4x11: Body Bags - Let's Not Meet

[00:00:03] I'm a male and I'm 26 years old. About 5 years ago, I set out to travel the world. Being straight out of college had left me in debt, ever more desperate for any job that I was overqualified for and generally depressed.

[00:00:38] I felt isolated and alone in my small town in Washington and found that the only way I could get out was to travel. My high school buddy suggested that I look into woofing and volunteer as a way to travel cheap and so I did.

[00:00:52] The way it works is quite simple. You work around 25 hours a week on some farm for food and housing. The draw is that since the community is made of cheap ass travelers, it's quite big and

[00:01:07] it's a great way to meet new people, get outside of your comfort zone and just let yourself live and figure life out. Fast forward 8 months and I'm a seasoned cow shit shoveler. I started out in Washington, Oregon and went south to California.

[00:01:23] There I was able to save some extra money and I was paid under the table for some extra work and was now faced with the decision where to go in the world. The excitement of being able to purchase a ticket to almost anywhere in the world got

[00:01:38] the best of me and on the advice of my dumb ass hippie volunteering partner, I chose it at random. I went to a randomizer website and clicked the country button. Georgia. The country of Georgia. So to say I didn't know anything about it was an understatement.

[00:01:57] The fear of the unknown made it exciting though. It was exotic somehow. And so I did it. I purchased a ticket and started browsing for a farm that could host me. There were a few options and most were remote and hadn't even had any kind of internet connection.

[00:02:16] I messaged every single one and got a response from one farm on top of a mountain. The picture showed a traditional Georgian stone house with a large garden out in the back, a family with several cheerful children, grandparents having dinner, animals. It seemed warm and inviting.

[00:02:38] The description was well written in good English and the requirements for work seemed reasonable. I was excited. After I flew to the capital, I followed the directions that they had sent to locate the farm which wasn't an easy task. Few in Georgia speak English.

[00:02:58] The roads are fucked since few of them have been maintained since the fall of the Soviet Union and the country is generally poor. It took me around 20 hours of Soviet buses and taxes, weird serpentine roads and paths to get to that desired blue pin on my map.

[00:03:16] It was a dirt path leading up a steep hill into a national park up in the north of the country. There was nothing for miles on end but trees and their silence.

[00:03:28] As I got up that hill, I saw the house about half a mile away on even a steeper hill surrounded by trees. From that viewpoint, it seemed abandoned, overgrown, brown and dreary. As I walked past the gate, Jerry, the apparent owner, approached me.

[00:03:48] He was a heavy, small, middle-aged guy with a big smile on his face. He shook my hand and in broken English started to show me around. He also smelled of booze. As he was showing me around, I noticed that there wasn't anyone there but us.

[00:04:06] I also asked about his wife and kids and he brushed that aside and said something to the extent of, they're away right now. By this point, I am a little creeped out. From browsing around, it was apparent that the farm was in deep decline.

[00:04:23] Apple trees and crops were dying. The roof of the small barn had caved in. The house itself was full of trash and smelled of mold. It was obvious that Jerry was going through a rough patch.

[00:04:38] But I wasn't going to turn around and just leave in the middle of nowhere without a plan, having not slept for the last 36 hours. It was evening and after feeding me well and trying as best as he could to hold a conversation

[00:04:53] in English, Jerry showed me to my room. It was on the second floor. I went to sleep. I almost immediately blacked out from the exhaustion and the stress and I would have slept for 10 hours if I wasn't awoken by a strange noise in the middle of the night.

[00:05:12] It sounded like something metallic and heavy was being dragged across the wooden floor. In that sleepy in-between state, I listened to it for just a few minutes. I thought nothing of it and went back to sleep once it stopped.

[00:05:30] In the morning, Jerry, now sober and grumpy, asked me to repair some of the windows and doors on the house as he himself planned to go and fetch some components in a nearby village. Again, I got this weird feeling creeping down my spine. Something wasn't right.

[00:05:48] He didn't maintain eye contact and was evasive. There wasn't any cell reception, no internet. Once he left, I checked around the house to get a general idea of the place and it became apparent that the place was hardly ever lived in.

