9x21: Lost Stories 14 - Let's Not Meet

[00:00:00] 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 9, Episode 21 of Lets Not Meet, A True Horror Podcast.

[00:00:50] Hey all and welcome to another edition of our Lost Stories series here on Lets Not Meet. These are some of the original episodes that ran before we returned with the seasonal format. The audio quality may be a bit rough compared to the newer episodes, however there are some

[00:01:05] serious gems here. I really enjoyed listening back to these stories and I know you will too. For now enjoy the Lost Stories on Lets Not Meet. There was this one night that fades in and out of my memory every year or so.

[00:01:32] I'm quick to suppress it every time it pops back into my mind. My sister and I decided to go out for a late night drive. We were both teenagers, she was closer to 18 and I think I was around 14-16 years old,

[00:01:46] so this was about a decade ago, so forgive me if my memory is a bit fuzzy. This is one of those nights my sister and I are getting along. Driving around at night with my friends was something I did regularly.

[00:02:01] When I was a teenager a lot of my friends were in the car scene and no one hangs out at their parents. Hanging out in cars meant we could stay up late and have deep conversations and race. So late night drives are pretty standard.

[00:02:18] We go a little while outside of town in a more forested area, maybe 40 minutes or an hour outside. My sister is driving her Cavalier, she's not into the car scene. We pull over to take a look at the stars, one of the benefits of being outside of town

[00:02:37] and take in the scenic, almost mountainy area. We see a car drive by and think nothing of it. It's a secluded enough area, but still a highway. We started heading back home as it was getting late, even for us.

[00:02:53] We're about halfway back to town when a car pulls up next to us on our left. It looks similar to the car that drove past us before, but I can't be sure. There is a guy in the car that looks maybe 20-30 years of age, Caucasian and blonde.

[00:03:10] He aggressively starts mouthing for us to pull over and starts pointing, almost stabbing the air to the side of the road where he wants us to go. We're in the slow lane on the right, so he is in the only other lane to the left of us.

[00:03:27] To the right of us, my side, is a drop off with dense trees all the way down and barely any shoulder for us to pull over. My mom raised us right, and there's no way we're pulling over for a stranger even if he needed help.

[00:03:44] At first, we're mostly confused and sign to him, no. We speed up a little bit. Both my sister and I start to feel uneasy, and this is where things get very unusual, where I can't just brush it off.

[00:04:00] He matches our speed and looks over, angry, and still keeps telling us to pull over. He starts moving his car closer to ours, nearly running us off the road closer and closer to the drop off. My sister just keeps going faster, and the guy keeps matching her speed.

[00:04:19] My sister tells me, I'm going to break the speed limit now, but I think we need to lose this guy. She's double checking with me that it's okay, and getting me prepared for her to break the law. We're two very goody two shoes type kids.

[00:04:38] The way she says it, I can tell she's trying to stay calm, but she's spooked. I say, absolutely, lose this guy. We speed up, and still he keeps up with us. She's driving her best, not letting him run us off these winding, mountainous roads,

[00:04:55] which thankfully didn't have any other cars during all of this. However, things become so much worse. All of a sudden, there is another car. Funny, thinking back, it was just sitting on the side of the road, but it pulls in front of us.

[00:05:13] Fuck, we don't hit it or anything. It's worse than that. This car matches the speed of the other one. They trap us in, and we're all still going fast. Faster than a crappy Cavalier should ever go. The other car must have been waiting for us up ahead.

[00:05:34] My sister just keeps heading closer to town, not letting these two cars run us off the road. We are still a decent distance away from home. We can't even see town yet. The roads are getting wider now though.

[00:05:47] As soon as there's even just barely enough room for her to fit between the two cars, she floors it. It's like this shitty car knew we were in danger, and boy did it go. We did not slow down even after we could see them in our rear view.

[00:06:07] We didn't slow down when we saw our town. We only slowed down once we were in our city. Today is a blur. I'm astounded that we got away. My sister and I talked about trying to figure out what these guys could have wanted so bad

[00:06:23] to nearly kill us. It's not like he needed directions or something. It is the second car that makes my stomach turn. It was waiting. These two cars had planned this. The older I get, the more scared it makes me.

[00:06:41] I knew I was in danger at the time, but I never really thought about what terrible things could happen to us if these people got their hands on me or my sister. It adds a new level of fear.

