2x06: James

[00:00:00] My name is Andrew Tate and this is Season 2, Episode 6 of Lets Not Meet, A True Horror Podcast. When I was in college I had a friend who I'm going to call Caroline. We met through a community service student organization at the University of Florida.

[00:00:43] We had a couple of mutual friends and often went to parties together. Caroline was always very chill and was up for whatever we had in mind. But for the most part our interactions were always in a group environment and we never really spent any alone time together.

[00:01:01] I graduated in 2003 and we never kept in contact afterwards. Then maybe in 2010 I received a Facebook message from Caroline. At first I was pleasantly surprised to hear from her since we haven't seen each other in over 7 years.

[00:01:19] But as I read the message I found that there was something very strange about her message. It was very cryptic, saying that she needed to speak with me and asking for my number.

[00:01:31] For a moment I thought maybe it was a fake message from a fake account, but then I went to her profile and saw that it was indeed her. The page was relatively empty with a few posts filled with quotes and then there were two profile pictures of her.

[00:01:47] We messaged a couple of times and she insisted that she wanted to speak with me on the phone and that it would be easier to explain that way. I thought it was strange, but being the trusting person that I am, I said why not.

[00:02:00] I knew her in college and I had fond memories of her. When we finally got on the phone, within two minutes I knew that it was a bad idea. I recognized her voice immediately, but there was something odd about her.

[00:02:15] It sounded like she was fishing for information and there were times where she would ask me a question which I didn't feel comfortable answering and then she would just fill that time with silence waiting for me to respond. She simply sounded off.

[00:02:30] I finally learned that she was in Jacksonville, Florida and had a fight with her abusive father and was currently living in a homeless shelter. She told me that her father was physically violent with her and so she called the cops on him and now he threw her out.

[00:02:47] But the whole time she was telling me her story, she sounded detached and emotionless. Something wasn't right and I can tell that there were things she wasn't telling me. Finally she approached the subject. She wanted to know if she could come and live with me.

[00:03:06] I was really confused. I haven't seen or heard from her in over seven years and out of nowhere she contacts me and says that she wants to move in. I told her that I wasn't anywhere near where she was and I was in New York.

[00:03:20] I told her if she wanted to come visit, she was more than welcome to stay for a few days. Maybe two weeks at the most, but I simply can't have her move in with me. I live in a very small Manhattan studio.

[00:03:32] We agreed to discuss further at another time and ended the call. I needed to process the whole situation. Afterwards I started contacting some of my friends from college to see if they had heard from Caroline in the last seven years.

[00:03:46] A couple of my friends responded saying that no, they haven't kept in contact with her, but that she had recently contacted them with a similar story and that they too thought she sounded strange and they were a little unnerved by her.

[00:04:02] One of my friends suggested that I stop contact with her completely and block her on Facebook. I contacted another friend who was best friends with Caroline in college and she actually didn't respond to me at all, which I thought was very strange.

[00:04:17] Within that same week, Caroline called me two or three times discussing the same matter. I told her it doesn't make sense for her to come all the way to New York from Florida if she didn't have any plans as to what to do next.

[00:04:32] She then mentioned that she had family in New York as well so she wouldn't be completely alone. So I said, if you have family in New York, why don't you just stay with them instead? We haven't spoken or seen each other in over seven years.

[00:04:49] She then said, well I'm not very close with my family and we actually don't really talk. At that point I was getting a little frustrated. She was very persistent. Then finally we decided that if she does come, she can stay for a few days and contact her

[00:05:06] family in the meantime. I'm sure you're asking why on earth I would continue talking to her and the answer is simply I don't know. I don't know what made me agree to any of it. I guess I'm just too nice and naive.

[00:05:21] So a day later, I got a call from a facility asking to speak with me and make arrangements for Caroline. I was thinking, what arrangements? The guy on the phone asked me about my living conditions and if I was taking responsibility

[00:05:37] for Caroline and that he would be sending me paperwork. I said, wait a minute, what are you talking about? Taking what responsibility? We were on the phone for maybe a half an hour talking about the phone discussions that I had had with Caroline over the last week.

[00:05:54] Apparently Caroline had told the facility that I was taking responsibility for her and that I had agreed to take her in my care. And after the call, I didn't hear back from Caroline. Over the next few years, Caroline would continually send me Facebook requests and I would either

[00:06:12] ignore or block the request, but then she would send me another with a completely different spelling of her name. Then a little less than a year ago, while I was on the subway on my way home from work, I got an airdrop notification on my phone.