[00:06:05] Like one of those abandoned houses, there was broken furniture, newspapers, and old photos on the floor. A shattered mirror. I took my phone and looked through the saved listing again. The photos didn't match neither the backyard, the garden, or the walls. Jerry wasn't in any of them.

[00:06:27] It was a completely different house. Now by this point, I'm full-blown panicking. I pack my shit and start leaving when I see a group of three men going up that first hill.

[00:06:41] There aren't any other paths to take, so I go behind the house and rush down this hill into the forest. After some time, I stop and listen. I hear them in the house. They're clearly looking for me.

[00:06:56] Afraid of making any noise, I remain still, hidden behind a bush. I don't know how long I waited, but they persisted. At some point, I hear them leave. So I count until some large number and then proceed back into the house.

[00:07:16] I see that the path is now clear. I book the hell out of there. Never ran this fast. But I'm still in the middle of fucking nowhere. No traffic. No public transportation. I reach a paved road and start walking in the general direction from where I remember coming.

[00:07:35] Hours go by and finally a car drives by and stops. Now in a horror movie, this would have been Jerry and his friends. But this was actually a really nice Russian family that gave me a ride to town. The listing disappeared from the website in a few days.

[00:07:56] I haven't heard from Jerry since. I have yet to make any sense of that experience. I have traveled since and volunteered as well. Some people, once they hear this story, laugh and say that the guy was coming over with

[00:08:11] a couple of friends from the village to have a chat over a few beers. Some say he was bound to kidnap and kill me. But I trust my gut feeling. Something wasn't right. So let's never meet again, Jerry.

[00:08:39] This happened to my roommate and I two years ago when we drove into the National Forest just outside of the town that we live in. We go to a small college in New England, about three hours away from any major city.

[00:08:55] For context, the forest has quite a few urban legends surrounding it and the local community, although they do go down there often and have a lot of superstitions about how to be safe while there.

[00:09:08] I had just broken up with my partner and my roommate could sense that I was feeling down. Finals were just around the corner, so she decided to help me get my mind off of things

[00:09:19] and suggested that we go to a nice spot that she had found last week and just chill and de-stress. We took a couple of beers with us and drove to this secluded spot in the forest.

[00:09:31] The moment we left the main asphalt road in the forest, I saw a couple of things that unsettled me. You could see the abandoned houses of a ghost town from the higher ground the road was on.

[00:09:46] We saw an old doll hanging from a rope on a tree, just creepy shit, but we didn't really give it a second thought and kept driving. We got to a clearing and parked our car behind some trees, popped open the back of the SUV

[00:10:01] and started just talking and playing music. About 10 minutes into this, two cars appeared from the road and parked in the clearing. My friend didn't pay them any attention, instead she kept talking, but as I was facing them from where I sat I couldn't stop seeing what they did.

[00:10:22] A guy popped out of each car, talked for a few minutes, and then I saw them take out a long object covered in a dark plastic bag from the back of one of the cars.

[00:10:34] This is when I noticed these guys had guns, and not shotguns which we often see in this town, but handguns. Then they start lighting the bag on fire. I told my friend to get down and she turned around and saw them for the first time.

[00:10:55] Black smoke was rising from the bag and between trying to keep my head down and steal glances at them, I saw them take out a second object. They shot at it right before they set it on fire.

[00:11:09] I don't know how long my friend and I were lying there in silence, but it was definitely long enough to let the horror sink in and whisper to each other how much we loved each other just in case this was what we thought it was.

[00:11:25] At one point I looked up and I saw that they were pointing at our car and I saw them walking into the woods, maybe trying to follow our tracks or trying to look for us.

[00:11:37] All I know is that right then I told my friend to jump into the driver's seat and make a run for it. I shut the back door. Between that and the car starting up, the guys heard it and started running towards us.

[00:11:50] Then one of them jumped into the car. We went over a hill and driving way above what was safe on dirt roads on a hillside, we lost them. We drove to a neighboring town and roamed around for a while just to make sure no one

[00:12:06] was following us before we went back to our dorm. That day, we tried to make fun of the whole situation. We got really drunk before finally breaking down and crying from knowing that we had seen something we were not supposed to.

