Let's Not Meet: A True Horror Podcast - 10x05: The Untouchables (Extended)

Episode Date: March 13, 2023

This episode includes 30 minutes of bonus content thanks to all of our amazing patrons!  Stories in this episode:  - He Tried to Come in to Clean Our Carpets, by ningensfriend (1:30)  - The Untouchables, by JJ (10:37)  - Almost Attacked While Driving to the Hospital, by Carly (22:14)  - Sweet Home Chicago, by Moonpie (31:04)  - He Stole My Cat, by Bee (37:05)  - It Wasn't Just a Whistle, by Lexi (41:40)  - He Followed Us into Our Uber, by Sydney (45:35)  - Fuzzy, by Anonymous (54:33)  - Teen Stoners vs. Set of Creeps, by Rachel (1:11:17)  - Highway Stalker, by Anonymous (1:17:05)  - He's Getting Closer, by Francesca (1:21:10) 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. To submit your story to the show, send it to [e-mail].   Get access to extended, ad-free episodes of Let's Not Meet: A True Horror Podcast with bonus stories every week at a higher bitrate along with a bunch of other great exclusive material and merch at patreon.com/letsnotmeetpodcast. This podcast would not be possible to continue at this rate without the help of the support of the legendary LNM Patrons. Come join the family! Check out the other Cryptic County podcasts like Odd Trails, Welcome to Paradise (It Sucks), and the Old Time Radiocast at CrypticCountyPodcasts.com or wherever you get your podcasts! PDS DEBT is offering free debt analysis to our listeners just for completing the quick and easy debt assessment at www.PDSDebt.com/meet.  Get a 4-week trial, free postage, and a digital scale at stamps.com/meet. Thanks to Stamps.com for sponsoring the show!  Go to grammarly.com/tone to download and learn more about Grammarly Premium’s advanced tone suggestions.  - Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/groups/433173970399259/ - Website - https://letsnotmeetpodcast.com - Patreon - https://patreon.com/letsnotmeetpodcast - Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/letsnotmeetcast/ - Twitch - https://twitch.tv/crypticcounty 

Hey, lugging your propane tank to the store and back, introducing Sinch. Sinch delivers propane grilled tanks right here door. Right now, get your first tank exchange delivered for just $10. Use code fun and check out VisitSinch.com. The minute time offer restrictions apply VisitSinch.com slash offer for details. This podcast contains adult language and content. If you have a story to share, send it to Let's Not Meet Stories at gmail.com. Enjoy the show. My name is Andrew Tate, and this is season 10 episode five of Let's Not Welcome to the show. As I said during the most recent midweek episode, we have a special edition of Let's Not

Meet for You This Time Around. This week, everybody gets to stick around for the Patreon extension. We're giving away this week's bonus content for free so that everybody can get a taste of what it's like to be a patron. If you like what you hear, you can sign up and support the show today at patreon.com forward slash Let's not meet podcast and get instant access to hours upon hours of ad-free bonus content, but for now enjoy the show My mom's dog, Punky, Rest in Peace, was a very sweet loving dog. She was an emotional support animal, but she was also trained to be a service dog for PTSD before she lost her leg.

I had never seen her aggressive with anyone in the entire 12 years she lived. She never growled, she never nipped at anyone, and she had no sense of smell, so she loved all animals and people. At 60 pounds, she was a gentle giant among our little terriers. What I'm getting at here was that her barking at something or being aggressive was so wildly uncharacteristic that I only saw it happen once. At the time that this happened, I was 11 years old. I was at home with my siblings.

My brother was two, and my sister was six. My then stepdad was at work and my mom ran out to the gas station to grab a pack of cigarettes. The gas station was only a mile or two away from our home. For reference, we lived in a two bedroom trailer in the middle of the woods on a dead end road at the time. You had to really make an effort to get down our road, find our house, and navigate down our rickety driveway to find the front door. I was sitting at the computer, having a grand time watching videos, when all of a sudden our other dogs, two Boston Terriers and one Chihuahua, perked up.

They barked a few times, and then started to investigate down the hall. My siblings were napping in the bedroom at the end of the hall during this time, so I figured they had stirred and it scared the dogs. But then punky set up suddenly. Honky stood on the couch, puffed her chest out, and her ears were perked up. Her fur was standing on end. Her tail was straight up, up. Her fur was standing on end. Her tail was straight up. And then she barked. Loudly. I mean, the bark boomed through the living room and echoed around everywhere. Then all of a sudden she lunged off of the couch and went tearing down the hallway. I was on edge already. Because up to that point, I didn't think I had ever heard her bark ever.

Her bark was a bit more of a baying sound, but this time it was big, loud, and alert. I stood up and went to look down the hallway, ready to fight off what I assumed would be a shadow monster based on how the dogs were reacting, but then I heard it. 3. Knox We didn't get visitors because of how strange our home was, location-wise, so my 11-year-old mind had no clue what to do there. The only people who showed up were family, and they did not knock, so I slowly walked towards the door. The knocks drew the dog's attention, and they came running back down the hallway.

I'll accept her punky. I felt better with our three yappy dogs in the room with me, even if they were all the size of New York City sewer rats. I opened the door just a bit. And standing on our porch was what I would consider the sketchiest man I had ever seen. I can still picture him perfectly. He was very thin, a taller man with dark hair

and a sunken face. He had bags under his eyes, and he had this half-managed hair. It was sort of like he just gave it a quick brush, and then figured that's good enough. Everything about him just seemed a little too thin, a little too shallow, and all of his clothes seemed off as well. They were nice, but fake nice, you know what I mean? Like a clean, newer looking t-shirt and jeans, but he had what looked like a suit jacket on. All of his clothes were too dark, despite the fact that it was summer in Texas, and the weather was definitely into the hundreds that day. He also had this plain, unlabeled model in his hand.

It looked like the label had been covered up or taped over, though. I stared up at him in confusion, because I definitely did not know this man. I asked him what he wanted. He smiled at me in a way that was far too fake. His smile was like this exaggerated and forced grin. He spoke in the same voice that retail workers do. Hey there kiddo, I'm trying to sell this carpet cleaner here. He said, is he shook the bottle at me? Might if I come in to show you how good it works? Alarm bells were going off in my head because he just seemed like I already said off.