[00:06:28] I was watching a show on my phone at the time, so I just ignored it. Then I got the notification again. I saw the preview that it was an illustration of a woman with a shaved head. Her head was tilted down, but her eyes were looking up.

[00:06:47] I thought, what a creepy profile picture. What a creep. I ignored it again and continued watching my show. Then I got a notification a third time, and this time I saw that it was from Caroline.

[00:07:03] The crazy thing is, I actually didn't really put two and two together until I got home. Remember, this was 2018. The last time I spoke to Caroline was in 2010, 8 years ago and 15 years from when we graduated. By that time, I had put Caroline completely out of my mind.

[00:07:24] When I got off the train and was walking home, I got a little nervous. It finally dawned on me that in order for someone to airdrop you, they had to be within a certain distance. I didn't understand how she knew I would be on that train.

[00:07:38] My only conclusion was that she saw my place of employment on Facebook, and since I work for a large company based in New York, it would be a quick Google search to find out the address of my office. Was she waiting for me to get off of work?

[00:07:51] How did she even find me in a mass of people during rush hour? And was she following me home? The next day, I got a text message from a number that I didn't recognize. It said, Hi Danny, this is Caroline.

[00:08:06] Just wanted to let you know that this is my new number. I immediately deleted the message and put the number on block. Then I realized that might have been stupid. I should have kept it as that would be evidence on my phone.

[00:08:19] I actually started to regret that I didn't accept the airdrop. It would have been even more evidence. I never really spoke to anyone about Caroline, but after that day I told my boyfriend and

[00:08:30] a couple of close friends about her, so in case something was to happen to me, they would know what to tell the police. I've now put all of my social media on the strictest privacy settings.

[00:08:42] I've come to see all of the mistakes that I've made, and I'm more cautious and conscious of my surroundings. I have also learned that sometimes being too nice can put your safety at risk, so my stalker of 15 years, let's not ever meet again.

[00:09:09] This is something that happened to me about a month ago. It's still fresh in my mind and quite frankly it still gives me chills whenever I go into work to this day. Some background info before I get into the story.

[00:09:22] I'm a female that also happens to be gay. I have a girlfriend and we both have promise rings. Rings that we show off to anybody that leans towards the flirtier side or tells us that they want to take us out on a date or something like that.

[00:09:36] Anyway, I work at a small mom and pop coffee shop in a small community with a few coworkers and a lovely boss that treats us fairly well. We all get along pretty well and even go out together outside of work just to hang out

[00:09:50] and have a good time. One coworker that I'm rather close to and am now even closer to this day is Matt. Matt is a tall guy, taller than me even and I'm 6 foot tall with a slim but muscular build. He's a really nice guy.

[00:10:06] I think he even had a crush on me at some point until he found out about my girlfriend and we've been great friends since he started working at the shop with us. We get all sorts of people around the shop, mostly middle class or upper class people

[00:10:21] that all tend to be very sweet apart from some picky entitled assholes. There's also a few strangers that blow in from out of town. No big deal. We had a regular come in almost every weekend. We'll call him James.

[00:10:37] James is a rather good looking guy, however, a lot older than I am. Let's say that I'm old enough to be in college but not old enough to drink quite yet. According to my boss, he came around the shop about once every other week just to treat

[00:10:53] himself, but ever since I started working there he came in every weekend to buy a small coffee or some pastry to snack on. My boss joked saying that it was because he had a crush on me. I laughed this off. I shouldn't have.

[00:11:09] Whenever I was at the register, he would get this huge smile on his face and ask me about my day and I would reply with some small talk and hurry to make his order so I could continue doing whatever else I had to do.

[00:11:22] If I wasn't at the register, he would wait until I was done making another order so that I could cater to him only. He didn't want anybody but me to help him at the register.

[00:11:35] I thought it was a little weird and had small red flags going off, but not enough to where I started to get paranoid. Then he started asking me some personal questions. He would ask me about where I was going to school if I lived in the neighborhood that

[00:11:50] was 5 minutes away. Some of us live about half an hour away from the coffee shop. He'd also ask what my favorite flowers were, etc. At this point, I was uncomfortable with all of the questions and just gave very vague

[00:12:04] answers and sometimes outright ignored the prodding about my favorite flowers as well as school. I then casually brought up that my girlfriend and I were planning on going on a date at some point.