[00:06:53] I can't thank my sister enough for getting us out of there. We talk about it when the memory of it randomly pops up and it definitely bonded us. With all our differences, her and her shitty car saved us.

[00:07:22] This happened to me about two years ago, and a story on the podcast reminded me of the incident. I live in Sacramento, California, and at the time I was living in the western part of town near the river.

[00:07:34] Sacramento is a rural type of city which, like all cities, has its nice parts and not so nice parts. My house was on the border of the okay part. You can walk the streets at night and not feel threatened or jump up at every sound,

[00:07:50] but from time to time you see the occasional homeless person or questionable character. So for me, I felt relatively safe and comfortable in my neighborhood. I'm also not an incredibly small female. I'm short and petite, if you want the correct term, with muscles.

[00:08:10] That's to say that I can take care of myself. I would also like to say that I have a fair amount of street smarts that have gotten me out of some hairy situations in the past.

[00:08:20] I work 10 hour morning shifts at my job and I normally get up at 4.30 in the morning to get ready for work so I can leave by 5am. On this particular morning, I woke up extra tired.

[00:08:33] It had been a long week and I was just counting down the minutes already where I would be back in bed. And because of this, I slept for a few minutes in favor of my normal routine, which is get

[00:08:44] up, pick out clothes, let my dog out in the yard to do her business, and make a bagel. I normally make coffee in the morning, but because of those few extra minutes of sleep I had forgotten to start the coffee maker.

[00:08:56] Groggy and not in the greatest of moods already, I grabbed my lunch, purse, and somewhat toasted bagel and opened the back door for my dog to come back inside. She usually comes in right away or is at least waiting patiently at the door for her early morning meal.

[00:09:16] So when I had to whistle for her to come, I found it odd but rushed it off. She came bounding up the yard from the front of the house and darted inside. Hackles raised. Again, I brushed it off.

[00:09:31] We have a lot of stray cats and some dogs in the area so I figured the hackles were in response to another animal. My dog, who is the sweetest animal you'll ever meet, is extra large.

[00:09:44] She's a lab mix, usually never gets aggressive so the hackles should have been my warning but being tired and verging on being late for work, I looked past all of this. I hustled out the front door and across the street to my car.

[00:10:00] Our house had a large fence around it with a big gate that was laborious to open and close. My roommates and I never parked in the driveway and my spot had become the one directly across the street from our house.

[00:10:12] At 5am there is virtually no one on the street. It was still really dark and I made my way to my car unlocking it with the remote key when I was just a step away.

[00:10:24] I don't know how I missed it and will forever be more aware of my surroundings because of it, but as I opened the driver's side door, setting things on the passenger seat, I went

[00:10:38] to close the door and there was a man standing next to me, not even an inch away from my door looking me dead in the eyes. I screamed because what other response is there to have?

[00:10:53] I didn't even hear him coming up to me and he had angled his body so he was blocking me from closing my door. He was a dark skinned man with dirty hair and even dirtier clothing.

[00:11:06] My heart was pounding out of my chest and it took me a brief second to realize he was speaking in a very low, growl-like tone to me. Do you have any change? He asked. He didn't move from my side.

[00:11:23] Normally homeless people don't scare me and more often than not I give change when I can or food if I have leftovers. However, this was not a situation where I found myself feeling generous. I didn't like how close he was to me.

[00:11:38] A normal person would have apologized for scaring you and taken a step back but this guy stayed rooted to the spot just staring at me intently. I must have had a ton of adrenaline pumping through my veins because the initial moment

[00:11:57] of fear was over and I was angry. Are you fucking kidding me? No! I yelled at him. Absolutely fucking not! Get away from my car! I continued, not wanting for him to respond.

[00:12:14] I pulled the car door shut, almost hitting him in the process and forcing him to move. He didn't move right away but I was able to get the door shut and locked. The man still and he didn't move. He just stared at me through the window.

[00:12:31] I started my car and yelled at him once more to get away from the car but he just stared me down. I didn't want to run him over but I really needed to leave.

[00:12:43] Finally the man turned and walked across the street and stood by my house, a little away from the gated driveway and watched me from his new position. That's when it clicked about my dog's hackles being raised.

[00:12:59] He was there the whole time, lurking in the shadows and I had missed him. It gave me chills but at least he wasn't near my car anymore so I turned my car around and sped off down the street to work.

[00:13:15] I didn't see this man when I got home or the following mornings when I would leave early for work. I eventually moved and have a place with a completely gated fence where I can park my car inside.

