an author for safety or privacy reasons.

[00:24:32] The credits for this week's show are all still available in the show notes. 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

[00:24:45] boards online. If you have a story you'd like to share, send it to letsnotmeetstories at gmail.com. Thanks for listening. See you next time.