Looking back as an adult, the fact that he didn't ask if my parents were home is very unnerving. I assume he didn't ask me because he probably already knew that they weren't, and that's why he was there in the first place. I should have told him to get off our property, and that I would have to get my mom. I should have said something, but I didn't. Instead I shook my head and said, no, we don't have carpet. Well, it works on other things, he insisted, taking a big step towards the door and continuing

to shake this bottle at me. I started to freak out, and I thought about closing the door, but the thing is, our front door didn't even lock. Living in a small town with a hard-to-access home, we never needed a lock. So closing the door on him seemed basically useless. I was sure that something was very wrong. Something bad was about to happen, and I was terrified, as I thought about what to do, and the few

seconds I felt that I had before something did happen. Then punky crept up from the hallway. Lowered towards the ground with her teeth bared, and she was snarling as if she were feral. She had slaughtered dripping from her mouth, her ears were down, and she was ready to pounce. The guy heard her, too. As he looked toward punky, she tried to lunge past me. I just barely caught her with my leg. She tried her hardest to duck past me and to attack this guy. He freaked out and ran off the porch without saying another word. He booked it down the driveway as I let punky out with the rest of the dogs. They started chasing him. Our small dogs chased him down the driveway and stopped about half way barking and jumping

about. But punky stopped at the porch and watched him with their ears purged, just staring into the distance until he disappeared. I swear that I saw somebody join up with him, running when he got back onto the road. The second he disappeared, punky's entire body language changed, and she went back to being the sweet dog that I knew, no barking or growling, just sitting there with her mouth and throat still covered and slobber. I realized my siblings were still down the hall and I ran to check on them. When I got to the bedroom, my siblings were sleeping

soundly. But the bedroom window was wide open. The curtains pushed all the way to one side, and the items on the dresser in front of the window were shoved around. It was like somebody had tried to climb through the window. There was no doubt in my mind about that. From what I could gather, the bedroom window was still visible from the couch where punky was sleeping, so I think somebody was trying to climb through that window before punky went after them and scared them off, and the man at the door was meant to distract me.

They definitely did not expect punky, a bigger dog, because most of the time she was with my mom inside while our small dogs were the ones that the public eyes saw more often. I don't know what the guys intended to do, but after my mom got home, she took all of us to my aunt's house, and on our way there we saw the men, walking up somebody else's driveway. We watched as one man approached the house while the second split off to wait by the road. So to the two men, apparently going door to door to sell their unlabeled carpet cleaner,

I really would rather not meet again. I was 18 when this happened to me. Now I'm almost 31, and I'm not the same naive girl that I used to be. When I was in college, I met this guy John. We shared some classes and had some mutual friends, but I didn't like him. I never felt comfortable around him, to be honest. He was the classic popular quarterback superstar. Even his family was very well-known. They were like VIPs. John had a crush on me, but I had a boyfriend at the time. As I said before, I didn't really like John anyway. He annoyed me, to be honest, so I always declined his moves. When my ex

and I broke up, John was really excited and was very open about his feelings for me. He started sending me roses, breakfast, letters, and every single cheesy detail that you could imagine. I didn't want this relationship at all, but I felt like I had no option. He was very popular, so you can imagine the social pressure that I was living under. His friends, brothers, and even cousins told me how lucky I was, and even some teachers were like that. What are you waiting for, they would ask. So yeah, I eventually said yes and gained this new social position. I was invited to every single party and had all kinds of new attention.

The first time John got violent was at his brother's house. I didn't want to go to this big party that they were having. I was tired, I had a scholarship, so party that they were having. I was tired. I had a scholarship. So for me, school was first and fun was second. I said I wanted to go home to sleep. John looked at me, straight in the eyes and said, you're not going anywhere. You have to come with me because you're mine.

I said that I was leaving. He grabbed my arm, pulled me and asked, are you stupid? After that, I couldn't do anything without him. He was always right beside me, but the worst part was that one of his brothers literally became my shadow. John would pick me up for school and drop me off every single day. At first I thought that this was nice, but then I realized that this was a way of controlling me. I was only allowed to hang out with him, our common friends, and his brothers. My extracurricular activities had to be approved by them, meaning John and his brothers. Yes, not only John had to approve, but his brothers also had to be okay with what I was doing.

I know what you're thinking. Why didn't you leave John or tell anybody what was going on? Well, I tried. And here is the biggest reason for my silence. His dad has a very important career in politics and law enforcement, so I knew John and his brothers were untouchable. I saw them use guns and beat people nearly to death, but nothing ever happened to them. When I tried to leave John, he always told me how easy it would be for him and his brothers to set my dad up with drugs or frame him. John even threatened my friends. As you can imagine, he was physically and psychologically abusive toward me.

Everyone had this good guy impression of John, and he was very good at acting. My family adored him. They never saw any red flags. To be honest, when he and I were with my family, it was nice. He was so adorable, funny, and charismatic. I didn't have to worry about his mood swings. I was stuck doing whatever he said, and I tried to live as normal of a life as I could, pretending everything was okay. I survived almost two years by his side, always remembering if I'm a good girl, my friends and family will be safe.

One day at school, John and I had a fight. I don't remember what it was about, but I remember him grabbing me and pushing me to the ground. Thank God campus police were nearby. They saw the whole scene and helped me. They testified that John was kicking me and pulling my hair. I knew something happened due to the bruises on my legs, but honestly I don't even have a recollection of this particular fight. I cried like crazy, begging to campus police,

I'm sorry, please don't call anyone. But they called my parents. My mom cried when she saw me, and my dad was so mad, he almost punched John when he saw him. When John's dad arrived, he actually slapped John and said, how stupid are you? I've told you not to lose your temper in public. I was shocked. John's dad was mad because this all happened in public, not because John assaulted me. Then, John's parents sent him far away so we couldn't press charges, and I started living a normal life again.

One day while visiting one of my male friends, John was outside of his house, waiting for me. I have no idea how he knew I was going to my friend's house. When I went outside to confront him, I froze. He started walking to my car and yelled, You whore, I'm going to kill you. I know everything about you." He showed me his phone.

He had all of my chats and social media accounts hacked. John kicked my car, then my friend came outside. I was so afraid. I didn't want John to hurt my friend so I said, please take a drive with me." John said, yes. I got into my car. I was shaking. My friend tried to stop me from going, but I knew that John could kill him if he wanted. John was always armed. So friend tried to stop me from going, but I knew that John could kill him if he wanted. John was always armed, so I tried to act as cool as possible. I was almost to the highway exit when I felt this horrible pain in my head and almost blacked out.

John had smashed my head against my car window so hard that I started bleeding. We almost crashed. I don't know how, but I parked my car and I screamed the voice command, call Mom, to my phone, since my phone was connected to my car. To this day I feel very bad that my mom had to listen to be screaming, as John was telling me I was a whore that deserved to die. John didn't realize I had called my mom, and when he heard my mom's voice, he panicked and said, oh, well, I gotta go. Then he left me there, bleeding, trying not to pass out.

I don't remember what happened next. I didn't care. I was just so scared. What if John tried to hurt my family? I wasn't safe. They weren't safe. John's dad went to the hospital. He said that he had no idea John was even in town, but I didn't believe him. I begged John's dad to help me. And he said, you don't have to worry anymore.

He's never coming back. But at the same time, I will not, you don't have to worry anymore. He's never coming back. But at the same time, I will not let you hurt my child. I didn't understand what he was trying to say, so he continued, if you press charges, that's it. I'm not helping you." Then he left. I had to make my parents promise that they wouldn't press charges. I was so scared that I had a panic attack. I had to be sedated. The only thing I was able to do was to get a restraining order against John and his whole family.

His dad sent a letter a couple of days later thanking me for doing the right thing and wishing me a happy life. A couple of months later I found out that John was living very far away with a whole new life. After years of therapy I healed, but he left me traumatized. I still don't remember a lot of things that happened, and I don't want to. I have a hard time trusting people, being alone, or driving by myself. I'm losing my hearing from having my head smashed into my car window, and the ringing is only getting worse, but at least I'm alive. For five years straight, I received flowers on my birthday,

always the same color, green and yellow, his favorite colors. I knew it was John who sent the flowers. his favorite colors. I knew it was John who sent the flowers. The birthday flowers eventually stopped arriving for me though. However, this year, John sent me a huge flower arrangement with a card telling me, I miss you, I forgive you. I felt sick to my stomach. I can't believe he had the nerve to send me flowers and forgive me. I burned the flowers and I left them on the street. I'm pretty sure he sent the flowers because I now have a boyfriend. It's so hard trying to escape an abusive relationship and even harder when someone with so much power is your abuser. To every girl, woman, and person in general listening, trust your instincts. I knew John wasn't my type.

