6x19: Hunter - 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 six, episode 19 of Lets Not Meet, A True Horror Podcast. Hi everyone and welcome. We're closing in on the season six finale of Lets Not Meet

[00:01:01] in just a couple of weeks. This means that we have a few special episodes on the way. Next week we will be treated to another Lost Stories collection from the early days of the show. Then on Saturday, August 21st we'll be doing another Twitch live stream finale

[00:01:17] as we've done for the past few seasons. This will be the biggest one yet with some of your favorite returning guest readers like Sorin Narnia, Shelby Scott, Jessica Nicole, Sapphire Sandalo, and a bunch more. The audio will be available on Sunday the 22nd as a regular

[00:01:33] episode so if you can't make that live stream, you'll be able to listen to all of the stories whenever you like. However, if you do plan on joining us for the live video podcast,

[00:01:42] follow me at twitch.tv forward slash andrew tate live. That's a new URL. It's in the show notes just in case you forget. We'll be going live at 7pm Pacific Standard Time on Saturday, August 21st. But for now, enjoy the show.

[00:02:11] For a bit of backstory, I was attending Coastal Carolina University in Conway, South Carolina. It was a quaint, charming, and old southern town about 10 minutes inland from Myrtle Beach, a popular eastern US beach vacation destination. It was my first semester of sophomore year and I

[00:02:33] was living in campus housing that wasn't quite on campus. See, CCU provided multiple living options for their students, which I loved. It allowed me to feel more freedom and independence as a college student rather than being suffocated by the college lifestyle living in one of the small,

[00:02:54] cluttered dorms located on campus property. The dorms that I was staying in, they were just about a quarter of a mile down the main road from campus. These dorms were located behind a Shell gas station off of the main road. They were apartment-style dorms consisting of four bedrooms,

[00:03:14] every room containing its own private bathroom, a shared kitchen, a shared living room, washer and dryer, and a balcony. It was a dream. I felt like I was finally living the independent college girl

[00:03:27] life, states away from my hometown in Virginia. I always felt safe in my complex. Like I said, it was university housing, so all around the campus there were white posts with a bright blue

[00:03:41] light signaling a call button that would dial to campus police dispatchers in case of emergencies. One afternoon, after a long morning of classes, I was starving. I hadn't eaten anything that day

[00:03:56] and I was in classes since 8 a.m. It was around 3 30 or 4 p.m. this particular day that I had left campus. I usually use my dining card and go to the campus cafeteria to eat lunch,

[00:04:10] hoping to see some friends or classmates and hang out for a bit, but I was just drained that day and decided to get into my car and just head home. During the short drive back, I decided to stop at

[00:04:24] the Shell gas station that was located in front of my complex. I was a broke college student, working a part-time position in retail at a nearby outlet mall, so it was very rare that I could

[00:04:36] actually afford to eat out, but I figured gas station food is cheap and I'd just get a hot dog and a fountain drink with the change that I had in my wallet. I pull into a space directly out in

[00:04:49] front of the convenience store. Standing in front of the store facing me was a tall, skinny, sketchy looking guy, maybe in his 40s. I remember him vividly. See, my mom was a 911 dispatcher and had

[00:05:05] always taught me at a young age about stranger danger and always observing my surroundings. She made sure that safety was always a priority because I'm young. I'm a female in a world of

[00:05:17] creeps and perverts, some disguised as heroes, some you can just notably tell that they are weirdos. So using my handy observational skills, I see he's wearing a New York Yankees bomber style jacket, a white t-shirt peeking through a partially unbuttoned top of a jacket with the black hat.

[00:05:39] He had those Dickies type of jeans. His eeriness made me a little uncomfortable at first, as he watched me from the very moment I turned to pull into that parking spot.

[00:05:53] He continued to watch me as I gathered my wallet, phone, and turned my car keys out of the ignition to get out of the car. He watched me walk into the store. I felt uncomfortable, but I just figured

[00:06:07] it's some weird old man who's waiting for a ride or honestly might not have anywhere else to go. He was just hanging out in front of a college gas station to pass the time. I get my food and drink

[00:06:22] and while I'm waiting in line to check out, I glance over at the store windows and he's standing right where he was but turned around now, facing me, watching me still as I wait in line.

