Let's Not Meet: A True Horror Podcast - 10x19: Back Roads Bandits - Let's Not Meet

Episode Date: June 19, 2023

Extended Patreon Content: - I'll Never Forget 2008, by Rachel - My Knight in Shining Taxi, by Anna - Latern Festival Nightmare, by cautiously wary 1234 - Snapchat Snafu, by Miller - Reincarnation is Real, But Who Were They?, by Samantha - He Watched Me Sleep, by Chloe - Back Roads Bandits, by B-Dub Extended Patreon Content: - A Strange Tale from the Trail, by Anonymous Mountain Goat Girl - Stranger on the Appalachian Trail, by Jeanyn - Do You Know Where You're Going?, by Sarah 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! - Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/groups/433173970399259/ - Website - https://letsnotmeetpodcast.com - Patreon - https://patreon.com/letsnotmeetpodcast - Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/letsnotmeetcast/  

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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 19 of Let's Not Meet a True Horror Podcast. I was listening to the podcast while commuting home from work as usual and I heard a story that reminded me of a few incidents that happened to be back in 2008. I had this friend, we'll call her Jenna. Jenna was in a long-term relationship with her fiance, who we'll call Dan.

Jenna and Dan lived together in a house with their two small children. For a little backstory, Dan was struggling with the heroin addiction, and he hadn't always been the best fiancé to Jenna. He was a functional addict. He worked and had a busy life, and from what I could tell, Dan was always loving towards the children. He was never physically abusive to them or Jenna, though. I was never sure of what Jenna saw in him him but I supported her since she was one of my best friends.

She and I had been best friends since 2004, so I had known both of them for four years prior to this incident. One night, I was hanging out at their house. I was playing with their kids. Jenna received a text on her phone from a male friend of hers. Dan saw this and did not like it one bit. I don't remember what the text said, but I remember he completely lost his shit. He started screaming at Jenna accusing her of being a cheater and a whore. Jenna was trying to explain herself, but Dan was too enraged to have a calm conversation about it.

He stomped off into the other room, and returned shortly with an axe in his hand. Jenna yelled, what are you doing, Dan? Stop! Dan said nothing in response and began to rage, tearing things apart. He was using the axe to break windows, and he smashed Jenna's phone. He also smashed the glass top of the stove and the toilet. Then he went outside and started destroying her car. Then he came back inside, chopped the electrical cord of the fridge, and pushed it over.

He was out of control. He was all over the place. He also threw her notes and expensive school books into the fireplace, which unfortunately had a fire going. Jenna yelled at him to stop over and over, but he kept going. I quickly realized we needed to get out of there. I grabbed the two kids, took them outside and put them in my car. Fortunately, Jenna followed us outside and I told her we needed to go to the police station. She agreed and we went to go to the police station. She agreed and we went straight there.

The police took our statements and they talked to the kids. By the time we got back to the house three hours later, he was gone. I don't know where he went, but he went to jail after that event. Thankfully Jenna's home insurance provider paid for everything that was damaged in the house. Dan has since passed away from an overdose. Jenna is now with somebody who loves and cares deeply for both her and the children. This was one of the most terrifying events I had ever been involved in.

It just goes to show how unpredictable people can be even if you've known them for years. Dan, even though you're gone, Jenna did everything that she could to help you, but instead you destroyed her home. I never thought that you'd take it that far, and I'm sure that Jenna didn't think you would either. If there's an afterlife, I hope that Jenna, the kids, and I never meet you again. Now, after that incident, I found myself more wary of people in general, but I was still naive and considered myself to be a people pleaser. One day, I was walking home from work in a more industrial area of the city that I lived in. I had to walk

two and from work since my car was in the shop. I lived close to where I worked anyway. I was about a mile and a half away. As I was walking home from work, passing all of the factories, I've built eyes on me. I glanced in the direction of where I felt this gaze coming from. That's when I saw a large older man in his 50s or 60s, in a gray sedan with the windows down. He was just sitting in his car in the parking lot of one of those factories. We made eye contact for one second, but I quickly looked away and continued to walk. I silently passed in front of his car, hoping that he wouldn't say anything but of course, he called out to me. Hey, come here, I need help," the man said. Stupidly, I walked toward his car.