I didn't even like him from the beginning, but I felt pressure from everyone around me. So, to John and your extremely untouchable family, let's not ever meet again. And if you ever try to contact me again, I swear to God, I'm not playing games this time. Amplify your career through training and development solutions specifically designed for federal government professionals, from courses to help you attain or retain certification to individualized coaching services, to programs that hone your leadership skills and business acumen. Management concepts optimizes your professional development, online in-person, individually,

or groups. It's training that's measurably better. Learn more at managementconcepts.com. That's managementconcepts.com. My husband was driving toward a local hospital to have a test done, and I was tagging along for moral support. We lived in Arizona at the time, in an area that was known for fast, aggressive drivers, often in large vehicles.

Road rage is a major problem where we're from, though not something my husband and I had personally experienced notable interactions with, until this happened. While merging onto the freeway, a red SUV rapidly approached us from behind. I expected to incessently be tailgated, but instead Mr. Red SUV pulled around onto the shoulder of the single merge lane, nearly clipping the side mirror of our car. Then he sped aggressively around us and cut us off, then merged onto the freeway ahead of us. I was convinced he was going to hit our car.

He swerved around us so close I thought for a moment he was going for the pit maneuver that you see in action movies. I yelped and told my husband that he should have honked at him or something. But the moment passed and Mr. Red SUV was already speeding ahead of us. We saw him tailgating other vehicles that were really going well above the speed limit already. He was following everyone so closely that his car seemed to almost fuse with each car that he pulled behind. He proceeded to execute several sharp and quick lane changes, cutting off each car that he passed and causing several people to hit their brakes,

or swerve into different lanes to avoid being hit. My husband and I commented on Mr. Red SUV's obvious road rage and reckless driving behavior, wondering what the deal was. After a bit of time, we forgot about it and continued on our route. Combative driving like that was fairly common in that area. 15 minutes or so later, we came up to our exit. As we approached, we saw the red SUV ahead of us again. He was stuck behind a wall of traffic that allowed us to catch up with him. As we pulled onto the off-ramp of our exit, he merged and proceeded to sharply cut us off without so much as a turn signal. My husband had hit the brakes to avoid rear-ending him. Turned out, this was his exit as well. This time my husband honked. As this was now the second time that Mr. Red SUV

had nearly hit us. We stopped at the light at the end of the off-ramp directly behind him now. He appeared to be an older male, alone in his Red SUV. We couldn't see his face well or what he was doing since we were sitting behind him, but he appeared to be flailing his arms around wildly to indicate that he was furious about something. When the light turned green, he floored it, and then, once we got closer to him on the road, he'd break checked us, and my husband had to quickly hit the brakes. Bad up with Mr. Red SUV at this point, my husband gave him a shrugging what the fuck man gesture, our destination, the hospital, was coming up on our right so we pulled into the right turn lane.

Mr. Red SUV stayed in the lane to continue straight, meaning we pulled up right next to him. So we got to see his face for the first time. He was approximately in his mid to late 60s, balding with gray hair, and he was wearing large dark sunglasses. He was staring right at us. He was pointing his finger at us threateningly, and he was shouting things that we couldn't hear between the cars. We took a ride on a red to finally get away from him. I felt my stomach tighten into a nod as I saw that Mr. Red SUV deliberately turned right from the straight only lane at the red

stoplight, cutting off somebody else in the right turn lane in the process. He sped up to catch up with us. He was now tailgating us so closely that we couldn't even see his headlights in the rearview mirror. At this point, my husband and I both started to panic, but decided that Mr. Red SUV would probably back off once he realized that we were pulling into the hospital parking lot, which was a heavily populated area. It was also secure. He did not. The first section of the hospital, accessible from the road entrance, was the ER. I frantically shouted for my husband to pull in front of the ER loading zone to either get help or scare this guy off. There was no one at the loading zone, though, and Mr. Red SUV was still

right on our tail, still screaming who knows what into the void where nobody could even hear him. When my husband stopped the car, the SUV stopped his car as well, always pulling up directly behind us bumper to bumper. I felt my entire body stiffen up with fear as I realized this guy was quickly getting out of his vehicle, clearly aiming to confront us with his face contorted in rage. With the amount of pro-gun and NRA stickers on his car, and this being Arizona where nearly

everybody owns a gun, we were both terrified. People being shot over simple road rage incidents was not unheard of in that area. We quickly started driving again, and my husband began driving in circles around the loading zone of the ER, stopping occasionally to see if our tailgator would back off. Each time we stopped, Mr. Red SUV stopped as well, and attempted to get out of his car to charge toward us. At one point, he threw his car into reverse around the circle to try and cut us off and block us into the loading zone. He again jumped out of his car and my husband started to drive

around the circle and reverse to avoid this lunatic. Realizing Mr. Red SUV wasn't going to give up until he got face to face, I grabbed my phone and I dialed 911. The next time he got out of his car, I showed him that I was on the phone. I rolled down my window slightly and shouted, I'm calling the police. This seemed to finally have an effect on him. He paused with one hand on the roof of his car, then swung himself back inside andaled out with his tires squealing. My husband was late for his appointment at this point, so he ran into the hospital ahead of me while I stayed on the line with the dispatcher and waited for an officer to arrive. At this point, some of the staff inside noticed the weird encounter happening in the loading

zone and came out to see what was going on. I briefly filled them in and they let me wait inside the ER lobby while I waited for the officer and attempted to lower my heart rate again. I tried to recall the information, least everything that I could about Mr. SUV, but I couldn't remember the last two digits of his license plate number. I told the officer that we were both circling the ER entrance area several times, so there must be security footage somewhere that captured his plate number. After taking my statement, the officer let me go and I joined my husband at his appointment. I got a call back about an hour later informing me that they had searched the entire area

and couldn't find the car or the person matching the given description, so at least we would know he wasn't camped out waiting for us when we left. Nothing ever came of that report to my knowledge, and I don't think they ever found him. Still to this day, I don't know what had enraged him in the first place. All I can think of is he was having a terrible day and just looking for somebody to take it out on. I never saw his hands each time he was getting in and out of the vehicle, so I don't know if he was armed or not, but I'm glad that I never got close enough to find out. All I know is, whatever his intentions were if he reached

in our vehicle, he did not simply want to lecture us about our driving. The persistence with which he pursued us, the look of rage on his face and the numerous attempts that he made to get out of his vehicle and reach the driver's side door of our car indicated to me that he did have malicious intentions. He was hunting us and we were his prey. So to Mr. Red SUV, I don't know what happened to you to make you so angry, but let's never meet again. To set the scene, I grew up in a suburb about an hour and fifteen minutes outside of Chicago. Visiting downtown Chicago was a huge part of my childhood and my teen years.