[00:12:19] I even told him about the ring that she gave me and showed it to him so that he could see that it wasn't some made-up thing. It's actually a rather nice ring and references my favorite video game. His entire attitude changed.

[00:12:34] He went from all smiles to a straight face, monotone voice as he snatched his coffee from me and briskly walked out the door. I felt triumphant since I figured that would be the end of it. Then I volunteered to take out the trash to the large bins outside.

[00:12:52] The back of the shop is surrounded by other buildings that are also little restaurants and bars that all use the same bins. And it's rare to encounter somebody else when you're going out to quickly dump the trash bags.

[00:13:07] Sometimes the co-workers would be out having a smoke, but that wasn't until later at night. And the coffee shop closes around 5 in the afternoon. I went outside at around 1pm and as I was lugging the large bags, I noticed a man standing

[00:13:23] in the center of the sidewalk a few feet away. Tons of people walk their dogs around that area so I didn't think twice about it. Until I took a double take after throwing the bags into the bin. It was James. He was just staring at me.

[00:13:42] And with my chronic anxiety and paranoia, something told me to stop looking and book it back into the shop. Just as I turned around to start fast walking, I heard large footsteps running towards me. I instantly picked up speed.

[00:14:00] Just as I bolted up the steps and opened the door to the shop, turned around and slammed it, I saw that James was right behind me. His hand was about to stop the door until I shut it and locked it, hyperventilating due

[00:14:15] to the panic attack that was coming. Matt was working with me that day and he heard me crying and struggling to breathe in the back, calling my girlfriend for me so that she could calm me down.

[00:14:27] Now although I am taller than my girlfriend, she is definitely the toughest of the two of us and could take out a man twice her size due to all the training that she's done since she was a kid.

[00:14:40] I relayed back to her what had just happened and she was livid. However, she couldn't come due to her being at work, so she asked Matt to kind of help me process what happened as we continued working that day.

[00:14:55] Over the next few weeks, James would come back and act like nothing happened. And then one week, he just stopped coming altogether. He didn't come in for about three weeks and I was getting nervous because something told me that he was cooking up something really bad.

[00:15:13] Now I only work weekends due to me being in school and Matt works both weekends and two days during the week. So I asked him to see if James would be coming in during those two days. He obliged and said that he would let me know.

[00:15:28] I didn't get any texts during the week and a feeling of dread was building up in my chest that I had to work that weekend. Friday, just as I was opening the shop alone as the next person would not be coming in

[00:15:41] until half an hour after me, in walks James. Technically, we don't open until that second person comes in, but sometimes we let a couple of customers in early since they only want their coffee and then they take off. Therefore, the stupid front door was unlocked.

[00:16:03] I was terrified to my very core. I never opened alone and the one time that I do, James somehow knew this and took it as his chance. As I saw him walk up, I texted my boss who was off that day to look at the cameras and

[00:16:20] tell Matt who was working with me and was coming in half an hour later to hurry up because I did not want to be alone with this man. He started his usual small talk and I obliged, not wanting to possibly set him off.

[00:16:35] He started going on about how pretty I was, comparing me to models. Flattering but no thanks. I just kind of nodded and thanked him. Then he switched his demeanor again. He wasn't straight faced nor did he change his tone, but there was something in his eyes

[00:16:54] that told me that he was calculating what he was going to do next, depending on my answer. Now I'm not a quick thinker when put under pressure, especially when I'm terrified like this, but I put up one hell of a fight. Thank you military parents.

[00:17:12] I did mention that James was good looking and older, but he was way more muscular than I was. I knew that if he was going to grab me, I had to do everything I could to wiggle my

[00:17:24] chubby self out of his grasp if he jumped over the counter or if he tried to run around the back, grab one of the knives we used and making the food. But he started saying how he wanted to take me out, that he would treat me much better

[00:17:41] than this so-called girlfriend of mine, and that I should call her and break up with her right now. This took me by surprise, and he knew by the look on my face because this time he slammed his fist against the counter and screamed,

[00:17:58] Call the bitch right now or you'll fucking regret it. I was on the verge of tears and I picked up my phone, opening Matt's contact and calling him, praying that he would pick up.