[00:13:28] Since then, and until I moved, I have become more alert in the morning when I am going to my car, looking down the street to make sure no one is approaching me so I wouldn't make the mistake of letting someone get that close to me again.

[00:13:43] In addition, when she was still alive my furry best friend who recently passed was never ignored when it came to mood changes. The creepy homeless guy who wanted change lets not meet. A little bit of background info, I'm a junior in college, originally from the US, studying

[00:14:24] abroad in Hong Kong. Though battling a minor language barrier, I immediately fell in love with the vibrant city. It didn't take long to feel at home and get familiar with my surroundings. After a matter of weeks, I was practically a local.

[00:14:41] I'm reluctant to say that in exchange for feeling so uncomfortable in the area, I may have let my guard down in the process. Being a 5'6", 120 pound female, I recognize the importance of staying vigilant, especially when venturing out on my own.

[00:15:00] Though pretty athletic, I'm not much of a threat against anyone that may want to hurt me, which leads me to the encounter I had some weeks ago. I decided to head over to a smaller mall to kill time one afternoon while my friends were in class.

[00:15:16] When I say small, I mean in comparison to some of the massive retail metropolises located elsewhere in the city. This place was still no joke, I had begun to frequent this mall as it was not a far

[00:15:28] trip and an easy place to visit with a couple of hours to spare so I knew the place pretty well. This is important, Hong Kong is fairly diverse compared to most places in Asia, but being blonde and white I get a lot of stares.

[00:15:43] I'm usually one of few if any white people around whenever I leave campus, especially in the areas with small numbers of tourists. This makes other people of the same race stand out to me in a crowd as well.

[00:15:56] Which is why that afternoon I had noticed two white men showing up in all the same places I was. Before you roll your eyes, this mall is good sized but small enough where that wasn't particularly unusual.

[00:16:08] A lot of the major stores are in the same area so I figured they were shopping around like I was. I didn't get that eerie, I'm being watched feeling and I wasn't even sure that they had noticed my presence whatsoever.

[00:16:23] I hadn't caught them looking my way even once. Besides, I have a pretty good sixth sense about those kinds of situations. After growing up in some major cities my parents made damn sure stranger danger was ingrained

[00:16:37] into my brain as a child and that I knew exactly what to do if I found myself in trouble. I was aware of the men but I wasn't worried. An hour or so after I had last noticed the two men I was milling around, Starbucks and

[00:16:52] a few shopping bags in hand, mostly people watching at this point and debating whether or not it was time to go back to campus. To avoid the crowd and getting bumped into I went slightly out of the way to walk through

[00:17:06] a quieter walkway that passed by a couple luxury stores and an exit. Let me emphasize, there are still plenty of people around, they just happened to be further to my right while the luxury stores and exit were to my left.

[00:17:23] I'm still wondering, lost in my thoughts, when someone coming from my right bumps into me. With all this empty space, seriously? But this time there were fingernails digging into my ribcage. They hadn't just bumped into me, they latched onto me.

[00:17:44] Whoever it was was behind me and walking perpendicular to my previous path. Their right hand was positioned right under my right arm, pushing and pulling me with them. To any passerby he was positioned strategically enough that you probably couldn't tell what was going on.

[00:18:03] He knew exactly what he was doing. It took me a minute to register what was happening, especially since I couldn't see the assailant from their position behind me. Once I snapped out of it, I was stunned. I stumbled along with him for a moment, trying to shake loose.

[00:18:19] This guy was strong. Victim to his steel tight grip, all 120 pounds of me were not going anywhere besides exactly where he wanted me. Fear seized my mind and body as his massive grip tightened and those long fingernails delved deeper into my skin.

[00:18:41] A confident, gravely voice that was enough to make anyone's skin crawl barked into my ear. Do not fight. I will win. At this point I'm panicking. I manage to look behind me and who do I see but one of the 6'5 white muscle men from before.

[00:19:03] Big surprise, I know. He snarls at me and slams his left hand in the same position under my left arm. I look towards where we're headed and see the other equally as monstrous white men posted up waiting for us. Right under the illuminated sign that read exit.

[00:19:25] I heard a voice in my head, the voice of a family friend who gave me a warning before I left. It said you will see trafficking, sex trafficking while you're there. It's everywhere but as long as you're careful you'll be fine.