I often went there with my parents and family when I was younger and then started going with my friends as I got older. I ended up even going to college in downtown Chicago, so I had the whole city open to me day and night with the transit pass that came inclusive with my tuition. It was liberating, but also familiar, and I always felt comfortable. If I'm being honest, there are countless times I got into very stupid situations, and I'm genuinely surprised that nothing bad ever happened to me. I would walk around in desolate areas at all hours, alone, I would sit outside my dorm

for hours at night smoking. I took trains to and from my hometown and walked back to my campus by myself in the middle of the night. Sure, a guy down the hall from me was robbed at knife point outside of our dorm, but not me. I never had to worry. I loved the city, so naturally when it came time for my best friend and me to celebrate her upcoming wedding, we went to downtown Chicago for a night of chaotic fun. We began drinking while on the train, coming home from the suburbs. It was an

oddly normal and totally allowed pastime. And then we continued drinking as we went cosmic bowling. I also had a number of mini-licker bottles clanking around inside my purse for the second activity of the evening, which was a ghost tour. We were having a great time, sneaking drinks from my purse whenever the opportunity struck. By the time we hit a stop on the tour, at the site of a 1903 theater fire, I was fairly deep into my alcohol stash. This stop had us in a very large, very well lit alleyway, basing state street. For anyone who doesn't know, state street is very busy, very popular for shopping and theater in Chicago.

Any time, day or night, that street is packed and moving, and this was no exception. Our tour group had perhaps 40 people in it, but nobody else made a sound while our tour guide told the story of this fire. I was happily intoxicated by this time, but I remember this moment vividly. As our tour guide talked, a man in his 20s or 30s came strolling into the alley. He had shorts and a black hooded sweatshirt on with the hood up. I was the only one to notice him. The world turned to slow motion as I saw a knife drop from his right sleeve into his hand. He noticed that we were

a large group. I guess he originally thought that it was only our tour guide as he was the only one speaking. Just as quickly and fluidly as it appeared, the knife disappeared back up into his sleeve and he took off in this brisk jog down the alley. He ran left onto state street and I watched stunned as a happy bride and groom skipped in the opposite direction. At the time all I could think of was, I love this fucked up city. Now this was years ago and nothing bad happened to us that night. Nothing bad has happened to me on any of these countless nights in Chicago either, but

the more I thought about it, the more I wondered how many faceless strangers lurked just out of sight on many excursions. How often did I actually avoid danger while being completely oblivious, like everyone else on our coast tour? What if any one of those times had gone differently? I think I've probably had many close calls, and now I'm a little more cautious because those close calls won't always go in my favor. To the stranger with the knife up his sleeve in the alley, let's not meet again. And to the other faceless dangers hiding in the shadows, let's also not meet ever. And anyone else, be sure to stay aware,

even where you feel at home, because those unseen dangers can be found anywhere, at any time. Las comunidades negras e ispanas se vende especcionalmente afectadas por la enfermedad de las células falsiformes, una enfermedad devastadora que puede provocar anemia, fatiga, crisis de dolor, insuficiencia en diversos órganos y muerte prematura. Un nuevo estudio de investigación ofrece el potencial para luchar contra la enfermedad de células falsifórmas. Visite Ruby-SECD-Stary.com para obtener más información sobre una opción de tratamiento en investigación para la enfermedad de células falsifórmes. El estudio ahora está recrutando personas de 18 a 50 años.

En Dallas, visite Ruby-SECD-Stary.com. lived in a small town like area outside of a larger town. My small town consisted of a few streets, a small primary school, and a tux shop, or an America you might call it a deli. Because of how small our town was, my parents would let my younger brother and I walk around the streets after school. It was a great way to pass the time before dinner. I remember often walking around the back streets and always getting so anxious when passing one street in particular. This was mainly because there was an old sketchy guy that used to sit on his front lawn and smoke nearly every single day. My brother would joke that he was a kidnapper, living there in secret. But I always shrugged it off, as him trying to scare me. Then one day my cat Tiko went missing.

Tiko was a rag doll cat, who would sleep at the end of my bed. During Tiko's waking hours, Tiko would rule the house with his signature snobbish temperament, but I loved him, and he was always with me when I was home. My brother and I thought that maybe Tiko had run away and found a household that fed him better, or maybe something worse had happened while he was out on the town at night. I asked my brother one day after school if we could go look for Tiko as we walked around. He sighed, but agreed. We went back and forth through the streets until finally, we walked down the street which

made me anxious all the time. I saw Tiko immediately. He was on the front lawn of the old sketchy guy's house. I ran over without even thinking and scooped him up, grinning from ear to ear. My happiness quickly turned into full-body chills as I heard, let go of my cat. Come from the old, croaky, dry voice from behind the screen door. My head whipped around and I froze, holding Tiko. My head whipped around and I froze, holding Tiko. I said let go of my fucking cat."

He repeated as he swung the door open with such force, it flung around, and smacked into the brick wall it was joined to. With a shaky breath I replied, "...um, this is, this is actually my cat, this is Tiko. I don't care who you think it is, That's my bloody cat. You put it down. A smile crept across his face. Until it formed this very creepy fake smile, like he was so proud of what he was about to say. At that point, my brother grabbed me and said,

put him down. Come on, we gotta go. I was so scared. I just started crying. But it's my cat, I said as I set Tiko down. Tiko stayed near my feet as the guy slowly started walking toward us. My brother encouraged me to run, and we ran back towards the back streets as I listened to the guy yelling after me to leave his fucking cat alone and never come back. I went home and told my dad about it, and he decided to take me for a drive by. As we drove past this guy's house, we saw him smoking on his lawn, and Tiko was nowhere

to be found. I will never forget this guy's face when he saw me in the back seat. He had a thin, creepy grin on his face, and his eyes widened, unblinking. I don't know what happened to Tiko after that day. I hope he found a nice home. I shudder to think about what could have happened to him. And I never went down that street again. I stopped going for walks after school, too. My brother went by himself with our dog once and ended up being attacked by a completely

random dog on the same street that the old sketchy guy lived on. My brother and dog, they were fine after being attacked, but I can't help but feel that the old sketchy guy had something to do with it. My brother couldn't even tell where the dog came from. So to the creepy guy who stole my cat, let's not meet again. I grew up in a small farm town in the eastern Cape of South Africa. One evening, when I was about eight, my mother and I walked home to our apartment after spending the day with my great-grandmother. For context I grew up in a rough neighborhood, but had a relatively uneventful childhood.

That night, as we were passing a corner store about two blocks down the lane from my great-grandmother's house, we passed a guy standing on the steps of the store. He had his hood drawn with the cap down over his face. He was smoking. As we passed him, he whistled. It was a weird, creepy, almost sing-songy whistle that continues to ring in my ears to this day. My mom, being very perceptive and having superior instincts, changed directions abruptly. I asked her where we were going since the school bag I had with me was heavy on my back. Almost at the same time that I asked her, we heard another whistle.

