6x17: The Missing Knife - 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. Enjoy the show.

[00:00:16] My name is Andrew Tate and this is Season 6, Episode 17 of Lets Not Meet, A True Horror Podcast. I was in my late 20s, married to a truck driver and living in a trailer court.

[00:01:01] He was driving east coast and was only home about 2 days a month. That left just me and our 5 year old son home, most of the time alone. It was a nice neighborhood. A lot of the families had kids, some retired folks. No problems.

[00:01:25] It was also next to an older campground. There were a few spots that were still used, but there were a lot more along the trails that twisted along below the trailers.

[00:01:37] There were a few picnic tables and such down there. A nice place to take a walk, and a lot of us who lived there did frequently.

[00:01:48] On one such walk, on the way back up to the house, my son and I passed a man coming down. I didn't know him, but I thought he might be a new renter from the other end of the road.

[00:02:03] So I smiled and said hi, and he smiled back. My son and I went back home, ate lunch, and that was it.

[00:02:12] Just a bit of background info about me. I sleep like the dead. I always have. My mom once woke me up and asked me how I had been sleeping through a thunderstorm that had been right over our house.

[00:02:29] Lightning had struck in our yard and shook the house, and I hadn't even known it. So it was odd that summer. I began having trouble sleeping. In fact, I couldn't sleep at all during the night.

[00:02:45] I began to have very uncomfortable feelings at night, like someone was watching me. Our windows were high above the ground. It would have been impossible for anybody to peep inside without climbing the tree right next to the trailer.

[00:03:00] But whenever I did drift off at night, I would wake up and look out at that tree. I would be expecting to see somebody right there. The uncomfortable feeling turned into fear.

[00:03:17] My son's bedroom was on the opposite side of the trailer, and that, along with the fact that the door would pop open with a good shoulder that made me bring him into my bedroom so that he could sleep on the floor. I would feel the presence of someone just outside the bedroom in the bushes, just behind the house.

[00:03:39] I felt it so strongly that a few times I just went out to the front porch and yelled out into the woods for whoever was out there to come on up and have a go if they wanted. At one point, I got a paintball gun and peppered the bushes, hoping to hit something. Later on, I got a slingshot and pelted the hillside with rocks.

[00:04:02] A lot of times, though, I would just go out onto the porch with something like a piece of wood in my hands. I never heard anything move. The only time I could really sleep were the nights when my husband was home, and my body and mind would just shut off and I would be out. But the next day, he would be gone again, and it would be back to staying up all night.

[00:04:28] Well, one of these nights I had drifted off just a bit when I heard the front door close. It wasn't unusual for him to stop by the house to shower, eat and sleep if he were passing by and had the time, but that could be at any time.

[00:04:49] So, I looked at the clock by the bed and it was around 3am. I waited to hear him drop his keys on the counter. I waited and waited, but there was no sound. I didn't hear him taking his boots off or sitting down, so I got up to check.

[00:05:09] He wasn't there. Nobody was there. But I had heard that door close. I got one of those door alarms that have a siren that goes off whenever you open it. A few days after I put it up, I heard the alarm go off and the door slam shut. I jumped out of bed and ran to the front door to look, but by the time that I got there, whoever it was, they were gone.

[00:05:40] By now, at least two months had passed and I was exhausted from the lack of sleep. My mom took my son for the night, but I still couldn't sleep. I stayed up with a baseball bat tucked beside my bed, waiting for whatever.

[00:05:56] And then, out of the blue, I slept through the night. I woke up startled the next morning and ran to the living room to check on my son. He had gotten up before me and put on some cartoons. I was surprised that I had gotten so much sleep and I finally felt rested.

[00:06:16] By the time the next night came, I had no anxiety, no need to stand guard. I just went to bed and slept. Later, I found out why and figured out what had kept me awake almost all summer. I was watching the news later that week when there was a horrible story.

[00:06:40] A little girl in the next town had been kidnapped while playing in her neighborhood. I'm not going to get too specific to protect everyone's identity, but she did come back home to tell her story.

[00:06:54] They were looking for the man who had done it. I heard later that he had been arrested, but he escaped and was on the run with another prisoner. Everyone in our area was afraid that he would come back, but he was caught again. This time, I saw the news story and everything fell into place.