I assumed he actually needed help, or was having some kind of emergency. I approached his driver's side window, and he greeted me with a creepy smile. He looked sweaty and gross. He told me about how he just got the car and needed help figuring out the radio and GPS systems. I can't remember his problem specifically, but he insisted that he needed my help. He suggested that I get into the passenger seat, claiming that it would be easier for me to see the problem from there.

I declined, but he kept attempting to get me into that seat. Thankfully, my naive brain recognized the red flags and the bad vibes, so I just walked I declined, but he kept attempting to get me into that seat. Thankfully my naive brain recognized the red flags and the bad vibes, so I just walked away and continued home. I looked over my shoulder the entire time and prayed that I would not see that grace a day and following me. Luckily I didn't. I never saw him parked at that factory again, and I hope I never do.

Shortly after that, I ended a three-year relationship and decided to put myself back out there to try some of these dating sites. This was before dating apps like Tender, Hinge, and Bumble. I was using plenty of fish, which was its own dumpster fire, just like the rest of them, I guess. But since I was curious, I went for it, and I joined the website. If you're not familiar with plenty of fish, one thing to note here is that anyone can message you. There was no swiping or matching back then.

I started talking to this guy who we'll call Jay. I wasn't physically attracted to Jay, but he seemed very nice, and we had really nice conversations. We talked on the website for a bit before moving our conversation to Yahoo Messenger. And eventually I decided to give him my phone number. As we were texting, he revealed that he actually lived in Texas. He was only in Ohio temporarily to visit with friends. I knew what that meant. I assumed he was looking

for a hook-up. I'm not about that, so I just stopped responding to his texts. When I stopped, he started blowing up my phone. He became verbally aggressive since I wasn't responding. He called me nasty names for giving him my number and leading him on. He said, I shouldn't be on dating sites if I wasn't going to be responsive. He carried on with similar verbal ammunition, so I decided to just block his number. The next day, I logged back into plenty of fish and discovered that he sent me several additional messages regarding my silence. He was harassing me and being verbally aggressive in those messages as well, so I blocked him on the website as well. It didn't take him long to start messaging me repeatedly on Yahoo Messenger.

When I blocked him on there, he immediately made a new screen name, so he could continue sending message after message. He harassed me for hours every single day. His verbal aggression escalated into threats of violence. He told me that even though he lived in Texas, he knew people in Ohio. He told me I needed to watch my back since he said that he could find out where I lived with this information I had given him when we were on friendly terms. I could tell that he wanted me to be scared.

He even told me, you'll never know if I'm behind you on the street or hiding inside your house watching you. I'll never forget that one. Time went on and I kept ignoring and blocking him. He continued to find me and harass me on every social media platform there was. He added me under different names on Facebook and tried to message me there. After a couple of months of this, it eventually stopped.

I didn't hear from him for a while. Fast forward to 2015. By then, a few more social media platforms like Snapchat and Instagram were gaining popularity. He started attempting to add me on those at random over the years. The last message he sent to me said something along the lines of, I miss talking to you. The last time we talked, I was on probation after spending three years in prison.

I'm out now. I won't bug you like I used to. I just want a chat. I wanted to vomit as I read these words. He majorly downplayed his prior interactions with me. He was acting as if he were simply pestering me, not harassing and threatening me. I'm still paranoid to this day. I don't accept random friend requests from people that I don't know, just in case it's him. I even went through my whole Facebook friends list and perched everybody that I didn't know personally. I still think about him

coming after me. I've even thought about writing his information down and keeping it in my wallet for the police in case anything ever happens. Nowadays, I make sure to research every man before meeting him. I search for criminal records and look for marriage license. Ladies, be careful who you talk to. You never know how they're going to handle rejection. I'm grateful that things didn't end badly for me. And Jay, I hope you got what you deserved in prison, and I don't ever want to meet you. Ever. I don't want any other female to meet you either. Who knows what you're capable of. The fact that you served prison time proves that you're capable of a lot more than what

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Simply buy five or more participating items and save a dollar each with your card. Kroger, fresh for everyone. This was around 2006. I was a third year film student living in London and I was in my early 20s. I shared a flat with two other women in a part of East London called Hackney. I believe Hackney is pretty gentrified now, but at the time it was hovering between being a rough area and being a hip area. There were a lot of students, but also a lot of messed up people walking the streets of Hackney, and there was a lot of gang-related violence.