[00:06:36] What does this guy want? I was more irritated at this point now. That old phrase, take a picture, it'll last longer, kept running through my head and I really wanted to confront him

[00:06:47] but I didn't muster up enough courage to do so. So I paid and left the convenience store then got into my car. At this point I see him start to walk left and head towards the back of the store. I'm

[00:07:01] thinking, thank God he's leaving. So I back out of the spot and turn towards my complex. I have to pass him. He was walking towards the entrance to my complex. I didn't really think

[00:07:16] much of it. I kind of even forgot about the whole situation. I was just ready to get home from an exhausting day of classes. I wanted to eat and I wanted to pass out. I parked my car in front

[00:07:30] of my building like usual. I gathered my belongings and crossed the street towards the stairs of my building. I lived on the second floor. As I'm about to step onto the sidewalk from the street, I hear footsteps to my left, distant but approaching quickly. They sounded heavy,

[00:07:50] like this person was moving with purpose and intent. I look up and to my left, there's the man from the gas station. He was staring me dead in the eye with a furrowed brow and a serious

[00:08:03] expression on his face, moving with long strides and a quick pace right towards me. For reference, if you've ever seen the hit thriller Get Out by Jordan Peele, you'll remember the scene where

[00:08:18] the gardener comes running up on the main character in the backyard at night. That's exactly what it looked like from my point of view. My fight or flight response immediately kicks in and I haul

[00:08:30] ass as fast as I could up those stairs. There seemed to be thousands of steps, like I just couldn't get up to the second floor fast enough. I hear him turn the corner behind me, following

[00:08:44] me up the stairs, jumping to every other step to gain close measures. When I noticed just how close he was, I felt my blood go cold. I was in such a panic. I was seriously struggling to find my

[00:08:57] electronic key to let me into the apartment amongst the ridiculous amount of key chains that I had on my lanyard. I finally grabbed it, shoved it against the detector on the deadbolt lock and waited to hear the motors move in my deadbolt into the unlocked position, which felt

[00:09:16] like an eternity. I quickly ran inside and slammed the door behind me, locking every lock possible that I could get my hands on at the time. Immediately after locking the door, I hear him

[00:09:27] banging on it. He never said anything to me or at me. He just began beating on the door. I backed away. I ran to my bed where I pulled out my phone from my backpack and called campus

[00:09:42] police. They took a report and said that they would send out campus police to check out the surrounding buildings. At this point, the banging on the door had stopped, so I believe he might have

[00:09:52] left or might be waiting there. I don't know. I don't want to find out. After about 30 minutes of waiting, I finally get a knock on my door. It's campus police announcing themselves, so I feel safe

[00:10:07] enough to exit my room and look through the peephole of my front door, just to make sure that it really is the campus police and not the crazy stalker from the Shell gas station. Campus police

[00:10:18] told me that they didn't see anyone fitting my description in the area, but that they'll keep an eye out and an ear out for sightings or reports of the strange man. It made me so fearful knowing

[00:10:30] that the guy was still out there and that he knew where I lived. I never saw him again, and eventually the terrifying memory was just a silly thing to laugh over with my roommates.

[00:10:44] Every now and then, I think about this experience and wonder what his real intentions were. Did he want to kill me? Did he want money? What were his plans? I'm glad I didn't allow myself to

[00:10:57] become part of them that day. To the insanely creepy gas station man who made my heart sink into my stomach in fear for my own safety, let's not ever meet again. This happened to me and my friends when we were 10 years old, somewhere around the summer of 2009.

[00:11:29] I haven't told anyone. My friends have also decided not to tell anyone, but I feel this is worth it for the podcast. I'm 22 now and looking back, I feel scared for all the children out there

[00:11:44] who almost fall prey to the creeps around. I live in Mumbai, India, and it's a common thing here in the summers for theaters to open and there are numerous children's plays running.

[00:11:59] Every summer, my friends and I would go watch plays. It was fun for us because we were able to run around the halls with a lot of the other children here and there.

[00:12:09] This was a time when cell phones were still new, so we only really used landlines. Security cameras weren't very popular back then, so no one really installed them. The theater used to be filled with kids and their parents, siblings, and grandparents. On some days, it wasn't too busy.

[00:12:27] Many of the rows would be empty. Theaters would be half-filled. One Saturday afternoon, we went to see a play, which wasn't that popular, so the theater was only half full. After a considerate amount of people arrived, the theater dimmed its lights.

