8x22: John - Let's Not Meet

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[00:00:41] If you have a story to share, send it to letsnotmeettv.com. Enjoy the show. //Intro I had worked with Hannah for about two months before we started interacting a whole lot. She always seemed sweet, she was very friendly and came across as soft-spoken and kind.

[00:01:42] We were then put on a project together, so we were working in close contact on a daily basis. We had a lot of fun together and became close very quickly. We had lunch together, got our nails done on the weekends, went to movies,

[00:01:57] and she drove me home often. This went on for a couple of months or so. I'd like to think of myself as a pretty intuitive person, so I can read people's vibes pretty

[00:02:08] easily. As I got to know her a little better, her soft and sweet persona started cracking now and then. There were a couple of times where she would snap at me or completely change her demeanor for

[00:02:22] a split second and then revert back to being herself and perhaps even overcompensate a little afterwards. This gave me a weird feeling, but I thought to myself everyone has bad days, right?

[00:02:37] So skip forward about six months since we've met. She had put in her notice at the place we both worked at. Her last day comes and goes, and she has now moved on to a new job.

[00:02:51] A couple of days after that, I got a notification from Google Maps that I had a missing location from my day. I knew I had disabled my location tracking services with Google a long time ago

[00:03:06] because I thought they were creepy. So I clicked the notification and up comes a whole log of locations. I started looking through them and quickly realized that these are not places I had been except for my workplace. I started going through these locations day by day and realized

[00:03:29] that these match Hannah's whereabouts. She had recently taken a trip home which is a remote island location. So I go back to these dates to see if that location matches and sure enough, there they are. I texted her asking if she was logged into my Google account.

[00:03:49] I could think of no other instance where I had logged into a Google account on any of her devices. I would have had to enter my password. I explained why I was asking and she said that

[00:04:05] she was logged into her own Google account. She then joked that I was keeping tabs on her. This was when I started panicking a bit. How was this possible? I had deactivated these services on

[00:04:19] my account and none of these locations were mine. I sent her a screenshot showing her what I was seeing and told her I was freaked out. She then said, oh my god now I'm in your account and that she would sign out and forget my details.

[00:04:36] I then asked how this could be possible as there was no instance where I would have ever logged into my account on her phone. She confirmed that this hadn't happened and kept saying she didn't

[00:04:48] know what was going on. She then asked if I had any contacts in my phone that didn't belong to me. I checked and I told her no. She then said she has contacts in her phone that do not belong to her.

[00:05:01] I asked her to send me a screenshot and she did. A bunch of my own contacts were in her phone complete with names, contact pictures, and emojis. I remember feeling my stomach sink.

[00:05:19] She continues acting as if she had no idea what was going on. At this point I had realized that the locations dated back about 3 months. I asked her to call me. By this point I'm like,

[00:05:34] okay she has my google maps and contacts. If she has those, she has to have everything else connected to my google account, including my pictures, passwords, emails, everything. We briefly talk and she says that she'll call the phone company and ask what's going on.

[00:05:52] I ask her if she has anything else of mine on her phone, any pictures or emails. She says no. I remember feeling sick to my stomach. I felt so violated. My trust had been betrayed.

[00:06:04] Then I start thinking about the fact that Hannah would have had to consent to downloading all this information to her phone at some point. How could she not know about this? I call my tech savvy

[00:06:17] friend and she tells me to immediately go to my google account and remove all devices, change all my passwords, and enable two-factor verification. At this point I'm trying to hold back tears. I had trusted Hannah. We had spent so much time together and now I'm realizing that

[00:06:36] there's no way this was some kind of accident. She couldn't just magically have access to all of this, everything, and have it downloaded. That's not a coincidence. I texted her that night asking if

[00:06:51] she had talked to the phone company. Not sure why this would help but it's what she wanted to do. She said no. The next day she told me she no longer had access to my information,

[00:07:05] she just has her own emails and contacts, and that all that extra stuff, as she said, is off her phone. Hmm, I thought she didn't have access to my emails. By now I'm feeling violated and very angry. She's lying and quite clearly too. I asked her if she

