3x03: Bleach (feat. Shelby Scott)

[00:00:04] My name is Andrew Tate and this is season 3, episode 3 of Lets Not Meet, a true horror podcast. My guest this week is Shelby Scott of the podcast, Scare You to Sleep. Enjoy.

[00:00:23] So this is how my friend group works. We have this little circle of people who we hang around with most often. But for big events or bonfires or something familiar, we expand and a couple of different friends join the group. Ben is part of these extended friend groups.

[00:00:52] He is someone who always posts different or interesting things, who always has something to say, etc. I've gotten along really well with Ben at these events and we always end up chatting. I've always found him to be a different and unique individual.

[00:01:11] Ben started going to my local college this year. He shot me a Snapchat basically saying, Hey, all my friends went away to different schools and the only person I have to talk to from this area is now my ex-girlfriend.

[00:01:25] I was wondering if you wanted to get the group together and hang out because I'd like to have some new friends around. It was actually really nice to get that message because of course I'm in.

[00:01:37] I don't get to make many friends and all my close friends are spread out now. So I said yes. The hangout was initially supposed to be one of my friends, him and one of his friends. It was the day after class and I had just got home.

[00:01:53] He told me that he was going to take a quick nap before we all head out. When he wakes up, he tells me it's now too late and he has other plans that he forgot about. That's totally fine. I wasn't that upset about it.

[00:02:07] I cancel with my friends too. So I can just sit down and do some homework. He texts me a few hours later. One thing to note is I didn't give him my number. Somehow he found it.

[00:02:21] He told me that his other plans got canceled and he was now available again and wondering if I wanted to do something. I said that my friend was now out of the city and he said he texted his friends, but they didn't answer.

[00:02:35] He decided to pick me up and go for a drive and just chat. Normal enough. Ben gets to my house around 10. I go and hop into his car and he speeds off. Oddly enough, he's talking in an accented voice something like Jamaican or something similar.

[00:02:56] I thought he was just being goofy. So I played along. Sometimes I would answer back in the accent, but then I started to think it was weird and that he wasn't talking in his own voice at all. He was driving like a maniac down the street,

[00:03:11] telling me how he was drinking earlier because he thought he wasn't going to party. I asked him if he was drinking and driving and he said no, he only had a few sips.

[00:03:22] I know I probably should have gotten out of the car then, but at this point we were flying down the highway and I'm scared. He begins to rant about his ex, telling me that there was

[00:03:33] infidelity and trust issues on his end and he couldn't tell me what they were because he didn't want me to think badly of him. He told me he was still going to marry this girl and have her children. He ranted about her and got on tangents and

[00:03:49] started screaming and yelling. I started to think maybe he was on some kind of drug or something. We arrive at my college half an hour to 45 minute drive away in another city.

[00:04:04] He says that we should get out of the car. I'm already scared and my phone is dying. So I just listened to what he says. At this point, I'm literally thinking he might kill me. He took me for a walk through the light woods,

[00:04:22] but then he started to make sounds like some kind of creature. He would make these dinosaur-like sounds and sounds like you would hear in the movie The Grudge. He would also walk like some creature, morphing his body into weird creepy movements.

[00:04:40] I requested for us to go home because I was literally terrified. We got back into the car and started to drive home. Pulls out a pipe and smokes. I told him that he shouldn't do that. But he doesn't listen. Now he begins to yell.

[00:05:00] He starts back on his tangents about life again. He pulls over the car to get out and do some jumping kicks. Yeah, like jumping in the air and kicking. At this point my phone is dead. He gets back into the car and puts on his quote favorite song.

[00:05:21] The song began slow and then picks up a little later. It's like a four-minute song. He begins screaming along to the lyrics and smashing the windows and dashboard and his wheel with his hands stomping his feet. I've seen someone passionate about a song before but not like this.

[00:05:39] Ben swerves all over the road until we finally get to my house. He then turns to me and says without an accent, I know it's late, but did you want to have sex? In the most casual tone in the world. I gave a nervous laugh and said,

[00:05:59] actually I'm good. He turned to the back seat to get something, but I got out of the car and booked it to my house. I locked the door to my house and the door to my bedroom as if he were to break in or something.