[00:18:13] Someone or something was on my side that day because he picked up on the first ring. Hello? Hey baby, there's something I need to tell you. What? I was sweating, trying not to look at James too much as he seemed pretty satisfied that

[00:18:30] I had actually listened to him, his arms crossed as I continued holding back my tears. I know that we've been dating for a while but there's this guy that I met at the shop

[00:18:39] and it made me realize I don't think I can keep this relationship up with you anymore. Matt instantly picked up on how shaky my voice was and the small innuendo that I made,

[00:18:50] that I was not alone at the shop, and I could hear him running down the stairs in his house and jingling of his car keys. Don't hang up the phone, I'm coming. That fucking prick is going to get what's coming to him.

[00:19:04] I'm gonna text the boss so that he can call the cops. Fuck, just don't hang up. Matt lived in the same neighborhood that I did which was only a few minutes away, and

[00:19:15] I prayed to whoever that he was breaking every speed limit out there to back me up. I know you're upset, no it isn't you, it's me. I paused and then tried to act like there was a legit conversation happening, and the longer

[00:19:32] I stayed on the phone the more suspicious James had started to become. He had uncrossed his arms and was slowly making his way towards the small opening that led to the small area where we worked, making my skin crawl as I tried to act like I was

[00:19:48] going to abruptly end the call. I'm sorry I made up a name so not to give my girlfriend's real name, but we can't do this anymore, don't call me again.

[00:20:01] I hung up and put my phone in my back pocket, raising my hands to show that I wasn't going to do anything. Was that so hard? The way James was looking at me. I've only ever encountered that look once, and it was something that I never wanted to

[00:20:18] see again. And that's another story, and it's not appropriate for this show. I simply shook my head, my eyes quickly looking towards the front door to spot Matt's car. For a moment it was just a heavy silence that was sort of hanging in the air, and then before

[00:20:35] I knew it, James was throwing the small knickknacks on the counter at me in a fit of rage, screaming that I should have never had a girlfriend in the first place, and that it should have always been him.

[00:20:48] I panicked and grabbed one of the knives in the drawer and put some distance between he and I as I slowly but sternly told him, I'm gay, I like pussy, not your saggy, limp, microscopic dick.

[00:21:04] It was flying out of my mouth as the adrenaline slowly turned my panic into anger. I was so mad that my glasses had started to fog up from both sweat and anger before James could even hop the counter. He looked like he was ready to murder me.

[00:21:21] The back door slammed open, and in came Matt holding a metal bat, shouting in his deep voice that if he didn't get the fuck out before the cops arrived that he would gladly beat the shit out of him.

[00:21:33] I instantly ran to Matt and stood behind him, and just as James was about to lunge for both of us, the red and blue lights outside made him think twice as he bolted towards the back door.

[00:21:46] Matt tried to block him, but it didn't work, and just as the cops had burst inside, James was already gone. By then, I was a shaking mess, the adrenaline that had been holding me together completely gone as I fell to the floor and started to sob.

[00:22:04] Matt once again called my girlfriend, who thankfully was off that day and was rushing from her place in the city to come see me. One of the cops tried to calm me as best they could, while the other was talking to Matt

[00:22:17] and asking for a description, telling us that another car was patrolling the area to see if they could catch him. Apparently he had come to the shop on foot, and they found his car parked a couple of streets

[00:22:28] away from the center where all the restaurants were, and in some neighborhood that I hadn't been in. My boss came in as soon as they could and gladly handed over the security footage that they had gotten from that morning.

[00:22:41] I was allowed to go home for the rest of the day. I chose to go to my girlfriend's place just in case. They told me that if I ever saw James in my area or my girlfriend's area, not to hesitate to call them again.

[00:22:52] They alerted the cops in the area as well, since we both hopped back and forth between our places every now and then. My boss posted his face outside the shop as well as inside the shop to let people know

[00:23:05] that if they saw this man to call the police and that he was not allowed to come inside, especially during the weekends. It just makes me think, if Matt didn't live so close to me and if I hadn't stalled him

[00:23:17] for as long as I had, where would he have taken me? Would he have hurt me in the shop or dragged me back to his car and taken me somewhere else? I truly believe that this man had something sinister planned for me.

[00:23:33] So James, you fucking creep that can't take no for a goddamn answer, let's not meet again. 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

[00:23:56] an author for safety or privacy reasons. 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.

[00:24:08] Let's Not Meet, a true horror podcast, is not associated with Reddit or any other message 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.