[00:12:47] We had taken the balcony tickets for a better view. The play was in two intervals. There used to be a 10-minute break for the intervals. The first part of the play went great, no red flags

[00:13:01] whatsoever. And the interval break, my friend and I, who I'll call Rachel, went to get some popcorn and fritters and a Coke for everyone. When we came back, there was a man sitting next to our seats.

[00:13:18] The first red flag went off when we saw that the rows behind us were empty, but he sat next to our seats. There was another group of friends sitting four rows behind us,

[00:13:30] although the man sitting there didn't really seem odd as the theater had guards who used to sit in the shows to ensure that everything was going all right. We assumed maybe he was one of them.

[00:13:42] This man must have been in his late 30s, early 40s. We really didn't pay much attention. The second half of the play started and Rachel felt a hand on top of her shoulder. She looked over to me first because I was sitting next to her,

[00:14:01] and then looked at the other side where the man was sitting. She then nudged me with her leg and whispered, Hey, the man has his hand on my shoulder. She looked very scared and confused. I looked at the

[00:14:18] man and he took his hand off of her. When he was sure I looked away, he pinched Rachel on her elbow. She whispered to me again in a scared voice. He's pinching me now. Please do something.

[00:14:34] I told Rachel, let's change our seats. We then went to sit three rows ahead of where a family was sitting. A mom, her two sons and their father. We thought that the man won't bother us

[00:14:48] and we'll feel safe there. The rest of the play went smooth. After the play was over, I had forgotten about what had happened and went to the parking lot where we had parked our

[00:15:01] bicycles. Just as we were about to leave, we saw that man again. He had popsicles in his hand. He came up to us. He said, I'm asking you again. These are the last few popsicles I have. Do you want them? Come to my van. I'll give you more.

[00:15:25] My other friend Nash told him no, thank you. Our parents were waiting outside the theater and we'll be going with them. The man didn't force this on us much, but he did follow us.

[00:15:38] We briskly walked until we were at the front lobby where there were a lot of people. However, the man was still following us, trying to remain discreet. Luckily I saw someone who was my dad's

[00:15:50] friend. She was with her daughter there and we went to her and told her what happened. She asked me to point to the man. When we tried to find him, he was gone.

[00:16:03] She then took us to the office of the theater and logged a complaint. Rachel and I told the authorities what had happened. The authorities then tried to find the man, but he was nowhere

[00:16:15] to be found. My dad's friend told us to go straight home and said that she will call my father and tell him what happened. When my father came to know about this, he filed a complaint with the police.

[00:16:30] The police said that they would look into it. A couple of weeks later, we came to find that the police had actually caught this man. Apparently he used to go to different theaters and he would

[00:16:43] poke children with a needle just for fun. He used to pinch little girls too. After that summer, we were horrified to go to the plays alone. We would only go if one of our parents or an elder sibling

[00:16:59] came with. So to the creepy man who liked pinching small girls, let's not meet again. When I first started college, everything was a new experience. I had never been away from home.

[00:17:27] It was my first time driving or even having a license. It was my first time drinking. You get the gist. I also was never really far from home since the university I went to was only about 45

[00:17:40] minutes away and I had an overprotective dad who insisted that I live at home while going to classes. This is pretty important to know because I lived a pretty sheltered life and new experiences also gave me high anxiety. If you mix this into a fresh college experience

[00:18:00] including partying and commuting, it didn't really mix well. The party itself isn't important but keep in mind I told my overprotective dad that I would be home after school

[00:18:13] and in my bid for a new experience, I forgot to tell him where I was going. So you can imagine how this went. I had my phone on vibrate so over the next couple of hours of me having a few drinks

[00:18:27] and having a good time, my dad had been calling. At around 12 am I finally felt a text vibration. It was from my best friend who also went to the same university. My dad had apparently decided

[00:18:41] to start calling him to see where I was and he texted me to inform that. This is also when I noticed that my dad had called 20 or so times but no texts. My phone at the time, it was 2009,

[00:18:56] was kind of old and even with the vibrate feature, I usually didn't notice a phone call and would only notice text messages. I was panicking pretty hard. I had had a few drinks.

