3x09: It Wasn't A Cat

[00:00:04] My name is Andrew Tate and this is Season 3, Episode 9 of Lets Not Meet, A True Horror Podcast. When I was 15, I went to the beach with my family. One night, my younger sister and I decided to walk down the main road where all of the

[00:00:34] shops and hotels are. We notice a shop advertising body jewelry. I had got my tongue pierced about 6 months prior and was happily looking at the tongue rings. There was a group of 3 guys standing near the counter, talking to a man working there.

[00:00:54] The man that worked there came over and started suggesting tongue rings for me. He kept saying he thought that the one with the number 69 on it would be perfect for me.

[00:01:06] I had always hung out with people a bit older than me, so I knew what he was trying to get at. So my sister and I both left very quickly. We got down the street some, and the 3 guys from the first shop were behind us.

[00:01:20] They didn't say anything at first, so we continued walking and enjoying the beach. Then one of them asked if we had a moment. I looked behind me thinking it couldn't be us he was talking to. He was at least 6 feet tall and maybe in his mid-20s.

[00:01:39] We kept walking and the ringleader kept asking us to stop. Hey girl in the white dress, don't ignore me, he said. I stopped and turned around. I didn't say anything, I just raised an eyebrow while making a circle motion with my hand

[00:01:58] as if to tell him to hurry up and say what he wanted. He did it back, and I laughed it off thinking maybe he wasn't that bad since he seemed to have a sense of humor.

[00:02:10] He started telling me that I was pretty damn sexy and made remarks about how fine my ass looked. I'm not the type of person to take that sort of thing as a compliment. My sister and I turned around and kept walking.

[00:02:26] They continued to follow us, each of them asking if we were single or if we were interested in a quote unquote good time. We ignored them until we got back to an area where there were more people. The ringleader asked me to stop one more time.

[00:02:43] Since there were people around, I decided to see what his problem was. He kept being a general creep and saying very inappropriate things to me and my sister. He got close and acted like he was going to touch me while asking if I had a boyfriend.

[00:03:01] I did so, I finally said yes and to go away. He asked me how big my boyfriend was so I told him he was a little shorter than him but built like a tank, which was true. That boy looked like he was a bodybuilder in training.

[00:03:18] The guy immediately apologized and walked away. My sister and I had a moment of confusion but went back to our motel room thinking nothing more about it. A few hours later, I went outside to sit in my mom's van. It was right outside the door.

[00:03:34] I wanted to call my boyfriend and tell him about what happened earlier. We talked about it for a while and I decided to roll the window down about a fourth of the way because it was hot.

[00:03:47] After about 15 minutes, one of the guys from earlier was standing outside of my mom's van. I pretended not to notice him and put my boyfriend on speakerphone so I could text my mom and ask her to come outside.

[00:04:02] The guy right outside of the door asked me to roll down the window. My boyfriend stayed quiet at that point. I said no and asked what he wanted. He said he was having a party upstairs and asked if I wanted to come and drink a little.

[00:04:21] I told him I was only 15. He looked surprised, apologized a few times, and then left. My mom came outside about that time and asked what was going on. I told her never mind because I thought the guy seemed like he was genuinely sorry and

[00:04:38] that he had mistaken me for someone older. She went inside and I continued my phone conversation, eventually forgetting about the guy from earlier. I had got out of my mom's van and started walking in a little circle around the pool.

[00:04:53] My boyfriend said he needed to do something and that he would call me back so I sat by the pool and waited for him to call. Wouldn't you know it, the same guy was walking around as well.

[00:05:07] He was carrying a trash bag and watching me as he walked to the dumpster and put the bag in it. I was so scared I didn't know what to do. For the first time I was alone in the dark near this guy who went from rude to creepy

[00:05:23] to just a guy who made a mistake to someone who I felt very threatened by. He started to walk towards me when the phone rang. I answered and put my boyfriend on speaker again. The guy ran away when he heard my boyfriend's voice.

[00:05:41] I left him on as I ran back to the motel room and went inside. I didn't tell my mom. I guess my stupid young teenage brain thought that I was being more responsible and independent by quote unquote handling it myself.

[00:05:56] Our last night at the beach, my mom, sisters and I decided to go to an amusement park. We were about to leave when my mom realized she had lost her keys. Her van has a key code door so we were able to get in.

[00:06:12] She told us to lock the doors and wait while she looked around because she had just seen her keys moments ago and didn't want to drag my other sister who was only at the time four years old around looking for them.

[00:06:27] After a few minutes she came back and said that she was going to the help kiosk and to keep the doors locked. Before you judge her leaving us behind, the kiosk was probably three or four minutes of a walk from the car going at a normal pace.

[00:06:44] I can faintly see my mom at the kiosk talking to who I assumed to be an employee. The car was starting to get extremely hot and I had a snow cone that I didn't want to melt.