In the mornings, sometimes my roommates and I woke up to signs set up by the police literally in front of our house. For example, one of the signs they left said, a stabbing occurred here at 3am. Call us if you've seen anything. It could be pretty nasty in that area, but other than that, I can't say I felt unsafe living there, especially not during the day. The gang world didn't affect my world directly. Now I'm not from the UK and I had just arrived at the airport after returning from a holiday back home.

It was fairly late in the evening on Sunday. I think my flight arrived at around 10 pm. London is huge and everything takes ages, so by the time I made it to town via the airport bus, it must have been close to midnight. From the central station where I had arrived, there were two bus lines that I could take to get home. One would take me almost directly to my house, taking the other one would drop me off at a 10 minute walk from home. This 10 minute walk was along the dodgy streets of Hackney. As I was tired, and just wanted to get into my bed as soon as possible, I decided to take whichever bus came first. Of course, the bus that would not take me directly home arrived first. Still,

I hopped on. I just wanted my bed. I got off at the closest station to my house on the main road. By now, it must have been 1am or later. As the bus drove away, I realized the streets were completely empty. There wasn't a soul in sight. The streets were as dead as the night. It was spooky as hell. It was kind of strange because London is a city that's buzzing at all hours, but I guess it wasn't buzzing on that night. Having no other choice, I started walking up the road toward where I lived, pulling my bright red suitcase behind me and clutching my enormous handbag under my arm. Then I noticed a group of guys standing up ahead on the road in front of a closed corner

shop on the exact corner from where I needed to turn left. There were three dodgy figures just hanging out. To get to my house I had to walk past them. My inner alarm bells rang code red, so I slowed down. I didn't want to walk past those guys, but I also didn't want to make it look obvious that I was scared of them. Thinking back, I can't estimate how far away they were exactly. They must have been somewhere between 50 and 100 meters away. I guess that would be roughly 160 to 300 feet. I was close enough to see their facial expressions, and I could tell that these guys definitely were not good news. I looked around for an approaching bus or something, anything, but no. There was nothing else, just dangling street lights highlighting the sheer emptiness of the road. One of the guys

turned and began to walk toward me very slowly, not cool. I stopped and looked around again. I did not want to encounter this guy who had put on his most threatening thug face as he was approaching me. But what could I do? What would happen if I just ran? If I ran, it would be very obvious that I was afraid of him and he'd probably come after me. Where could I go?

There was no safe space for me to run to, no pub, no open shops. I was stuck there on this road with these three scary figures, a third of whom was in the process of approaching me. Just then, a miracle happened. Literally, out of nowhere, a taxi appeared down the road behind me. I waved frantically for it to come by, though it was still a bit away. I started walking toward it as it drove toward me. But it had to stop at a red light. Oh, the suspense. I looked back and still the guy was walking slowly in my direction. I turned back to the taxi, willing it, ever so hard, to just get here already.

I'm not a believer, but in situations like this, I always see the signs. Where the taxi had stopped for the red light, there was a street light hanging up above, it shone down directly upon its white roof, illuminating it like the God-given miracle it was. And still, there were no other cars and no other people around. This taxi absolutely came from nowhere. Finally, the light turned green, and it pulled up right next to me. Thugface had nearly reached me and was only a few steps away. I threw my enormous suitcase in the back seat and jumped in closing the door behind me,

literally the exact second he walked past. As he walked by, he gave me the most chilling death glare. I told the taxi driver that I lived just up the road and only had the re-quit on me. He said in his genuine cognaccent, it's all right, love. That guy wasn't looking at you in a good way. Then he took me home to safety. He dropped me off, and I gave him three quid, and thanked him profusely. He then drove off into the night. He was my night in shining taxi. So to the taxi driver, I think you may have saved my life that night. I honestly credit you for the life I have now. Who knows where or

who I would be today if you hadn't shown up at that exact moment so many years ago. And to thug face and his day, it's still one of the scariest situations I've ever encountered. It was 2018, and two of my friends and I decided to go to a lantern festival. We lived in a very rural town about three hours away from where this festival was. At the time, we were in our early 20s, so we were ready to drink at an event. Prior to going, we booked a hotel, researched information about the event, and looked at the website.