It was a different tune, almost as if it was a response to the first whistle. After a quick glance back, we saw three men slowly following us, through the darkness of the unlit streets. To explain, in order to get home, we'd have to walk through a ditch which we referred to as the sleut. This sleut had nothing lighting it up but the moon. The walk through the sleut wasn't far, just very dark. The route that my mom instinctively chose instead led down a quiet road with houses all along it. As

we continued to walk, I could hear the men picking up their pace ever so slightly. As I said before, I was an eight-year-old girl walking alone with her mother with a giant school bag on her back. I was oblivious to this situation and dragging my feet. My mom pulled me along and what I can only describe as a scurry. We neared my friend's house and my mom decided that it would be a good time for an impulsive visit. I remember being very mad at my mom because I really just wanted to go home. This occurred before we had cell phones, so as we approached the gate to my mom's friend's house, my mom started calling out loudly to her friend. A light went on inside the house.

My mom's friend opened the door and we went inside. The three men were still behind us, but they stopped. Under the dead street lamp, just two houses behind us. We spent the next hour there. My mom was drinking coffee and chatting, and I was getting more and more annoyed. Eventually, my mom's friend's eldest son came home, and she asked him to walk us the rest of the way home. After getting home and showering, I asked my mom's friend's eldest son came home and she asked him to walk us the rest of the way home. After getting home and showering, I asked my mom why we had to go visit her friends so late at night. My mom told me that the men I saw behind us were following us. She explained that we stopped at

her friend's house because we were in danger. She let me know that the whistles that were heard were not just whistles. They were a means of communication used by a local gang. What I thought was my mom being obtuse probably saved my innocence and our lives that night. But her words have always haunted me even now when she said it wasn't just a whistle. So to the three men who stalked a helpless girl and her mother down the quiet streets, let's never meet again. This story took place during my freshman year of college in 2019. I attend a large party school with a large array of nearby bars to choose from.

That night, a bunch of my friends and I went to what is known as the freshman bar due to their more lenient, ID policies. Although it was an easy bar to get into, there were a lot of creeps that hung out there, knowing that this was the spot for a young, naive, freshman girls. My friends and I all knew this, and took precautions to protect ourselves. We never ventured off from the group alone, and we would get a ride back to the dorms together if it was too late. We even gave our guy friends signals for when we needed a creepy guy to back off. On this particular night, most of my friends had gone home leaving just me and my best friend, Zach.

I met Zach at the beginning of the year because he lived in the dorm room next to mine. We quickly became close friends. All of my roommates and his roommates got along and we would all go out together every weekend and just hang out between rooms during the week. Although Zach was not a very big guy physically, I felt safer around him and I knew that he would do anything to protect me and my friends. Zach and I stayed at the bar till about 1.55 am, when the house lights turned on, and the bouncers started to herd everyone out of the building. It was absolutely freezing that night, and it was snowing pretty hard. I frantically called for an Uber, which would usually take anywhere from 10 to 15 minutes

to pick us up at the bar. When we got outside and we were waiting for our ride, Zack decided to let his cigarette. He offered me one and I declined, but some stranger saw this as an opportunity to bum one off of Zack. The stranger sparked up a friendly conversation with us, asking about our night. I thought that it was strange that he was alone and didn't have any other friends with him, but also kind of felt bad for the guy. The conversation got weird. He asked us, do you like to drink? Obviously we like to drink, we just stayed until last call at the bar. Then he asked if Zach and I were a couple, we told him no, we're just close friends.

To this he responded. Well, that's good. I have my own place. I have four beers and four bedrooms. Each of you can have your own room. We thought this stranger was messing with us. Why would we come to this house only to have one beer? Why was he asking us to come stay at his house in the first place?

We tried to laugh it off, but he kept insisting that we come and hang out at his house and spend the night. We also learned that he was 29, which was 10 years older than us. At that point, I was pretty uncomfortable so I told Zach that I was going to look for an Uber in the line of cars, adding that I would be waiting just a few feet away. I opened up the Uber app and I saw that the car picking us up was going to be a green Subaru. I yelled to Zach while maintaining my distance from this stranger. I figured that Zach would have the situation handled until the Uber arrived.

He is a charismatic and friendly guy and knows how to be polite to remove himself from a conversation. After a few minutes of waiting, Zach came up to me with a panicked look in his eyes. He put his arm around me and started walking, pulling me along with him. He told me that he had told the strange man that we were going to leave soon and he said his goodbyes. When Zach turned away, he heard the man keep whispering, green Subaru, green Subaru. Like he was trying to remember which car we were going to get into.

Seeing Zach panicked scared me. But luckily, we found the Uber within minutes and the stranger was out of sight. Zach and I climbed into the back seat and let out a sigh of relief. Just happy to be out of the cold. The Uber was about to take off when the passenger door opened. The man followed us into the Uber. Zach and I stared in disbelief as we tried to tell him this was not his ride. The driver was in a hurry, so the strange guy managed to convince the driver to let him stay with us.

I honestly think the driver thought that we were all drunk and he didn't want to deal with it. As the ride started, our panic turned into fear. If this guy was crazy enough to get into the car with us, what else was he capable of? Did he have a weapon? As we were driving, this strange man tried to reroute the Uber to his house. This went on for a few minutes. I kept repeating that I ordered the ride and we would need to go to my dorm. Zach and I resorted to texting one another at this point to avoid upsetting the strange man because he started becoming aggressive when arguing about the destination.

Thank God we were still going back to our dorm, but also we didn't want this man to know where we lived. What would have happened when we got dropped off? Would the strange man follow us inside? I searched through the Uber app to see if there was anything that I could do to subtly notify the driver, but it didn't help that the Strange Man was sitting in the front seat and could see the driver's phone. As we got closer to the dorm, we decided the best option would be to book it for our dorm

as soon as the car stopped. The car pulled into the drop-off zone, which was at the bottom of a huge flight of stairs leading to the front entrance of our dorm. Zach grabbed my hand and we ran out the door and sprinted up the icy concrete stairs. It was the longest run of my life. I spent the entire time praying that I wouldn't fall, which I was prone to do on these stairs especially after drinking. We wanted to look back to see if the man was following this, but we both knew that we

couldn't risk even a second of time. When we finally made it up the stairs, we scanned a key card to get into the building, then made it pass the second door, which also required a key card. It was only then that we felt safe to process what just happened. My roommate was working at the front desk, which happened to be on the 15th floor, not the actual lobby of the building where we entered. We knew that there were cameras around the building and wondered if she could access them since she worked closely with the resident manager.

She unfortunately did not have access to the live footage, so we never found out if the man had followed us, or if he was roaming around the building. We sure his hell did not want to find out ourselves. But at least we felt safe since the doors would only open with student keycards. I'll still never know what this strange man's intentions were. Did he just want a free ride back to his house? Why was he so persistent in trying to get me and Zach to go back to his house when we only met a few minutes prior?

What happened to him after the uber dropped us off? To the strange man that tried to lure two young college students to his house and then had the audacity to invade our privacy while trying to escape him? Let's never meet. ["Fresh Produce is the best produce." That's why at Crocker, we invest in local farmers to bring you the freshest seasonal picks. So no matter how you shop, your local produce By a croaker, we invest in local farmers to bring you the freshest seasonal picks.