[00:19:09] I wasn't feeling all that buzzed, just that relaxed state that you get after a little bit of alcohol. I told my classmates I was needing to head home immediately. I told them bye and ran out to my

[00:19:21] car while calling my dad. He was super mad, yelling at me to get home immediately and that I should have told him that I was going to a party after I explained what happened.

[00:19:34] He also kept questioning me about drinking but I lied and said that I didn't and that I was heading home right then. I got into my car and sped off. Now, a few things. One, I'm really bad

[00:19:47] at directions and I was pretty reliant on the external GPS. Even though I lived in the Houston area my entire life, I lived in a suburban area and hardly left that until college. My phone didn't

[00:20:01] have this functionality but I had Square, a dedicated GPS that could attach to the dashboard of the car. Two, this was Houston, Texas. Freeways here are horrible. They have these intertwining roundabouts that were very confusing. Figuring out where to exit is pretty horrible and to get

[00:20:22] back to my home, you had to take one of the roundabout exits that would eventually put me on a direct path there. In my panicked state, I started driving without making sure the GPS was on

[00:20:33] and eventually after being on the highway, I cursed and started fumbling to turn it on. It wouldn't. I had no idea where I was going and I was so afraid of going the wrong way that I

[00:20:46] eventually decided to take an exit that led to another local university area. I figured, this is obviously a safe area. It's just student housing. It was a Christian university. I could find a

[00:21:01] parking lot to stop in and try to get the GPS working or call my dad and figure out a way for him to tell me where to go. After I got to the main road and went through the light, I had to

[00:21:14] slam on my brakes. A guy ran into the middle of the road with his hands out in front of him. He seemed to be telling me to stop. He looked to be my age and was wearing traditional fraternity clothing

[00:21:29] so I didn't really see any red flags but I was still a little anxious. After stopping, I noticed a girl was on the side of the road and she came up to stand with him on the side of my car while

[00:21:43] messing with something in her purse. He asked me to roll the car window down but in my anxious and scared state, I only cracked the window slightly so that I could hear them better but

[00:21:57] not enough for someone to force their hands into it. In retrospect, this was potentially an idiotic thing to do. The guy explained, slurring so I assumed that he was probably drunk, that he and his

[00:22:12] friend were wanting to go to the strip clubs downtown but couldn't drive. They wanted me to take them. They said they would be willing to pay for my gas, pay whatever entry fee there was for me

[00:22:26] and would love for me to join them too. I hesitated in answering so the guy further went on to explain that if I didn't want to go, he would be willing to offer me sex as a payment before I dropped them off.

[00:22:45] The girl sort of rolled her eyes. The guy shot a dirty look before getting closer to my window and asking me if I'd like to have sex with him. Now yes, while I was into guys, I definitely was

[00:22:59] not vibing with this situation. I also noticed that he had his hand on the handle of my driver's door which was making me even more uncomfortable. I also noticed the girl was standing close to

[00:23:14] the driver's side backseat door and her arm kept moving like she was fiddling with something. I think she was trying to open the door. This was the weirdest situation. I didn't know what to say.

[00:23:28] I just kept staring at him. He kept asking me if I wanted to have sex with him. Then he kept asking if I wanted to have sex with his friend. His friend eventually started saying, let me in.

[00:23:41] At this point, everything was silent and I was literally just staring directly into his eyes as he put his face directly into my driver's side window and his hands on the side of his face like

[00:23:55] he was trying to stare inside and look for something specific. I didn't know what to do. I was tempted to just speed off but was afraid that they would be holding onto the door handles

[00:24:08] and would try and come with the car. The last thing I wanted was some type of vehicle assault. I remember saying, uh. Then he jumped back and screamed, I call shotgun, let's go at the top

[00:24:23] of his lungs. This startled me. He ran around to the front of the car and the girl started screaming, I call backseat. She threw her hands in the air. Once he got to the other side of the car,

[00:24:37] I took advantage of the situation of them not holding onto the car to press the gas and lurch my car forward. I remember the girl yelping and the guy going, hey, wait a fucking second.

[00:24:50] Then slamming his fists into the passenger side window. My anxiety and panic spiked and I guess my anxiety and panic spiked and I guess the adrenaline decided to run through my body.