On the festival's website, they stated that they had food trucks and that they were going to sell alcohol. They recommended that anybody planning on drinking should take a ride share, such as Lifter Uber. Since we were planning on drinking, we chose to take an Uber from our hotel. When our Uber was approaching the address that the festival had listed, we found ourselves on a very long dirt road that was approximately four miles long. The festival itself was very cute, and we spent about three hours there.

Given that it was a lantern festival, it didn't start until dusk and went on until about 10 pm. We had drinks and ate terrible food. Then, we listed our intentions for the year on the lanterns and set them off into the night. Once that event ended, we searched for a designated Uber Pickup point to no avail. I finally asked the security guard working the event where the Uber Pickup point was. To our shock, we were informed that there wasn't even an Uber pickup point at this location. After the events in this area, the long dirt road turns into a one-way road for all festival goers to vacate the area. This meant that my two friends and I had

no other choice but to walk down this long dirt road in the dark adjacent to the cars until we hit the main road. We considered asking a random car if they could drive us just to the main road split off, but decided that that could be dangerous. I should also mention, since this was during the summer months, we were wearing skirts, shorts, crop tops, and sandals. As a result, walking down this dirt road was extremely difficult. We quickly started tearing up our feet due to the dirt and

loose terrain. After walking for about a mile, we saw security guards directing traffic. We decided to ask the security guards if they had any official security vehicles that they could take to drive us down to the main road. One of them said that they would ask one of their co-workers who just ended their shift to drive us, and we eagerly agreed. After calling his off-the-clock worker on the walkie-talkie, the security guard standing in the road with us, lightly warned us that the guy picking us up was a bit awkward, but he said to pay no attention to it as he was harmless.

This should have been a big red flag to us immediately, but we were desperate. A minute later, the off-duty security guard pulled up in his own pickup truck and told us to get in. The first two minutes of the drive went fine, but things shifted quickly. He went on about how we were so lucky he picked us up, then offered to drive us directly to our hotel as he was a gentleman, and he couldn't leave us girls out on the street late at night. This morphed into him stating, any guy could just pick you up and take advantage, even I could easily overpower you if I wanted

to. We told him that we didn't mind waiting for an Uber now, then we told him to drop us off where the dirt meets the main road. As we agreed upon before we even got into his truck, but he refused to stop. And he continued driving once we hit the main road. Then he told us about how my friends were sitting on top of the many guns that he had stored in the backseat, and he asked us if we wanted to party with him instead of going back to our hotel. We sternly declined the offer to party, as politely as we possibly could,

since we didn't want to anger this man with guns, who refused to let us out of his truck. He kept insisting that we go to his mom's house where he lived, along with him. He said that his mom was asleep, and he had tons of alcohol there. We declined this offer, but then he said that we needed to go to his mom's house first, regardless since he wanted to take a shower and change. At first, we told him this was fine, and then we asked for his mom's address so that we could make a request for the Uber app so that they could pick us up there. Outragesely, he said he didn't know his own address.

We were on high alert after that response, so we were scrambling, thinking of what to do next. Finally, I noticed we were about to pass an empty desolate gas station. I demanded that he drop us off there. I'm not sure if it was my tone or what, but he actually agreed. We hopped out of his truck immediately and then requested an Uber to pick us up. Thankfully, I saw the gas station. I don't even want to know what would have happened if I didn't. To that creepy, off-duty security guard who wanted to party with a group of uninterested girls at his mom's house, let's not meet again. 18T Fiber presents A Straight Forward Moment

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a group of girls. To preface, I had a girlfriend at the time, who was now my wife, so I wasn't interested in picking up some random girls, however, my girlfriend lived back in our hometown, which was two and a half hours away from my college town. Anyway, I was happy to be having fun with my roommates and some new friends. We all started talking and genuinely having a good time, so we started taking shots together. One of the girls, we'll call her Jen, took an interest in me. She asked to take a picture on her Snapchat with me, and she posted it to her Snapchat story. This will be important for later.

We had a fun time just hanging out at the bar, but it was getting late, so we decided that it was time to go home. Jin immediately offered to drive us back to our house, admittedly, having her drive us home probably wasn't a good idea, but it was cheaper than an Uber. As broke college students, this was easy to agree to. We got back to our house and my roommates hopped out of the car. Before I could get out, Jen said that one of her friends had a flat tire. She asked if I could go with her to help her friend change the tire. I said yes.