[00:12:21] We were at first terrified of telling anyone, but eventually we did tell officers on campus who contacted the police, but they never found anything. So I'm new to Reddit and I found this sub and I think this story fits here.

[00:12:47] I've had a number of odd and frightening experiences in the woods since I'm a huge outdoor guy and pretty much outside all of the time I can manage it. One of these experiences, I tried posting here, but it got rejected.

[00:13:02] I thought this one sounded too far-fetched, but after reading some of the other stories, I decided that I'll just post it. This happened when I was much younger. I want to say freshman in high school, so probably around 2008.

[00:13:18] There used to be this road near where I lived in California called Croke Road. It was barely a road. No one traveled on it and it was surrounded by small patches of forest and some abandoned barns and houses.

[00:13:34] I would typically go there with my friends to skateboard and hang out. This one night, I was hanging out with two of my friends, Lucas and Dorian, and someone wanted to go to Croke Road to hang out since it was creepy at night.

[00:13:50] It might sound lame, but we loved exploring like a bunch of fifth graders and we weren't really into smoking or anything else, so what else was there to do? I asked my 20-year-old brother James if he could drive us down into one of the nature

[00:14:05] reserves by the road. This specific reserve was larger than the others and had a network of gravel paths leading through it. Basically, we were looking for unexplored territory to hike in. Soon, one particular path we were traveling down had become so narrow, James' Ford Explorer

[00:14:26] couldn't pass through it, so we got out and walked for a while, chatting and just having fun. We walked through the woods for about half an hour until it had gotten relatively dark

[00:14:38] out and the sun was gone, at which point we turned around to head back to the car. It's now that I should mention that despite being near a lot of sub-developments, this patch of forest was huge, I'd say about a thousand acres.

[00:14:56] It was rarely visited since it was easy to get lost in, especially at night. It was a challenge getting the car turned around, but James managed it and we were off down the road.

[00:15:09] Dorian proposed that we turn down a different path that we had passed earlier since we had about 40 minutes until our parents wanted us back, so we agreed. Down this path was a tiny pond Dorian wanted to check out to take pictures since he had

[00:15:26] gotten the opportunity to visit at night. It was slow going since this road was even crappier than the main one we were traveling on that turned off of Croke Road. Minutes later, we got into a slight argument.

[00:15:41] Dorian was convinced James had taken a wrong turn since we should have arrived at the pond by now while James claimed that he had been driving straight the whole time. It was dark after all.

[00:15:54] Eventually we came to a fork in the road that none of us were familiar with. None of us knew which way to go, so we ended up guessing and went left, hoping that both directions would ultimately lead back to the main path.

[00:16:10] None of us were scared or anything, in fact, we were actually excited and intrigued, driving through seemingly the middle of nowhere at night. It was at this point that we rounded a small bend in the road and the headlights fell upon a surreal sight.

[00:16:28] There were four figures emerging from the forest and crossing the road. They were wearing what looked to be long black cloaks with hoods up, holding flashlights. One guy at the back of the group was dragging a large duffel bag. I'd say a human-sized duffel bag.

[00:16:52] We all froze and stopped mid-conversation, and as soon as our high beams landed on the four figures, they froze as well. James pulled to the left and went around them. Driving past them felt like an eternity because we couldn't have been going over 5 miles

[00:17:11] per hour due to the shitty condition of the road. Sitting in the passenger seat, I could see them inches beyond the window, and they were indeed wearing black robes and holding flashlights.

[00:17:23] I didn't get a good look at the bag, but judging by the way that the guy was holding it, something very heavy was inside. None of us said a word until the road straightened out and we were past these guys, at which point James just muttered,

[00:17:41] What the hell was that? We continued down the road in silence until I heard Lucas say, holy shit, and repeated himself in a louder panicked voice. Holy shit, he said. They're fucking coming back. I twisted around in my chair to see Lucas pointing out the back window.

[00:18:02] I could barely see anything but about 100 yards away we saw the beams of four flashlights shaking erratically. The guys were, without a doubt, running after us. We all screamed at James to floor it and he sped down the road.

[00:18:17] The car was bouncing and shaking uncontrollably as we flew over berms and potholes. I kept my eyes on the flashlight beams until we rounded another bend in the road and they were out of sight. Thankfully, the path managed to take us back to the main path.

