6x03: Makeover - Let's Not Meet

[00:00:00] This podcast contains adult language and content. The stories in this show can be frightening and disturbing for some. Listener discretion is advised. If you have a story to share, send it to letsnotmeetstories at gmail.com

[00:00:15] Enjoy the show. My name is Andrew Tate and this is season 6 episode 3 of Lets Not Meet, A True Horror Podcast. Let's not meet This happened a year after I graduated college. It was a time before smartphones existed and cell phone service was sometimes pretty spotty.

[00:01:07] My best friend and I went to a popular area of the city, a bar that her boyfriend at the time had owned.

[00:01:14] We stayed until closing since we didn't have to pay for all the drinks and then we went next door to another friend's apartment for an after party.

[00:01:23] We had been drinking for a few hours and inevitably got drunk hungry. The host of the party said that they were ordering pizza, but it never came. My friend and I decided to walk around the area to look for any sort of late night food source.

[00:01:40] It was about 3am, so everywhere that we went was unsurprisingly closed, but we thought we might get lucky. A little further down the street, we spotted a neon open sign. We excitedly headed towards the restaurant, but noticed that it was empty and dark inside.

[00:02:02] The door was unlocked and the man was behind the counter, so we asked, are you still serving food? He said, yes, come in, we can make something for you.

[00:02:15] We sat at the bar and another employee peered out from the kitchen. He and the first employee spoke to each other in a different language, which is not uncommon in our city.

[00:02:27] They chatted and we assumed that they were discussing our food order. They then turned to us and said that it would take a little while to cook since they had already turned the grills off,

[00:02:39] and offered us free beer while we waited to make up for it. Oddly, the man in the kitchen left and went down into the restaurant basement instead of starting to cook.

[00:02:51] We figured he was going down to get supplies. The man behind the bar started asking why we were out so late without any men to keep us safe. We rolled our eyes and told him that we didn't need anything like that, we could keep ourselves safe.

[00:03:10] As we were talking, we saw some light and heard music coming from the basement. The other employee came back upstairs, brushed past us, and walked straight to the front door of the restaurant.

[00:03:24] He turns off the open sign and locks the door. My friend and I immediately asked why they were locking it, to which they replied, they didn't want any more customers this evening, and not to worry, it only locks from the outside.

[00:03:44] We didn't have to say anything to each other to know that it was becoming uncomfortable for both of us. My friend looked down at her cell phone and showed me that there was no service. I didn't have one with me at all.

[00:04:00] Her boyfriend didn't know exactly where we had gone, just that we were looking for food. At this point, we knew we might be in a very bad situation. We started asking more questions like, where was our food and what's happening in the basement?

[00:04:17] They said that they would get the food soon and that they like to party in the basement after work. They said they wanted to show us the setup. We quickly said no thank you and that we would like our food to go, please.

[00:04:36] All of a sudden, the demeanor of the man behind the counter changed from overly friendly to stone cold. He stopped smiling and said that there was a problem with the grill and we wouldn't be getting any food.

[00:04:52] We knew this was a bad sign. We said okay, then we're gonna leave. The other employee had silently slithered up behind where we were sitting and creepily stated, I don't think you're going anywhere tonight.

[00:05:10] We both shot up from our seats and ran to the door. Lo and behold, it was in fact locked from the inside. We started banging on the door, knowing full well that at this time of night, no one would be walking by.

[00:05:26] Both men watched us from the bar area and laughed. Then, like a perfectly timed guardian angel, my friend's boyfriend walked by the door so we began yelling and hitting the door even harder.

[00:05:41] He saw us and started banging on it from the outside. The two men came and unlocked the door. They told us it was just a joke and that we could have left anytime we wanted. Knowing that this was

[00:05:57] a lie, her boyfriend informed them that he was a business owner in the area and would make sure that everyone in the neighborhood would hear about this. Had he not walked by, we knew that there was

[00:06:09] no way we could have overpowered these two men and gotten out on our own. I often think about what was in that basement and what they really had in store for us. I had, until that point,

[00:06:24] considered myself somewhat invincible. Yet all it took to get into a dangerous situation was the promise of food at three in the morning. So to the men who baited their trap with hot spinning meat, let's not meet again.