[00:19:39] Suddenly that panic that had created a fog around my brain turned to pure adrenaline. I was no longer scared, I was pissed. Not thinking, rather operating on autopilot, I garnered a strength I didn't know I had and ripped free from the veteran kidnapper's grip.

[00:19:57] I would like to say I ran like hell to get help but again this was my hyped up, adrenaline ridden brain acting. I whipped around merely feet away from my attacker and glared at this man as if saying try that shit again I dare you.

[00:20:14] If looks could kill. He looked absolutely stunned that I had managed to pull free but at this point the interaction was no longer disguised as a normal encounter. People were around, more people, and without the opportunity to make it appear as if I

[00:20:31] were acting on my own accord, he knew he missed his chance. He glared back momentarily but motioned for his buddy and they booked it at the exit without their intended target. Just as fast as it had come the adrenaline rush was gone.

[00:20:48] I was shaking uncontrollably, fighting back tears, his touch burning into my flesh long after he had gone. I looked around me stunned, no one had stopped to help or even witnessed what had just happened. I took a moment to compose myself physically. My mental state was another story.

[00:21:08] I slowly and vigilantly walked my shaking self back to the bus that would return me to my safe haven on campus. While I can't say for certain what their intentions were I have a pretty good guess.

[00:21:21] I can only pray the next girl is as lucky as I was. Back in 1998 or 99, I was around 5 or 6 years old and living in a crime and drug ridden part of the downtown area.

[00:21:50] Our house had a giant backyard that was full of thick jungle like trees and bushes that had been taken over by the earth and also by some random passerby's. We knew this due to the heroin needles that were around and half of a mattress that had

[00:22:07] once been on the forest floor that had grown 15 feet into the air with the trees. There was also a path that people would use as a shortcut to the main road so there was a lot of traffic with shady people passing through.

[00:22:24] When you're a kid this is a nightmare of a backyard so I was spooked since the time we moved in. I would complain constantly to my mom about someone watching me from outside my window when I would try to sleep.

[00:22:38] Once or twice there had been times of him watching me and he had shined a flashlight into my room and I saw the flash of his face which I can still picture. His dark eyes burned through me and for a while I never said anything but eventually

[00:22:58] I did tell someone. My mom always said it was just a nightmare and brushed it off for a week or two while ignoring my relentless complaints. Eventually after having a fight with me to go to sleep one night my mom had dragged me

[00:23:13] outside the next morning to prove me wrong. We went outside to my window and to her surprise the grass had been stomped on only outside of my window to the point that the grass was almost dead and mud only remained.

[00:23:31] There were also tons of scratch marks from a tool of some kind outside of the window as if someone was trying to break in. My mom was horrified and had started making plans to move but we were so broke growing

[00:23:45] up that leaving right away was not an option. Around that same time me and my best friend who was also my next door neighbor had become inseparable. We hung out almost constantly and had no sense of danger and would do dumb stuff like go

[00:24:01] to other neighbors houses and ask for candy. Our favorite was this elderly lady who always had hostess cakes for us and we would actually go inside her house to hang out there. She was unbelievably nice and took care of us in a way I guess.

[00:24:20] Our parents had no idea we did this but it was our little secret. One day we were playing around the neighborhood and my mom yelled for me to come home so we could pick up dinner just around the corner.

[00:24:34] We were only going for about 15 minutes at most and when we came back to the house we were in complete shock. The street was closed off with crime scene tape. There were two or three news station vans and a dozen police cars and either a life

[00:24:52] flight helicopter getting ready to touch down or a news helicopter. While we were gone getting food a man who was not from the neighborhood but had been staying with his mom for the last few weeks had walked past my friend's yard and saw her on the phone.

[00:25:09] She was talking to a friend and making faces or whatever young kids do and this man thought she was making fun of him and was talking about him on the phone.

[00:25:20] This man got so upset at the thought of someone making fun of him that he walked back to his mom's house and came back with a butcher knife planning to kill this girl for quote unquote mistreating him.

[00:25:35] Because of where she was sitting on the porch she could see him coming back with the knife and ran inside the house and locked herself in the bathroom calling the police with the phone that she luckily already had in her hand.

[00:25:48] Unfortunately my friend's mom was in the kitchen and was not as lucky. The man took his anger out on her mother and stabbed her seven times. However, after the amount of times her mother was stabbed she survived and made a full recovery after many surgeries.