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Croaker. Fresh. For everyone. Simply by five or more participating items and save a dollar each with your card. Kroger, fresh for everyone! This happened to me a few years ago, but it still makes me feel very uncomfortable when I think about it. For a little background information, I'm a female and was in my mid-twenties at the time. I shared my apartment with a flatmate, and we got along pretty well. Usually, she would stay at my apartment during the weekmate and we got along pretty well. Usually she would stay at my apartment during the week because of her studies, but she would leave for the weekend to meet her boyfriend or her parents. My flatmate would also leave when it was clear that I wouldn't be spending the night at home, like when I went to my former boyfriend's place, for example.

She said that she didn't like the feeling of being all alone in the neighborhood that we lived in. It belongs in a pretty popular district of Cologne, but we lived on the edge of that district, where the people had lower incomes and the crime rate was higher. I still liked it there, because it radiated a kind of urban charm, and most of the people you met around the neighborhood were actually really nice. My story happened on a summer night, in August, to be specific. A long, hot day had passed, and I had just returned from a short trip to Amsterdam. I went there with a good friend of mine.

We took the train back home, but she lived in another part of Germany, so we split up almost two hours earlier. So there I was. Finally getting off the train at the train station nearest my home, at around two o'clock in the morning. I was wearing one of my favorite long summer dresses and my backpack while dragging my small, trolley suitcase behind me and hopping off the train. However, while standing on the platform, something just didn't feel quite right. At first I couldn't put my finger on what was wrong until I realized what really felt odd. It was quiet. Too damn quiet. Usually on weekend nights, there's always something going on around this place.

People who just returned from a night out or people who were just starting the night partying. But on this night, I couldn't hear a single car driving by on one of the busiest streets nearby. For a second, it felt weird and unreal until I remembered it was actually Tuesday, a day in the middle of the week. Most people were probably already lying in their beds, trying to get enough sleep for the next busy work day.

Only four other people were hopping off the train along with me. Two male teenagers, one older lady, and another male in his 30s, with a kind of wild fuzzy hair. There were no other people in the station except for us. The people headed right towards the exit, which was a small staircase leading down to the next floor. From there you had the opportunity to either go further downstairs to the subway or head to the junction to make your way to the housing estates. Normally, I would have gone straight to the exit as well, but it had gotten very cold and I wanted to grab my sweatshirt first. Not being in a rush, I took my time. I went to the

engineer by, took off my backpack and opened my trolley suitcase to look for my sweatshirt. Unfortunately, due to the hot temperatures during the day, I had all of my warmer clothes stuffed at the bottom of my suitcase so it took me some time to grab them. By the time I found my sweatshirt, I assumed everybody else had already left the station. Right before slipping the sweatshirt over my head, I stopped for a moment because I realized I was wrong. I wasn't alone. About 20 meters away from me, there was a man.

He was leaning against the railing on the departure side of the station opposite me, and staring at me. This made me feel very uncomfortable. Ordinarily, I try to ignore people that are staring because I want to avoid starting a conversation or giving the wrong impression of being interested, especially when I don't know them. And so, that I did. I fully ignored the man as I pulled my sweatshirt on. Then I closed my trolley and dared to take another quick look at him. He was still staring. And it seemed as if he

had quickly moved his hand out of his pants when he noticed I was glancing at him. Suddenly I realized he was one of the people that got off the train with me. It was the fuzzy-haired guy. I recognized him not only by his hair, but also by what he was wearing, a light gray hoodie and matching gray sweatpants. There was no emotion to be seen on his face, and he didn't take his eyes off of me, not even for a second. I started to feel very sick. Why hadn't he left the station?

You must know that, although I'm kind of a shy person, I managed to handle direct harassment or even drunk people in a very simple way, which is to be friendly. Not because I approved of being approached that way, not at all. This technique of being polite and not provoking has helped me get out of many situations. And knowing that has made me brave, or maybe naive enough to walk alone at night, but up until this point, no one had ever given me such a long piercing look before. This was the first time in my entire life that I felt a chill running up my spine, all the way to the back of my head. It wasn't goose bumps, but I felt like some kind of tension was making me hyper-aware of my surroundings, which I now know was my fight or flight mode kicking in.

I figured it was best to stay at the well-lit and well- well monitored train station until I felt safe enough to leave or figure out another plan. I had to buy time, so I pretended to search for something else in my backpack. At the same time, I desperately looked for rational reasons why this man hadn't left the station yet. Actually, I came up with a good one. He may have accidentally gone one station too far on the train, got off here, and wanted to catch a train that was going in the opposite direction. That's probably why he was standing on the opposite side. Something like that had happened to me before. I assumed the fact that he looked at me so obtrusively was probably due to bad manners

or something. The reason I had thought of was good enough to calm me down a bit, and to my great delight, the train going the opposite direction pulled in a few seconds later. The fuzzy-haired man turned his back to me entirely and took a few steps towards the approaching train. I felt a weight lift off of my heart, so I slung my backpack over my shoulder, grabbed my trolley, and walked briskly towards the stairs. I heard the familiar beeping of the train door's opening. I ventured another look at the platform and the man. He was now quite a bit further away and had approached one of the open train doors. I exhaled and relief

and went down the first few steps. The doors beaped again. This time to signal that they were about to close. Halfway down the stairs, where it got pretty dark due to the burned out light bulbs, I turned my head to see if there might be people that got off of the train. I was hoping that there would be a group of young women who happened to be heading in the same direction as me, but unfortunately no one had gotten off of that train. All alone, I went down the rest of the stairs. There were no security cameras recording the area at the bottom of the stairs. In front of me was the junction where I had turned to get home. I used to love this path.

It went past a high wall, continued under a bridge that was no longer in service, and it was a minute's walk further, after crossing a street, that you walked along the high wall again. Only then did a small side street appear to lead into the housing estates. The great thing about this long section of the trail was that it was freely and legally accessible for street artists. They had the official permission of the city to immortalize themselves there with graffiti art, and every few days there was a new artwork to admire.

The junction leading to this path was only lit up by a single street lamp. Looking further along the path, all the fantastic graffiti slowly gets lost into the darkness. The next source of light was placed right after that abandoned bridge. After leaving the station, the closer I got to the junction, the more uncomfortable I felt. I had a feeling that something was wrong, but I couldn't tell why. Up to this point, I had never believed it when somebody said that they had a gut feeling about something. Now, if I can give anyone any piece of advice, it is, please trust your gut. Because when I stopped and looked back at the steps, my heart started racing.

The fuzzy-haired guy was there and he was staring right at me again. He stood in the middle of the steps unmoving. I was very lucky that I saw him because he was barely visible in the darkness of the stairs. I can't tell you how many thoughts were shooting through my head at hyper speed. That man pretended to get on the train just to fool me and follow me, and knowing that you can tell that he had no good intentions in his mind. Every inch of my body wanted to run. I thought about just throwing my trolley and backpack on the ground and speeding home as fast as I could, yet I couldn't remember which of the two bags had my house keys in

it. And that would probably happen right under the bridge where nobody could hear me even if I screamed for help. I know I should have called the police, but panicking, I called my boyfriend at that time, instead. His phone rang and rang, but he didn't pick up, which left me feeling more desperate. In the meantime, the man had slowly made his way down the stairs and just kind of strolled around, keeping a close eye on me. Instead of dialing another number, I pretended my boyfriend had picked up.