[00:06:56] This happened in a quiet New Jersey college town in the 1990s. After a few years on campus, my sister, friend, and I decided to share an off-campus apartment. It was a big Victorian-style house right across the street from the main entrance of the university. We were renters in

[00:07:18] the bottom floor and we made it into a cozy home, if not a little chaotic as we were college kids. There were three bedrooms all on the ground floor with one of us in each room. As the semesters

[00:07:34] passed, the other roommates would rotate in and out. The landlords rented the property to females only and the rental sign out front read, rooms for rent, female only, with the landlord's number to call.

[00:07:51] This detail turned out to be very important. As is the detail that we were all on the ground floor and we noticed that after forgetting our house keys a few times, we realized that we could wiggle

[00:08:05] the living room window just enough that we could unlatch the lock and open the window to climb in. Another interesting detail, all of the windows on the ground floor were obscured by tall shrubbery but it wasn't so close that we couldn't comfortably stand in front of the window.

[00:08:26] Basically, if you looked in from the street, you could not see the windows but there was enough room between the shrubs and the windows for someone to walk comfortably with room. A year or so passed

[00:08:40] without any issues until one night, the girl in the room across from me, see we shared a bathroom with our bedrooms each having a door, she knocked on my bathroom door at around 2 30 a.m.

[00:08:57] As she knocked softly, she called out my name in a frantic whisper. I woke up and opened the door. I knew she was really scared from the tone in her voice. She said that she thought she saw someone

[00:09:13] peeking in her window where the bottom of the blinds made a small gap in the window. And she asked me to look around with her. We opened the blinds and saw nothing. Since she was

[00:09:26] so scared by this, I believed her but there wasn't much that we could do at the time. We eventually chalked it up to leaves moving outside the window and a little bit of college

[00:09:39] kids living alone for the first time. So we went back to bed. A few nights later at around 3 a.m. Samantha burst through my bathroom door frantically whispering that a man is outside her window and

[00:09:56] looking in. I immediately knew that something was not right. I knew it was not leaves against the window and she wasn't making it up. She said that she saw a man's face directly outside the window

[00:10:13] when she lifted the blinds. After some quick thinking, I asked if she thought he saw her and she said that she closed the blinds and ran into my room so fast she didn't think he had

[00:10:25] noticed. Hoping that he was still here and that we may have a peeping tom, I suggested that she go back and pretend like things were normal and I would look out the bathroom window to see if I

[00:10:40] could see him looking in her window as we prepared to call the police. At least I would have a description if I could just see him. I opened the blinds to the bathroom window and put my face close

[00:10:55] to the glass ready to look across to Samantha's window. Suddenly, a man's face appeared directly outside the bathroom window, fully illuminated by the light from inside. I stared at his eyes and saw his stringy hair and his sparse goatee. I was horrified. I shouted. The man had grabbed

[00:11:24] the windowsill and hoisted himself up to peek into the window at the same moment that I looked out and our faces met inches away through the glass. He dropped to the ground and ran as Samantha and I

[00:11:43] ran into the living room and huddled on the couch. I called the police. I turned and noticed that we could clearly see the moonlit backyard from the large sliding glass doors. It was January and the

[00:11:57] yard was a bright swath of snow-covered ground surrounded by tall black tree trunks and their moonlit shadows. And we saw it, the shadow of the man slowly creeping around from tree to tree, making his way through the woods, trying to remain hidden behind the tree trunks.

[00:12:20] But we could see him clearly. I'll never forget seeing his hands, his elbows, and feet slipping behind the trees in the moonlight, waiting and watching us, watching the house. We huddled on

[00:12:37] that couch and watched him move through the trees until the cops came. He disappeared into the thick woods just as the cop lights showed up. We filed a report and looked at a lineup of known perverts

[00:12:52] in the area, but frustratingly all the men looked exactly alike. However, the police took it very seriously and had patrols come by and shine lights into the yard as they passed. The next day,

[00:13:07] I took a walk around the house and I saw that there were footprints in the snow under each window, then through the yard and into the woods. There were hundreds of footprints everywhere.

[00:13:24] It looked like dozens of people had been under the windows and in the woods for the entire winter. We moved out shortly after, as I realized being on the ground floor with the sign outside

[00:13:37] for rent females only was a beacon for every pervert for miles. But before I left, I stapled tuna fishing hooks to the windowsills and spray painted them white so that the next creep who tried to grab the windowsill to look into our window would get a nasty surprise.