[00:06:15] It might not sound as terrifying as it was for me in the moment, but at that time I was shaking out of pure fear. I don't know if he was just on some crazy drug or if he had split personalities or something,

[00:06:26] but I've never met a person before who I've looked at and thought to myself, you're going to kill somebody someday. I really hope he doesn't because I actually see him at school frequently. So yeah, fun life.

[00:06:49] This is fairly long because it took place over about a year. I'm also a flowery writer, unfortunately, please bear with me. I'm a nanny and had been with my current family for about two years when the oldest started preschool a couple of days a week.

[00:07:11] I'd drop him off around 9 and pick him up at 1230, bringing his baby brother along. Now this school was very hoity-toity and most of the families who sent their children were very wealthy. Everyone entering the building had to wear badges with our names printed out.

[00:07:26] Every entrance had a security guard and a metal detector. They employed about 10 security guards around the building that patrolled the place from open till close. I became very familiar with several of them because I passed them at their posts on the way in and out.

[00:07:42] Most were cops making a few extra hundred dollars on their days off. Well, during the fall of 2017, the older boy moved to a new class on the other side of the school.

[00:07:53] The entrance was never as populated, so it was just a couple of people going in and out of the store during the day. The security guard was from a private company. He was always extremely polite and friendly, one of the nicer security guards without a doubt.

[00:08:08] He was probably in his late 20s. I thought he looked like a young Santa Claus. Round, jolly face with a permanently red nose and cheeks framed by a thick brown beard. Thin framed glasses and curly brown hair that went to about his shoulders.

[00:08:23] I eventually learned that his name was Nick, which only solidified my comparison. Months passed and we'd see each other two or three days a week. The boys loved to wave at him and he'd always ask how our day was and we'd respond.

[00:08:38] In January of 2018, I came down with the flu and missed about two weeks of work. When I returned, I continued our regular schedule of school drop-offs and pickups. I was walking past Nick, waved, and he stopped me and said he noticed I was gone for two weeks

[00:08:54] and he hoped I was feeling better. I smiled, thanked him and said it was the sickest I had ever been, but I was glad to be back. I found it a bit odd that he noticed and that he knew I was sick.

[00:09:06] I assumed my employers had told him when they did drop-offs and pickups while I was gone. I didn't think much of it and continued on, but when I went to leave, he stopped me again and told me he didn't know that I wasn't the boy's mother.

[00:09:20] I laughed and basically said people confuse me for their mom because I'm with them all the time and we kind of look similar. He laughed too and then said, I was wondering, I never saw you with a husband and you don't have a ring on your finger,

[00:09:32] so I thought you were just a single mom. I laughed nervously to this and didn't know what to say, so I said, nope, just the nanny. I wanted to kick myself once I got back into the car. I was caught off guard and I'm generally a bit awkward,

[00:09:48] so tend not to respond the best when put on the spot. I guess I didn't realize he paid that much attention to me. I was a bit uneasy but found it harmless. The next drop-off day, I said hello and he responded by calling me by my name.

[00:10:04] Which he had never done before. And telling me I looked nice, which he had definitely never done before. And I was very surprised. I started to think maybe he was interested in me since learning that I'm not actually a single mom. This was weird for me.

[00:10:20] I'm gay and I look very gay, so men very seldom take an interest in me. So when they do, I'm weirded out. When I left, we exchanged a simple goodbye and the rest of the week was pretty non-eventful. In early February, I was doing the drop-off yet again

[00:10:37] when on the way out, with a baby strapped to my chest, Nick stopped me. He was very courteous but he asked me if I'd be interested in going to dinner with him some weekend. Again, I'm incredibly awkward so my response was to laugh

[00:10:51] and I could see he was immediately offended. I apologized and tried to explain that I was actually engaged and had been in a long-term relationship. This was true. His face changed and he said, Well, where is your ring? The way he said this made me uncomfortable.

[00:11:09] I felt accused and defensive. I told him I don't really like wearing jewelry to work so only wear it on the weekends. I had accidentally scratched the baby with a ring when he was just a newborn and basically decided it wasn't something I'd wear when caring for them.

[00:11:24] He didn't seem satisfied with my answer but let me go and told me to have a good evening. When I came to pick up the older boy that afternoon, Nick seemed agitated. I said hello and no answer. Okay? I was upset but let it go.