[00:25:02] I took this as a sign to just go. I slammed on the gas and drove the hell out of there. I looked in my rear view mirror as I was leaving and I noticed that the guy flipped me off

[00:25:15] and the girl was on the ground. But I also noticed four other people had now come out from the side alley to join them in the street. I kept driving until I felt I was far enough away

[00:25:29] and I didn't feel as panicked. I looked for a place where it was safe to stop. Thankfully, I found a gas station. So I stopped and called my dad and asked if he could help direct me home

[00:25:40] using MapQuest and the gas station as a starting point since my GPS wasn't working and I was lost. I didn't tell him about the situation that had just happened.

[00:25:51] I only told him the street name and the name of the gas station and that I just wanted to get home as soon as humanly possible. I never stayed out that late in Houston again. So to the guy and girl

[00:26:02] who needed a ride to the strip club and apparently their four friends who God knows what they would have done if they would have gotten into my car. Let's never meet again.

[00:26:25] For the longest time while listening to this podcast, I didn't think that I had a story to share. However, it wasn't until I was decluttering my bedroom that I found my old guitar and remembered

[00:26:38] something that had happened to me when I was 11 years old. I had just finished primary school and was just a few months away from starting secondary school. I was a shy kid who spent most

[00:26:49] of her time just binging episodes of Doctor Who and writing short stories. While I enjoyed these hobbies, my mom thought that it would be good for me to start a new hobby as I was starting fresh

[00:27:02] at a new school. So after discovering that a kid in my class's mom, I'll call the kid Hunter, was an excellent guitar teacher. My mom spoke with her and they decided that she would teach

[00:27:15] me guitar and that my lessons would begin the summer before school started. Now I loved those lessons. I loved that she would give me chocolate milk before each session. I loved that I could

[00:27:26] talk to her so easily about my concerns and about my social life at school. What I didn't love was her son Hunter. Hunter was in my class and I'd only known him for two years as I had moved to this

[00:27:40] school just two years prior. We didn't speak much. We got along for the most part though. The only times we really interacted prior to the guitar lessons were through our mutual friends or whenever we may have been put on the same group for a project.

[00:27:57] I didn't think that he was a bad guy. That was until I started my guitar lessons. Whenever I was over, I didn't directly have any issue with him but what did disturb me was how he interacted

[00:28:11] with my guitar teacher. He'd swear at her when she'd ask him to do something or just poke fun at something that he had done. He'd laugh at her when she had told him how he had hurt her feelings

[00:28:26] over a comment that he had made. He would also flip her off as he walked past the room when we were playing. Reminder, this is an 11 year old kid. Although it made me a little uncomfortable

[00:28:39] and disgusted as I could never imagine speaking to my own mother that way, I figured that was just how their relationship was. Not something I agreed with but something that wasn't my business. At most

[00:28:53] my opinion of him had gone from indifferent to disliking him. However, a few months later, my dislike quickly turned to fear. It was around May that we lost contact with my guitar teacher.

[00:29:07] By this point, we had quite a regular routine. My mother would call the day before my lesson to confirm my time for me to go over to the house after school just so we could give each other time

[00:29:19] to prepare after finishing work and school. But one day, she didn't pick up or call back. It was weird. My mom then called again the next day thinking that she must have just been busy at

[00:29:33] work and was too tired to return calls but again no answer and no return calls. We became slightly concerned but my mother figured that she must have still been busy at work or dealing with some

[00:29:45] personal stuff and that's why she hadn't been answering. I asked about going to her home anyway and knocking on her door but my mother decided against it as she felt that that would be rude

[00:29:54] to go to her home uninvited and since she hadn't returned our calls, we figured that she just wanted her space and that she'd call us in a few days. So we left it alone and decided that we would try

[00:30:08] contacting her again in a few days if we didn't hear from her. At the time, I was somewhat relieved to not be going as I hadn't practiced as much as I should have. A few days had passed while I was

[00:30:22] playing at a friend's house, my mother bumped into one of my guitar teacher's friends slash neighbors. She and my mother had spoken the times that she had joined us for dinner with my guitar teacher

[00:30:35] after my lessons had run late. We knew her but not well enough to have her contact details. If we had, maybe we would have called her when my guitar teacher had stopped responding. When they

[00:30:48] bumped into each other, my mother had asked her how my teacher was and if she had heard from her. That's when my mother learned the truth about what had been going on at my guitar teacher's home for

[00:31:00] three days. One night, my teacher finally had had enough of Hunter's verbal abuse and called him out on his behavior. That's when Hunter went into the kitchen and returned with a kitchen knife.