[00:26:11] After his arrest the story was all over the news and I remember watching it with my mom pretty religiously to make sure my friend's mom was alright. They posted his mugshot and I remember the most intense amount of fear flowing through me.

[00:26:28] The man who stabbed this woman was also the man who would watch me outside my window. I later found out that we had met this man weeks earlier at the elderly lady's house we frequented for candy.

[00:26:43] It was her son and he had initially met us at her house and had been keeping an eye on us ever since. He had only gotten out of prison a month or so earlier and was staying with her since his release.

[00:26:57] I never took note of him when we first met but if I did I would have known right away who my stalker was and could have prevented all of what happened after. We never did end up moving.

[00:27:11] My mom figured the danger was gone so we just stayed another year. To this day I never sleep with the blinds open. This was back in the late 1990's. I was a single mom and picked up a Saturday night bartending job at a place that was off

[00:27:40] the highway on a frontage road. Not immediately close to anything but in between some pretty large towns in the affluent suburbs of North Chicago. This place was hopping after work hours but sadly not on Saturday nights and I'd often

[00:27:59] find myself alone or with only a handful of customers. This particular night was dark, rainy and a thunderstorm was raging outside. In walks this rugged handsome man. Wind swept blonde hair, crystal blue eyes, nice build and he sits at the bar.

[00:28:23] It's just the two of us and I walk over to take his drink order. He orders and I make the drink and he had put $2.25 on the bar. I hand him the drink and realize that he didn't give me enough money so I tell him that I

[00:28:39] need another quarter. The drink is actually $2.50. Mind you, we're alone in this good sized bar. It's a dark night and thunder and lightning are raging outside. It's not close to any other businesses that I could run to or where other people might be.

[00:28:59] He looks me straight in the eye and calmly says, I'm Satan. Tell me what you really want. I can have you anything you want. What is it that you really want? At this point I'm shaking in my shoes, not sure how I even mustered up a response.

[00:29:21] I look back at him and said, I want another quarter for your drink and I want you to stop being so scary. He gave me the quarter, downed his drink and left. I had to close up alone and believe me, I was on edge until the following morning.

[00:29:42] I remember he had the most unusual and beautiful gold pendant on. It was of an octopus. And now that I've read a lot about conspiracies and high strangeness, I found that the octopus symbolizes the Illuminati. The bar was close to, but not in a very affluent Chicago suburb.

[00:30:05] And I can't help but wonder who he actually was or worse, what he was actually up to. I didn't work there much longer after that. Seeing Satan once was enough for me. Let's not meet again. I was around 10 or 11 when this happened and I was home alone.

[00:30:48] The doorbell rang while I was watching TV, so I hastily moved my bowl of cereal and got up to answer the door. It was the mailman who said that we had gotten a package, but it was so big that he needed help carrying it in.

[00:31:05] Something felt off about him as he wasn't wearing a uniform, but instead a dirty white shirt and jeans. I asked him where his truck was because I didn't see it parked out front, and he said

[00:31:20] it was around the corner, and just to follow him out to grab my package. He kept telling me to go with him, but I politely said I wasn't feeling well and that we would just get our mail from the post office.

[00:31:37] He said how much of a hassle that would be, and just to go out and get it. I said I had to get my shoes on from upstairs, and he waited outside. I locked the door, bolted upstairs, and closed all of the windows.

[00:31:55] I called my mom to come home and explained everything. The man was still outside, and he shouted at me, asking me if I had gotten my shoes. I replied that my mom was coming because she's much stronger and could help carry the package.

[00:32:14] Once I said that, he quickly ran, and I never saw him again. They never caught him, and I hope that he never lured any kids or tricked them into going near that van. Dear fake creepy mailman, let's not meet again.

[00:32:49] This happened to me in high school, but followed me into my freshman year of college. For some background, I live in a town right near a big city in North Carolina. I am a small female, 5 foot, maybe 100 pounds, and I promise all of this matters.

[00:33:09] In high school, I had a teacher that I became very close with. Let's call him Mr. A. Mr. A taught many classes, from English to creative writing to mythology, and I took every single one of them.

[00:33:24] He was a very sweet man, probably late 40s, with a wife and a daughter that also went to my school. We even ended up winning Teacher's Pet in the yearbook on my senior year.

[00:33:36] Being that he was a teacher, he had all the records of me, my full name, my parents' name, who have a different last name than I do, and my address. Fast forward a year, and I was going to a local community college to get my associate's degree.