[00:07:14] The man in the cuffs? He was the same man that we had seen on our walk. The reporter said that he had been living just down where we lived. I fully believe that he was after a much closer target during the summer. I don't know if he was after me or my son, but my sixth sense and my gut feeling kept me aware and kept us safe.

[00:07:41] Now, I have a second story to share. This also happened while we were living in the trailer court near the truck stop. My husband was driving for a flatbed hauler and usually he was gone for two weeks at a time. At some point, he had lost his wallet. Not only was it a pain to replace all of his cards and such, I believe it is what led us to this story.

[00:08:11] My father-in-law lived two doors down from us. One evening, pretty late, he came hurrying up to my door. I opened it and he was frantic.

[00:08:25] Do you have the phone number for Steve's company? He asked. Yes, why? You have to get a hold of them. Two state police just called me. Steve's been in an accident.

[00:08:38] Now, I was stunned. It was my worst nightmare. Driving is a dangerous job and that was a call you never wanted to get. But something just didn't add up. Why didn't they call me? I wondered.

[00:08:55] Steve must have my number on his emergency contact, right? I knew that this wasn't so because I had filled out the paperwork for my husband when he started with the company. I also knew that he would not have chosen his father because he was very hard of hearing and had trouble hearing on the phone.

[00:09:20] My father-in-law continued. I've got to get over to the truck stop. The state police are supposed to meet me over there in a few minutes. Wait for me. I'll come too, I said. I can't wait. I've got to get over there, he said.

[00:09:38] And he was gone. I threw on some clothes and got my son ready. We both got into the car. This was before everyone had cell phones so I couldn't just call Steve and check on him. I drove fast over to the truck stop. There was my father-in-law sitting in his car in the middle of the parking lot. I pulled up next to him and asked him where the cops were.

[00:10:03] They just left, he said. I pulled in and they pulled up next to me in their plain black car. Two guys in plain clothes. They asked if I was Paul and I said yes. They told me where on the highway Steve had wrecked. They said that he was in real bad shape and they wanted to get me to get him as quickly as possible.

[00:10:26] They told me to get into their car. I said no that I would drive my own car and follow them. They said they didn't want me driving while I was upset and that they could drive fast enough to get me there. I still said no and they took off.

[00:10:42] Now to me this sounded very sketchy. I told him that things didn't sound right and that we should go back to his house and he agreed. From his house we called the state police and asked about any accident or any officers sent to notify a relative. They didn't have anything of that sort.

[00:11:04] Next I called the home number of the owner of the company. It was 2am or so by this point. A very tired, very old sounding man answered the phone. I apologized for waking him and asked him if he had gotten any calls about one of his trucks being in an accident. He said that he hadn't.

[00:11:27] He was very gracious, a lovely man who assured me he was there for any problem that we might have.

[00:11:34] I hung up and relayed the information to my father-in-law. We figured that when my husband lost his wallet, these guys found it along with the emergency information and phone numbers inside and had planned something pretty sinister from my father-in-law.

[00:11:51] We reported it to the actual state police but never heard anything back. The next morning we heard from my husband who was alive and well. I told my father-in-law to contact me in case any similar situations happened in the future. Things could have ended very differently. To the two men in the black car posing as police officers, let's not meet.

[00:12:22] I live in New England and I was managing a gym back in the early 90s. Our clientele was largely male and varied from military to shipyard workers, also to law enforcement, even prison guards from the local women's prison.

[00:12:48] When we opened up the aerobic studio, we began to attract more women. It was around this time that I befriended two teachers. I'll call them Lisa and Tara. We were three single women all around 30 years old and having a blast going out to party together and meet men.

[00:13:09] I lived one town over in what may qualify as a small city. It has a busy downtown area with restaurants, bars, shops, banks, a performing arts theater, a train and a bus terminal. It even has a somewhat recent renovated state pier that was dredged out so cruise ships could dock.

[00:13:35] I happen to live not far from the town center in an old Victorian home that had been converted into apartments.

[00:13:44] I had a beautiful one bedroom on the first floor with its newly refinished hardwood floors and marble fireplace as well as the Victorian moldings. It was the nicest apartment I had rented so far, despite its slightly questionable location.