[00:18:33] James gunned it down the path until we popped off by Croke Road and we got the hell out of there. The weirdest thing was, there couldn't have been any vehicle anywhere near those guys for 50 miles in either direction. We would have seen one if there had been.

[00:18:51] We had explored most of the area before and there wasn't anywhere to pull off of the road and park. We didn't say anything more until we got back to my place.

[00:19:01] We talked about it for a bit and then my friends went home and James and I went to bed. I didn't know if we should call the cops or not, but James, who I'd guess would be the adult in this situation, seemed reluctant. So I dropped it.

[00:19:15] I never told my parents until just before writing this. They kind of scolded me for not telling them and that we should have contacted the authorities just to report suspicious people on the preserve.

[00:19:28] I still wish to know how the hell they got there, where they were going, and what was in the bag. This story is from my days as a gas station clerk. I have tons of stories, but most of them are just a little bizarre and sometimes funny.

[00:19:56] There were a few eerie moments, but this was the one and only time I felt genuinely scared. This happened during a football Saturday, so the store was full of people from the moment that I walked in.

[00:20:10] Most of the night is a blur because it was just cashiering for the first six hours of my shift. This was around 3am and things were finally starting to taper off. There were only a dozen or so people in the store.

[00:20:26] I usually kept my head down and focused on the transactions in front of me so that I wouldn't get overwhelmed, only looking up every now and then to make sure the store isn't on fire and no one's stealing the wine case.

[00:20:40] I wasn't even looking around when I saw him. I just saw something strange in the corner of my eye and spun my head to look at him. When I get a good look, I was startled.

[00:20:52] Both of his eyes were completely red, like wet cherry tomatoes bulging out of his face. I've never seen anything like that since. His skin was almost translucent white and he was soaking wet. His teeth were gridded and looked too big for his mouth.

[00:21:09] He was shaking as he fast walked past the counter. I could hear the bathroom door slam from around the corner. I went back to my transaction and told myself that I needed to remember exactly where he was. I couldn't forget that he was in the bathroom.

[00:21:25] I rang up the next few people, watching for him the whole time. Another ten minutes or so and the store was suddenly empty. Customer rushes tend to be like that, from 100 miles an hour to just nothing. I knew that he was still in the bathroom though.

[00:21:42] I thought about going to knock, but I felt repelled. You can call me a coward, but I know exactly how 5'6", doughy, and totally alone I am when I'm at work. I had no intention of going near that door. This was where things got stupid on my part.

[00:22:04] It's difficult to capture exactly what the thought process was. Partly it was paranoia. I was telling myself maybe this guy had a gun or a knife and he might run out of the bathroom and murder me.

[00:22:16] This is definitely not going to happen, but the scariness outweighed the probability. On the other end of the fear spectrum, there's this part of me saying, you've worked this kind of job for two years now. Nothing bad ever happens. You're making a big deal out of nothing.

[00:22:34] This seemed fair. People have threatened to jump the counter, to follow me home, or to wait until I get off of work, but it never happens. If I genuinely believed bad things would happen, I wouldn't be willing to work minimum wage to spend all night alone here.

[00:22:50] I look at the clock and it's nearing 4am, which is when I need to start brewing coffee for it to be ready when my manager comes in. The coffee grounds are all in the supply closet behind the counter, so I tell myself it's

[00:23:03] totally fine to go get them. It satisfies both my paranoia and my arrogance as well. I'm still doing my job, but doing something I believed to be tactically the best move. If for whatever reason the guy opened the bathroom door and tried to run behind the

[00:23:21] counter and murder me, I could shut the door and lock it from the inside. Besides, the bathroom doors are old and loud. I can easily hear them open from inside the closet. So I can just come out and wait near the panic button until he leaves.

[00:23:38] This all seemed like a very good idea at the time. So I decide to get the coffee packets and I'm listening carefully while I load up on the flavors that I need.

[00:23:48] I figure I will only be a minute or so, so I don't even turn the lights on. I'm listening carefully and I don't hear anything. I still don't hear anything. Then I hear a weird noise.