[00:07:26] had reset her phone and to confirm exactly what she had access to. I said I was really trying to figure out how this could have ever happened because this was a big deal to me. She then

[00:07:39] confirmed that yes, she could see my email on her phone but can't anymore, most likely because I removed her device. She said she had my contacts and had noticed this a week before

[00:07:54] but didn't know who they belonged to. Yeah right, as if some of them didn't have the same last name as me. Her tone of writing then changed and became very cold and formal. She said,

[00:08:11] I would never purposefully navigate to your email or contact your contacts. I saw there were contacts and I think you removed me from whatever you removed me from and it suspended that access

[00:08:25] that I had. I no longer have any other information than my own. I'm sorry that this happened and I am at a loss of words. I didn't do anything to get access to information that wasn't mine.

[00:08:38] Currently, I have nobody's information other than my own. She then asked if I had access to any of her information. She had not spoken to me like this and some of the phrasing just gave me a

[00:08:51] weird feeling. Phrases like purposely negative, didn't do anything to access information that wasn't my own. They just seemed like weird ways to say things. I told her aside from the locations,

[00:09:07] no. Again, I told her I was freaking out and I didn't like this at all and asked if she could remember anything that happened on the day that the locations dated back to. She said no. It was

[00:09:20] while we were working on the work project together. But I wouldn't have had any reason to log into her phone. She agreed and changed the subject. By this point, I was feeling every emotion in the book.

[00:09:33] I really wanted to confront her. How could this happen? How does she have access to all this information if she supposedly does not have my password? How did she supposedly not know that

[00:09:47] she had all this information if it was downloaded to her phone? If she had my email and contacts, she had to have all of my pictures too, right? If I had deactivated location tracking on my account,

[00:10:00] wouldn't she have to reactivate it when she logged in? Why would she reactivate it? Did she want to know where I was? Then I realized she knows exactly where I live. She even knows what window is my bedroom's window. And yes, it's the ground level. My stomach sinks

[00:10:19] even further. I eventually decide that confronting her is not the best option. How do I know that she has even deleted all my information? Even if she did, it could be stored somewhere. Making her mad

[00:10:31] would probably not be a good choice. I knew that I couldn't continue being friends with her. I decided to just stop replying to her messages. We didn't work together anymore so I wouldn't have to see

[00:10:42] her daily. She texted me a couple of times after that. Once the text read, can I tell you a secret? That was so ominous. What could the secret possibly be? I still wonder about

[00:10:56] that one. I obviously never responded. I let my boss know that Hannah had access to all of the work technology so I thought maybe running a security check would be a good idea. She got

[00:11:09] our IT to make sure that everything was okay. Some of my co-workers talk to Hannah now and then and she asks about me. I, however, have no desire to speak to her. Just the other day, I saw her car

[00:11:23] turn the corner out in front of my house. My only theory on how this happened is that she got my password from the work computer as she used it to print things out now and then and I am logged into

[00:11:35] my google account on there. She acted as if she wasn't tech savvy in the time span that I knew her. However, let's be honest, I only really knew her for 6 months. She could have shown me only what

[00:11:48] she wanted to show me. My friends think that she may have been into me because why would she want all that information otherwise? I'm not sure. I also think I'll never know. I'm ultra paranoid now and have even more trouble trusting people than I did before.

[00:12:07] So to the crazy, stalker ex-co-worker, let's not meet again. My father traveled often for work when I was a child which left my mother and me on our own. This was during the mid-1970s to early 1990s, so no cell phones and also no home alarm systems.

[00:12:39] Only rich people had that kind of fancy technology. We definitely weren't rich. To make sure that we could handle any emergency without him, my father ran my mother and I through just about every type of drill that you could think of, whenever he was home, that is.