[00:31:15] He then locked the doors and began his three-day imprisonment of his own mother. He told her that she wasn't allowed to use the phone, go outside or use the internet. She had to do whatever it was

[00:31:28] that he wanted and she wasn't allowed to leave his sight or else he would stab her. I'm a little fuzzy on the details as it has been over 10 years but on the third day he apparently slipped up

[00:31:41] and left her alone. As soon as he did that, she called the neighbor and asked for help and explained the situation to her. The neighbor then called the police and they broke down the door and rescued

[00:31:52] my teacher. She told them all of what had happened and she was taken away by the police. She then stayed with the neighbor. Once the neighbor finished her story, my mother took her contact details so that if anything like this happened again we could contact someone close to

[00:32:10] her. After that she collected me from my friend's house and told me everything. I was in complete shock hearing that Hunter was capable of doing that and sad that my teacher was forced into that

[00:32:22] situation. It sickened me then and it sickens me now to know what was going on while we were trying to contact her. How could her own son do that to her? This is where I'd write Let's Not Meet but

[00:32:38] the story unfortunately doesn't end here. A few more months had passed and my mother continued to contact my teacher despite my lessons being on pause which I didn't mind considering the circumstances and I had begun getting interested in some other hobbies. She told my mother about how

[00:32:57] Hunter had been sent away for a little bit. She didn't say where to or what he was doing but I have a pretty good guess of where he went. One day my teacher invited me, my mother and my neighbor over

[00:33:11] along with the neighbor's son for dinner as Hunter was returning home and she wanted to celebrate it. My mother hesitated but she accepted the invitation. I know it sounds like it was a

[00:33:25] bad idea to go back and again in hindsight it was but from my mother's perspective she figured that if he was coming home he must have made progress and we didn't want to make my teacher feel bad

[00:33:38] especially after all she had gone through and all that she had done for me. As we walked to my teacher's home my mother told me that we would only be staying for an hour or so while I was there.

[00:33:52] I was not ever to be alone with Hunter. I told her okay and then we arrived at her home. At first the dinner was awkward as we didn't know how to behave around Hunter or my teacher

[00:34:05] but eventually everything slipped back into normalcy minus the verbal abuse from her son. The adults laughed and drank, the kids ate and laughed with them. Eventually I left the table to use the bathroom and once I had finished in there I stepped into the living room where my

[00:34:22] teacher's guitar sat. Since the dinner was pretty much over and the kids were walking about I decided to sit down and play with the strings for a few minutes and once I was done with that I went to

[00:34:34] lie on the cozy chair which sat by the balcony. It was getting late and I felt like closing my eyes for a few minutes. When I opened them again almost as if Hunter was Michael Myers he appeared in

[00:34:49] front of me with a smile on his face. I was startled but I smiled back my eyes immediately darting for an exit to get away from him but he had me trapped. He was tall for his age and I was

[00:35:04] small for mine. I was lying back and vulnerable while he towered above me. I slowly began to sit up and asked him what was up while still praying an adult would come into the room. I don't remember

[00:35:19] much of what was said as a lot of it was just small talk but what I do remember is the way my heart thudded in my chest when I saw him produce a lighter from his pocket. I watched as he clicked it

[00:35:31] and an orange flame appeared at his command. Another sinister smile appeared on his face and he began laughing as he told me that he could light me on fire as I lay there.

[00:35:46] My eyes darted between the lighter and the door that seemed so far away. I didn't know if he was serious or not but that scared me. If he pulled out a knife on his own mother what morals would

[00:36:02] stop him from lighting me up? I wanted to cry and call for my mom but I just rose and chose to use my words carefully while trying to hold back tears as I watched the orange flame dance.

