Let's Not Meet: A True Horror Podcast - 12x09: The Man In My Attic (feat. Scotty Landes)

Episode Date: February 26, 2024

Stories in this episode: Why I Make Sure My Daughter Can Call for Help | SassyPants5 (0:40) Creep Tried to Follow Me Home | Technical_Fee4195 (7:22) The Man I Saw Through My Night Scope | PerpetualConnection (14:14) Why I No Longer Sneak Out | depressed_mayonnaise (21:59) When a "Gut Feeling" Saves You | remlrox (26:37) The Man in My Attic | throwaway1941029 (32:39) Dodgy DoorDash Delivery | AnthonyBoardgame (37:13) Someone Tried to Break into My Car  | musical-nerd24601 (40:42) A Kiss Goodnight? | Fudge_pirate (44:28) Extended Patreon Content: The Babysitter | GeorgiaGold My Classmate, The Killer | Jessie H. The Black Escalade | Jess Roadside Creeper | Recie S. My Mother's Late Husband | Anonymous Due to periodic changes in ad placement, time stamps are estimates and are not always accurate. 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! 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].    Check out the other Cryptic County podcasts like Odd Trails and the Old Time Radiocast at CrypticCountyPodcasts.com or wherever you get your podcasts! Listen to Scotty's podcast at https://www.exactlyrightmedia.com/bananas This show is sponsored by BetterHelp. Become your own soulmate, whether you’re looking for one or not.. Visit BetterHelp.com/notmeet today to get 10% off your first month. Factor’s delicious, ready-to-eat meals make eating better every day easy. Head to Factormeals.com/meet50 and use code meet50 to get 50% off. - 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

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Try four weeks free! Details at accessstorage.ca. Shop Canadian, store Canadian. Music Our first story this week contains descriptions of domestic violence. Listener discretion is advised. Years ago, I pushed hard to make sure that my daughter got a cell phone at a pretty early age. She was around 12. My former spouse didn't understand why this was such a big deal to me. I couldn't really explain it at the time, but I had a specific reason why I needed her to have a phone. It was due

to an experience I had as a young babysitter at 14 years old. I loved babysitting for Jack and Diane, not only were they the coolest couple ever, but their kids were sweet and so much fun. They had a little toddler boy named Matt and a baby named John. Jack was a biker and he often picked me up on his Harley, which was the most amazing thing. His wife Diane was cool too. She loaned me a lot of her leather clothes to wear at rock concerts.

The two of them enjoyed going out and partying a lot and they paid me well. It was like a dream job. They were going out clubbing that night and I had to put Matt to bed and I rocked John off to sleep. It was a cold night, so they had taken the Mercedes instead of the Harley. It was getting late. Even though I was occupied with checking on the sleeping kids regularly, I was getting sleepy. It was never an issue for them if I dozed off to sleep when it got late, which was what I did that night. After drifting off for however long, I suddenly woke up and my heart was pounding.

Now I have no idea what woke me up. Neither of the kids had woken up and there was no noise in the house, but for whatever reason I was wide awake and terrified. I had just gotten my panic under control when I heard a car door slam shut. I looked out the window and I saw Jack and Diane. They were home. So I went to open the front door. Diane came in and one side of her face was horribly swollen.

She was bleeding. Naively, I asked, Diane, what happened? Did you get into a fight? She raced past me to the phone in the dining room and started dialing. It was an old tabletop style phone with a rotary. Jack came in next, flying past me and screaming. He grabbed the heavy phone receiver from her hand and bashed the side of her head, causing blood to splatter across the wall.

He ripped the phone cord out of the wall. She screamed back at him, holding her very bloodied face, and he smashed her head into the wall. Her head continued to gush blood, but she managed to stagger into the bedroom, out of sight. Jack followed, and I heard more screaming and ugly sounds of blows landing. She came tumbling out of the bedroom again, but she was thrown through the hallway and into the crib, waking up baby John. She crawled out of his room as he cried, and Jack dragged her into the hallway as he was screaming at the baby to shut up.

