7x22: The Outlaw - Let's Not Meet

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[00:00:13] at prettylitter.com, promo code MEET. This podcast contains adult language and content. If you have a story to share, send it to letsnotmeetstories at gmail.com. Enjoy the show. My name is Andrew Tate and this is Season 7, Episode 22 of Lets Not Meet, A True Horror Podcast.

[00:00:34] Welcome to the show. In this episode, we have a couple of bar hopping horror stories, creepy cowboy drifters, and midnight intruders. But I'm excited to announce the Season 7 finale of Lets Not Meet, A True Horror Podcast. It will be airing next Sunday night. It'll be packed with

[00:01:21] some returning guests as well as a new mystery narrator. But if you're a diehard fan of the show and you'd like to see that episode, you're in luck. We will be doing another live video stream

[00:01:32] of the episode this coming Saturday, January 29th at 7pm Pacific Standard Time over at twitch.tv forward slash andrew tate live. I'll leave a link in the show notes. I, along with some of the other

[00:01:47] guests will be there to chat with every one of you as we debut our special video performances of a particularly terrifying collection of listener stories. You won't want to miss it. The regular audio portion of the show will be available per usual on Sunday night. Also,

[00:02:03] don't worry, I never really take a proper break between seasons so we'll be back with a very special lost stories episode for the Season 8 premiere the following week on February 6th. But that's enough of that. On with the show.

[00:02:32] As someone that's always dealt with anxiety, I never paid a lot of mind to the advice to trust your gut instinct. The idea that if you feel that something is off in a situation,

[00:02:45] you should listen to that feeling because often my anxiety is wrong. However, after the situation I'm about to tell you, I'm going to start taking that feeling far more seriously. I'm a homebody.

[00:03:01] I'd much rather spend my Friday nights curled up on the couch with my cat, a puzzle, and a glass of wine listening to a podcast rather than going out to a bar or a club. My best friend has the opposite

[00:03:15] wants. For this story, we'll call her Lulu. She's the kind of person who books a spontaneous one-way flight to another country and has a fling with a celebrity while she's there. That's a true story. So when she came to visit me in my new city across the country,

[00:03:36] I let her choose the nightlife spots that we went to since I'm new to the area as well. That's how we ended up at one of the most popular nightclubs in the city. For reference, we're both 24.

[00:03:50] Lulu's bubbly personality saved us from standing outside in the cold after she quickly befriended one of the bouncers. Happy to skip the line and avoid paying $20 to get in, we went inside

[00:04:03] and shuffled through the crowd to get to the bar. We managed to order drinks after a bit of a wait and Lulu quickly started a conversation with the group of guys near us who looked to be around our

[00:04:17] age. I was uninterested in joining that exchange. I was preoccupied with my drink, trying to finish it and order another one to calm my nerves. After another drink, I started looking around

[00:04:33] and getting a feel for the people around us. I notice an odd couple at the end of the bar. The man looks to be in his late 40s. He was very well dressed. He wore a suit which was an odd

[00:04:48] choice for a sweaty club. He had his hair slicked back and he was holding a glass of champagne. The woman that he was with was much younger. She was dressed casually and all black. Black pants, black shirt and black baseball cap with no logo or anything.

[00:05:06] Just plain. She looked to be around my age. What caught my eye was that they didn't seem to be an expected pair. I couldn't figure out what their relationship might be.

[00:05:22] I watched as the man stayed put where he was and the woman, she kept going to talk to other people then returning back to him. I ended up joining the conversation with Lulu and the group of guys

[00:05:36] that she was talking to and forgetting about that couple. It seemed like Lulu was really hitting it off with one of those guys. As the mom friend, I'm kind of listening in the background making sure

[00:05:50] that he's a decent person and I'm still pretty sober. After maybe 10 minutes passed, I feel someone bump into me. I turn around to see the woman that was dressed in all black who I noticed

[00:06:04] earlier. Oh my gosh, you're so pretty, she said to me in these kind of slurred words. She was acting kind of drunk but she hadn't seemed like she was when I first spotted her only 10 minutes prior.

[00:06:21] I politely said thank you and said that I thought she was pretty as well. No, you, she replied. Where's your drink? My boyfriend wants to buy you a drink, come over with me.