We drove over to her friend's car, only to find that two of her tires were flat, but she only had one spare. I told them that they were going to need to get a tow truck, and they needed to have it towed back to their apartment complex. Jen asked me to go back to their apartment complex with them. I guess to help out with the tow truck driver or whatever, so I agreed. Bear in mind, I had been drinking for quite a while that night. I was definitely drunk, but still in control. We all went to their apartment complex and the tow truck driver dropped off the car and left.

Then, Jen invited me inside their apartment. Once we were inside, I asked to borrow a phone charger. My phone was about to die and I wanted to get an Uber back to my house. She gave a charger to me and I plugged it into my phone in their kitchen. Her roommates disappeared into their rooms at this point, so it was just me and Jen in the living room. Then Jen suddenly pounced on me. She was trying to kiss me while taking off her clothes.

She was also trying to pull my clothes off her clothes. She was also trying to pull my clothes off while pulling me onto the couch. Now I resisted and eventually got myself away from her. I quickly pulled myself together, grabbed my phone, and I ran out of her apartment. She followed me, but stopped at the door to yell something before slamming it shut and locking it. The next thing I knew, I was stranded in the department complex that I had never been to before, by myself. My phone had a little charge, but not much. I called my girlfriend and tried to explain what happened, and where I was, but my phone died in the middle of our conversation.

The only thing that I could do was try and walk back to my house, on the other side of town. After my phone had died, my girlfriend had a rough estimate of where I was, so she called a friend of ours, who lived in my college town and they came out looking for me. Luckily, our friend ended up spotting me walking along the side of the road so they picked me up and took me back to their house for the night. And you'd think that that would be the end of the story. But it isn't. Not quite. It turns out, Jin is from the same hometown as me and my girlfriend. She went to high school with my girlfriend. She and my girlfriend even had several mutual friends. This was how I was able

to find out that the Snapchat Jin took of herself and I had the caption. I'm going to have sex with this guy tonight. All of my girlfriend saw it. They saw me in the picture right next to Jin. They texted my girlfriend about it and told her that I was cheating on her with Jin. I had to forget what I went through with Jin, which was traumatizing in its own right, to do damage control. I had to make sure that my girlfriend didn't think that I cheated on her. Essentially, it became my word against Jins. I drove to our hometown to console my girlfriend and set the record straight. I'm grateful that my girlfriend eventually saw that I was telling the truth.

At the end of the day, this happened a long time ago, and I'm now happily married to my girlfriend and we're expecting a baby girl. To Jinn, let's not ever meet again. In 2009 when I was in my mid-20s, I worked as a program director for a year-round before and after school program. During the summer, we often had an influx of kids from regular, not year-round school, in addition to regular students. Our program was affordable, even for low-income households, and situated in an affluent area.

We had all kinds of participants enrolled in our program. Enrollment occurred weekly, so at the end of each week, any new enrollments provided me with a packet detailing allergies, special circumstances, and any other notable information. These packets were carefully reviewed, color coded, and highlighted, which is important to remember for later. One Friday, my boss called me to let me know that a new kid who was just under 5 years old would be starting the following Monday. This kid and his mother were placed in a protection program. I kept this in mind as I was expecting kids to begin showing up that following Monday morning.

The first kid that walked in that day was the cutest kid I had ever seen. We'll call him Chase. Chase's mom gave me his packet. She was a doll, and he was super advanced for his age, so we had a great first day. I was happy that our newest and roly was such a fun, adorable, and super-lovable kid. On Tuesday, we were doing art. The group was coloring when Chase told me that the man and the dumpster in his backyard was bothering him. I asked him some basic questions to get a feel for if it was true or imaginary, and I felt very strongly that he wasn't making this up. I notified his mom about it during pick-up, and she found this to be odd since they live in an apartment complex and don't even have a backyard. She laughed it off, and that was that.