I was terrified I had no idea what to do. I went and grabbed the baby, cuddling him, and I turned him away from the image of his dad straddling his mom trying to choke her. The silence that settled as John stopped crying was almost scarier than the screaming. Was Diane okay? I situated John back into his crib and went out into the living room. Diane was lying on the floor, broken, bleeding, and hardly recognizable, but somehow still breathing.

Jack told me to sit as he dialed a number on his cell phone. I perched on the edge of the couch and Diane crawled to me, attempting to gurgle words past the blood. She begged me to protect her babies. I was in shock. I just kept thinking, I'm just a kid. Soon, a bunch of Jack's buddies were there. A few of them said that they would take Diane to the hospital. Jack asked if I would stay with the kids, but Diane screamed that if I stayed, he would assault and kill me.

I said that I just wanted to go home. One of the guys said that he would call his wife to stay with the kids and they left with Diane. Jack looked at me and told me to get in his car. He said that he would take me home. Now I had no way to call for help and no way to arrange for a different ride, so I had to go with him. The whole way home I tried to stay calm. The turn to my street was at the bottom of a dip and as we approached the turn, Jack kept telling me he didn't

want to go back to prison. He said that he would do anything to not go back. I kept nodding and agreeing with him. And then he took his foot off the brake and drove past the turn. I looked at him horrified. I just want to talk, he explained. I need to calm down before I go home to my kids, okay? We ended up at the 24-hour donut shop. He had a coffee and a donut. He got something for me as well, and spent more than an hour telling me that he wasn't

a bad guy. He said that being in prison changed him. Now, I was less than five kilometers from my home, but I had no way of calling for help, and no one knew where I was. I just tried to be supportive and agreed with everything that he said. He eventually calmed down and paid me 50 bucks, which was a lot of money back then. Finally, we got back into his car and he drove me home. It was one of the longest nights of my life. I woke up the next morning to a police officer outside my house. They wanted to talk to me about what happened since Diane refused to press charges.

About a week later, I got a letter from her apologizing for everything. I never saw them or their kids after that night, but I always wonder and hope that those kids grew up to be good people. So that's exactly why it's important for me to make sure that my daughter always has a way to call for help. This happened about a decade ago when I was 19. At the time, I rented an apartment in a west side neighborhood of Chicago with my sister. She's a year older than me. We both worked hospitality jobs in the city, and we both had pretty robust social lives.

So it was fairly typical for one or both of us to come home at weird hours or be out all night. From our apartment, I would take the pink line to and from work. At this point in my life, I was pretty used to being cat-called walking down the street. I had been flashed on public transportation a few times, and men would bump into me from behind on packed trains. I basically experienced the typical amount of sexual harassment as a young woman in the city. Nothing fazed me. Of course, it was uncomfortable, but I never felt truly terrified. That is, until one night when I was coming home from work well after midnight.

The train car that I was in had been empty for most of the ride. There was one stop left before mine and a man got on and took a seat in my car. Reflexively, I looked up at this new passenger that entered the car stop left before mine, and a man got on and took a seat in my car. Reflexively, I looked up at this new passenger that entered the car, and we made eye contact. I immediately felt the hair as on the back of my neck stand up. I knew that I had made a mistake. I was nervous that making eye contact might be interpreted as some sort of invitation, so I quickly looked away.

But I felt his eyes on me as the train pulled away from the station. Since my stop was next, I decided to wait until the last second to stand up and exit the car, just in case he tried to follow me. And he did. He hung back about 30 feet at first, but his footsteps got louder. I felt the gap between us closing. I then heard him trying to catch my attention, yelling out, Hey! He caught up to me and spoke to me like any other man trying to chat me up.

It seemed normal enough, but I still couldn't shake the feeling of genuine fear that I had since the first time we locked eyes in the train car. He asked where I was headed. I told him that I was going home. Then he asked me if there was anyone waiting up for me this late. I told him my boyfriend was, but in reality, I knew that my sister was working the nightshift, so I was actually going home to an empty apartment.