[00:12:58] We did so many that it was like second nature. A fire? No problem. We had a three-tiered plan depending on where we were in the house in relation to the fire. An intruder? Well,

[00:13:11] come on in because I had the mother of all hiding spots and my mom understood the basics of safely handling and firing long guns and handguns. With these drills came a strict no freak out rule, meaning that being safe and being calm was an absolute requirement. It was

[00:13:32] ingrained into my head. To break that concentration would mean to make yourself less safe, so always keep a cool head. This will come into effect later, but as you can see my parents did a good

[00:13:45] job equipping me with the expectation that I must take action to be safe and never shut down in fear. When the real thing happened, I did remember my training but I was also acutely reminded

[00:14:00] that I was just a young child. I grew up in Northern California and unfortunately the town that I initially grew up in was becoming rough. There were sudden upticks of petty crime

[00:14:13] which later led to violent crimes in the local area. The year I turned six years old was a major year for me as my first two scary experiences occurred within just a few months of each other

[00:14:26] and the family emergency procedures that we had trained for were thoroughly tested. Experience number one. I was six and I loved riding my bike. I also had an insatiable sense of adventure and craved independence pretty much from the day I was born. It was the weekend and

[00:14:47] my dad was actually home that day. My parents were working in the front yard adding some curb appeal to our place and I begged my dad to let me ride around the block for once on my own,

[00:14:59] totally solo. I knew I was capable of it and eventually my dad was convinced that I was. He was very reluctant of course so he gave me these rules to follow. Don't go into the street,

[00:15:12] don't stop for anyone and don't ride on anyone's lawn. He also told me that he would keep track of the time and if I was late coming around he would start looking for me. I confidently agreed

[00:15:24] and began my exciting journey around the block. If you can picture four sides of a typical block in suburbia our house was on the first side which happened to be a long side. I rode along the block

[00:15:39] maybe a dozen times or so really enjoying the beautiful weather and my newfound independence. The best part of the ride was that at the end of the first side there was an exciting little hill

[00:15:52] that was a lot of fun to pedal down and once I figured out how to make the sharp right turn after that hill I was on top of the world. I kept an eye out for neighbors but I didn't see any which

[00:16:03] was a bummer because I really wanted to wave at them and show them that I was now a big girl riding a bike and exploring on my own. During one of my ride-arounds I saw this white beat-up panel

[00:16:16] van it was parked on the fourth side of the block. It was parked on the same side of the street that I was riding down. The moment I saw this van I perked up as I heard about vans like this being

[00:16:29] traps for little kids and I was about as little and skinny as you could get at that age. Unfortunately my six-year-old brain wasn't assertive enough to break the rules or think outside the box yet.

[00:16:43] I slowed down and tried to work out a plan as to how to get past this van and my plan was to cross the street then travel down the opposite sidewalk. It was a solid plan. Then I decided that I couldn't

[00:16:56] do that because I wasn't allowed to go into the street and since I definitely couldn't ride onto the lawn that meant I inevitably had to pass directly next to the van. So I sped up, I really

[00:17:08] hauled butt and hugged the right side of the sidewalk. Everything worked out just fine and I breathed a sigh of relief once I got past because immediately after the van was the right turn onto

[00:17:21] the first side of the block, the side that I lived on. I was now heading in the direction of my house and I was on my way for another round of the block. At this point I hope everyone listening

[00:17:34] to this is thinking, for crying out loud kid stop and tell your dad about this van. Well I didn't. On the next ride around the block I slowed down again when I saw this van and decided again

[00:17:48] that I didn't want to get in trouble for breaking the safety rules. So once more I sped up and hugged the right side of the sidewalk. Only this time as I approached the van I saw a man's elbow sticking

[00:18:04] out of the window of the passenger's side. That window had been rolled up the previous time I passed. I could tell that the passenger was a man and he was wearing a long sleeved shirt with the sleeve

[00:18:17] rolled into a cuff just above the elbow. I became extremely uneasy and I know now that the difficulty I had catching my breath was because my adrenaline was quickly climbing. In the side mirror I could

[00:18:34] see the man's eyes through his lightly tinted sunglasses. He was looking directly at me. Noticing the man's choice of shirt and eyewear is irrelevant to the main experience but I included it as a learned lesson because I logically knew to scan and gather details from my dad's safety