[00:14:05] It was right next to a popular local dive. On Friday and Saturday nights, the parking lot that was just a few feet away from my tiny yard and separated only by a lanky private hedge would become quite boisterous with partiers hanging out and talking loudly, couples arguing and occasional brawls.

[00:14:28] Monday mornings, I would always be awakened by the crash of hundreds of bottles shattering as the garbage truck tipped the weekly load into its belly.

[00:14:38] The town prided itself on a 350 year old nautical history and threw an annual festival centered around this that included street vendors, food trucks, activities and live entertainment, culminating in a huge fireworks show over the water.

[00:14:56] It attracts about 100,000 people per day of this three-day event so things around there can get pretty chaotic. This particular year, Lisa and Tara came to my place and we walked down to the event. We were drinking beers, enjoying the music and chatting with the acquaintances we encountered.

[00:15:19] Afterward, we watched the fireworks and walked back to my place. We sat for a while chatting on the front stoop while a steady stream of pedestrians passed by headed for their remotely parked cars or looking for a place to eat or drink.

[00:15:36] It was then that a guy that I knew from the gym approached with about five or six other guys in tow. Lisa was quite familiar with Julio. She was one of those gregarious people who seemed to be friends with everyone. So she stopped him to chat.

[00:15:55] I also knew him from the gym where he occasionally stopped at the counter to make small talk. I wasn't sure what Julio did for a living but I recalled he was somehow in law enforcement and the guys he worked out with were all state cops.

[00:16:10] He was a large, well-muscled, handsome man. The guys who were with him were all large men as well. It seemed a fair assumption to me that they were also law enforcement. They were headed next door to the bar so we agreed to join them for a drink.

[00:16:28] We hung out for about an hour or so. A couple of guys tried to hit on us. One even persistently pestered me to dance. This is one of those parties where people warm the bar stools and classic rock constantly blasted from the jukebox.

[00:16:45] Not exactly a dance club, even if it was. I was not one for dancing. I preferred to sit, chat, and drink my beer. It got to the point where I was starting to feel uncomfortable with this guy's advances. So much to Lisa's disappointment, we decided to leave.

[00:17:03] I returned to my apartment and Lisa and Tara took off. It was probably about 11pm when I settled in with some popcorn to watch TV. It was a warm July night so several of the apartment's old, double-hung windows were open.

[00:17:21] There was a lot of noise on the street with people walking by from the festival and the bars. Motorcycles roaring by on the streets. Loud conversations and the occasional shout, as well as the music that blasted every time the bar's doors were thrown open.

[00:17:40] Even if I wanted to, I knew I couldn't sleep until things quieted down. Eventually, I did retire to bed as I had to get up early to open the gym at 5am.

[00:17:50] The next day that I was working the gym counter, Julio walked in. He swiped his car and said hello. Then he said to me, Hey Sue, I'm sorry about your window screen. I was puzzled. What are you talking about? He replied, I thought you heard us.

[00:18:13] I caught Jared trying to get into your window. I was dumbfounded. I said, Excuse me? He was trying to get into my window? Yeah, I lost track of him for a few minutes.

[00:18:30] When I found him, he was making holes in your window screen so that he could open it. I'm really sorry about that. He went on to explain that he was a parole officer and the guys with him were parolees under his charge. Jared, it turns out,

[00:18:49] was a convicted rapist out on parole. Julio was apologetic, but at the same time, it seemed like this was almost an expected occurrence to him. I was completely shocked.

[00:19:04] It took a while for the realization to sink in as to how close I was to becoming one of Jared's victims. I learned then that having your blood run cold wasn't just an expression. I felt like every warm drop of blood I had drained from my body.

[00:19:21] I went home that evening, and sure enough, in my bedroom window I found two holes in the storm window screen just above the sliding latches. I immediately called my landlord and requested to be moved to another apartment. One that was not on the property list.

[00:19:37] Fortunately, he had several apartment buildings and had a vacancy in a safer, quieter area on the second floor. Even though it was more expensive, I couldn't wait to get out of my no longer safe abode. In the meantime,

[00:19:53] I nailed into the old window frames so that they could only be opened wide enough to let some air in. But not wide enough to let any air in. So to Jared, wherever you are now, let's not meet.