[00:06:55] I opened my door even though I wasn't supposed to, which both of my sisters reminded me of. I sat in the seat with my legs outside of the car so that if I turned my head one way

[00:07:07] I could see my mom and the other way I could see my sisters in the back. I was talking to them and they were all goofing off. I felt like someone was watching me though and I looked in front of me to see the man

[00:07:20] from before only a few feet away but in good light. For the first time I could tell he wasn't in his mid-twenties but was probably in his mid-thirties. He asked me what I was eating and I didn't want my sisters to panic so I acted like it

[00:07:38] was okay. I said, a snow cone. He came a little closer and asked if they were good and tried to explain that he had a daughter a little younger than I was and he didn't know if she would like them but they looked like something she would like.

[00:07:58] I was still scared but I just said, well go get her one then. He came closer and asked what flavor is it? I started to panic because he was getting close enough that he could have touched the vehicle door but not me if his arms were stretched out.

[00:08:20] I didn't answer him because I was scared into silence. He smiled at me like a starving lion would smile at a limping gazelle. I felt like I knew exactly what was going to happen.

[00:08:34] In my head, I could see him grabbing me and pulling me into the bushes nearby and running away with me. Just as he took a step forward that would give him enough room to touch me, I heard

[00:08:48] my mom yell, what the fuck are you doing near my daughter? He looked stunned for a second and in that second my mom was within inches of the car. The man started to back away stammering.

[00:09:03] She yelled, you son of a bitch get away from my fucking kids now as she came to my side of the car. He ran away. Eventually the man from the kiosk found my mom's keys and we left.

[00:09:18] After we left I got a serious talking to about not keeping things from my mom and listening to her when she makes a rule. It still freaks me out when I think about what would have happened if my mom had not noticed him near me.

[00:09:33] The time span from me opening the car door and her showing back up yelling was probably only 10 minutes, 8 of them talking to my sisters. So let's not meet again. A bit of preface here. I was around 10 or 11 years old when this happened.

[00:10:09] Old enough to stay home alone but not old enough to recognize some red flags. I attended camp over the summer, the typical 8-3 routine. My house sits close to the end of my street which forms a U but for some reason the bus

[00:10:24] driver would never drop me off at my house. I would always get dropped off at the end of my street where I would toddle myself along back home. Both my parents worked late hours, sometimes not getting home until 8pm and it would be

[00:10:37] very expensive to hire a babysitter for 4-5 hours a day, 5 days a week. So starting 6th grade when the bus dropped me off at home I would be by myself. I'd do the usual middle school routine, play games online and watch TV.

[00:10:56] Occasionally my neighbor's cat would come into my backyard and I would feed and pet her as a way to get outside. The only computer in the house was in my dad's work room which has a window overlooking the deck and a window overlooking the side of the house.

[00:11:11] We have large bay windows in the living room, dining room and kitchen of my house and since we sit on a hill you can pretty much see the entire backyard from a nice vantage point.

[00:11:22] So most days when I got home I'd toss off my backpack and go right to that room and you could see me walk from my front door and pop up by the computer from the outside.

[00:11:33] Unfortunately this would lead to something that I had forgotten about up until now. When I got off the bus I did as expected, go into my dad's work room and play computer games. About 30 minutes into this I can hear faint meowing coming from the outside window.

[00:11:51] I pause the game and look outside thinking maybe my neighbor's cat had wandered over. Nothing. I sat back down and resumed playing only to hear the meowing again. It was quiet but noticeable and so I checked the other window. Nothing again.

[00:12:12] This routine happened a good ten minutes and eventually I got frustrated and went to the living room to watch TV. Not even two minutes later, meowing from the window that I was sitting right beside.

[00:12:26] Now I was confused and a little creeped out so I shut the blinds and kept trying to watch TV. The meows continued but only when they came from the window right behind me did I jump and leave the living room officially skeeved.

[00:12:43] I went into the bedroom where the blinds were still down but cracked just for some sunlight. I tried to read a book only to hear the meow come from outside my bedroom window.

[00:12:55] This was enough to make me call my dad concerned that maybe the cat was hurt but I couldn't see to be sure. Ten minutes go by and I get a call from my dad saying he was coming home from work.

[00:13:08] Nothing urgent in his voice, just that his job had gotten canceled and that he was able to come home early. I thought nothing of it. When he got home, I realized that the cat noises had stopped.

[00:13:23] I fast forward to the present and I asked my dad about the strange incident, thinking it was funny that the cat had followed me around. What he told me next makes my blood run cold. After I called him, my neighbor did indeed come to check out the house.

[00:13:43] What he found were large footprints leading in circles around the house, clustered close to the walls, so close that even if I looked outside I wouldn't see anything. Someone had been stalking me through my house, seeing where I was going through the windows

[00:14:00] and making cat noises to try and get me to come outside. They must have known that I was home alone since it was easy to see me walk by myself down the street and let myself in.