[00:18:54] training. But I didn't yet understand the dangers that were quickly piling up. As I rode up to and past the van I watched him watch me in the mirror. I was so scared but then I made it by without any

[00:19:13] problem so I figured, hey I handled that like a champ. It seemed ridiculous to think about it but I was having a serious dilemma that only a little kid could have. I didn't want to be near

[00:19:28] that van again but I also didn't want to stop riding my bike. I know what you're thinking and no I still had not alerted my dad to the van and I really should have because my story would have

[00:19:40] ended right then and there. I ultimately decided that I should keep riding because I had passed the van twice and nothing bad had happened. Terrible, terrible decision. In the blink of an eye

[00:19:54] things got real. My last time around the block started normally. The weather was pretty and I was loving the ride except this time when I came around the corner from the third side of the block

[00:20:08] and on to the fourth. I actually felt fear as I approached the van and it was an exquisite and novel sensation that entirely lit up my body. That was my first experience being afraid of another

[00:20:22] human being and I was having an incredibly powerful total body response. So now I'm right off the van's right quarter panel and once again I can see the man looking at me through the side

[00:20:36] mirror. I decide to ride on a neighbor's lawn and I figured I would just beg my dad for forgiveness later. As I began moving towards the lawn I was side by side with the window. When I turned my

[00:20:51] head to the left I saw the man in the passenger seat also turn his head to match my gaze. It's hard to explain but that tiny harmonious movement between the two of us instantly readied my mind

[00:21:02] and body for my first ever fight or flight response. The man reached out with his right hand and grabbed me under my left arm and shoulder, so basically in my armpit, and yanked me right off

[00:21:15] the seat of my bicycle. I was completely frozen for a moment, holding on to my handlebars for dear life and my bicycle was being dragged right underneath me. The driver said a few words to the

[00:21:28] passenger I'll probably never remember or know what he said as I was only vaguely aware that the driver existed. My entire world, the complete and total focus of my attention, was on what was

[00:21:43] directly in front of me, which was the man's face who was pulling me through the window of the van. Somebody somewhere in the universe was looking out for me that day because he never did get me

[00:21:56] entirely through the window. I think that if he had I certainly would not be here safe in my home able to write about it. There were a few things extremely lucky and maybe even peculiar things that worked

[00:22:09] in my favor at that very moment. One was that the grab was awkward and that the man who grabbed me only had one hand on me. He wasn't just pulling my weight up towards him, he had to also pull the

[00:22:23] weight of my bike as well. I'd love to say that I planned that out to make it difficult for him but the truth is in my fear I made two fists that kept my hands firmly on the handlebars. He gave me a

[00:22:39] very forceful yank and my hands eventually popped off of the handlebars but not without causing him some frustration. Another thing that worked in my favor was that I was being pulled into the window

[00:22:52] slightly sideways and as my head began going through the window I sort of straightened out just a bit and somehow managed to post my right hand on the frame of the door down by the side of the

[00:23:05] mirror. He made an attempt to quickly switch his hands releasing me from his right hand grip and gripping me under the other arm with his left hand. As he was switching hands I slipped down just a

[00:23:18] little bit and was able to get my left hand on the door frame as well so now my head is just barely going through the window and I'm now face to face with this man. Both of my hands are posted on the

[00:23:30] door frame. I could see directly into his eyes through the tint of his sunglasses. He had a dark fleck on the outer edge of his left iris but he had light-colored eyes. He had a beard and mustache,

[00:23:45] tattoos covering both arms, some on his neck. I could also tell that he was wearing a black leather vest. Our eyes were completely locked in the most intimately evil dead-eyed expression I'd ever

[00:23:59] experienced and we just stared at each other for a weird moment. Frustrated, he yanked me a little more and I felt like I was moving but it was actually the van starting to creep forward

[00:24:12] and I was just going with it. Now I thought about this maybe a thousand times over the decades since it happened and there are some things that just don't make sense to me. At no point in time did