[00:06:34] She yelled through the blaring music. Who am I to turn down a drink from a guy who looks like he owns a law firm or something? I made sure that Lulu was safe, told her that I'd be right back

[00:06:48] and followed the woman over to where the man was at the bar. Honestly, I don't remember the short exchange with the man. What I do remember is there were already three full glasses of champagne

[00:07:02] poured and him offering me one. Red flag. I took one to be polite, knowing that there was no way I was going to even drink it since I didn't see the bartender pour it. I think I had stalled by

[00:07:18] asking how they knew each other and the woman said something along the lines of, oh my gosh, everyone thinks he's my dad. She quietly made a comment to me about him having

[00:07:31] money. She made a toast and her and the man both took a sip from their glasses. I pretended to then set my full glass on the bar. I was trying to see if maybe they'd get mixed up and either of

[00:07:48] them would drink from my glass. They didn't. She picked up my glass after I set it down and tried to hand it to me again. I refused to take it. I said something like, let me check on my

[00:08:03] friend. I'll be back, trying to make an escape. At this point, every alarm bell in my head was going off. I knew that I wasn't just being paranoid, something was off. The woman ended

[00:08:18] up following me back to Lulu and the guys that she was talking with. I asked Lulu if she would come to the bathroom with me. She said that she was fine and she'd wait for me with the guys.

[00:08:31] I tried to signal with my eyes that something was wrong and said that I didn't feel well, which at this point wasn't exactly a lie. She agreed to come with me and guess who else tried

[00:08:43] to tag along? The woman in all black. She quote unquote bumped into Lulu the same way she had approached me earlier and repeated the same script. Oh my gosh, you're so pretty. I tried to hurry Lulu along, but her extroverted self was all about talking to the woman.

[00:09:10] I listened to the woman repeat the same exact things that she had said to me. No you. And then she said that her boyfriend wanted to buy Lulu a drink. In a very short tone, I said,

[00:09:27] we're not interested and hurried Lulu along to the bathroom. We went into the stall together. What's your problem? Lulu asked me. I explained what was going on and said that something was

[00:09:42] off about the couple. Lulu assured me that I was just being paranoid. I told her that I didn't think that I was. I made her pour out her drink. I told her that I'd buy her a new one.

[00:09:55] We left the bathroom. I immediately honed in on the woman in black who was now talking to another young girl that looked like she was in the background of a conversation. I watched and my

[00:10:09] jaw dropped as five police officers came out of nowhere, handcuffed her and her boyfriend and took them outside. I told you, I said to Lulu. She insisted that they'd probably just got caught

[00:10:25] with weed or something. I said that there was no way that it was something that minor. Whatever, we tried to enjoy the rest of the night, although I was completely on high alert.

[00:10:38] As we returned to the guys she was talking to, I scanned the bar to see if anyone else was acting suspicious. I saw a different woman also dressed in the same black outfit, approaching girls who weren't really engaging the rest of their group and seemingly trying to pull

[00:10:57] the same thing with them. I pointed it out to Lulu, who replied that I was just being paranoid again. Sure enough, in a few minutes, the police officers handcuffed that woman and removed her as well.

[00:11:17] After that, I told Lulu we absolutely needed to leave, even if I was just being paranoid. On the ride home, I searched for that club online and read some things that people were saying

[00:11:32] about it. It turns out that the club was a hotspot for sex trafficking, as many people who don't know the city go to that club after hearing that it's popular. I can imagine many younger women that they were preying on may have taken that drink without hesitation,

[00:11:50] being flattered that this attractive well-dressed man was interested. I might have if I hadn't spotted them beforehand. I really do think my anxiety and my gut feeling was what saved us that night. Listen to your gut. Even if it's been wrong before, it's better to be safe.

[00:12:18] The story I'm about to tell you happened to me around 20 years ago, when I had just moved from Sweden to the UK, London, to be exact. Prior to this event I'm

[00:12:34] going to tell you about, I had, back in Sweden, been stalked by a peeping Tom for about 5 years as I lived in a ground floor flat. He used to look at me while I was sleeping, via the gap

[00:12:48] at the bottom of my blinds, so I'm naturally a bit aware of my sleeping arrangements ever since then. Fast forward. My new home was a Victorian house with large rooms and high ceilings, in a typical suburb of London. I was sharing the house with my partner, my brother-in-law,

[00:13:09] and his girlfriend at the time. The house was very big, so my partner and I had our own living room and within the living room access to our bedroom that faced the back of the house.