[00:33:53] This saved me money and also allowed me to still work part time. The way my community college was set up, there were all glass-walled hallways and classroom doors scattering the walls, meaning if you were in a classroom, you could see into the main hallway.

[00:34:13] Anyways, I was in my public speaking class, giving some bullshit speech while on anxiety medications, and this is relevant. When I saw him, Mr. A, from my high school walking in the hall, he spotted me and made a beeline for the classroom.

[00:34:34] He barged in while I was mid-speech and demanded to talk to me. My teacher said it was fine, I'm guessing because she was just as confused as I was. He stood over me. He was a tall, boxy man who always stood close, too close for comfort.

[00:34:55] He resembled Frankenstein's monster. I was admittedly excited to see him. My guard was lowered due to the anxiety medication that I had taken and was overall relaxed. He told me he got fired from our high school and was now working at my college as an English teacher.

[00:35:17] We exchanged pleasantries and went on our separate ways. That is, until next time I had that class. I saw him working out in the gym across from my class, watching me through the glass. Never taking his eye off of me. Watching. This happened every single day.

[00:35:39] He watched me while working out. My teacher finally asked me about it. She said she had also noticed him watching me every class and rushing to talk to me as soon as I stepped out of the classroom.

[00:35:53] I explained to her that he was my old teacher from high school and that we were now friends and he worked at the college. She looked at me, shocked, and told me she has never seen him before.

[00:36:08] I went into a full-blown panic attack and went to campus security. I talked to an officer in security who looked up Mr. A and found no record of him being on staff or even a student.

[00:36:22] The officer immediately called an actual police officer who filed a report, but nothing ever came of it. The police officer also told me that Mr. A had been fired from my high school for stalking a student. I began to get very paranoid.

[00:36:39] I knew he was following me in my car. I would see him almost everywhere. I got scared enough to the point that I told my dad who lives in the same town that I almost never talk to.

[00:36:52] He assured me that he would find Mr. A's address and show up at his house to give him a piece of his mind. This put me at ease until I found out what my dad found. My dad showed up at Mr. A's house and knocked on the door.

[00:37:09] Mr. A wouldn't answer, but my dad knew he was inside. My dad barged in and what he found still shakes me to my core. His house was filled with framed pictures of me. Pictures of me in my classes, at my house, driving, even just shopping around town.

[00:37:33] Safe to say I could then get a restraining order. So Mr. A, you sick fuck, for your sake let's not meet again. This story actually somewhat involves the Let's Not Meet podcast itself. I'm a big fan of the podcast and look forward to listening every week.

[00:38:11] My usual routine is to get ready for bed, turn out the lights, and listen to the various creepy tales in the dark. I am currently staying at a friend's house in New England as they are in France for the

[00:38:22] year and I am house sitting and taking care of their pets. The house is big and beautiful, located down a very long drive in a lovely but rather remote area. You can't see any other homes from where I am and the nearest neighbor is probably a 10 minute drive.

[00:38:40] A couple of weeks ago I had just listened to the latest episode of the show and I was getting ready to go to sleep. It was probably around 1.30am. The area outside of the house is pitch black.

[00:38:54] As I laid in bed, I chuckled to myself thinking about how this location would make a perfect setting for one of these Let's Not Meet stories. Just as I was thinking this, I looked out the bedroom window and saw headlights coming down the very long drive.

[00:39:11] At first I thought I was imagining things, maybe it was just too much of these scary stories on my brain, but then the lights got brighter as they slowly moved down the drive.

[00:39:23] The house cannot be seen from the road and if you were lost you would not be turning around this far down the driveway. The car kept getting closer and closer and eventually pulled into the main driveway and parked about 20 yards from the house and turned off its lights.

[00:39:44] The house is close to the water and it's very foggy, so it was very difficult to see the car or who might be inside. Yes, things were rapidly turning into a John Carpenter movie. I wasn't sure what to do.

[00:40:00] A little part of me was laughing as I kept thinking, well at least now I've got that story. But most of me was scared shitless. My friends who own the house would definitely have let me know if any visitors might be

[00:40:14] stopping by, and who stops by at 1.30am anyway? I tried to text a friend on the west coast to see what they thought I should do, but when I tried I got no reply.

[00:40:27] I got out of bed and moved toward the window to see if I could get a better look inside the car. Just as I did, the lights inside the car came on. Whomever was in the car was now about to get out. Now I freaked. Do I call 911?