The next morning, on Wednesday, Chase and his mom were there before I even arrived. Chase's mom pulled me aside to tell me that a man had been found dead in the dumpster of their apartment complex the night before. She explained to me that the dumpster where the body was located was nowhere near the unit. She also said that Chase's bedroom window faces the front of the building, which is the opposite from where the dumpsters are located. She had no clue how Chase knew about the guy in the dumpster before they went home. When Chase was asked about this, he just shrugged and said, told ya. That same day we had swim lessons. In the swim lessons, it was only Chase myself and

one other staff member. Chase was my only kid who couldn't swim, and it was our policy to have another staff member around for swim lessons when this was the case. My fellow staff member stood right on the bench line, within clear earshot, of me and Chase as we practiced the basics and had some laughs. Suddenly, Chase stood upright and said, Samantha, stop speaking to me like a child. This was odd since the kids called me Sammy, but I responded, what do you mean Chase? He wore a child. Then, assuming that he was just being silly, the other staff member and I laughed. But Chase was insistent on not being spoken to like a child and yelled, stop that!

I told him the swim lesson was over and said that he needed to calm down. As we dried off, he pointed to a parking lot across the street and said, see that place there? I used to live there. I said, chase, I've been babysitting in this neighborhood my entire life and there's never been a house there. He replied, no, Samantha, I lived there my entire miserable life. I reminded him to lower his voice and he said, But my life wasn't all that bad, though. The other staff member and I got chills and Chase continued. My son drowned in the lake right here. Then just as seamlessly as he snapped into telling me this story, he snapped out of it

and returned to his goofy self. He even asked why I looked so concerned. He couldn't remember the conversation we just had. The other staff member was so freaked out that I sent him home for the day. After closing down that evening, I visited one of the families I used to babysit for in that neighborhood. I asked them if there was anything at the end of the street when they moved in. They told me there was an old rundown Victorian-style home there, but it was all boarded up. So sad, the father of the family explained, a single dad lived there

in his son drowned in the lake. He couldn't stand the grief so he walked into the water and then shot himself. But this was years before we even moved in. Why do you ask?" Now I kept it vague. I told him I was just curious, and then got out of there fast. I stopped by the local library after that before going home and sure enough in the archives of some old microfilm there it was. It wasn't a widely covered story which I found weird but I found it nonetheless and that's not even the wildest part. That Friday after I closed down and all the kids were gone I went to see my boss. I wanted to tell him how strange Chase was. My boss asked,

who's Chase? I replied. The four-year-old that just joined this week. My boss clarified, I sent you a Dennis. I said, no, his name is Chase. My boss said, are you talking about the little redhead with blue eyes? The kid who came in with his mom? Chase had platinum blonde hair and brown eyes. The description my boss gave me of the mom also didn't fit. When I described who I had been seeing all week, my boss didn't know who I was talking about. How did this unknown person get a packet to complete and turn in when my boss is the only

one who distributes them? I was totally weirded out. I never saw Chase or his mom again after that week, and I hope I never see him again. 18T Fiber presents A Straight Forward Moment You're wine? Thanks. I'll pretend I know what I'm doing before saying it's good. And I'll pretend I don't know you're pretending. Are you a Gagillionaire?

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Are you a Gagillionaire? Yeah, I have AT&T Fiber. The straightforward pricing has inspired me to be more straightforward. Me too. Ugh, this wine. I'll fetch you a better one. Straight forward is better. No equipment fees, no data caps, no price increase at 12 months.

Live like a gigillionaire with AT&T fiber, limited availability in select areas. Visit att.com slash Hypergig for details. The story took place in the summer of 2022 in South Central, Pennsylvania. For the past nine years or so, I have attended an orthodox Christian summer camp. It was my favorite part of the year, and as soon as I had to leave, I would begin my

countdown for the next year. I dreamt of the day that I would finally join the staff hall of fame and become a counselor. And that dream finally came true in 2022. Now, let me fill you in on some important details, so you're able to better understand what happened to me. This camp hosts 4 sessions each summer. Each session is 2 weeks long. During each session, every cabin gets to go out into the woods to have fun camping experiences.