[00:24:24] this man say a single word. I also didn't say a word myself. I didn't scream, cry, kick, yell, fire or anything else that might attract neighbors and I honestly don't know why because I really wish

[00:24:38] I had done those things. As terrified as I was, I was also equally calm to the same degree which doesn't sound possible but that's the best way that I can describe it. Absolutely all my energy

[00:24:52] was channeled into not being pulled into that van. If he just yanked on my head, I would have been inside. If he had collapsed one of my skinny chicken arms or hit me in the face, I would have been

[00:25:07] inside. If he literally had done anything, he would have succeeded in getting me into that van. Like I said, someone must have been watching over me that day. The driver now pulling forward hit the brakes

[00:25:24] for some reason. There was actually a stop sign but I can't imagine a cop worrying about somebody running a stop sign when a child is literally hanging out of their window so I doubt the stop

[00:25:35] was due to the driver being conscientious. The only thing that makes sense to me is that the hard stop was to allow the man pulling me in to gain just a little more leverage. Either way, thank you Mr.

[00:25:50] Dumbass Driver because I managed to wiggle free. I lost my shirt in the process. I fell on the ground hard and popped up fast then started running. I proceeded to cut the corner lawn and ran home

[00:26:03] half naked and I'm pretty sure I set the world record for land speed. My dad eventually sees me running towards him and he can tell something is wrong so he starts running towards me. When we

[00:26:16] meet, I'm just trying to catch my breath and also get the words out at the same time. All I got out was, MAN! VAN! and I pointed in the direction of the van. So now my dad is setting the world record

[00:26:31] of his own running straight towards the van which for some unknown reason was still at the stop sign. My dad did run track in college and the man is really fast plus he had raging dad speed at that

[00:26:45] moment. From here my parents kept a tight hold on the information they gave me about what happened after I got home. Once I saw my mom and was inside my house and safe, fully clothed, I began to process

[00:27:01] the event. I had never felt so safe and also so unsafe at the same time. It's a complicated feeling for sure, the adrenaline that kept me laser focused was now crashing and the event that I got through

[00:27:15] rather smoothly was quickly becoming a trauma that I would carry for quite a while. Just minutes after I got home several police officers came to our house and interviewed me. Then we all went to

[00:27:28] the local police station and I talked to a sketch artist. I gave them a spot on description. She was really good too because she drew my nightmare almost perfectly. I remember more

[00:27:42] interviews maybe a few days later and I also saw a child psychologist for at least a few months because I had immediately developed an irrational fear of facial hair, tattoos and any leather

[00:27:55] product worn on the upper body. It got so bad at one point that I was in the grocery store with my parents and I saw a biker walk in to do some shopping. I wet my pants and I had a complete

[00:28:08] and total meltdown right there in the aisle. I think I was about seven or so when that happened. Anyway, I did get over it in time. You're probably wondering about my dad, like did he find the guys

[00:28:25] and what ended up happening if he did? The answer to that is I just don't know. All I can say is that my dad eventually arrived home as the police were finishing up my interview and I was happy to

[00:28:38] see him. If any arrests were made I never really knew about it. About a year later my dad was out and about like normal. He came home very late that night and he was pretty scuffed up like he had been

[00:28:52] in some kind of bar fight and won. As soon as my mom saw his face she sent me to my room but of course as a kid I wanted to know if my dad was okay so I cracked the bedroom door just a little bit

[00:29:06] and I did my best to try and pick up some words, anything that I could. They were talking just a little above a whisper but I did make out the words, kids are safe. Whenever I've asked about

[00:29:21] the final disposition of what happened, to those two men at least, my parents quickly redirect the conversation. I'm now in my 40s so I can take it but no they'll never say a word about it.

[00:29:36] I might not ever know for sure but I like to think that my dad unleashed a little citizen justice on both of them. I'm sure it seems impossible that such a young child could remember that level of

[00:29:52] detail with an event like that but time seemed like it had slowed way down and it's really hard to articulate this. I sort of knew what was going to happen just a split second before it actually

[00:30:06] happened which had a calming effect on me. I've heard that during life-threatening events the brain can speed up its processing time which appears to slow time down giving that person a slight tactical advantage and I do believe I experienced that. Yeah so that was my first

[00:30:24] mighty emergency as a six-year-old. Now buckle up for the second story. And now on to experience number two. Just a few months after the whole van incident there was a spree of rapes and murders in northern California right near where I lived.