[00:14:12] My neighbor immediately called my dad and searched the property but no one was found. The police were called since there was nothing but footprints that led off into the woods and got lost, they never saw anyone. My dad stayed home with me for the rest of the week.

[00:14:29] It sickens me to know that there are people who would just use these tactics to try and lure kids out of their homes and from there do whatever they wanted with them.

[00:15:00] I am a 16 year old female and this happened in the early 90s when I was in junior high and I was home on Christmas break. It was in the middle of a weekday and I was home alone when the phone rang.

[00:15:13] When I answered, a man asked for me by my first and last name. He then said this is Randy from a company that I wasn't able to make out and that he was calling to and I tried to interrupt and have him repeat what his name and company

[00:15:32] was because I couldn't make it out but he said it very quickly and unclear. But he ignored the question and asked me if I had been looking for a job.

[00:15:41] I wasn't, but I was young and sort of wanted to see what the job was going to be so I hedged a bit. Randy then told me that he was hiring models for commercials and that someone had given him my name. I literally laughed because 1.

[00:15:58] It sounded completely fake and 2. I wasn't exactly swimming in modeling contracts. When I told him that I believed he must have been mistaken, he replied, no I think you're very pretty Tessa. While that comment may not seem that disturbing, it stopped me in my tracks.

[00:16:19] He had initially said that I had been recommended to him but now he was speaking as if he had seen me. At that moment, I just knew in my gut that something was very wrong.

[00:16:32] Unfortunately I had not yet learned to get my brain and gut on the same page. So while I wasn't buying any of what he was selling, in order to be polite and maybe just

[00:16:43] in case there was some cash and an ego boost to be had, I said ok how about you just leave me your number and I'll talk to my parents and get back to you. I knew if he was legitimate, he'd have no problem giving me his number.

[00:17:00] Also my brother had been asked to do a commercial or a print ad or something a few years before and I knew that my parents had to sign some forms because he was underage.

[00:17:13] Of course he encouraged me to agree right then so I promptly said no thank you and hung up. Within seconds of hanging up, the phone rang again. When I answered, I'll never forget the first thing Randy said. Do you give blowjobs with your eyes open or closed?

[00:17:37] As I stood there stunned in silence, he repeated that question and then moved on to similar ones. What made it unnerving besides the obvious was that it didn't sound like a prank call at all. Even though his comments were sexual, he sounded angry.

[00:17:59] I was safe in my home and it was just a phone call but it made me feel like I was in danger. I hung up of course but he called continuously. So continuously in fact that every time I tried to pick up the phone to call my mom

[00:18:15] he would either be on the line when I picked up the phone or the phone would just be ringing again. By this point, I wasn't answering the phone and if he was on the line when I picked it

[00:18:27] up I would hang up quickly but he was getting angrier and angrier and his comments were taking a darker turn. What started as asking me invasive sexual questions had turned into comments about how he'd like to harm me.

[00:18:44] I was finally able to get through to my mom and she called the police. They didn't seem to take it very seriously or act like they could do much. I didn't recognize his voice, it certainly wasn't somebody that I knew and it wasn't

[00:18:59] a teenager, it was absolutely a grown man. They felt that it was just someone messing with me and that it would just fade out on its own. And for a time it seemed like they were right.

[00:19:13] That first day he called constantly for a few more hours but then the call stopped and although it was very disturbing, it seemed to be over. Some time passed and I quit thinking about it but then spring break rolled around. It was the same scenario as before.

[00:19:34] I was home from school on a weekday. I was alone, the phone rang and when I answered he launched straight into the vile sexual talk. I hung up and we began that same cycle as before, with him calling me constantly and

[00:19:50] me trying to time it just right so that I could pick up the phone between calls and call my mom. Every time I hung up on him he got angrier and the things that he said became more and more foul.

[00:20:03] This time he started reciting my address and talking about paying me a visit. Not only did it feel very threatening but it was so confusing. Who in the world was doing this? Why would a grown man I didn't know make these calls?

[00:20:18] Not just once but two times, months apart. How did he have so much information about me? None of this made any sense. When I was finally able to call my mom she called the police again. The officer took it a bit more seriously this time around.

[00:20:37] They asked if we wanted to put a tap on the phone. We agreed and they told us that the process would go as follows. It would take 24 hours to get the phone company to get it active. Once active it would be there for 60 days.

[00:20:52] If there were no issues in 60 days it would be removed. But if there were issues then we'd have him. I was a teenager who wasn't speaking to the police directly so I never understood the ins and outs of this. Were they tapping all of our phone calls?

[00:21:11] But they'd just listen if something really happened? Were they tracing who the calls were from? As I'm sure you can imagine as a kid who'd just turned 13 I really wanted to know if people could hear my calls. But my mom didn't really ask those questions.