[00:14:01] A few nights later, I saw a fresh set of footprints and a few hooks were missing. I hope he got the message. So creepy guy or guys, one of whom stared at me through my bathroom window. Let's not meet again.

[00:14:18] I'm a five foot four female. At the time of this story, I was 18 and about 130 pounds. Due to childhood trauma, I had developed an almost paranoid need to avoid confrontation and a laughing reaction to fear, embarrassment, and anxiety. Yes, just like the freaking Joker.

[00:14:50] Now this is all relevant to my story, I promise. Right out of high school, I started my first job at a popular clothing store located inside a very busy mall. One of the first things you do when you

[00:15:03] start a new job is exchange numbers with coworkers just in case you need a shift covered. There was one coworker who everyone warned me to stay away from. We'll call him Kyle. Kyle

[00:15:16] was in his 40s, about six foot four and looked to be around 200 pounds. At first, Kyle seemed friendly and we eventually exchanged numbers despite the warnings. I was crawling into bed after a long

[00:15:30] shift when I got a text message. It was from Kyle. I was exhausted but since I didn't want to make him upset, I responded. I let him know I was very tired so we could only talk for a few minutes

[00:15:42] before I fell asleep. The conversation started off innocent enough. He told me about work gossip, his time in the military, and the problems he was having with his girlfriend who worked with us.

[00:15:54] He was trying to steer the conversation towards sex but I avoided all his attempts. He eventually just went for it and discussed his sexual history even after I told him I did not want to.

[00:16:07] He told me about the time he was a sex worker and how he serviced both men and women. Now I support sex workers and I'm bisexual myself so that wasn't what was bothering me. What made me

[00:16:22] uncomfortable was how much detail he went into, describing positions and other explicit stories and then told me what he would like to do with me. I finally had enough. I told him I was

[00:16:35] I told him I was uncomfortable and was going to bed. I decided to avoid Kyle as much as I could. He still sent random texts, some that said good morning beautiful and good night sexy.

[00:16:50] I didn't respond to any of them but I also didn't report him. I told a work friend what was going on and she told me that I could report it but there would be no use. Multiple women had

[00:17:04] complained to management and nothing ever came of it. One night I ended up on the same shift as him. I didn't speak with him until my break came. When I came around the corner to the break room,

[00:17:18] Kyle was standing there blocking the doorway. Already not in the mood, I asked politely for him to move and tried to get around him. Let's wrestle, he said. No way in hell was my last

[00:17:32] thought before he twisted my arm behind my back and pinned me to the floor. I was confused and terrified. We were the only ones in the break room. I had been sexually assaulted before so on the

[00:17:48] inside I was freaking out but on the outside I was laughing. My stupid laughing reaction had kicked in and I just couldn't stop. You think that's funny? He was smiling but his voice was menacing

[00:18:04] but I couldn't get from under his grip. Finally another co-worker came in. She took one look at us but just called us weird. Kyle finally let me go and I walked away. Very embarrassed and slightly

[00:18:19] in pain, I sat in the break room in complete disbelief at what had just happened. I was horrified but again I never told management. I avoided Kyle like the plague after that, practically

[00:18:30] acting as if he didn't exist. He would still text me and I would ignore him. At one point he sent a selfie. There was no message just a picture of his expressionless face. After a while the texts

[00:18:45] stopped. A few months later November rolled around and the company hired some seasonal workers. Sometime after Black Friday I came into work and was bombarded with news that Kyle may finally get fired. It turned out Kyle had escalated his shit by sending inappropriate texts

[00:19:03] to one of the seasonal workers. He sent dozens of explicit texts and multiple unsolicited dick pics. Kyle even followed her to her car at night after work. Passing over management, my co-worker contacted HR directly and they opened an investigation. Now I wish I could say Kyle

[00:19:25] finally got what he deserved but sadly our world sucks. The poor 19 year old girl was railroaded and pretty much told that she led this 40 year old man on. Kyle did receive a suspension

[00:19:40] but to everyone's dismay it didn't matter. It turns out while this was happening he had taken a higher paying job as a manager at a store just a few doors down from ours. He quit during

[00:19:55] suspension. His victim also quit. Everyone I worked with including myself ended up leaving the victim blaming hellhole over the following months. It's been over five years since I've spoken to anyone. As for Kyle, the last I heard was that he had gotten fired from his manager job