[00:13:22] This particular evening, I went to bed before my partner. Our bedroom had a wood-paneled sliding door with no handle. The door was also slightly tilted, so you had to put both hands firmly on

[00:13:37] the door, lift it up an inch, then slide it to be able to get it in and out. A quirky addition of living in an old house, I suppose. I slid the door shut behind me, turned off the light,

[00:13:52] and went to bed. Our bed was positioned along the wall on the same side as the only window in the room. The headboard against the wall and the window on the left-hand side, my side of the bed.

[00:14:07] The window was a modern make, but in an old vintage style. Two-thirds of the lower part of the window were solid, so you couldn't open it. But you could open the remaining third part

[00:14:23] of the window, which was hinged at the top and flipped up and inwards when it opened. As we lived on the second floor, I was perfectly happy and feeling safe having the window open

[00:14:36] at night to let some fresh air in. I was drifting off to sleep when I suddenly heard someone breathing, heavily, somewhere in the bedroom. First I thought it was my own breathing, as you can

[00:14:51] be a bit confused when you're half asleep. But then I realized it wasn't me. I thought it must be my partner then, but I couldn't recall him coming through that tricky, noisy, sliding door.

[00:15:06] I suddenly got very scared. Who the hell was in my bedroom in the middle of the night if it wasn't my partner? Suddenly, fully awake, I sat up straight trying to figure out what was going on.

[00:15:22] I then heard a scratching sound and that heavy breathing again. Now, even closer, I then realized that the noise was coming from the window. With a fast beating heart, eyes wide open, I slowly turned my head to the left and I carefully lifted the blinds so that

[00:15:48] I could see what was at my window. I wasn't sure what to expect. As I mentioned earlier, our bedroom was located on the second floor. But in the darkness of the night,

[00:16:01] I could see the silhouette of a very tall person dressed in all black. He had a ski mask over his head and was standing on the windowsill on the outside. He more or less covered the entire window

[00:16:19] frame and his hands were partly on the inside as he held onto the solid part of the window, ready to claw through the open part at the top. My first thought was to slam the window down as

[00:16:32] hard as I could on his fingers. But after a quick rethink, I decided not to, as that would probably result in him falling to the ground. Worst case scenario, I would then be charged with manslaughter.

[00:16:46] Instead, I ran for the sliding door screaming at my partner that someone was breaking into our bedroom. A few seconds later, it felt like minutes, I managed to open the rickety sliding door.

[00:16:59] When I had calmed down, my partner went back into the room and had a look outside the window. Nothing. The intruder with a ski mask was long gone. My partner suggested that I had probably

[00:17:15] imagined it all. I got really upset and said, let's investigate tomorrow morning when it's bright outside. And eventually after a glass of wine, I managed to fall asleep. The very next

[00:17:29] morning, we both went to the bathroom window where you could get a good view of our bedroom window from above. When I saw a chair by the brick wall dividing our property from our neighbors,

[00:17:43] and a footprint on the dirty water pipes crisscrossing the wall all the way up to the top floor. The hair on the back of my neck stood straight up. I hadn't imagined it. So please intruder, by my bedroom window, let's not meet ever again.

[00:18:05] Because this time if you do come back, I will slam that window down. Hard. My birthday is right in between Christmas and New Year's. So going out is always weird because people aren't usually out clubbing right after Christmas or are saving their energy for New Year's Eve.

[00:18:38] But regardless, me and my friends always make it as fun as we can. In 2016, to celebrate my 23rd birthday, we decided to go downtown because our favorite Divey Gay bar was having their amateur drag night. And it happened to land on my birthday.

[00:18:57] Since it was really the only club in our relatively big city with drag performances, these nights were still pretty poppin', even though it landed on a Wednesday. But for some reason, the bar decided that since it was just a Wednesday, they didn't need to schedule their bouncers for

[00:19:16] that night. That stupid choice by management is very important to the story. Also, to set the scene, the bar was set up in two sections. The first is a typical bar setting with seating and pool tables.