Hey babe, I'm waiting for you at the station, where are you? Oh, so you're almost here? Out of the corner of my eye, I saw the guy with the fuzzy hair stop strolling. I kept talking in hopes that he would get the hint and go away. He did, but man, he really took his time. First, he made his way up to the junction then he turned left, which was good for me, as I had to go right, but every few steps he stopped and looked back at me. Sometimes he leaned on the wall for a while, and then he would take a few steps more, but he always kept an eye on me. I tried to keep the fake call as authentic as possible. I figured that the fuzzy hair guy

might find it a little suspicious if my boyfriend didn't show up soon. So I casually and slowly made my way to the right, always taking short breaks to look back and make sure that fuzzy wasn't following. I was five meters away from a small corner. If I managed to pass this corner, he wouldn't be able to see me as long as he didn't pass the corner as well.

By that time I could run as far and as fast as I wanted to. Are you nuts? I'm not going anywhere without you. It's dark as fuck out here." I said, as I laughed into the phone, continuing to engage in this fake call. The guy was now about 35 meters away from me. This seemed like a safe distance, so after he turned his back to me once more, I took my chance.

I didn't want to drag my trolley because the wheels would make a loud sound so I picked it up and just sprinted toward the corner, while being as quiet as possible. Even after passing the corner, I tried to run with silent feet and managed to get to the bridge. I then heard him scream. F**k! followed by the sound of his loud footsteps reverberating from the walls. I didn't mind running quietly anymore, adrenaline flooded my body, and I'm sure I've never run that fast in my entire life. I reached the small side street, which led to the housing estate. He was about 90 meters away from me,

so I ran down the street to get out of sight. After taking two other streets, I was sure that he'd lost me, at least for a while. I ran to my house quickly, searching for and finding my keys, and wanting to open my door. I wish I was kidding, but my key didn't fit. How? It was the right one. I double and triple checked it, then I noticed. A small piece of paper hanging from the door, indicating that the front door had a new lock. The sign said, new keys are inside your letter boxes.

The letter boxes were inside the building. I had no chance to get the new key. What the fuck? I couldn't believe how much bad luck I had at that moment. I rang my doorbell to wake up my flatmate. I rang a few times until I realized she wasn't home. As usual, she had left the apartment because she didn't want to spend the night alone while I was away on a short trip. I could hear the man yelling something in the distance and tears of fear filled my eyes because it meant that he wasn't that far away. I rang the other doorbells of the neighbors who lived in the same building, but no one answered, which didn't surprise me very much, because who would just open their door in the middle

of the night for some unexpected guest? Hey, bitch! I heard the fuzzy guy saying, I could tell that he was already very near, but I couldn't quite see him yet. One final thought popped into my head, maybe the key would still fit into our basement lock. I hid the trolley behind the tiny bush and jumped over the small wall in our front yard. I then ran around our building, jumped over the wall in the back yard and took then ran around our building, jumped over the wall, and the back yard, and took the stairs down to the basement level. My old key fit, and I was

over the moon. I quickly got up the stairs to my apartment with outturning on any lights. Even though I was safe at that point, I didn't want the man to know where I lived. I went to the kitchen window, and looked down at the street. I saw fuzzy. He kept searching, and he yelled bitch a few more times. My heart was still pounding like crazy, and I didn't want to lose sight of him. It sounds stupid, but I was still scared that he would find my trolley and figure out which building I was in. After a few minutes, it seemed like the guy had given up. He hid at the entrance of another house, and after a few minutes he finally left my street,

and only then did I feel all the tension slowly leaving my body, and I managed to fall asleep a few hours later. I've talked about this situation with my family and friends so that I could process what happened. Since then, I've taken a self-defense course, I avoid going anywhere all alone at night, and I've become very aware of my surroundings. Yet I'll never forget the moment I saw him standing at the stairs surrounded by darkness, staring at me. Whenever he wanted to do, I'm sure he was up to no good and I'm glad that I made it home. To everybody listening, stay safe, and to the fuzzy-haired guy, let's never meet again. If you've fallen out of love with your home, maybe you just need a refresh.

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is independently owned and operated. I'm currently 27 years old, but this happened to me when I was just 14. For a bit of backstory, my friends and I started smoking weed and drinking at quite a young age. Considering we were too young to get jobs, we were always broke and desperate for weed. We became pros at scraping the bowl to make resin balls. For those who don't know, resin balls are when you scrape all that black gooey resin

out of the pipe and form it into a sticky, gross ball and smoke and in desperation to get high. And this was typical teenage shit for us. One night I was at my friend's house, we'll call her Dana. We were hanging out with another friend. As I said, Dana, our friend and I, were teenagers who were desperate to get high. So I continued to scrape our bowls to form a resin ball the size of a damn grape. Gross, I know. My friend Dana lived in an apartment complex that had a playground in the middle of all the apartment buildings. It was probably around 11 at night when we snuck out to go to the playground and smoke this fat, dirty resin ball in hopes to get high. And high we did get. I remember sitting on top of the playground

structure for around an hour, continuing to get high off this nasty, stinky, gooey resin ball geeking out. For those who didn't smoke weed when you were young, there's nothing quite like that goofy geeky high that you get as a teenager. I imagine it was around one in the morning when we were satisfied with our high and decided that it was time to walk back to Dana's apartment. Side note, Dana's apartment door was probably about a third of the mile away from the playground. Our delinquent asses climbed off the playground and stood under a lamp post about to start our trek back when we heard something. Now keep in mind, we're 14 and high off our asses. We heard a male voice shouting at us.

We all looked around and noticed a man. He was standing under a different lamp post across the way, probably about 100 yards away. He repeatedly yelled something at us a couple of times. The three of us looked at each other extremely confused because he was decently far away, so we couldn't quite catch what he was saying. We all stood there silently and just looked at each other for a few seconds, totally confused. After repeating himself a few times, we all finally understood what he was saying.

You young girls shouldn't be out here by yourselves. It's late at night. There are predators out there. I think we finally heard what he was saying at the same time, but we stayed still and confused. I felt like minutes had passed, but I'm sure it was only a few seconds. Then we noticed two other men standing near him. The three of them were oddly spaced out, each standing under a different lamp post. The three of us looked at each other and utter shock and fear. Then, at the same time, all three men took off in a sprint toward us. It was such a blur, but I remember all of us screaming. Run! We all took off sprinting toward Dana's apartment. As I said before, her apartment was only around a

third of a mile away from where we were, but getting there felt like a marathon. We were high off our asses and sprinting through this apartment complex, running through bushes and under branches to get to that door as quickly as possible. I remember feeling like I was going to faint, both from being stoned and being scared out of my mind. I remember at one point, about halfway to the door. I took a quick glance back to see if they were actually chasing us or if we were losing our minds, and I saw them. All three men sprinted after us, only about 50 yards away. I screamed to my friends, keep running! We finally reached the door and Dana was frantically trying to unlock it with shaking hands.