[00:20:16] This happened fairly recently in a smaller college campus in Indiana. It was 2019, and I was going through a rough patch in my problems. It was 2019, and I was going through a rough patch in my personal life.

[00:20:40] One of my coworkers offered to go on a nighttime walk with me so that I could decompress my thoughts. Now, I know you're wondering why my coworker is the person going on a walk with me late at night. Let me explain.

[00:20:57] We worked and lived on the college campus. For privacy purposes, I will not divulge many details about our job. But we were a close-knit team and often up late due to our working hours.

[00:21:12] It was nearing the end of summer, and I was happy to spend some time outside when the Indiana humidity was gone. We began our walk, ensuring that we were always under streetlights as it was almost 1am.

[00:21:29] I went to a larger college for undergrads and was very informed on safe practices. But I know now that even proper safety measures can fail if people take it upon themselves to question your sense of security.

[00:21:47] We walked up a path that led to a popular statue and rounded a corner that opened to a small two-way side street with trees on either side. All still within the campus and only less than a mile from our residence.

[00:22:04] The coworker was giving me advice when I became hyper-aware of something off in our surroundings. Now, I'm a firm believer in trusting your intuition, and mine has been correct on many occasions.

[00:22:20] As I stated, my time at a large college and lifetime of being a woman made me vigilant of my environment. I was looking ahead and noticed a minivan parked on the wrong side of the street with its lights off about a building's length away, facing us.

[00:22:41] It appeared to have no one inside of it, but it just seemed odd to me. This was not a street for leaving your car overnight. I mentioned the car to my coworker and she didn't seem as nervous about it as I was. We continued walking.

[00:23:03] I pressed the issue, saying, It's parked on the wrong side of the road. Don't you think it's weird? We paused for a moment to look at the van. Still, we were many feet in front of it.

[00:23:18] Within a few seconds, the minivan's lights turned on and it started driving towards us. The van's side door slid open and a man in a sky-blue ski mask appeared with his arm outside of the door. There were two other individuals in the front.

[00:23:40] I'm unsure of how many in the back, but there had to be more. I grabbed my coworker and yelled, Run! The two of us sprinted through a small patch of woods next to the street.

[00:23:55] I had my knife between my fingers, ready to open it at any moment to fight back in case they followed us, but neither of us looked back. We just kept running. The whole time, we were just yelling, Fuck! Oh my god! I don't even think we were breathing.

[00:24:14] I'm not as in shape as I once was. I've never been a good runner. I'm only 5'2", but adrenaline kicked in and thank god I wore closed-toe shoes. We exited the woods and leapt off the sidewalk, still sprinting towards our building.

[00:24:34] We ran down the stairs to the front door. I was not in the mood to stand or hold my card to let us get inside. Our residence is secured and extremely protected. You need a card to get in every door.

[00:24:50] Somehow, by sheer luck, I was able to throw my wallet at the card reader and I heard a click. I picked up my wallet as my coworker opened the door and we ran inside.

[00:25:02] We hid out of sight to ensure that the door locked behind us, then ran upstairs. Both of us were still fueled with adrenaline and wanted to call the police. I decided to head to another coworker's room on our same floor because neither of us wanted to be alone.

[00:25:22] I knocked hastily on her door and she answered, still awake, also hanging out with another coworker. They looked at us with bewilderment. I'm sure we looked scared and windswept by our sprint.

[00:25:37] We quickly told them about our experience and she agreed that calling the police was the next step. Using her work phone, I called the non-emergency line that's already programmed into the phone. I recalled the facts that I could remember to the operator.

[00:25:54] A red minivan, three or four people inside or more, one with a sky blue ski mask. They were parked on a nearby street. No, I wasn't able to get a license plate, but I was sure that they were likely still in that area.

[00:26:10] She thanked me for the call, said an officer would be out to check the area and she would call back with any updates. The four of us sat in that room, heavily breathing and in a state of shock.

[00:26:25] About ten minutes later, the operator called back and said an officer was able to pull the minivan over. It was still on that street. She said the men reassured the officer that it was nothing but a prank. I was angry. A prank?