[00:19:32] Then you pass through double doors and do a club part of the bar. On the club side, dance floor was a long rectangle with a small stage at the end that was only elevated two to

[00:19:46] three stairs. Keep in mind though, this was still a small dive bar that was basically a home to the LGBT community in my town. Anyways, on with the story. I had a group of probably five or six

[00:20:03] girls and two guys with me. We danced, drank a little, typical early 20s clubbing night. It was about half an hour until last call so the bar had cleared out just a bit. My friends and I

[00:20:17] were all sitting together taking a water break when I heard one of our favorite songs come on in the club section of the bar. So of course I dragged all of my friends out onto the dance floor

[00:20:27] for one last hurrah. We had the floor pretty much to ourselves at this point. We were all dancing in a circle in the middle of the dance floor when I noticed a guy creeping from behind one of my

[00:20:39] friends in that predatory way that guys do when they're trying to dance with you. But he didn't have the guts or the decency to simply ask to dance. I pulled my friend in front of me and shot the guy

[00:20:53] a get the fuck back look. We continued dancing. Then my other friend pulled me close and said these guys keep looking at us we should move. I turned and saw a group of four huge men.

[00:21:09] So me and my friends moved down the dance floor and onto a small stage three steps up from the rest of the floor. We continued to dance but pretty much as soon as we moved these men followed.

[00:21:25] I was facing towards my friends and my back was facing the small set of stairs and the rest of the dance floor. It couldn't have been two minutes later I felt the nauseating feeling of a male

[00:21:38] crotch against me. This was followed by unfamiliar hands grabbing my hips. Now I'm a small five foot four female but I don't take shit and I will stand my ground whenever necessary. So I swung around.

[00:21:53] I pushed him gently back and told him firmly no. He immediately got aggressive. He grabbed me by the shoulders and pulled me closer. So I shoved him harder away from me and yelled I said no.

[00:22:09] Without missing a beat he slapped me across the face. I was absolutely shocked but again I'm not a person to back down easy so with everything in me I swung and I hit him right back.

[00:22:24] The scariest part was the entire time that this happened his face didn't change he didn't say anything even after I hit him. His expression was completely blank. His eyes were totally empty. He must have been on drugs or a complete sociopath maybe both.

[00:22:42] His completely vacant expression on top of his obviously insane actions scared the shit out of me. But I was so fully in fight mode at this point. Thankfully the DJ booth was right in front of where

[00:22:56] we were dancing and the DJ saw everything and immediately stopped the music. I ran over to the bartender who was one of my friends on the club side. This motherfucker just hit me I screamed.

[00:23:09] With no bouncers to get these guys out my bartender friend immediately jumped into action to get these guys. The only thing was my friend wasn't too much bigger than me and like I said there were

[00:23:21] four of these guys all huge tall built guys. The guy who hit me ended up punching my friend in the face. This guy's friends were obviously more coherent than him and were very nonchalantly

[00:23:37] trying to usher their way out but in no rush. The whole bar erupted realizing what happened. Several guys jumped into action to get this group out. I remember at one point one of the drag queens

[00:23:53] grabbing me putting me between two tables and standing in front of the opening with her being the human barricade between me and the growing mob of people shoving these guys out of the bar.

[00:24:05] All in all the guy's friends ditched him and the guy ended up punching one more guy in the face and he was finally removed from the bar. I was shocked my face was a little sore but overall fine.

[00:24:19] I really just couldn't believe what happened. We found out that they had gotten kicked out of the bar across the street so they wandered into our bar. The other bartender had called the cops

[00:24:31] but they never showed and the guys were long gone anyways. How quickly it escalated from him trying to dance with me to hitting me. It had only been 15 seconds and I couldn't help but replay his face

[00:24:45] over and over again in my head. An absolute blank expression. If he hit a complete stranger for refusing to dance literally without blinking an eye what else was this guy going to do to a woman?

[00:25:00] What else had this guy done to a woman? If he hit a complete stranger for refusing to dance without blinking an eye what else has this guy done to a woman? I'm just thankful that was the extent of my interaction with this piece of shit.

[00:25:18] I'm eternally grateful to my friends in the community of that bar. They jumped into action without question to protect me and each other. Nobody there was bigger than these four guys but

[00:25:28] it didn't matter. We protect each other in our community so to my friends and the drag community back at home you know who you are thank you. I don't know how that birthday would have gone

[00:25:41] without you and to the probably drugged up pathetic excuse for a man that hit me because I refused to dance let's never meet again. Several years ago I lived in the haunting little town of Eureka Springs, Arkansas. Burrowed in the beautiful heart of the Ozark mountains

[00:26:16] Eureka is a secluded sleepy Victorian town with few year-long residents and no traffic lights. It's an hour's secluded drive through steep switchbacks to the nearest big city and major hospital. Built upward on the side of a mountain with winding streets several historic natural

[00:26:39] springs and cliffside caves it's a town full of ghost stories. My boyfriend at the time and I lived up on a hill right off of the main street in a converted lemon yellow house.