[00:20:17] after multiple sexual harassment claims. Predators will always be predators. Sort of creepy perverted fucker who made my first job a living hell I hope we never meet again. Before I get into the final

[00:20:48] two stories on this week's episode, I wanted to share a bit of information with my listeners especially the new listeners. I never have and I never will share a story on this podcast that contains graphic depictions of sexual abuse especially towards children. Now these final

[00:21:05] two stories do contain some very dangerous and disturbing situations involving close calls with children so listener discretion is still advised. If you would like some information on child abuse, need assistance reporting child abuse or want to speak with a counselor I recommend checking out

[00:21:25] childhelp.org or call the Child Help National Child Abuse Hotline at 1-800-4-A-CHILD. That's 1-800-422-4453. You can also chat with a live trained counselor at childhelphotline.org. When I was a little girl, I would often go out of town for the summer with my grandparents

[00:21:58] due to my parents working a lot. We would travel to visit relatives and would spend summers in small Texas towns. These are some of the most treasured memories of my grandparents but one

[00:22:12] bad memory often sneaks in. One summer when I was 12, my grandpa was unable to go with us due to work and my grandma still wanting to go visit her relatives so we ended up taking a

[00:22:27] Greyhound bus down to Brownsville, Texas. I was extremely shy and timid as a kid and it was very hard for me to open up. This time was different. I met my cousins, Christina who was 15, Jessica

[00:22:46] who was 17 and their older brother who was 21, Dominic. I headed off with these girls right away while Dominic was usually not around due to working or hanging out with his friends. Even

[00:23:00] though they were older than me, Jessica and Christina never made me feel out of place or as if it were an inconvenience to hang out with me. I was the baby of the family and an only child

[00:23:14] and often got this vibe from my other cousins in my hometown so it felt nice to be able to be myself around these cousins and I was honestly having the time of my life. My grandma was often with my

[00:23:29] aunts visiting other family members in town and shopping so Christina and Jessica were left to babysit me though it never really felt like that because we got along so well and had so much fun

[00:23:43] with each other. We would often watch TV, play music, hang out and dance in their rooms and just be goofy. One day Christina, whom I got along with slightly better than her older sister

[00:23:58] Jessica, had to go babysit the neighbor's kid for the night so I was left alone with Jessica due to my grandmother going out to a dance with my aunts. We were hanging out watching a movie when

[00:24:12] Jessica asked me if I had ever put makeup on before and I told her that I hadn't because my grandma and parents were very strict with that kind of stuff. Well I promise I won't tell if you put on

[00:24:25] just a little. I'll give you a makeover and we'll wash everything off before your grandma comes back home. I was ecstatic. I had never had anyone do anything like this for me before. Jessica went

[00:24:40] about putting makeup on me even going so far as to pluck my eyebrows. She kept saying look how much older you look. I bet you would have so many boyfriends if you wore makeup. She then started

[00:24:55] asking me if I had ever had a boyfriend before. I told her that I had crushes before or boys that I sometimes flirted with at school but nothing serious because yet again my parents raised me

[00:25:09] in a very strict catholic home and that was out of the question at my age. Jessica said that she wanted to do my hair next. This was back in the early 90s and big teased hair was kind of still

[00:25:23] a thing back then. She started teasing my bangs and using a ton of hairspray to get that look down and pretty soon my makeover was complete. She just kept holding the mirror to me and repeating

[00:25:38] look how pretty you look. I bet you would find a boyfriend in no time. I was honestly so happy and wished that I had a big sister like Jessica. This is when things take a turn. Jessica said she

[00:25:53] was going to invite her boyfriend over for a little bit since her mom was out. She said that her mom would not allow her to see him anymore so they had to sneak around. She dialed his number

[00:26:05] and I heard them talking on the phone. When she hung up Jessica said I have a surprise for you. He's going to bring his friend over too. Maybe he'll like you. I asked her how old this friend

[00:26:21] was and her answer instantly gave me a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach. 19. Why would a 19 year old be interested in scrawny 12 year old me? I asked her and she said just say you're 16.

[00:26:40] You look much older now with your hair and makeup done. Not wanting to anger her I said that I would go along with it but the bad feeling inside of my stomach kept growing more and more.