[00:26:47] Apparently these pieces of shit were having a little prank filled joyride. I asked if the officer condemned them for such a cruel prank and told her neither of us found it funny. That's not something to do for fun. Not to women, not to anyone.

[00:27:06] You have to be seriously ill to conjure up a prank like that. The operator said yes and assured me that the officer made them make their way back home.

[00:27:16] I'm not sure if anything else happened to the men in that van, but I sincerely hope they never pull a prank like that again. I still believe that it was not for fun.

[00:27:27] Something bad could very well have happened to my co-worker and I if that man had been able to grab us. So to the listeners, please pay attention to your surroundings and always question why a car is parked on the wrong side of the street.

[00:27:42] And to the creepy shit stains in the van, I'm glad we didn't meet and let's keep it that way. I moved across the country a few years ago. The Midwest to the Southwest. It was a pretty easy move. My mom and I drove down in three days.

[00:28:14] We stayed with my grandma the first few days to take a break from driving. My mom's company was paying for us to move and as a friend, she was willing to pay for us to move.

[00:28:25] As a fresh high school graduate who had just gotten out of an abusive relationship, I was ready to move on. The thing about my mom's company is that it's international. So at all of their regional and international headquarters, there's a block of apartments that they just own.

[00:28:45] So employees are being transferred across state lines and they can live somewhere besides a Motel 6. And as part of their protocol, to get the apartment keys, you have to meet with an HR person.

[00:28:58] As they would work with the transferred employee to help set up all the arrangements for the move. This made sense to my mom and I as her company paid for a deep cleaning service after every family left as well. Our apartment was rather large.

[00:29:15] A three bedroom, two bath, balcony and full living space. Entirely furnished as well. We thought it was kind of funny that they had gotten down to every small detail including ramekins in the kitchen cupboards. It was only the two of us in the apartment.

[00:29:32] My mom in the master bedroom and me in the bedroom closest to the bathroom. From the day that we moved in, I hated the third bedroom. Not for the size difference, furniture difference or any small detail like that.

[00:29:48] But that I had a terrible feeling from that room the moment that we walked in. My mom had always said that I was paranoid. And this was no different. All the bedroom doors were open besides that one. It felt kind of off to have that one be closed.

[00:30:08] The blinds were halfway down despite all the other rooms having the blinds closed completely. I just hated the feeling of the apartment and refused to be alone in it. I would Uber to the local mall any day that I was left alone for more than five minutes.

[00:30:26] I tried to talk about the bad feelings with my mom but she claimed that I had watched a horror movie and must be internalizing it. I'd even start keeping count of the weird things that I saw.

[00:30:40] The third bedroom door would be open when we got back from getting groceries, though it had definitely been closed before we left. My dog's toys would be kicked from the hallway even though I had just got back from walking her while my mom was at work.

[00:30:58] The bathroom light left on when I always turned it off before leaving. These things, I just had to chalk them up to nothing or at least try to. My mom wrote these off completely though. But that feeling never waned.

[00:31:15] I never wanted to mention the car in the parking lot that rarely moved, though none of our neighbors could take ownership of the car or think of anyone who could. One day my mom and I came home from grocery shopping

[00:31:29] and as I sat down an armful of bags, my mom asked, where did the knife go? I asked which knife as we had a whole butcher block in the kitchen. Again, it was there when we arrived.

[00:31:46] That steak knife, my mom pointed to an empty slot in the block, the slot that had most certainly had a knife in it earlier that day. Maybe it was never there and we didn't notice, I suggested. And that was what we agreed upon,

[00:32:04] though we both knew that that knife had been there when we left. My mom and I would go through a several hour hunt for that knife, sticking our hands in the garbage disposal, even trying to pull apart our dishwasher just in case. But we never found it.

[00:32:23] Just in case. But we had to agree that we didn't have a full knife set in the first place, just to make it through the night. Now we didn't talk about that knife again. I continued to dislike the apartment, the weird circumstances that happened more and more.

[00:32:43] The apartment had a built-in security system, which would set off a chime any time a door was opened. I tried to set up the system fully, but it turned out that the system no longer worked as it originally did. And we just had the door chime.