We were all crying and screaming, begging her to get it open, knowing that the three men were only a short distance behind us. Thankfully Dana got the door unlocked and we rushed inside, making sure to slam the door shut. Dana's mom was asleep, so we had to quietly sneak in and get to Dana's bedroom. We ran her bedroom and we locked the door, the three of us. We just stood there, out of breath, panting, and incomplete shock. I'm sure we all eventually cried our eyes out, but for the most part, we just sat there

trying to explain it away. We tried to convince ourselves we were just high and we just imagined the same thing. But we know what happened. I know those men were chasing us. I don't know if they were just some creeps trying to torment and scare some teenagers that were high, or if they were real predators, with terrifying motives. that were high or if they were real predators with terrifying motives. About an hour later, another friend of ours came and picked us up to cruise around and smoke again. When our friend texted us, saying she was in the parking lot, we sprinted to her car and told her to lock the doors and drive. She was confused, but she could tell that we were terrified so she listened.

We explained what happened to her and then continued on with our night. Still in shock. I'm not 100% sure what the men's intentions were, but please, let's not meet again. This happened to me during the summer of 2015. I had recently graduated from college and was looking to move away from where I grew up. When a job opportunity presented itself in the deep south, I jumped on it as I was excited to get out on my own. I really wasn't sure of what to do with myself with this newfound freedom, though. I would go to work and I would study for my boards, but not much else as I hadn't really

made any friends yet. A friend of mine from college had also relocated to the south but was several hours away, needing some familiarity, but not wanting to run back home just yet, I planned a trip to go see her. Being a post-grad student, I didn't have a ton of money saved up. I found the cheapest flight, but it was out of Atlanta, which was a few hours away. I thought that this was fine. I figured I'd just add the jaunt to Atlanta to the adventure. I hopped on the highway ready and excited for my mini-git away. As I was driving, a semi-truck pulled up on my right side, blaring its horn at me. It reminded me of this time when I was a kid, and my dad had a flat tire. A trucker had been the one

to alert him by blaring his horn. I assumed that I was getting the same warning. Great, I thought to myself, a flat in the middle of the highway, as I'm on my way to the airport. I pulled off the nearest exit, which was when it got creepy. The truck had pulled off as well and was now following me. Immediately off of the exit there were two gas stations. One was full of different cars and the other looked slightly abandoned. I chose the busy one, pulling into a spot right in front of the door, in between two cars. I looked over my shoulder and the truck had chosen to pull into the empty gas station. He seemed to just be waiting there as he never got out of his truck. He was

just sitting and watching. I did a lap around the car and granted I knew nothing about cars whatsoever, but for someone on the highway to be flagging me down, there would have to be something visibly wrong with my car, right? Nothing about to fall off? Nothing was wrong at all. The truck had very clearly blared its horn at me, and had motioned for me to get off of the highway. There was no way I had cut him off as I hadn't changed lanes and who knew how long. This man was obviously trying

to get me to exit the highway with the intent of following me. I called my boyfriend who was still back in my hometown as I did another lap around the car. I explained to him that it looked like there wasn't anything wrong with the car, asking if there was something that I could be missing. He told me to stay on the phone with him as I got back on the highway. I pulled out of the gas station with my phone on speaker in my lap and I kept an eye on the truck. He's following me. I told him.

The truck had immediately pulled out as well, following me back onto the highway. Every lane change, every move, every time I attempted to speed up, the truck was right there. I had no idea what to do. Do I call the cops? What do I even tell them? Eventually, we got closer to Atlanta. I managed to lose him in the many lanes of backed up traffic. My small car was able to weave in and out in a way that his truck was not able to. I have no idea what the man's intentions were, and the more I think about it, the more I'm glad I trusted my instincts, to pull into a busier gas station among many cars and people.

So to that trucker that stalked me during my solo trip, let's never meet. I'm a big fan of the podcast and it keeps me company on my everyday journey on the Metro to and from work. I'm from Rome and I've always found myself safe here, even at night, for the city is always somehow crowded. But here I come with my true horror story, which has recently given me goosebumps. It was a warm December night, its Rome after all. I was smoking on the balcony of my flat with my flatmate. The flat complex is in a quiet area, just three metro stations

away from the city center. My flatmates and I, a group of three girls, have been living there since September 2022. We were just there chatting and laughing when we saw something strange. There was a man wearing dark glasses, a face mask, and a hat. He was staring right at us while standing under the light of a street lamp. At first, we didn't really care about him, after all. We aren't the only occupiers of the flat complex, and maybe he was just minding his own business. Minutes passed, and he was still there, staring right at our balcony. Staring at me in my flatmates.

I turned to my flatmate, visibly upset and asked, That's creepy, right? She nodded, frightened. I turned to the man standing under the lamp post and shouted, Get lost! Nothing happened. He didn't move. We decided to go back inside, lower the blinds, and double check that the main door to our flat was locked. The morning after we decided to ask the door man about it, he said that it was pretty strange and he said nothing like that has ever happened in the complex. Then, some days ago, I went out at night and I came back home quite late.

The door man was already gone for the night, and I saw him again, the man that was under the street lamp, staring at our balcony. I thought maybe he saw my flatmates smoking there again. I ran to the door of our building and ran up the stairs, making sure that I was totally alone. As I made my way inside the flat, my flatmates told me that they saw the creep again, but he suddenly disappeared. Apparently, he ran towards an area of the complex that is currently a work in progress.

A couple of nights ago, we were all lying on the sofa, watching the film, and we clearly heard somebody trying to unlock the main door of the flat. We all ran to the door and looked through the people. We saw a dark shadow. It was of a man running down the stairs. One of my flatmates, boyfriends, opened the door and tried to go after him, but the man ran too fast and he was already out. Maybe it's too soon to tell, but we really hope that we don't meet that creep again. Thanks everyone for listening to this special extended version of Let's Not Meet, and

thank you to all of the patrons who have made it possible. This week you have heard, he tried to come in to clean our carpets by Ninja's friend, Be Untouchables by JJ. Almost attacked while driving to the hospital by Carly, Sweet Home Chicago by Moon Pie. He stole my cat by B. It wasn't just a whistle by Lexie. He followed us into our uber by Sydney,

Fuzzy by Anonymous, Teen Stoner's Versus set of crepes by Rachel, Highway Stalker by Anonymous. Teen Stoners vs. Set of Creeps by Rachel. Highway Stalker by Anonymous. And finally, he's getting closer by Francesca. All the stories you've heard this week were narrated and produced with the permission of their respective authors. If you have a story to share, send it to Let's Not Meet Stories at gmail.com. And again, if you want to sign it for the Patreon, to get extended episodes like this every week, however you will get them ad-free, along with tons of other bonus content, instantly. Head over to patreon.com forward slash let's not meet podcast to sign up and support the show today.

And don't forget to check out the new episodes of my other podcasts on trails, my true paranormal podcast, the old time radio cast, and my new podcast. Welcome to Paradise, it sucks. All at crypticcountypodcasts.com. Special thanks to my co-producer, Jen, for compiling and editing these stories as well as Michael, for making sure that I don't upload these episodes with a bunch of mistakes. And finally, Ellen, for keeping our Discord server alive, the one that I'm notoriously absent from.

And finally, thank you to all of the wonderful patrons for keeping this podcast alive. This podcast is not possible without every one of you. I'll see you all next week. Stay safe. Hey you sexy f***, looking for hot saucy fun that'll have you all f***ing stop censoring me. That's a Planned Baseburger loaded with vegan bacon, vegan cheese, caramelized onion, lettuce, tomato and signature sluts sauce. It's so f***ing good! Okay, that one was fair.

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