[00:30:58] In fact I remember my dad having a serious conversation with my mom and I coupled with drills of course to prepare us for when he was out of town. Specifically there was a man I heard referred to on the news as the porch light rapist going

[00:31:15] around our town and nearby towns knocking on the doors late at night unscrewing a light bulb on the porch and then forcing his way through the door that the homeowner had cracked open.

[00:31:29] It sounds preposterous now to think about someone just opening their door to see who is knocking but that's just what you did back then. Also I guess sometimes he would break windows and come

[00:31:40] in that way. Anyway this guy would then rape and sometimes murder his women victims and he seemed to target women who were alone or women with children. I didn't know what rape was when I

[00:31:54] was six years old but I just knew that if I was going to be a victim of a rape I had to be but I just knew that it was something very very bad and something to be feared.

[00:32:08] Anyway my dad installed a peephole on the front door, reinforced the deadbolt, changed out some flimsy locks, cut dowels for the track of the sliding glass door and did a few other things

[00:32:20] to make us feel more secure when he was gone. He assigned me the task of locking the back door and picking my hiding spot. My secret space ended up being inside the fireplace. I was a tiny kid

[00:32:35] so getting inside was a snap. Once I pulled the brass fire screen up which fanned out in the shape of a peacock covering the entire fireplace, I pulled the dark glass across and drew both sides

[00:32:50] of the internal fire screen together. You could not see me. So my dad goes out of town as planned and he's in and out for several weeks with the porch light rapist continuing to make the news

[00:33:05] in our local area. Lo and behold one night my mom and I are watching tv and there is this light knock on the door and in fact we weren't sure that we heard it at first. My mother had to mute

[00:33:21] the tv and we stayed perfectly quiet for around 30 seconds and then we heard the knock a second time. It was around 9 30 p.m and we definitely did not know anyone who would try to get ahold of us at

[00:33:37] that time. We weren't expecting anyone. We looked at each other and my poor mom looked terrified. I was not old enough to comprehend the massive responsibility of protecting yourself and a young child. I just knew this was a very serious event. It was finally happening.

[00:33:59] Our emergency intruder plan was going live. I jumped up and quickly squirmed into my hiding spot just as I had practiced. Everything was already locked up for the night so my job was easy.

[00:34:14] My mom ran into the master bedroom and then ran out with the shotgun quickly crossing the threshold where the front door was. She went into the kitchen and called the police on the good old landline.

[00:34:29] She left the phone off the hook so they could hear what was happening. 911 existed at that point but it wasn't a universally used service yet. You would literally have to call the front desk of a police

[00:34:42] station to get them to come out. My mom went back and stood off to the side of the front door with the shotgun aimed where you would expect an adult's head to be. To visualize the space our house was

[00:34:56] relatively small but it had a great circular flow. The front door was directly across from the fireplace which made the home a cozy place to host parties but a daunting place when a possible rapist or

[00:35:11] murderer is on the other side of the front door. I really couldn't see much of anything through those two fire screens as well as the glass but I knew that things were getting intense for my mom.

[00:35:25] My mom said that she was focused on the tiny glint of the porch light coming through the peephole. She saw the light go out and then we both heard the doorknob jiggle as someone tried to turn it

[00:35:39] and pull then push it to get it open. Whoever was on the other side of that door wanted to come in. My mom was so mortified that this person might get in or abandon the front door and try to break a

[00:35:54] window and get in that way. She summoned the courage to scream the word no loudly. She then aims the shotgun at the center of the door and gives the door a hefty smack with the muzzle of the gun. Instantly the doorknob stopped moving and everything went silent.