[00:26:54] Our road curved with deep paved runoffs next to the sidewalks as flash floods were pretty common. Living literally on the edge of the Turpentine Creek Wildlife Reserve our home was surrounded with thick woods, berry patches and many packs of wandering deer and wildlife. We had recently moved

[00:27:16] halfway across the United States to help out his family restaurant downtown a seven minute walk from our house. Every evening after work when most of the town was asleep I took my dog out on a walk up a mostly deserted road right before the bend down to main.

[00:27:38] This road led across the side of the mountain to a dead end at a heavily wooded area and a deep cave on the left. There were several wooden steps descending down to the main road on the right.

[00:27:53] There were only two houses on this thin road which were both abandoned enveloped by huge magnolia trees in front of looming rock cliffs. One of the houses was almost completely swallowed in overgrown vines, cracked dusty windows and

[00:28:11] splintered steps. The other was a shabby debilitated white house over 100 years old with three levels and a door on the third floor to nowhere. I had heard from a neighbor that it was being renovated and on my evening walks I always noticed random lights would get left on.

[00:28:33] It was very eerie and many times I would walk by with my dog always feeling like I was being watched as there would be the sound of crooning old jazz records softly spilling into the gloomy

[00:28:45] night. Strangely enough I never saw any actual people or cars there ever. I have many strange stories that I'll share of this town but for now they call him the outlaw. The very moment I saw him

[00:29:04] I had the overwhelming feeling to run away as far as possible. His energy was mysterious at best and at worst threatening in a way that made me question my own reality. I had gotten off of work

[00:29:18] early that evening and went next door to the local watering hole. I had a very rough day at work and just wanted a drink of cold beer and to do a crossword puzzle to decompress in peace.

[00:29:32] It was open mic night so to my dismay the place was packed. I ordered my beer and decided to go outside on the upstairs patio. I sat with an acquaintance that I knew would respect my space.

[00:29:48] Out of nowhere he appeared on the patio doorway with an aged battered guitar in his arms. I felt his considerable presence before I even saw him and immediately looked up from my puzzle.

[00:30:02] He walked directly over to my table and hovered above me at least six foot seven with a dirty cowboy hat, dark leather brown jacket and a macabre grin spread across his face.

[00:30:16] He stared then started playing a few chords. I felt extremely odd as he stood there playing his guitar and staring directly through me. His eyes never left mine as I started darting mine around

[00:30:33] awkwardly. I mean who was this freak? I don't even think he blinked. After a few moments I found my words and told him that I would like to be left alone. It had been a hard day and I was in

[00:30:49] a terrible mood no offense. For a fading moment he looked insulted but his ominous grin widened again. He just kind of tipped his hat and moved along without saying a word.

[00:31:05] After he walked away I turned to my friend at the next table and asked what was up with that creepy cowboy. They leaned in close and along with my other acquaintance at the table

[00:31:18] filled me in with stories about the man people called the outlaw. He was from Texas running from the law like a classic western novel. He never stayed in one place long because so many states

[00:31:32] had warrants out for his arrest. He supposedly sold drugs and illegal guns and God only knows what else. Nobody knew him as he mostly kept to himself. He would appear in town for a few weeks

[00:31:46] here and there throughout the years then disappear again into the dust. There were whispers and rumors that he had killed people and raped women. He's bad news and stay away is what they told me.

[00:32:02] In the following couple of weeks I saw him a few more times on my afternoon walks to work in random places downtown. Somehow he was always across the street from me on a corner leaning against a wall

[00:32:16] with his tired old guitar in his hand and every single time he would meet my gaze, give a slight tilt of his hat and a haunted sneer would spread broadly across his face as if he was always waiting

[00:32:33] for me to pass by. It was late into the evening a few weeks later and the night was silent. My boyfriend was already dozing off soundly and so alone I took my dog down the stairs from our second

[00:32:50] floor porch and we started down the hill and then up the abandoned house street as usual. I always looked forward to these quiet evening walks, a peaceful moment alone to swim in my

[00:33:04] own thoughts apart from the hectic days. I was struggling in a new town without really knowing anyone, mired in the tumultuous relationship trying to adjust so I welcomed those dark nights. It was a cold balmy winter and the skeleton trees afforded less privacy than usual.