[00:11:41] I didn't want to hurt this guy's feelings but geez, could he not tell I was gay? The constant button-ups didn't clue him in? Do I need an undercut? It wasn't personal. Why was he so angry? When I left, he again ignored me.

[00:11:56] I just kind of swallowed and thought, oh well, he'll get over it. I had put the baby in his seat in the back of my car and was buckling up the three-year-old when a voice behind me boomed. You don't have to lie to me.

[00:12:10] I whipped around and Nick was about a foot away from me. I was trapped between the car, the open door, and his body. He no longer looked like this jolly polite young man. He was big, probably about 6'2", and easily 400 pounds. I was scared and I was angry.

[00:12:29] How dare he come up to me and scare me? How dare he corner me and intimidate me when he knows I'm doing my job? I hurried out of the doorway and shut the door and locked it with keys in my hand.

[00:12:40] I stood inches away and tried to back up. You didn't need to lie to me. If you aren't interested in me, just tell me. I don't like liars. I didn't owe this guy anything but I explained that I wasn't lying. I said I'm engaged and it's nothing personal.

[00:12:56] He was a nice, friendly guy and I didn't mean to hurt his feelings. He was angry. He huffed and said, Oh, you didn't hurt my feelings. I just don't appreciate dishonesty. You lied about being their mother, so I figured you were lying about this too. I was mad.

[00:13:12] I never once lied about being their mother. He assumed because I was the one doing the drop-offs and pickups. Our conversations never got beyond hello, good day, and goodbye until recently. I decided this conversation was over. He was talking down to me and accusing me of nonsense.

[00:13:30] I told him I never lied about this or anything and didn't appreciate his tone. I went around and got in the car and he followed but kept his distance and said, I'm not even sure why I wasted my time on you anyways. I was shocked.

[00:13:45] He was a completely different person. I avoid altercations at all costs so for someone to speak to me like this was very upsetting. I ended up disclosing the situation to my employers who got very upset.

[00:13:58] They did not like how he spoke to me and especially didn't like that this was done around their children. They ended up contacting the school, which I was mortified about. I was terrified to see him again, knowing he'd know I had told. That never happened.

[00:14:12] He was fired and replaced with a retired cop who was incredibly unfriendly and I was grateful. I felt bad. I thought my employers had overreacted but they were prone to overreactions and honestly, I was selfishly happy I wouldn't have to see him again.

[00:14:27] I was worried about how awkward it may be. I let it go and weeks passed and school drop-offs were uneventful. However, in May of 2018, that changed. I live in an enclosed apartment complex in uptown Dallas.

[00:14:44] Our apartment neighbors a ton of bars so we have some issues with break-ins and vandalism. We've always had police presence but after an incident where some drunk guy broke into the office through a window, the office manager decided to hire security guards.

[00:15:00] Guess who ended up doing night shifts? Nick. When I first saw him, I was checking my mail and he passed me in his uniform. I froze and he looked me in the eye and said, Good evening ma'am. Good. He must have forgotten me.

[00:15:15] I was shaking as I went up to my apartment and immediately told my fiancé who I saw. She was aware of the situation with Nick at the old preschool and being the daughter of a cop, she was always more suspicious and suspected the absolute worst out of everyone.

[00:15:30] She did not want him to find out which apartment was ours so we started taking the back elevator and parking in a different area. He only patrolled the office area and the perimeter of the building so we found it easy to avoid him for a week or so.

[00:15:42] One day, the back elevator was out of order so I had to take the front elevator from the parking garage up to my apartment on the fourth floor. The elevator stopped in the lobby and Nick walks on and I freeze. I guess he could sense I was anxious.

[00:15:58] He looked at me and said, Don't worry, my name. I'm not mad you got me fired. Just don't do it again. I didn't even respond. I got off on the fourth floor and then thought, Shit. Now he knows which floor I live on.

[00:16:14] I immediately ran inside and told my fiance and she said we should contact the management. I convinced her this was a bad idea. It could make him angry and I doubt he'd be let go. He hasn't done anything. But did he follow me here? He knew me.

[00:16:30] How did he end up here? It seemed like too much of a coincidence. I will say we lived in panic. We kept our door bolted and installed a camera. I'm not sure how many of you are aware of the story of Jennifer Moray.