[00:40:47] Do I barricade the door? Do I turn on the alarm system? I decided I would turn on all of the lights and see what happened. I started running through the house, flicking on every switch until the house was lit up like a Christmas tree.

[00:41:02] When I looked out the window, I saw that whomever had gotten out of the car was now running back to the car, then quickly sped down the driveway. I didn't sleep much that night, and contacted my friends in France the next day.

[00:41:18] They said I should let the police know what happened just in case there might be other reports like that one in the area. The cops were very cool and said it was probably one of three things. Either 1. Kids looking for some place to get high. 2.

[00:41:34] Somebody got really, really lost. Or 3. Somebody was there to murder me. Okay, they didn't really say that, but they did say that whomever it was was likely casing the place to rob it or looking for cars to break into.

[00:41:49] They also said I should definitely call 911 if it happens again. I'm thinking that number 3 may be the winner as I found a crowbar in the driveway a couple of days later. Luckily, the car has not returned and nothing else has happened.

[00:42:22] I was 19 at the time, living in a townhouse about a mile away from my college campus. I go to a small private school in the heart of the South. The town this university is located in is small and a bit crime-ridden in certain parts.

[00:42:38] It was a chilly night, and I had been studying in the library with some people in my business class. I was tired and ready to get in bed. I left the library and it was only about 10.30pm, so not too late for a college student.

[00:42:54] I was driving to my townhome, and there is a pretty steep hill I have to drive down that leads to the cluster of student townhomes. Usually I do a rolling stop at the end of the hill and go on my merry way.

[00:43:09] This night I did my usual rolling stop, however, when I looked to make sure another car wasn't coming as I pulled out, there was an older Chevy SUV racing towards me. Of course, I shouldn't have cut them off, but I was already halfway out and just decided

[00:43:28] to book it. I pulled out in front of them and continued to drive to my townhouse. I noticed they pulled up right behind me and rode my ass a little ways down, which is normal.

[00:43:44] It was my fault I pulled out in front of them, and they were probably pissed off about it. I didn't think much of it until they started making all the same turns as I did.

[00:43:55] I got extremely nervous when I tried to throw them off and go down a road that nobody really uses, and much to my dismay, they followed. At this point, I knew I had to get to my townhouse, where there were a lot of people.

[00:44:10] As I drove quite fast to my place, I noticed they followed me extremely closely every step of the way. At this point, I was about to call the cops because of their odd behavior.

[00:44:22] And side note, in a hick town like this one, this behavior did not surprise me. I pulled into where my house was and decided not to park where I live, rather park in the middle of all the apartments and see what they did.

[00:44:39] I had 911 ready on my phone. I pulled in and put my car in park. I looked in the rearview mirror and saw them quickly turn around and speed away. I don't know what their intentions were or if they were trying to scare me since I pulled

[00:44:55] out in front of them. I was shaken up about it for a few weeks and told my professors and friends. I never saw the Chevy SUV again, but it freaked me out and I definitely think twice when driving

[00:45:06] at night when it comes to pulling out in front of people. So weird guy in the old Chevy that I pulled out in front of, let's not meet. This happened a little over a month ago.

[00:45:34] To give you some backstory, my husband, which we will call John, is in the military. We recently got orders to move as a family to a beach town for training. This meant packing up our two year old, two dogs, and entire house and moving multiple states away.

[00:45:53] Given that the house we were going to be renting would not be ready for around two weeks after our arrival, we had to find a place to stay until then. And given that we were moving with our child and two large dogs, I had to research a place

[00:46:08] to stay that was not a hotel. I came across this site that stated that they rented out two different trailers for military members for short to long terms and it was located in a beach neighborhood. I spoke to the owner, who made this area seem extremely nice.

[00:46:27] She sent us pictures and she stated that it was very child friendly. She even gave us tons of information of things to do when we arrived. So fast forward to right before we leave.

[00:46:39] We have issues with paying for this rental via PayPal, so my husband tried two different credit cards, which it finally accepted the day we were driving out of town. We had to break up the trip in half, so the owner waited until the night before to send

[00:46:56] the paperwork, in which we were in a hotel and did not have any way to complete said paperwork. The owner informed us that we could go to the neighbor who takes care of her property to complete the paperwork upon arrival.