Then he pulled his shirt to the side, exposing a gun in his waistband. In a joking tone, he said that he'd fight my boyfriend for me. I nervously laughed along and kept walking. We were walking down a pretty busy street, but I knew that I shouldn't lead him to my apartment. So when I came to the cross street where I should have turned, I just kept going straight. Eventually, I walked far enough to pass the stop where he initially got on the train. He continued walking alongside me for a while but then dropped back and continued following me a little while longer. Eventually, it seemed like he stopped. I thought that I

would be relieved once I had shaken him but as soon as I couldn't see him anymore, my fear only heightened. I still had to double back to my apartment and the trains had stopped running. I figured he knew I had walked too far and would have to turn around so it was entirely possible he was posted up somewhere on that same street waiting for me to come back. So I turned off of that street and I walked a few blocks north starting my less than a mile walk back west toward my apartment. The walk back was excruciating, especially since I was now off of the main road. It was much darker, and there was absolutely nobody around.

I kept telling myself I had to get home safe for my sister, because she wouldn't handle it well if something happened to me. I kept putting one foot in front of the other, and when I finally made it into my apartment, I locked the door behind me and collapsed in a puddle of tears. It's been 10 years, and I've never felt fear like I did on that night. To this day, I've never told my sister about it. Looking to upgrade your daily meals effortlessly? While factors delectable, chefcrafted dishes are here to revolutionize your dining experience.

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so there's no prepping, cooking, or cleanup needed. Head to factormeals.com slash meat50 and use code meat50 to get 50% off. That's code meat50 at factormeals.com slash meet50 and get 50% off. Now back to the show. My guest narrator this time around is Scotty Landis, the writer of the fantastic horror movie, Ma. And the host of the podcast, Bananas, on the exactly right network where he and his co-host, Kurt, cover all kinds of weird and interesting news from around the world. It's definitely a show for fans of my other podcast, Odd Trails.

Check it out. I think you'll really like it. You can listen to Bananas on Apple Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. Enjoy the show. I'm a hunter, and I like to hunt wild boar specifically. I have gone deer hunting, and I have been known to get a turkey for Thanksgiving, but I mostly hunt boar. For those of you who don't know boars are a big problem in the United States. A sow can have two litters a year and it's not uncommon for litter to consist of 10 or more pigs. Given that pigs eat anything and everything, it's not hard to see why the Department of Fish and Wildlife makes it legal to hunt them with nearly no restrictions. In my state, it's illegal to

hunt most large mammals with night scopes or thermal vision scopes, with the exception of boars and coyotes. I've been saving money for a year, mostly just to have some fun extra money, but I wound up using some of my savings to purchase a scope. It cost twice as much as the rifle I was mounting it on, but to me, it was worth it. After I bought the scope, I took it to a range and sighted it in. There was an area I knew of that was peppered with boar activity, and I figured it would be a perfect place for a night hunt. This place was easily accessible with my truck, and it had easy to find spots that overlooked a large clearing. The night started uneventfully. I was mostly just tinkering

with my new toy, cycling through the different settings, and I was feeling a little impatient since I'd spotted multiple deer but no boar. Deer were out of season, and as I mentioned earlier, my current setup wasn't even legal for deer. So I moved to another spot I'd seen days earlier. I figured it probably wasn't going to be any better than the first spot I was in, but it gave me something to do. And a new spot to explore with my new scope. After an hour or so of glassing the area it donned on me. This spot didn't have any animal activity going on at all. I hadn't even seen any rabbits or owls.

The deer that I had seen were hundreds of yards from where I was and I was wondering why this pocket of land was so dead at night, especially since it was generally lively during the day. I'd set up around 10pm and it was about to be 2am when I started to think about packing it up. But as I was considering setting up was about to be 2 a.m. when I started to think about packing it up. But as I was considering setting up a target to take some practice shots before I left, I heard a crunch coming from the direction

that I had come from before. I panned my scope over and saw the silhouette of a small bear pushing through the bushes. It's important to note that my scope isn't exactly night vision. It's more a thermal scope, kind of like a black and white version of what you'd see in the predator movies. I adjusted my range and zoomed in slightly and I remember jolting a little when I saw that it wasn't actually a bear. It was a man.