[00:33:24] My eyes slowly adjusted to the pitch black with only two dim street lamps to light our way. We meandered our normal route past the quietly abandoned houses down to the dead end cave

[00:33:37] and back around again. We lingered for a moment at the top of the hill by the old decaying house with the single light before descent. The only thing I could hear in the night was the muffled

[00:33:52] singing of Billie Holiday coming from within faintly. I pulled a long drag from my cigarette as my dog sniffed the hard ground and the music slowed then stopped. We were about to walk down

[00:34:09] the hill through the trees when I saw a man moving gradually up from main street. At first I thought it was probably my upstairs neighbor who occasionally came home around this time of night

[00:34:24] but as I watched from above through the thinned trees I quickly realized that this person was not moving in a way that my neighbor walks. I immediately halt and a sudden fear envelops

[00:34:38] my body. Every cell starts to tingle. It was about midnight at this point, everything was closed and the town was in slumber. The massive dark figure was walking very slowly, his steps reverberating

[00:34:55] against the cliffs. It quickly became clear that it was that man, the outlaw, as I could see that he was wearing that cowboy hat that hid his face. He had a guitar case on his back. I was frozen in

[00:35:14] place, my heart was pounding in my stomach as my mind raced to figure out what to do, where to hide. Out of nowhere he suddenly breaks the silence with the most terrifying sound I've ever heard.

[00:35:29] He whistled, I was shaken. He then speaks with a throaty southern draw and a small snicker. I see you up there, girl. My hands started shaking and I knew immediately that something bad would

[00:35:52] happen if I got near this man. My intuition was screaming at me to run. Out of the momentary quiet my dog lets out a deep growl then barks at him which completely took me off guard in the five

[00:36:11] years that I've had this dog. She never once barked at a person, ever. That solidified to me that the situation was grave and I went into survival mode immediately. I realized that I could probably rush down the street to my house before he could feasibly get

[00:36:32] to me unless he started running. I decided to play it cool and walk past as fast as humanly possible, dragging my dog with as she was trying to lunge in the direction of the man.

[00:36:48] I mean I have a pit bull after all that has to be kind of scary, right? As I hastily walked to the intersection of roads he was about 20 feet away and continued to walk slowly, pace by pace with

[00:37:02] his bulky boots. Oh hi, my dog is not friendly, I blurted out stiffly as I walked briskly towards my house. He doesn't say a word and only offers his expanding sinister grin in response, barely eliminated by the streetlight. He continues walking in my direction with deliberate heavy

[00:37:28] steps. I barely make it to the four stairs leading up to our small graveled parking lot on the right side of the house and rush as quietly as possible behind the building where I stop so that I can catch my breath and listen. Leaning against the house,

[00:37:45] my lungs burned brightly as my dog reserved herself by my side. There in silence, all of a sudden, the stillness breaks as I hear his steps again, creeping closer as he purposefully walks up the steps that I had just ascended and I hear him stop.

[00:38:09] My eyes widen as he whistles terrifyingly again, a beat of silence and then again. That whistle, it's soft but frightening as it echoes off the tall rock wall behind my house and then he speaks in a very measured, gruff voice.

[00:38:37] Hey, where did you go? I just want to talk. A hushed moment passes, then he scoffs. I can feel his threatening energy electrified as he steps onto the gravel now. Stuck in a dream-like

[00:38:55] daze, my body felt like freshly poured concrete as I desperately tried to act. Finally, my feet started moving and I almost trip over my dog. I rush around the corner, pulling her to the left

[00:39:09] side of the house near my car, unsure of what to do. In a split second, I hear him stop. I decide not to go up the stairs to our porch because if he sees us, he'll know exactly where

[00:39:24] I live. So I make a break for it, down the driveway, as I hear the stomp of his boots following the path to where I was just standing behind the house. We move across the street as

[00:39:38] fast and gently as possible and crouch in the wooded area near the paved runoff. I thanked my lucky stars that I had taken off my dog's jingly collar before we left for the night.

[00:39:49] She had had some kind of skin irritation. We were so still. My dog was so good and so quiet. We waited huddled together, watching from the wooded brush our hearts thumping in the blackened cover. Tiny beads of sweat lined my forehead as I tried to control my breath.