[00:33:00] I knew my days like clockwork because of this chime. 7am, my mom takes the dog out. 7.20, she comes back in. 9am, my mom goes to work. The door will chime twice. 10am, my grandma arrives to spend some time with me and keep herself busy.

[00:33:18] The door would chime twice. 11.30, either I or my grandma would take the dog out. Twice, 5pm, mom gets home. Twice, many more times. But the final one is 10.30, my mom will take the dog out one last time. My dog goes out like clockwork.

[00:33:42] She will never get up in the middle of the night. That isn't to say, though, that if she did need to go, we wouldn't take her out. If she's crying, we'll go outside regardless of the hour. But it was rare. I was staying up late.

[00:33:57] I felt sick and I couldn't get to sleep. I got up to go to the bathroom in a last-ditch effort that maybe a shower would help. But as my hand touched the doorknob, I heard the chime. The clock shows 11.49. While it may be my mom,

[00:34:15] I could just feel that it wasn't. I lock my door and swipe my phone to the emergency call screen, my thumb hovering over that red call button. Uh, who are you? I hear my mom's angry, exhausted voice on the other side. A quick scramble of words came out

[00:34:38] and all I knew was I didn't recognize this man's voice. As they have their small exchange, I unlocked the door and peeked out. Whether it was a glint of a shiny key behind his back or the familiar blade of the missing steak knife, I know what I saw.

[00:34:59] But I know which one is easier to cope with. He turned on his heel and left. I saw it again. I knew we had a full set. My mom locked the door again, flipped the door latch lock, and I grabbed a chair to stuff under the door handle.

[00:35:20] We did it with the patio door too. We didn't sleep that night. Rather, we sat in the living room while George Lopez played on Nick at Night, the TV at 8% volume. Neither of us really paying attention. Neither of us really paying attention,

[00:35:38] but unable to just sit in silence. My mom called the office as soon as they opened, letting them know what had happened and that she expected the locks to get changed today. She called out of work, as did I. The police were called to take a report

[00:35:56] and for a few weeks, they watched our apartment from the outside making sure that no one came up again. My mom told me what had happened and to this day, I'm horrified. See, part of the apartment agreement was the pets were allowed

[00:36:11] as long as they were small dogs. And for my mom's business, any dog who moved in must be approved before. I'm not sure why, but I remember talking about it a lot before we moved. The man said he was coming to feed his brother's cat.

[00:36:30] He was coming to feed his brother's cats. Cats had never lived in this apartment and the last person who lived in that apartment had moved out three years before. No one had lived there with my mom's company and that company owns that unit.

[00:36:49] They owned it for the three years prior. She told him, no you're not and that sent him on his way. She saw the key he had in his hand, but she also knows that she saw a familiar steak knife in the other. After that night,

[00:37:08] after the locks were changed, mind you, we stayed home until the maintenance staff came to change the locks even a few days past the change just from fear. I never felt bad about that apartment again though. My nervousness and fear left me

[00:37:24] though a general dislike of the apartment set in because of what had happened. The weird occurrences stopped happening though. That door stayed open. The blinds stayed up. The lights stayed on. We have yet to ever know what that man's intentions really were.

[00:37:44] There was no good description of him. No one was ever identified. I still think about the night that was suddenly gone after this happened. I still think about that empty slot in the knife block and I still think about that haunting feeling I had my first day.

[00:38:03] How my mom told me I was just paranoid. I was an 18 year old boy who was a little bit paranoid and I was a little bit paranoid because I was a little bit paranoid I was an 18 year old guy

[00:38:28] and I was finding myself attracted to the same sex and figured why not try some stuff and see if I liked it or not and kind of figure it out. So I downloaded a hookup app, Grindr. I was getting a lot of responses

[00:38:43] and not really wanting to meet up with any of them as the conversations often quickly escalated to things that I wasn't comfortable talking to strangers about. That is until one night I was talking to a guy who had a nice profile pic

[00:38:56] with clothes on which is rare for that app. I'll call him Nick. He seemed nice and sweet. He was 24 and going to university for engineering. It was the longest normal conversation I'd had with someone on Grindr. We exchanged phone numbers and kept talking for about 3-4 weeks.