[00:47:11] As we finally make it and are pulling into this quote unquote beach neighborhood, it becomes apparent that this is a completely run down trailer park. By this I mean that the trailers are beginning to literally fall apart and the lawns had not been mowed.

[00:47:28] However, we are exhausted and are going to give it a try. After what feels like hours, we get the paperwork finished and get the code to our trailer. The trailer was not horrible, however it was extremely outdated and I am honestly not sure

[00:47:43] of the last time it had actually been cleaned. Again we are giving it a shot due to already being there and it's hard to find a place with large dogs for an extended time. Fast forward to later that day.

[00:47:57] I take my son for a walk around the neighborhood, then to get pizzas while my husband and others are unloading the moving truck into storage. As I'm doing this, I notice the caretaker of the property and his kind of creepy friend

[00:48:12] that was there while doing the paperwork were watching me. But it was a nice day to be outside. So fast forward again to around 830 that night and we all decide to go to bed due to driving and moving things all day.

[00:48:26] Around 845, I hear a knock at the door and I have my husband answer it, thinking maybe it was the caretaker. A few minutes later he comes to tell me to call the police.

[00:48:40] At this time we hear a knock at the door again and he proceeds to inform me that the guy at the door was a man that seemed to have drug scars on his face.

[00:48:52] My husband stated that when asking what he wanted, the man stated that he asked for my husband by name and said that his wife with blonde hair, me, spoke with him at Walmart and told him to come see us.

[00:49:09] My husband stated that he must have had the wrong person and the guy informed him that he did not. My husband then asked what he wanted when the guy proceeded to ask for an AK with a pistol grip.

[00:49:26] That's when my husband slammed the door and yelled for me. P.S. I was never at Walmart, but expect maybe he saw me walking. As I was calling the police, my husband called the owner of the property who did not believe us.

[00:49:42] I then attempted to call the property caretaker multiple times, but his phone was oddly turned off. The sheriff finally arrives where we inform him what had happened. The sheriff proceeds to inform us that we are in a very bad area and that he recommended

[00:50:00] us leaving, while giving us areas with less crime. Once the sheriff left, we immediately followed and went to a not so great hotel for the night. However, I will take seeing a roach over a man asking for weapons and somehow knowing my husband's first name any day.

[00:50:21] So the following morning, my husband then realizes that he was double charged for the creepy place, which was finally fixed and refunded after around a week of consistent pestering on our part.

[00:50:33] The owner of the place also stated that we were lying and making up this story and that she had called the sheriff's office herself and stated that they had never received any calls or had a case number.

[00:50:45] We obviously called directly after that where the sheriff's office stated that nobody had called to get information and gave us the case number, along with the sheriff's name and direct cell phone that came out. So that was yet another red flag to us.

[00:51:02] We also spoke to the sheriff again to prove to the woman that this was not made up, in which the sheriff stated that once leaving that night he actually found the man that

[00:51:12] had knocked on the door and that he was a regular for getting picked up in the area. We are now living in a gated area due to my paranoia of the situation and I refuse to go to that area of town once it gets dark.

[00:51:26] We also still do not know if it was some sort of scam altogether or just one completely batshit crazy coincidence. Either way, creepy drug guy asking for weapons, let's not meet. Thank you all for listening to this week's episode of Let's Not Meet, a true horror podcast.

[00:52:00] Being sick with COVID for the last week, I had a lot of downtime to listen back to a lot of these old stories and I'm really happy with this one that we put together for you this week.

[00:52:09] The stories you heard were Untitled by Rebecca, another untitled story by Naomi, Ignorance is Not Bliss, human trafficking edition by Some College Chick, My Childhood Stalker Tried to Murder My Best Friend by CheeseDiva666, I Met Satan in a Bar by Anonymousy, He Wasn't

[00:52:30] the Real Mailman by GraceRussellX, a story by Ashley M., another untitled story by Tom C., and a final untitled story by Andrea Lovejoy. All of the stories you've heard this week were narrated and produced with the permission of their respective authors.

[00:52:46] Let's Not Meet, a true horror podcast is not associated with Reddit or any other message boards online. As always, if you have a story to share, send it to letsnotmeetstories at gmail.com.

[00:52:54] And if you want to get access to the ad free version of this week's episode as well as the past episodes and all of the bonus content, head over to patreon.com forward slash let's not meet podcast to sign up and support the show today.

[00:53:06] I'll see you all next week for a brand new episode of Let's Not Meet. Stay safe.