We call this an overnight. During these overnight, the counselors would build a campfire from scratch while the kids learned to pitch a tent and how to cook their own food over a fire. It was one of my favorite nights of summer camp because I got so close to all the other girls in my group. As far as the overnight sleeping arrangements go, the campers divided themselves amongst the tents while the counselors slept in hammocks. I'm a huge horror movie geek, so there isn't much that genuinely scares me, but being in

the woods with only one other adult while sleeping in a hammock, completely exposed, was scary. The night that this story took place was during the third session of the summer. There wasn't much leading up to what happened, so I'll just jump ahead. One of my group had built their tents, eaten dinner, and gone to bed. The other counselor and I went off to find a good spot for us to hang our hammocks. The trees in the area that we chose to camp out in were oddly spaced, so we ended up setting up our hammocks pretty far apart from one another. I was the head counselor of the group that day, so thankfully I got to sleep with our emergency

walkie-talkie. It only took me about 30 minutes to follow sleep, which was surprising, given how nervous I was, about being in the woods at night with zero protection. I felt like I had only been asleep for five minutes when I was woken up by a man standing right next to my hammock. when I was woken up by a man standing right next to my hammock. He was staring at me. I froze. We were the only ones at the only campsite on the property, and it was exclusively girls. The only other men that could possibly be down here would be the head priest or our overnight coordinator.

The man standing there and staring at me was neither. I was so scared and exhausted. It took me a while to figure out what to do next. Once I had mustard up enough courage to scream to alert the other counselor, he bolted back and into the woods. I jumped out of my hammock and I ran while sobbing and screaming to wake up the other counselor and tell them what happened. I used our emergency walkie-talkie to call the people down to get us the hell out of there.

The camp director called the police who conducted searches that night and the following day, but they didn't find anybody. Or anything. After that, the last session of summer was canceled for safety purposes. It's safe to say that was the first and last summer I will spend as a counselor. Honestly, I don't know if I'll ever go back. To the creepy man who watched me sleep in the woods, let's not meet. My story begins with the visit to a horse barn where my girlfriend gives dressage lessons to horseback riders.

Now I'm allergic to horses but I had to stop by to see her or help her with something. I don't remember which. I was heading home, which is about an hour long drive via the interstate. It was still light out, however, I decided to take the long way home. The route I had chosen was a long drive through secondary roads with lots of twists and turns. This route offered a much preferred view of the rivers and old farms. It was a beautiful drive, but it was taking longer than I had anticipated. I navigated around the

country roads along the new river and darkness crept in. It became, in all of its glory, a pitch black night. If you've ever driven in a rural area in the middle of the night, you know exactly what I mean. There are no street lamps, no traffic lights, no signs, just the occasional illumination of house lights as you pass by, or your headlights, of course. As I started up a hill, in which the road wound around a slight bend, there was a man standing in the middle of the road. He had his arms stretched above his head in a waving motion intending to stop my vehicle.

As I slowed my vehicle, he approached my window. I could see he was about six feet tall, around 160 pounds, and in his early to mid-twenties. I noticed to my left there was a car with its hood up. I assumed he must be having car trouble, as it was a beater. I thought that it was odd that his car was facing in the same direction as mine, even though it was on the side of the road driving the opposite direction. So his car was facing potential oncoming traffic. As he bent down, I could see his face.

It looked weary and worn as if he hadn't slept in days. I thought perhaps, and it was because his car was broken down in the middle of nowhere, and he was stressed, so I rolled my window down about halfway. The man smiled and asked, can you come and take a look at my car for me? The question struck me as strange and immediately put me on alert. As someone who grew up watching unsolved mysteries in America's most wanted, I have always been very skeptical of all strangers. I knew something was a mess. I mean, most people

would ask, can you help me? Or, possibly, hey, thanks for stopping. Can you give me a ride? This guy went straight for, can you come look at my car? I was driving a sporty red sedan, and I was dressed in a t-shirt and jeans. I certainly did not look like a mechanic. I also knew that where we were, there was no cell service. We were literally in the middle of nowhere. If someone was up to something nefarious, this would be the perfect spot to carry out those plans. I responded. I'm sorry, man, I'm afraid I don't know anything about cars. Is there someone that I can call for you? The man forced a smile and insisted, oh come on man, I just need a little help.

I think we can figure it out together. I could tell that he was attempting to be polite, but I could also tell that being polite was not natural for him. I could see some kind of aggression forming in his eyes since I didn't immediately comply with his demand. I felt like this was absolutely a ruse of some sort, and I began growing angry with myself. I wasn't sure how to respond.

If by chance, he truly needed assistance, I didn't want to leave him stranded. There was no one else around for miles. I needed to create space and time to think about this. I looked around and realized a normal person would not exit their car and leave it in the middle of the road, so I had an idea. I smiled and I replied, all right. Let me pull under that flat spot in front of your car out on the road. He nodded, agreeing to this concession.