[00:16:44] She was a young lawyer living alone in an apartment similar to mine in Houston. She was stalked and attacked by her apartment security guard. He had access to her apartment. She survived but went through a horrible ordeal and we were both terrified this could happen to us.

[00:16:59] Every noise terrified us. We'd get up to make sure the door was bolted several times before we could go to bed. That summer, we were convinced he tried to do something. Maybe just our overactive, worried minds. We ended up avoiding him for the most part.

[00:17:15] We saw him occasionally but he didn't seem interested and although we were always weary, we figured he got over it and let our guards down. And he never did bother me again. He never said much of anything to me when I did see him.

[00:17:29] I decided that maybe he was having a really hard time last fall and he really was a nice guy who maybe didn't have the best social skills. Fall 2018 rolls around and I'm busy with work and my fiancé is out of town often on business meetings.

[00:17:45] One weekend, I'm home alone and it's 3.30pm and I'm walking down to the office to get a package. There are about three squad cars and police all over the lobby and going up the stairs. I'm wondering what happened but like I said,

[00:17:58] we live next to bars and we've had incidents with drunk assholes so I figure someone had an altercation or something got stolen. I try to eavesdrop but don't hear much. I go about my day and then receive an email from my apartment complex saying they were having a

[00:18:12] community-wide meeting scheduled to discuss the incident and go over resident safety concerns. I'm wondering what the hell happened so of course I go to the meeting and guess the fuck what? A young, single girl living in an apartment by herself

[00:18:30] showed up mid-afternoon to find Nick inside her apartment. She came in and her drawers were in disarray. He was hiding in her closet and came up with some excuse. The security guards do not have keys to any apartments and aren't supposed to be in the

[00:18:44] resident halls. Later, we found out he had been stalking this girl and stole the keys from maintenance and made copies. This had been going on for at least a month if not longer. They found several of her belongings in his vehicle and he was obviously fired and charged.

[00:19:01] I didn't follow exactly what happened to him but we assume he did some time. It was absolutely terrifying and of course our apartment complex got the pantsuit out of them. I was glad his attention shifted but I wonder what could have happened to this girl?

[00:19:17] But this wasn't the last time I saw or heard of him. A few weeks ago, over a year since I last saw him, I went into this big fancy mall in my city and guess who was working security? Nick.

[00:19:31] My first thought was, you've got to be kidding me. My second thought was, how on earth does this guy keep getting security jobs? Who is dropping the ball here? I saw him and turned around and walked right out the door. Thankfully, I'm moving out of state next month.

[00:19:47] So, Nick, the creepy stalker security guard? Let's not meet again. I was the manager of a very old building. I came from social work and was hired to manage the building that was about to celebrate its 100th anniversary.

[00:20:17] My office was in the basement along with several below ground apartments. Of these apartments was an elderly fellow that I knew was in care for extreme kidney failure. He would get medication and food delivered every other week, so when it wasn't brought,

[00:20:34] I rang him in. And when I got no answer, I asked the police for a welfare check. This was a very warm June, and the way that the building was constructed, you couldn't smell something wafting out of an apartment unless the door was opened

[00:20:49] and allowed the smell to come out. Once the police opened the door, everyone knew that he had been dead for a while. The smell permeated everything. The smell of rotten human got into the air ducts, and it's not something that you forget.

[00:21:08] Fast forward one month to July. Now mind you, there are 105 tenants in this four-story building, and I get a call from one tenant's niece that she hasn't heard from her uncle in a while,

[00:21:21] and could we please check on him? Of course I knew this guy. I'll just pop up and make sure he's okay. We'll have a laugh. No answer. I call the police for a welfare check.

[00:21:36] It's been a regular 85 degrees outside for a few weeks, and yes, he passed away. The smell, the smell of dead human is so much different than the smell of dead other things. It's a sticky

[00:21:53] sweet smell combined with an acrid taste and a heavy, I don't know how to describe it, but dead meat mushroom sort of smell. It doesn't smell like other rotten meat smells. The smell was so

[00:22:10] bad in the hallway, just from opening the door for the few minutes to take the body out, that I had entire families running from the building in tears. I knew I had to mitigate this crap. I knew

[00:22:24] he passed on a small carpet in the middle of the room, so I put some menthol under my nostrils, double gloved, wrapped up my pant legs, then pulled up the carpet, which was really thick.