[00:24:04] It sounds like water pipes in the back hissing at first, but it's too ragged. I suddenly realize the noise is breathing and it's getting louder. Then it's right on top of me. Shit, I tell myself. I need to get out of this closet right now.

[00:24:25] That's when I stood and turned to leave and I saw him in the doorframe. In that moment, I remember thinking to myself, God, I'm so stupid. I'm going to die and it'll all be my fault.

[00:24:40] Later when my manager reviewed the footage, she saw him leave the bathroom but slowly pushing the door open. Without making a sound, he had wandered behind the counter and peeked into her office, stepping in far enough to trigger the automatic light.

[00:24:57] After that, he wandered behind the food service counter before making his way to the open supply closet door. The next thing she saw on camera was me flipping the fuck out. I stepped backwards, my body shaking so hard my knees almost buckled.

[00:25:13] I remembered my potential last words bellowing in a trembly Count Chocula voice. I shouted, Jesus fucking Christ. At this point, I think he realized how absolutely horrifying this situation was for me. He put up his hands and started apologizing awkwardly.

[00:25:33] He was very twitchy, still gritting his teeth, and his eyes were bright red. I basically went on autopilot for a moment and said that I wouldn't talk to him until he got out from behind the counter area.

[00:25:47] He walked backwards until he was barely on the other side of the employee's entrance, standing next to the soda machine. He began asking for an iPhone charger, telling me he was lost.

[00:25:59] He had said that he had no money and just needed to charge his phone here until he could call for help. I told him I don't have an iPhone charger and I couldn't help him.

[00:26:10] He sighed and looked down for a moment, seeming to think about what to do. Then he flipped his head back and screamed as loud as he could. Fuck, fuck, fuck! He screamed and punched the soda machine hard.

[00:26:28] I backed up and ran around the counter, up to where the panic button was under the register. I watched him as he walked around the store, punching walls and kicking counters and screaming. I heard myself shouting over and over, get the fuck out of here!

[00:26:44] Get out of here now or I'm calling 911! After a second, he stopped and turned around to look at me. He quietly apologized before wandering out of the store and running off into the dark. At this point, I was shaking. I tried to pick up and keep working.

[00:27:05] I started brewing the coffee, checking the windows to see if he was out of the parking lot but I couldn't see him. After another few minutes, a regular came in and told me a strange man had come up to him asking for a ride.

[00:27:18] He said the guy was soaked and his eyes were bright red, and that's when I decided to call the police. They found him in the parking lot next door, screaming and punching moving trucks. They took him to sober up and calm down.

[00:27:32] They informed me that he was very sorry for losing his cool. He was just very drunk and very lost. He had come from out of state for the game and got separated from his friends.

[00:27:45] Another regular assured me I was an idiot for going into a small room with one exit, nowhere near a panic button, when I thought there might be a dangerous person in the store. I totally deserved that.

[00:27:59] In the end, nothing bad happened, but it made me realize that something very easily could have. To Mr. Red Eyes, I'm really sorry you had such a shitty night and hopefully you got home without any issue.

[00:28:12] Thank you for making me realize I'm not as safe as I think I am. Anyone could have come into the supply closet that night, so I guess I'm glad it was you. No matter how much you fucking scared me.

[00:28:39] Thank you for listening to this week's episode of Let's Not Meet, a true horror podcast. This week you have heard, it was a completely different house by Reddit user EfficientAD9008. Not going into that forest anymore by Reddit user NoBig.

[00:28:53] Chased by strange people in the woods with a large bag by Reddit user MethheadJerry. And finally, I suddenly realized the noise is breathing and it's getting louder. Then it's right on top of me by Reddit user Marshall McCockless.

[00:29:09] All of the stories you've heard this week were produced and recorded with the permission of their respective authors. Let's Not Meet is not affiliated with Reddit or any other message boards online. If you'd like to hear your story on the show, email me at letsnotmeetstories at gmail.com.

[00:29:24] And if you'd like to gain access to all the bonus episodes as well as ad free versions of the podcast, head over to patreon.com forward slash let's not meet podcast. I want to give a shout out to Alicia Loméz-Gross for supporting me since 2018.

[00:29:38] Thank you for your support. I'll see you all next week for a brand new episode of Let's Not Meet.