[00:21:26] She said they just told her that once the tap was on to let them know if we got any more calls so she didn't really ask much more than that. Just like before the calls continued throughout the afternoon but had stopped by the time my parents got home.

[00:21:44] I got some the next morning after my parents had left for work as well but by the time the 24 hour window had passed they had stopped and once again things were quiet another few months. This cycle continued over the course of the next year.

[00:22:00] It was quiet until mid-summer. Then again until after Christmas break of my senior year. And when he called the pattern was almost always the same. The calls usually started with him being a bit more polite but as soon as I recognized

[00:22:16] his voice and hung up they became progressively more angry and violent. They always came when I was alone and began continuing until the exact moment that my mom or dad pulled into the driveway.

[00:22:32] We would put the tap back on the phone each time but the calls never continued more than 24 hours and a stretch and there was at least 60 days in between each episode. The content of the calls however got increasingly more personal. He would regularly mention my address.

[00:22:50] I know you live at 118 Charter Street. I'm going to have to pay a visit to 118 Charter. And eventually began talking about my clothing. You look so pretty in that blue striped shirt. But then he started mentioning things that I owned but didn't really wear.

[00:23:15] When are you going to wear that red dress with the little white flowers? This obviously took the level of fear up a notch. By this point, because he would call right up until someone else got home I knew that

[00:23:31] he had to be in a position to see our driveway. But every day after school I would let myself in the side door using a key that was hidden outside. It was extremely well hidden and you'd have to be positioned in just the right spot

[00:23:46] to ever see me get it but if you were hiding and watching then it was possible. It became impossible not to think that he may have been in our house and in my room and that thought was simply unbearable.

[00:24:03] We obviously stopped leaving the key outside but the very nature of the cycle, short bursts of intense contact followed by months of nothing made it hard to know what to do. He clearly knew how to avoid the trace.

[00:24:19] He was motivated enough to keep contacting me over such a long period of time and he was controlled enough to wait for long stretches in between calls. I had never been someone who scared easily and my dad didn't want me to lose that.

[00:24:35] He started keeping the guns in the house loaded and taking me to the shooting range. I shot plenty of guns before but this was a serious refresher course. After Christmas a quiet few months passed and as always I had stayed alert for a week or

[00:24:53] two then quit thinking about it. On the first day of my spring break I was home and in a great mood when the phone rang. Expecting a call from my best friend I said, hello? And heard, I'm calling about the job you applied for? This is Randy.

[00:25:15] I actually had been applying for jobs but as I said, from where? It hit me that this was the exact same conversation that we had the very first time that he called me. I hung up and prepared myself for another awful day.

[00:25:34] The calls just kept coming and as usual in the process of me trying to call my mom I would end up on the phone with him. The things he would say got worse after every quiet spell and by this time he was describing

[00:25:49] how he was going to violate and murder me. More than the things he was saying, the rage in his voice triggered a real fear in me. I was having trouble getting the line open long enough to call my mom and I knew that

[00:26:05] he was close enough to be watching me at the house. I got the gun out of the closet and sat there by the ringing phone waiting to call my mom but not wanting to chance hearing his voice again. I wasn't panicky but I was crying and definitely scared.

[00:26:25] And then I was done, just simply done. I picked up the phone and he launched into a sick spiel trying to get as much in as he could before I hung up again but I didn't hang up.

[00:26:42] I'm not sure why, I had no plan but I sat there silently for a few minutes and just let him talk. And when he said that he could be at my house in less than two minutes, without thinking

[00:26:55] about it for a second I said, come on over, the door is open. I then hung up the phone, walked over and unlocked and opened the front door, leaving just the screen door closed.

[00:27:11] With the gun in my hands, I sat down on the couch facing the door and waited. He never came. He never called again. There is zero doubt in my mind that if he had walked up that porch, I would have shot him without hesitation.

[00:27:28] I still have no idea who it was although there are a limited number of people it could be. I don't know why or whether it would have escalated beyond the phone calls.

[00:27:40] I went off to college and my parents eventually moved out of that house so I suppose it will forever be a mystery. I trust that God will give him what he deserves but I definitely learned that people who feed

[00:27:52] off of your fear disappear quickly when you quit being afraid. Thank you for listening to this week's episode of Let's Not Meet, a true horror podcast. This week you have heard, always trust your instincts. It wasn't a cat by Reddit user Missologous.

[00:28:29] And finally, was he coming in my house? By Reddit user Herefur Let's Not Meet. Please send in your stories to letsnotmeetstories at gmail.com if you'd like to hear them on the show and for any questions or inquiries, email me at letsnotmeetpodcast at gmail.com.

[00:28:46] I'll see you guys again next week for a brand new episode of Let's Not Meet.