[00:36:18] All we know is that the person left and did not return that night. When the police came, one of them remembered me from the last time they were out, they confirmed that the porch light had been unscrewed but nothing else external appeared

[00:36:36] to have been touched apart from the doorknob. I don't think my mom slept all night, staying on guard in case he came back. I don't know who this person was. About a year ago,

[00:36:50] the event came into my head out of the blue and I decided to look up the porch light rapist. I could be remembering the name wrong but my mom remembers it being the same name

[00:37:01] so I think we have it right. After searching, I couldn't find a single article on the person with this moniker. I did however find the East Area Rapist who was active at that time in our area

[00:37:15] and with a similar M.O. so it's possible that that's the person who was at our door or it could be someone else, a copycat. If it was the East Area Rapist, he lived near us

[00:37:28] and was also known by many other names such as the Visalia Ransacker, the Original Night Stalker, and the Golden State Killer. But whomever it was, we're just happy they never got in. I'm a law enforcement officer now and an EMT. I've made a living out of calmly responding

[00:37:50] to high stress events and helping keep people, especially children, safe. I'm also an expert marksman. So to the men who tried to kidnap me and the guy who tried to get into our house, you'd better hope we never ever meet again.

[00:38:23] Hello, I'm 18 years old. I'm about 5'1". I was 17 when this happened. My mother and stepfather were going through a divorce. My mom had put her and myself in a long stay hotel for the duration. The hotel was decent enough. It didn't seem too sketchy. The first few nights

[00:38:46] went on without any issues, no loud upstairs neighbors or loud anyone for that matter. Around the fourth night, the man from above us started making noise, almost seeming like an impossible amount of noise without the floor giving in.

[00:39:04] It sounded like we were under a bowling alley. The same thing the next night, only when my mom left for work, he actually ran outside. He started talking to her about nothing in particular.

[00:39:17] She relayed to me that he said that he had some sort of agent to help him because in his own words he said he wasn't completely mentally there. Well, she figured he wasn't dangerous or at least

[00:39:32] not that dangerous. She did tell me to be careful when leaving though. The sixth night, the man came down the stairs. Now, I slept on the pull-out couch directly in

[00:39:45] front of the door so I could hear the rustling from outside of the door. Then a knock. It was pitch black and I was frozen solid. I couldn't move and frankly I didn't want to. Another knock

[00:40:02] another knock. Then more rustling. Then silence. I gathered my courage to check it out. I looked out the peephole and noticed the view was completely blocked by something red. I woke up my mom. Mom, someone is outside and there's something blocking the peephole. My mom, groggily

[00:40:25] and confused, got up and opened the front door. No one. She looks at the door and it turns out this man had left a flower stuffed inside of the peephole. She closes the door, locks it, and tells

[00:40:38] me it'll be fine. Then there's a knock. We both freeze. We wait and another knock comes through the silence again. She said to go to sleep. It'll be fine. Now I listened and lay down but it took

[00:40:59] me forever to get to sleep. I finally did. Eventually I wake up to lock the door behind my mom as she's leaving for work. Then, well, that began my day of fear. Other tenants including us complained

[00:41:16] about his constant noise and he was supposed to be kicked out. Well he wasn't and he could hear when we left so when my mom ran to the door he started to make his way down. At that point I was trying

[00:41:31] to curl back up into bed when there was this heavy banging at my door and a voice screaming, you bitch! You talk to me and you get me kicked out? I'll fucking kill you! At this I grabbed my phone

[00:41:46] and dashed to the bathroom. The banging went on all day in 10 minute intervals with about 20 minute breaks in between. The whole time I was on the phone with people running the hotel. They had

[00:42:00] phoned the police but the police never even came. The desk lady was on the phone with me and never left me alone. Eventually around 8 p.m my mom came home. There was by that point a hotel security

[00:42:16] guard trying to get this man away from us. The man saw my mom and started yelling random shit at her as the guard held him back so that she could run inside. We packed some of our belongings,

[00:42:28] enough for one night and fled to a different hotel for just the night. The next day my mom had us move rooms. The whole time that man was watching from the second floor. The last month that we

[00:42:41] were there was all fear for me. Would he find us? Stalk us? Break in? Nothing else ever happened with him but my nerves never calmed. Eventually we got back home and I started to worry less but that is my scariest story.