[00:36:16] I forced another smile and then asked him if he had heard a rumor about a kid from our primary school. He said no and on the spot I made up a story. This distracted him and he put the lighter

[00:36:31] down and then sat down in the chair next to me to listen. Once the story was over I told him I was going to use the bathroom and hid in there basically until my mom told me it was time to go

[00:36:42] something I gladly did. On the way home I ended up telling her what had happened and from that point onwards I was banned from going back to their home. My classes were done, our relationship

[00:36:56] with them was done and I barely touched a guitar again after that. My family couldn't afford to pay for another teacher and there was no way I was ever returning to that house so my mother's aspirations

[00:37:08] for a new hobby for me disappeared. It's been years since that incident and I'm now 22. We never went back to that house again and I haven't seen or heard from Hunter since then either. The last I

[00:37:23] heard about him was that he was sent off again to live somewhere else months after the lighter incident, something although very sad I hope has helped my teacher to live a little more of a

[00:37:36] peaceful life and although what he did was horrible I truly hope that Hunter has gotten the help that he needs and that 11 years later he has become a much more adjusted adult. However, I still hope that we never meet again.

[00:38:05] This story happened to my mom when she was just 18 years old. In 1980 my parents married right out of high school, well after my mom graduated. They had my oldest brother shortly thereafter. My dad was in

[00:38:22] the navy and got stationed in Virginia so my parents and my then infant brother made the cross-country trek from Southern California to Virginia in my dad's pickup truck. Once there they moved into a

[00:38:36] first floor apartment located off of the naval base and not in the safest of neighborhoods. It was off of the base but was still mostly occupied by military families. One night while my dad was on

[00:38:50] duty and my mom was at home writing a letter to her sister while my brother slept in the other room, my mother had the window slightly open behind the TV. While she was writing she heard something

[00:39:05] rustling outside of the window behind the TV. Without getting up she looked out the window and didn't see anyone, that is until they smiled at her. All she saw was the white of their teeth

[00:39:23] from the shadows. My mom actually lunged towards the window yelling at them to get away. The person was so bold as to laugh at her before running off. Panicked and alone with an infant

[00:39:40] my mom poked her head out the front door to call for help. An older man from upstairs ran down to see what was going on. She told him what had happened and with my mom's permission the man

[00:39:53] scooped up my brother and ran back upstairs to his apartment to call the police. This allowed my mom to get some things sorted out. My mom gave the police a description of the man which was vague

[00:40:06] considering she only saw this person's teeth and they proceeded to tell her that they've had multiple complaints of a man peeping into windows in the area. They casually proceeded to tell her that the man is likely harmless and there's nothing to worry about. Right, even though the

[00:40:25] policemen were nonchalant about the situation my mom was now too freaked out to stay at the apartment alone overnight. So she took up a babysitting gig at a friend's house and she and

[00:40:37] my brother would stay over there most nights while my dad was away. Finally one night my mom decided that she needed to toughen up and go back to their own apartment so she did. A few days later

[00:40:51] she and my brother had come back from the grocery store at night. As they had gotten out of the truck and were walking towards the apartment building my mom quickly realized that the man

[00:41:03] who was peeping at her was now attempting to remove the screen and climb into her front window. Without hesitation they got right back into the truck and took off. My mom decided to stay at her

[00:41:20] friend's house from then on. Luckily a duplex right across the street from that friend's house came up for rent and my parents and brother moved in. They lived there for the remainder of their

[00:41:32] time in Virginia. My mom eventually had to go back to that sketchy apartment complex to collect their deposit though. While she was in the leasing office my mom started chatting with another

[00:41:44] woman who happened to be moving out. The woman began to tell my mom that she was moving out because there was a woman on the floor above her who had been stabbed. Apparently the woman who

[00:41:58] was moving out said that a man dressed as a maintenance man had come to her door asking for a screwdriver because he had left his in his truck and he needed to fix something upstairs.

[00:42:11] She thought nothing of it and let him borrow it. Come to find out the maintenance man went upstairs and assaulted and stabbed a woman to death in her apartment. He stabbed her with the

[00:42:27] screwdriver. The police had told them that this man had been peeping and stalking women to know when they'd be alone in their apartment while their husbands were likely away on duty. I'm not

[00:42:41] sure if they caught that man but my mom is certain that he was the same man trying to climb into her apartment that night. Needless to say my mom says she still has an uneasy feeling when the window

[00:42:54] is left open in the house. To the guy creeping around apartments and possibly killing women, let's not meet. A few years ago my family went on a mini vacation to Ocean City. We don't live far from there

[00:43:25] so we do it often. My mother, grandmother, brother, sister-in-law and their two children as well as my two children. At this time our kids were between the ages of two and six.