[00:26:53] About 20 minutes later a car pulled up outside. She grabbed my arm and said come on let's go. I thought we were going to hang out here I asked nervously. We're just going to ride around for a

[00:27:07] little bit. I'm guessing that she saw that I was anxious and said in a meaner tone than I had heard from her before come on don't be a baby just do what I say. I really didn't want to go but I thought

[00:27:22] what else could I do? I couldn't get a hold of my grandma. This was of course way before cell phones. I felt uncomfortable staying alone in that house and the neighborhood that I wasn't familiar with.

[00:27:35] I thought about going with Christina but I didn't have a way to contact her and didn't know exactly which neighbor's house she had gone to babysit at. I felt like I was on the verge of tears

[00:27:47] but we walked outside to a car where her boyfriend and his friend were sitting. They watched us through the window and I felt my pulse quicken. I felt very nauseous as if I might faint.

[00:28:00] Jessica went over to the driver's side where her boyfriend had rolled down his window. When he rolled it down the intense smell of smoke wafted out and made me feel even more

[00:28:11] nauseous. I stood there at the bottom of her stairs awkward not speaking not knowing what to do. Jessica stood hunched over speaking to her boyfriend through the window then she perked her head up and waved me over. I stood there and then her boyfriend's friend

[00:28:32] rolled down his window and motioned over to me. He wanted me to come to his side of the door and speak to him through the passenger's window. Jessica shot me a look that said you better

[00:28:47] So I did. I walked over and was instantly turned off by this guy. He was skinny with a pockmarked face and his teeth weren't in the healthiest condition. He looked way older than 19. He smiled

[00:29:05] at me and said you're cute how old are you? Before I could even say anything Jessica said she's 16. He asked me what my name was and again Jessica spoke up and told him what it was. I don't know

[00:29:20] why I went along with this. I felt trapped and as if I couldn't say anything for fear of making her upset. The friend was looking me up and down with a look that I remember to this day. It was

[00:29:35] something that sent chills up my spine and red flags went off in my head. Everything in my body was telling me to get away but I couldn't move. In those moments I wanted to be anywhere else.

[00:29:51] I'll never forget what Jessica said next either. My cousin is a party girl she likes to have fun right? She looked at me for a response but all I could do was look down and try to shrink into

[00:30:08] myself. We were just about to get into the car when all of a sudden another car pulled up into the driveway. My heart sunk as I thought that Jessica had invited more people over.

[00:30:22] What the fuck do you think you're doing? It was Dominic's voice my older cousin. He got out of his car and walked over to where we were standing. He looked me up and down assessing the makeover

[00:30:37] and then grabbed my arm and said go into the house now. I'm telling your grandma about this when she gets back. Honestly I was so glad to be away from that situation with those two creepy men

[00:30:50] that I didn't even have time to process the fact that I might get in trouble with my grandma later. I went inside the house straight to the bathroom to wash off my face and my hair and I went back

[00:31:03] to sit in the living room. I heard Jessica and Dominic yelling at each other outside. Then car doors slammed, an engine revved and Jessica and the two guys were gone. Dominic came back inside and asked me if I was okay and if anything had happened.

[00:31:23] I burst into tears and just stayed silent eventually crying myself to sleep on the couch. You probably thought that I was upset about potentially getting in trouble but it was tears of relief. Relieved to be away from that situation, those men and Jessica.

[00:31:44] To this day I'm so thankful for Dominic and for him intervening in whatever messed up situation that was about to occur. And yes I did get yelled at by my grandma when she came back

[00:31:57] and heard the whole story. She demanded to know what I was thinking, why I would go along with it. My answer to this day is that I just didn't know. I just didn't want to upset Jessica.

[00:32:11] My punishment? I couldn't be out of my grandma's sight for the remainder of our time there and I could only hang out with Christina under supervised watch and definitely not with Jessica. Not that I wanted to. That wasn't a problem though because during the next couple

[00:32:29] of days I only saw Jessica one more time and she was completely different towards me. Cold and distant and never said another word to me. When I talked to Christina about it in hushed tones the next day before we were about to leave all she said was,

[00:32:48] my sister doesn't make the best choices. To make a really long story short I later found out that Jessica's boyfriend was actually a 24 year old man and his creepy friend he was 26. I'll just say

[00:33:04] that they were known around town for various not so great reasons. We never went back to Brownsville after that. Whenever I would bring up Christina and Jessica to my grandma she would ignore me