[00:42:58] I worked at the A&W in my small town. I had this co-worker who was a good friend and usually gave me a ride home every night. One night he gave me a ride home and he had this friend with him who we'll call John. The next few days John would add me on Facebook and try to talk to me every single day. I was polite but I wasn't as responsive as he was.

[00:43:33] I was trying to figure out what he might have wanted. Keep in mind at this time John was probably 22-23 years old. The next day I was at work working the drive through. My manager calls back to me and says that someone was there to see me. I come around the corner and there at the counter is John with a pack of my favorite snacks. One of the many questions that he asked me through Facebook. He told me he was excited that he got to see me.

[00:44:03] He asked why I wasn't messaging him. I just gave him a quick, oh I've been very busy with work and school I'm sorry. He told me it's okay. He just doesn't like getting ignored. He gave me the snack then left. My very next shift he showed up and just wanted to chat. I explained how I was very busy at work and I'm not able to do that.

[00:44:31] He told me he would come back and give me a ride home so that my co-worker wouldn't have to. I declined. He seemed upset but I just told him I'm not done until almost midnight and you work early in the morning. I don't want you to be tired at work. I appreciate the offer though.

[00:44:49] He accepted that. He told me that he really appreciates me caring for him and looking out for him. Then left. He continued to come in and order food from this place almost every single day just to talk to me for a few minutes. After that I ended up telling my manager and co-workers that John was starting to really freak me out.

[00:45:12] I wasn't sure if I should get police involved or something like that. They all agreed that it was starting to get weird and that we would all work together to keep an eye out for him and my manager was going to tell him to stop coming in.

[00:45:25] Out of nowhere he just stopped and I thought that he might have finally realized that it wasn't going to happen between us. After a few months, it's now probably December or January, it was really cold. I'm working the drive-thru again and my manager comes back to tell me that John is here. He has a gift bag with him.

[00:45:49] I come around the corner and he's standing at the front counter with a huge grin on his face. He excitedly gives me this gift bag. I opened it and inside was a pair of handmade mittens. Before I could even get a word out, he says,

[00:46:06] I asked my grandma to make those for you. When I saw you the other day, I saw that you were breathing into your hands and trying to shove them into your pockets to keep them warm.

[00:46:16] I was confused. What did he mean when he said he saw me the other day? I hadn't seen or spoken to him in at least three months.

[00:46:25] Then I realized the exact moment he was talking about. I had walked out of my high school at lunch and was heading down to the gas station. As I was leaving, I realized I had forgotten my gloves, but I didn't want to go back into the school to get them. He was sitting outside of my school, watching me.

[00:46:45] A chill went down my spine, so I thanked him for the mittens and told him I had to be getting back to work. My manager saw this panic on my face and I filled her in on what was happening. She called the police for me. After that, I never heard from him again.

[00:47:01] A few years later, I'm in my second year of college when a headline and mugshot on the news sends me into a panic. On the screen was John. He had gotten into a fight with his roommate who he had shot and killed. He put his roommate's body in his vehicle and buried the entire vehicle in the backyard.

[00:47:25] Needless to say, John, let's never meet again.

[00:48:02] Thanks for listening everyone, this week you have heard, Stalked by my coworker friend by KL. Two experiences by a listener that asked to remain anonymous. Divorce Hotel Scare by a listener that asked to remain anonymous.

[00:48:37] And finally, John by Tessa Landry. 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.

[00:48:50] If you have a story to share, make sure you send it to letsnotmeetstories at gmail.com. And if you want to get access to that Patreon extended version of this week's episode, all ad free, as well as some past episodes and bonus content, head over to patreon.com forward slash Let's Not Meet podcast to support the show today. I'll see you all next week for a brand new episode of Let's Not Meet. Stay safe.

[00:49:20] This happened when I was seven years old. I'm 23 now. And I still think about it almost every day.