[00:43:39] This was about seven years ago. Now Ocean City has a long boardwalk and there are rides at the end of it known as the Inlet. That's where we went to have some family fun. There are these bracelets

[00:43:53] that you can purchase which give you unlimited rides. As many of the rides as you want, as many times as you want. Remember this. About mid-afternoon my family and I were sitting on a bench

[00:44:07] just taking some time to chill for a minute before the kids were ready for more. My daughter, five years old, had just played a game and she won. She was standing next to me with her new toy.

[00:44:22] Picture this. I was sitting on the bench and she was standing facing me playing with her toy on the bench. Now I looked to the other side of me to ask my grandmother what she wanted to do for

[00:44:35] dinner that evening. In a matter of five seconds I heard my daughter say, leave me alone. I felt her lean against my arm. I immediately looked over and I saw this man that had been sitting at the end

[00:44:51] of the bench with dark hair, tan skin, bad vibes leaning over as if he were saying something to my daughter. I looked at him and pulled my daughter to the other side of me. My fight or flight just

[00:45:04] kicked in and we stood up, looked at him and left that area. Now regardless of what he said, he had no business being in my child's personal space like that. She felt uncomfortable and my job was

[00:45:17] to end that. Fast forward about an hour, we're outside and the kids are enjoying the rides. My sister-in-law and I saw this same guy in passing about five times that afternoon.

[00:45:32] He never got that close again though. We did notice that he was wearing a bracelet for the rides and was never with anyone else. No kids, no friends, just him. We just made it a point to

[00:45:45] always go in the opposite direction. I never had an issue with him the rest of our time there, but days later my sister-in-law called me over to look through pictures that she had developed.

[00:46:00] She had already seen it. This was about seven years ago and thinking about this photo still gives me chills. The picture was our two daughters on the carousel, huge smiles on their faces,

[00:46:13] but if you look maybe 20 feet behind them, there was the man sitting with this look on his face staring at our girls. We sent the picture to the Ocean City Police Department and told them about

[00:46:29] our experience with him. It could have been nothing, but I would not be able to live with myself if I had not said anything to them and this guy go after someone else's kid.

[00:46:41] Honestly, in this world you never know, but to the man at Ocean City, let's never meet again. Don't forget if you're a patron, stick around after the music for your extended bonus section of this week's episode. Thank you so much for listening. This week you have heard College

[00:47:11] Gas Station Stalker by Katie Kaye, The Pinching Man by Jai, The Guy That Needed A Ride by Tyler, Hunter by Clementine, The Peeping Creeper by Katie M, and finally, Guy From The Beach Let's Not Meet by Danny. All of the stories you've heard this week were

[00:47:32] narrated and produced with the permission of the respective authors. Let's Not Meet, a true horror podcast is not associated with Reddit or any other message boards online, and if you have a story to share, make sure you send it to letsnotmeetstories at gmail.com.

[00:47:46] If you want to sign up for the Patreon for that extended bonus section, head over to patreon.com forward slash let's not meet podcast or follow the link in the show notes. And don't forget on August 21st, Saturday at 7pm Pacific Standard Time, we're doing that live

[00:48:00] stream episode. I think we're going to have like nine or 10 guests on the show. Assuming everybody confirms, I'm still waiting on a yes or no from a few of the guests, but it's going to be our

[00:48:09] biggest show ever. Like I said, I'm really excited. And again, if you can't make that live stream episode, the audio will be available the following day as a regular episode. And I don't take any

[00:48:20] breaks between seasons. These season finales are just an excuse for me to do something special like this. So you don't have to worry about missing out on any let's not meet. Anyway, just

[00:48:30] one more announcement before I let you go. I will be doing some longer episodes of Let's Not Meet in season seven. I don't know if this is going to be every single week because I do have a lot

[00:48:41] coming up. My co-host is coming back to the States, I believe next week for Odd Trails. So we're going to be getting started on that real soon. Very excited. But you know, when I do have some extra

[00:48:52] time, I'm hoping to put out some longer episodes in season seven and just more material for you guys to consume. We have a lot of stories to get through. Don't forget to send in your stories if

[00:49:02] you do want to hear them on the show. Anyways, I'll see you guys next week for a brand new episode of Let's Not Meet a true horror podcast. Stay safe. I would like to apologize in advance. English

[00:49:41] isn't my first language. I live in Canada and this story happened in the big city next to my home.