[00:39:17] At the time, I lived in a very small town the kind of town where everyone knew everyone and therefore knew everyone's business. This guy lived about an hour away in the quote big city which was perfect because I didn't really want anyone knowing

[00:39:33] that I was curious about my sexuality at the time and that I was talking to other guys. When I say I didn't want anyone knowing I literally mean I didn't even tell my best friend at the time. Being young and not as experienced in life

[00:39:47] I didn't think anything of it when Nick asked if I wanted to hang out he said being a young broke university student he couldn't really afford to go out on a proper date but invited me to his house and said that we could have a little movie date

[00:40:03] some snacks, popcorn and the like. Sounds like fun. So of course I say yes. I make the drive to the big city get to the house around 10pm and I see that it's a nice big property. I text him and tell him that I'm there.

[00:40:18] I said I'm nervous to come to the front door. He texted back saying it's okay it's actually my parents house I live in the guest house in the back. He told me to go around the gate that went to the backyard so I did. Why not?

[00:40:36] Clearly I fear nothing in life. I get to the guest house which was like a one bedroom with a little kitchen and a bathroom. I thought it looked pretty cool from the outside I go to knock on the door and before I could even knock he opens it.

[00:40:52] Standing there at about 6'2 me only being 5'8 he had only his boxers on and I could see that he was excited I guess is the best way to say it. Instantly I thought this is weird but whatever maybe he's just comfortable

[00:41:13] in his own house no big deal so I go in his house take off my shoes look around and there's nothing. There's nothing in the house no couch in the den no dishes in the kitchen area no TV nothing. I was confused. He tells me

[00:41:36] there's the TV if you want to watch a movie it's in the bedroom so he walks behind me kind of guiding me to the bedroom when we get in there I realized there's a tiny TV and a mattress no sheets no pillows nothing. I start getting freaked out

[00:41:58] I thought to myself why the fuck did I get myself into this upon further inspection of the mattress I notice a blood stain on it instantly I feel my heart pounding and my breathing becoming shallow I was a smoker at the time

[00:42:14] so I kind of laughed and said before we get into a long movie I better step out to have a smoke. I tried to walk normally and not run as fast as I could to the door so he wouldn't try to stop me

[00:42:27] he said he doesn't like the smell of smoke so he didn't want to come outside thank God I get outside and he's watching me from the window I get a text from him everything okay? it doesn't look like you're smoking I text back

[00:42:46] I forgot my lighter in the car I guess you wouldn't have one haha BRB I walk to my car I get in start it it took a second for me to calm down as I was shaking I knew I couldn't just start driving

[00:43:05] in this unknown area like that I calmed down throw it into gear ready to just get out of there as fast as I could when I look behind me and I see Nick standing behind my car in a jacket shit what do I do?

[00:43:23] I notice that if I put it into drive I could just barely make it out and drive straight so I do that and in my rear view Nick is chasing my car I get onto the street and start driving as fast as I can

[00:43:39] and I still see him back there chasing me a few minutes later I end up finding a well lit parking lot so I pulled in to use google maps and figure out how to get home I open my phone to over 50 texts from Nick saying

[00:43:56] why did you leave? what's wrong? come back suffice it to say I never went back and for 2-3 weeks he relentlessly texted me and called me and after I blocked his number he found my facebook and messaged me there and I don't know what happened

[00:44:15] to him on that mattress or what he actually wanted to do but Nick let's never meet again A story by listener Jessica A very close call by Suzy Blue The van and the blue ski mask by Lauren A story by listener Jay And finally

[00:45:07] A story by a listener that asked to remain anonymous All of the stories you've heard this week were narrated and produced with the permission of their respective authors Let's Not Meet, a true horror podcast is not associated with Reddit or any other message boards online

[00:45:22] As always, if you want to hear your story on the show make sure you send it to letsnotmeetstories at gmail.com and if you'd like to catch the live recordings of these episodes head over to twitch.tv forward slash andrewtate live It's been extremely insightful

[00:45:35] and enjoyable to be able to record these stories with a handful of listeners hanging out and even chatting about the stories and getting to know each other So again, follow that link in the show notes to twitch.tv forward slash andrewtate live and don't miss the next recording

[00:45:51] I'll see you all next week for a brand new episode of Let's Not Meet, a true horror podcast Stay safe