[00:33:18] or say that she hadn't talked to them. I received a letter from Christina years later and she mentioned that Jessica had actually gone to prison but I'm not sure if the guys were involved

[00:33:30] and didn't ask. I don't really want to know. I'm just glad she's not in my life. I think about this situation often it haunts me and I wonder what Jessica's plan was. Did she really just want

[00:33:45] to party with her boyfriend and I was in the way? Did she have sinister intentions with me that night? What would have happened if I would have actually gotten into that car with them or if Dominic

[00:33:58] hadn't shown up right at that time? Even though we're technically family, Jessica I hope we never meet again. This all happened over 30 years ago and I know some people will question the veracity

[00:34:26] of the events described here and so let me preface this by saying I am one of those people with a freakishly good memory who can remember childhood events that most people have zero recollection of

[00:34:39] and the gaps in the story are filled with information that I got from my parents years later. As a very logically oriented person it was incredibly important for me to understand

[00:34:52] all of what had transpired. This story begins when I was two years old living with my early 40s parents and my much older teenage brothers. We lived in a decently well-established suburb of Houston, Texas

[00:35:08] and a new neighbor had just moved in across the street. A woman a little younger than my mother with a son just about the same age as the oldest brother. We'll call the woman Kat and her son LJ.

[00:35:22] Kat and my mother became fast friends and LJ like my brothers adored me and really enjoyed watching me as I totted about outside with them on nice days. I was quiet, a very reserved kid, not the

[00:35:37] kind of child to say hi to people when I was out and about and in fact when my father had shaved off his ever-present beard I hid from him for almost a week. I was incredibly shy but the way

[00:35:52] that I reacted when I met Kat's husband John was not me being shy, it was something more. John was frequently away for work and it was a few months before we saw him for the first time.

[00:36:06] He looked so much like his son LJ and my parents and brothers thought he was plenty nice. My two-year-old self massively disagreed. I hid from John, I would scream incoherently if I was brought into close proximity with him. If someone dared to try and hand me to him,

[00:36:31] the death grip I latched onto them would make arms go numb. My parents laughed it off as an extreme expression of my shyness and my reserve. After all, I was a good kid, just very quiet.

[00:36:48] They told John to just give me time. A year went by and nothing changed. I was still violently opposed to being near the man. I was starting to speak but had a severe impediment so most of my

[00:37:04] words were garbled or hard to discern but one sentence was always perfectly clear, no John. It was around this time that John began to try and convince my parents that I needed to

[00:37:20] get used to him. He would start offering to babysit me on nights when Kat was out with her friends so that I would just have to adjust to him. My parents always refused, not wanting to

[00:37:34] upset me further and he would just tell them that they were too soft on me. He kept offering to watch me though. John spent so many conversations trying to convince my parents that they were just

[00:37:48] way too indulgent with me and that I would never get over my shyness unless I was forced to. He insisted that he was just trying to help them get me under control. He even tried to say that my

[00:38:01] speech impediment was a result of their over indulgent treatment of me. Now my parents were indulgent with me to a degree. I am the only girl in an entire generation of my family and I did

[00:38:15] come into the world dead, forcing the doctors to revive me at birth. I was a miracle baby and my family valued me as such but my parents were having none of John's explanations and kept

[00:38:29] politely telling him no. Aside from his behavior with me, nothing really seemed odd about John and no one really made anything of it. It was assumed that he was just upset that I was so opposed to

[00:38:43] him when by all accounts he loved children and was a good father to LJ. Then there was the incident with John and one of my brothers when I was four. LJ and my brothers had been playing in the backyard

[00:38:59] at Kat's house. I wasn't there as I refused to go over there if John was home. So since I wasn't playing, they were sword fighting with sticks as boys do. One of my brothers accidentally hit LJ

[00:39:13] in the face. Now LJ was okay, it was just a small welt on his jaw. He even laughed it off and made a joke to one of my brothers about how he should have blocked that move and could have. They were

[00:39:28] laughing when John flew out of the house in a rage. He snatched the sticks from the boys and whipped my brother with the gathered sticks for hitting his son. My brothers promptly ran home and told

[00:39:41] our father who had just gotten home from work. Now this was the 80s, spanking children wasn't that uncommon but you did not discipline someone else's children. You talked to their parents and let them

[00:39:54] handle it. My father immediately stomped over to John and Kat's house and demanded to speak to John after seeing the tears in my brother's eyes as well as the welts all over his back and the fear