[00:40:13] I flinch slightly as we hear the whistle again, that high-low whistle. My dog's ears prick up, and I'm covering her mouth so that she can't bark again. I shush her faintly into her ear

[00:40:28] as she's stiff and ready but stays calm. All of a sudden, I can see his tall silhouette appear where I had just been. He's now looking for us, gazing up the stairs and under the two cars in

[00:40:45] the driveway. His face is sheltered by the darkness. Somehow he had not seen where we had gone, or had he? He scans the area and looks right in our direction. Can he see us? I know we're enveloped in thickets, unmoving, but he continued to look.

[00:41:13] Standing in the driveway, his shadow stretched all the way across the street. He turns his back to us for a second and looks up at the house. I'm screaming inside for a light to turn on, for someone to wake up.

[00:41:29] I crouch gradually down a bit more. My foot is now numb and a twig breaks. The sound felt like a firecracker in the muted night. I absolutely can't breathe as he turns back towards us, and I swear for one second,

[00:41:49] our eyes meet. I'm not sure if I imagined it, but I felt his grin intensify again, half-lit by the streetlamp. He was beckoning us to come out, from wherever we were. Time completely stopped in that moment. I was beyond petrified. He whistles again.

[00:42:11] The minutes feel like hours. I can't move, he's coming. It's all over, I'm convinced that we'll be murdered right there in the middle of the street while the whole town sleeps. He's still staring in our direction, but not moving a single inch as time continues to tick on.

[00:42:34] Then, just when I'm sure that it's all over and I'm going to have an absolute meltdown, he finally moves. Unexpectedly, he didn't come barreling toward us, as if it were a real-life version of the Texas Chainsaw Massacre, as I was certain that he would.

[00:42:54] Instead, he turns deliberately and hulks back down the steps without a word, and disappears from view back down the hill slowly as his boots echoed into the black night. I honestly don't even remember leaving the woods, but startlingly, I become aware that I'm standing

[00:43:13] in the twilight of my own living room. I can hear my boyfriend now snoring softly in the bedroom, my dog gulping water from her bowl in the kitchen, and my body finally roars to life again.

[00:43:28] My hands were shaking uncontrollably as I dropped, crumbling to the ground. Tears of immense relief and shock fall down my face and rivers. Holy shit, I'm safe, I'm alive. I'm safe.

[00:43:45] I believe that if we're in tune with energies around us, we can feel that there is a monster lurking. I'm certain that he had been watching me on my walks to work, figuring out my schedule and

[00:43:59] where I lived. He must have been coming to find me late that night, as evidenced by his leaving and walking back down to Main Street after stalking me. I'm not sure if he saw us cowering in the

[00:44:13] bushes and pretended that he didn't, if he planned to hunt me like deer just to get some sort of sick pleasure out of it. Fortunately, I never saw him again after that horrifying encounter.

[00:44:26] If you're wondering why I didn't call the police, there are few and far between in tiny rural towns like that, and they take a long time to arrive, so that wasn't an option that late in the night.

[00:44:37] I immediately ordered a police-grade taser and pepper spray and carried them everywhere. Eventually, I heard that he ran to Missouri because the police were onto his whereabouts. I'm not sure what happened to him, but I moved from that area not long after. To this day,

[00:44:59] I wonder what would have happened if he had reached us to supposedly talk that night. Would it have been an actual, simple conversation or something more sinister? Fortunately, I didn't find out. So to the terrifying cowboy called the Outlaw, I sincerely hope we never meet again.

[00:45:38] Thank you for listening. Don't forget on January 29th, 7pm Pacific Standard Time, we'll be debuting the video finale of Let's Not Meet, Season 7 over at twitch.tv forward slash andrew tate live. That link again will be in the show notes.

[00:45:54] This week you have heard The Woman Dressed All In Black by Megan. Midnight Intruder by Madeline Salim. My Clubbing Horror Story by Kitty Snack. And finally, The Outlaw by Devorah. All of the stories you've heard this week were narrated and produced with the permission of their respective authors.

[00:46:15] Let's Not Meet, a true horror podcast, is not associated with Reddit or any other message boards online. And as always, if you have a story to share, send it to letsnotmeetstories at gmail.com. And if you're looking for the true paranormal after this episode,

[00:46:29] head over to oddtrails.com or look for Odd Trails wherever you get your podcasts for a brand new episode of my paranormal podcast. And if you want to get access to the extended ad-free version of this week's episode and many others, head over to patreon.com forward slash

[00:46:45] let's not meet podcast to join today. See you all next weekend for the Season 7 finale of Let's Not Meet, a true horror podcast. Stay safe. For a bit of context, I was about 10 when this story happened.