[00:22:36] I had told the coroner what I was going to do before I did it. I slipped in his goo, I double bagged his carpet and opened the windows. It's still rough to think about.

[00:22:50] It involved large fans and me staying up all night. Well, cut to one month later. I'm putting in notices on doors for an upcoming bed bug inspection. That smell. I smell it on the fourth

[00:23:06] floor. That dead smell. Someone was dead. There's no mistaking it. I start knocking on doors, and only one out of the 25 answer because it was in the middle of the day. I can't just go into

[00:23:21] the apartments either. I call the police. They come out, and they confirm it's definitely a dead body, but they can't figure out where it's coming from. I literally stood there trying to

[00:23:34] figure out if a dead body constituted an emergency so that I could circumvent the 48 hour rule of entering an apartment. The police told me that without something else, they couldn't just start

[00:23:45] running into the apartments. We walked up and down the halls and could not figure out where the smell of the dead body was coming from. I went into my office to print up a 48 hour notice of intent

[00:23:58] to enter. I laid in bed that night and started thinking about it. The smell of the dead body only entered the hallway when the door was opened. Someone had the smell of dead body and opened a

[00:24:13] door. Someone opened a door. Well, the day of, I go apartment to apartment. Ten apartments in, and this white haired middle-aged man answers a door. Huge wafts of bleach belch out of his apartment. Instead of hanging out like most people would do when someone is inspecting your apartment,

[00:24:37] he takes off. The floor has been bleached. The kitchen has been bleached. Everything is spotless. Neighbors later said that he told people that chicken went bad. Well, chicken does not smell like human. I contacted the non-emergency line that day and without anything else to go on,

[00:24:59] there wasn't a lot that they could do. So middle-aged, nondescript white guy on the fourth floor, let's not meet. Background. I, female, was 15 at the time, grade 10 sophomore in high school. I grew up in a small

[00:25:30] farming town, population at the time was 1,400, in Washington State, USA. I met Ricky, male, in shop class where we flirted daily. I was the only girl in class and assumed that was why he

[00:25:44] was flirting with me. I also assumed he was 16 since he was in my grade but had his license. He was actually 19. In school, I was popular in that I was friends with everyone. But Ricky was

[00:25:57] very handsome and very popular for actually being cool. So I was super excited that he paid attention to me and even flirted with me. Even though, like I said, I figured it was because I was the only

[00:26:08] girl in class. I'll admit, I let him on in a big way. I figured nothing would ever happen between he and I since he was really good looking and popular and he had beautiful girls throwing

[00:26:19] themselves at him in the hallways and other classes. So the flirting had become more and more sexual, with us talking about having sex, even though I had no intention and thought it

[00:26:31] was never going to happen anyway. Shop class had a regular classroom in the high school where we took attendance and tests and then the shop itself was located about 100 yards away from

[00:26:41] the main building. The high school parking lot was on the opposite side of the high school building from the shop class. Our school had open campus, meaning the students could leave campus during

[00:26:51] lunch if they had the signed form filed with the office. Experience. In late spring of that year, 1997, Ricky and I were flirting one day when he suggested we go through with it. He suggested we

[00:27:05] leave right after class, during lunch and head to his house. I don't know why I agreed other than realizing I had talked and talked for weeks about it and couldn't admit I had been lying the whole

[00:27:18] time. After class, he and I left the shop and walked around the back of the school to the parking lot. We got in his nice truck and drove away from the school. I was freaking out internally

[00:27:29] because 1. My friends were expecting me to leave campus with them and were waiting by my locker and 2. Was I really about to have sex for the first time with one of the hottest guys in school?