[00:40:06] in my brother's face. They screamed and argued and in the end worked it out as John apologized profusely and downplayed it as he panicked thinking his boy was really hurt. The incident was put

[00:40:22] behind us and everyone just forgot about it, mostly. My brothers were no longer allowed to play at LJ's if John was home. By the time I was five years old and looking forward to starting school I had mostly

[00:40:35] outgrown my shyness except with John. I was still reserved but I would warm up very quickly with people who put forth the effort to try and understand me as my speech impediment still had

[00:40:48] not improved very much. I was actually aware of John watching me anytime I played outside when he was home. I would flee at the sight of him like a mouse evading a cat. If he was sitting outside on a

[00:41:03] lawn chair to watch the boys I stayed inside and read all day. If anything as I got older I was more adamant in needing to not be anywhere near him. Then one afternoon about a week after I had gone with

[00:41:22] my mom to register for kindergarten my dad came home from work and just popped his head into the door to speak to my mom. There are about a dozen cop cars at Cat's house do you know what happened?

[00:41:35] He asked. My mom said that she had no idea and ushered me outside with her to join my father in trying to find out what was going on. My father was pretty well known in our area and he walked

[00:41:49] directly over to speak to some of the responding officers that he knew. My mom stood on the stoop of our house smoking a cigarette as I hugged a tree that was a few feet in front of her just

[00:42:03] watching as everything unfolded. I watched my father as he tensed when one of the officers said something that upset him. Everything that happened next seemed to happen all at once. The officer speaking

[00:42:17] to my dad looked at me and his expression sank before he turned back to my father and said something that made the blood drain from my father's face. I could not understand how he was

[00:42:31] still standing with his pal as he suddenly went. Then two officers escorted John out of Cat's house in handcuffs. My father exploded forward screaming his face red with rage. You son of a bitch you

[00:42:47] wanted my little girl you bastard I'll fucking kill you. It took six officers to restrain my dad enough to keep him from reaching John before he was shoved into the back of a police car

[00:42:59] and driven away at which point my father went limp and fell to the ground sobbing. My mother had yet to move. One of the officers came over to her. Ma'am was John ever alone with your daughter?

[00:43:14] My mom froze with her cigarette halfway to her lips and slowly shook her head. You should have saved everyone a lot of trouble and let my husband kill that man she said. She turned around and went back inside. Later that night when my parents thought I was asleep

[00:43:34] I overheard them explaining everything to my brothers. John was a serial pedophile. He had molested over a dozen girls between the ages of two and eight. His preferred type was young girls

[00:43:47] with long dark hair and some kind of developmental disability that made it harder for them to report him. My speech impediment made me his favorite kind of target but my shyness kept me safe.

[00:44:04] Many years later my father asked me why were you so shy with John all those years ago? I shook my head. I wasn't shy dad. He terrified me. He looked at me wrong.

[00:44:20] It wasn't until I was well into my adult years that I had a name for the look that John gave me. He looked at me like I was prey. I'm getting some great response from the listeners about the announcement that I'm

[00:44:35] going to be doing more of those lost stories episodes in the near future. I'm putting together a couple for next month. However, I would like to hear from you guys on exactly what kind of

[00:44:50] stories you want to hear. I have hundreds of stories I'm combing through and putting together for these special episodes but it would be nice to hear from you so I'm going to be doing a couple

[00:44:59] of those. I'd love to hear from you guys. Thank you so much for listening to this week's episode of Let's Not Meet a True Horror Podcast. This week you have heard a story by listener

[00:45:35] Madeline, Through the Window Glass by Dutchette1, Kyle by a listener that asked to remain anonymous, Makeover by Vida Unravel, and finally It Wasn't Because I Was Shy by LAF. All of the stories you've heard this week were narrated and produced with the permission of their respective authors.

[00:45:57] Let's Not Meet a True Horror Podcast is not associated with Reddit or any other message boards online. If you have a story to share, send it over to letsnotmeetstories at gmail.com

[00:46:07] and as always if you want to support the show and get access to weekly bonus episodes head over to patreon.com forward slash let's not meet podcast. This podcast is not possible without the

[00:46:19] help of all my wonderful patrons. I'll see you all next week for a brand new episode of Let's Not Meet a True Horror Podcast. Stay safe.