I thought to myself, I'll just check out the situation. If it doesn't look like anything weird is going on, I'll get out and I'll look at his car. Then I'll offer him a ride to the gas station. But first, I had to assess the area. As I pulled past his car, I looked it over. It was an early 2000s Toyota Corolla. It was in pretty good shape considering it was such an old vehicle.

I pondered if he had any ulterior problems when I saw something that looked strange. As I drove past his car, through the windows I could see what appeared to be the top of somebody's head. It looked as though someone was crouching down, hiding behind the car. Realizing this was indeed a setup, I pulled past his car further than I told him I would, so I would have a clear view of the perimeter of the car. And there he was. Someone was hiding behind the car waiting for me to get out of mine.

So I hammered down the accelerator and took off. It was dark, so I couldn't see the two guys on the road anymore, but after a few moments, I saw headlights light up and the car started moving. They decided to chase me. Now, I was somewhat familiar with the road that we were on, but I didn't know the road enough to confidently drive fast in the dark. If I wrecked, I knew they could catch up to me, or they could force my car off the road. My car was a Ford or sedan, nothing fancy, but it was a six cylinder with the option to drive stick. It wasn't built for speed, it was built more so for comfort.

But that night, I put it to the test. These guys were starting to close in on me, but I knew that if I could make it to the highway, then there was no way they could keep up with me. All I knew was that I needed to make it out of there. I did my best to keep them at a distance. They never got any closer than maybe 50 yards, but then I saw the stop sign at the intersection where the highway entrance was. At this particular intersection, you could see most of both sides of the road. If I stopped, they would have been able to catch up to me before I looked both ways. So I took the chance. As I approached the

intersection, I slowed just enough to make the left turn needed, but then I floored it up the straight way. Their little Corolla had no chance at that point, and shortly after that, they fell out of eyesight. Still, I didn't slow down for several minutes until I turned onto a different highway. The adrenaline started to fade as I was heading home, and that's when I realized how close I may have come to my demise. So to the two back-road bandits that tried to take advantage of a kind-hearted person in the dark and in the middle of nowhere, I'm not sure if your evil plot was to rob, car jack, or maybe even murder me, but let's not meet.

Don't forget to stick around after the music of your Patreon for your extended ad-free version of this episode, and if you'd like to get access to that in a bunch of other bonus content head over to patreon.com forward slash let's not meet podcast to sign up and support the show today. This week you have heard I'll never forget 2008 by Rachel, my knight and shining taxi by Anna, Lantern in shining taxi by Anna. Lantern Festival Nightmare by CauchoslyWary1234, Snapchat Snap-Foo by Miller. Reincarnation is real, but who were they by Samantha?

He watched me sleep by Chloe and finally, backroads bandits by B-Dub. All of the stories you've heard this week were narrated and produced with a permission of their respective authors. Let's not meet a true horror podcast is not associated with Reddit or any other message ports online. As always, if you have a story to share, send it to Let's Not Meet Stories at gmail.com and we'll take a look at it. And finally, don't forget to check out the new episodes of my other podcasts like Odd

Trails, my true paranormal podcast, Welcome to Paradise It sucks and the old time radio cast at crypticcountypodcasts.com or wherever you get your podcasts. We'll see you all next week. Stay safe. When I was 20 years old, I decided to spend this summer. 18T fiber presents a straightforward moment. Your wine? Thanks. I'll pretend I know what I'm doing before saying it's good.

And I'll pretend I don't know you're pretending. Are you a gigillionaire? Yeah, I have 18T fiber. The straightforward pricing has inspired me to be more straightforward. Me too. Ugh, this wine. I'll fetch you a better one. Straight forward is better. No equipment fees, no data caps, no price increase at 12 months.

Live like a Gagillionaire with AT&T fiber. Limited availability in select areas, visit AT&T.com slash Hypergate for details. AT&T fiber presents a straightforward moment. Your wine? Thanks. I'll pretend I know what I'm doing before saying it's good. And I'll pretend I don't know you're pretending. Are you a Gagillionaire? doing before saying it's good. AT&T Fiber. Limited availability in select areas. Visit atct.com slash hypergig for details.