[00:27:41] We drove through town and went to his house about half a mile from campus. We went inside and as soon as the door closed, he started kissing me. To this day, this first kiss

[00:27:51] is one of the best I've ever had. I couldn't completely appreciate it at the time because I was still freaking out. We made our way to his bed and continued kissing for 45 minutes while he

[00:28:03] kept trying to get me to go further. He had stripped down to his boxers, but I still had everything on including shoes and jacket. He wasn't pushy, just trying to go with what we

[00:28:15] had discussed for weeks. After 45 minutes, I said I wanted to go back to school. He sighed, put his clothes back on and we left. We drove to the school in silence. When we got to the parking

[00:28:27] lot, he asked if I was okay. I said yes and got out and walked quickly inside. Out of my peripheral vision, I saw his truck leaving the parking lot. Lunch was still going on so I went to my locker,

[00:28:41] grabbed my books for my next class and went in the classroom to read until class started. Shortly before class started, two of my friends that I was supposed to meet for lunch came in

[00:28:50] and asked if I was okay and where I had gone. I said I was fine and didn't want to talk about it. One of the girls then left to go to her class, but the other girl, Allie, was still in the class

[00:29:01] with me so she stayed. About halfway through class, I decided to tell Allie what had happened. I made her promise not to tell anyone. She was concerned and made sure that I realized that I

[00:29:13] had put myself in a dangerous situation. No one knew where I was or with whom. I hadn't even thought of that until she pointed it out. The next few days, Ricky went to school but

[00:29:25] skipped shop class. I was fine with it since I didn't want to see him, mostly because I was embarrassed. Ricky started coming to class again and tried talking to me, but I was quite rude.

[00:29:37] For about a week, class consisted of him trying to talk to me, me ignoring him, him sighing and walking away. After that, I was more civil but never went back to flirting with him. He started approaching me between classes and during lunch, just being friendly and lightly

[00:29:53] flirty. I never returned the flirting again. Random groups of girls started approaching me and asking what was going on between Ricky and I. Why did he like me? Why was he now ignoring them, etc. I didn't have the answers. The second to last week of school,

[00:30:10] Ricky hung around me often but was really quiet. Then he told me that I was the first girl to ever turn him down. During the last week of school, he went back to hanging out with his friends and

[00:30:21] flirting with the pretty girls. I was relieved, mostly because I felt guilty for leading him on and guilty for putting myself in that situation. About midway through the summer holiday,

[00:30:32] I ran into Allie and she asked if I had heard about Ricky. No, I hadn't. She said Ricky was on the run from the police for the attempted murders of two men. She said she heard it was a drug deal

[00:30:46] gone bad. I was shocked and I let my imagination go wild with thoughts of what if. I assumed that if he was willing to murder two men, what would have stopped him from raping and murdering me?

[00:31:01] A year later, one of the men died from complications from his wounds, so the charges were changed to one charge of attempted murder and one charge of murder in the first degree.

[00:31:11] I later found out that it wasn't a drug deal gone bad, but was actually a failed cartel hit. I have more info on that and why I don't believe Ricky would have ever harmed me

[00:31:23] or anyone if it hadn't been for his dad's employer, but this story is quite long enough. I don't know what happened to Ricky, but I heard he fled to California and possibly to Mexico.

[00:31:34] He was never caught by the police. Even though I don't think he was a bad guy when I knew him, I still hope we never meet again. Thank you for listening to this week's episode of Let's Not Meet, a true horror podcast. This week

[00:32:06] you have heard, in no specific order because I can't even remember what order we read these in, Nick from reddit user IcarusD13, Guy Who Will One Day Kill Someone Let's Not Meet by reddit user

[00:32:20] SamLight, My First Kiss Is Now A Wanted Murderer, and finally, Fourth Floor Bleach Guy by reddit user BloodyHellGirl462. I'd like to thank Shelby Scott for coming back on the show and again making

[00:32:34] me look bad with her amazing narration skills. Her podcast Scare You To Sleep is a weekly podcast, Shelby will read several spooky stories with added sound effects to create an immersive world.

[00:32:49] Each story is read in a soothing voice that acts as a siren song to the terrifying content you'll hear. The podcast has a lot of special episodes like True Tales, which contain user submitted experiences like here on Let's Not Meet. And then there's also Guided Nightmare episodes,

[00:33:05] which are made using guided meditation techniques to help you reach a level of relaxation. It makes you the star of your own horror story, it's really cool, you should check it out. Go to scareyoutosleep.com or listen wherever you get your podcasts at. Don't forget to send in

[00:33:20] your stories to letsnotmeetstories at gmail.com and I'll see you guys next week for a brand new episode of Let's Not Meet.