But since he was so low and hunched over, I thought I was looking at a young bear. I figured it couldn't be. I would have seen headlights coming from the road where I was perched if another person was out there. I was 30 miles away from everything. So this wasn't my destination where people could just walk to. I was about to call out when I adjusted my sights, but then I noticed he was naked. No shoes, no pants, nothing. I remember being disturbed by his movements. He was like a squirrel or something. He was twitchy, and he was grabbing at foliage, and he was sniffing around and palming the

tree. As I watched him through the scope, I wondered, wait, was that my tree, the one I'd just been leaning against earlier? That thought terrified me. Could he smell me? Then he did something I still have nightmares about to this day. He squatted, placing his hands in the dirt between his feet and stared straight up like a dog mid-howl.

And then I heard a voice coming from that direction, a very compelling female voice. Help! I'm lost! There was a long pause, but neither of us moved a muscle. The center of my sight was on the dirt in front of his feet, and I couldn't bring myself to shift my gaze in any other direction. But I was concerned. Was someone lost? Or was this voice his? Help, please. I can't walk. The voice called out. That's when I called bullshit. I knew he could walk. When I first saw him, he was traversing the land with ease for a naked person. He was moving around so well that I mistook him for a bear. I assumed immediately this must be a trap. It seemed like this guy was trying to

lure me to him with some sort of damsel in distress routine. Luckily the lack of activity before had caused me to pack up most of my gear. I think I may have left a hat or maybe a pad to sit on, but I did not care about those in this moment. I took my eyes off him very briefly so I could get my pack on and as I buckled my chest strap I scrambled for my rifle and when I looked back at him to my horror he was in the same position but his face was staring in my direction and I swear I saw him smile. How in the hell had he heard me put my gear on? He was at least 150 yards away. Fuck off! I screamed in his direction. Then he stood upright, which revealed how tall and skinny he was. He was easily six feet tall and very lean. He took a couple of long

strides in my direction, so I instinctively sent a round sailing above his head into the tree line. He stopped dead in his tracks and then hunched down on all fours. The next one will fuck you up. Go away! I warned. He stayed on all fours this time. I had my sights on the center of him through the scope. I could see that his eyes were just above the grass, like he was peering at me like a large

cap or something. I was trying to stop my trembling, but I knew I was nervous as my voice had cracked a little bit on that last warning. The rest of the standoff probably only lasted a minute or two, maybe even less than that, but it felt like forever. Then, in an instant, he bolted towards the tree line on the opposite side from where we were so fast I could barely keep my scope on him.

He disappeared in the brush and I sent another bullet sailing high in his direction. I could hear him. In the distance, yelling, and then I heard this weird sound that could have been a laugh or a cry. I didn't bother trying to figure out which one it was since all I wanted to do was get out of there. I scrambled up the trail and arrived at my truck, breathless. I tossed the gear in the cab, but I kept my rifle in the passenger seat and sped off.

I reported it to the Department of Fish and Wildlife, but all they did was scold me for hunting at night by myself. And guess what? I never received an update from them. I have no idea what that guy's deal was, but I feel that I may have dodged quite the bullet that night. This happened when I was 15. I had just discovered the rebellious act of sneaking out. This was probably my fourth or fifth time doing it, and on this particular night, I

decided to go and meet up with my boyfriend. At this point in time, we weren't together, but we liked each other. And you know how that goes. When you are around somebody that you like, you tend to not really pay attention to your surroundings since you are more focused on them. The night started fine. We were talking and having a good time. We had gotten pretty high, so I don't remember exactly what we were talking about, but I do remember what happened. We met up and went to this elementary school that had a decent-sized field with some hills

and trees towards the end. I need to explain this in order for you to understand the events that took place. From where we were sitting, we had a clear view of the school as well as the school's basketball court. The school was illuminated by the side lights so we could easily see if somebody was walking by but it wasn't necessarily easy for people to see us. To our left, there was a little paved path that led to a townhouse complex. So we were sitting at the edge of the field, looking at the stars and talking about some

random stuff when we started to hear some crunching from footsteps walking on gravel coming from the school. Since we were high and paranoid, we immediately turned our attention to the illuminated basketball court. We watched as this guy walked by with his bike and he didn't even seem to notice us. After he passed, we almost instantly forgot about him and resumed talking, laughing, and being loud. About ten minutes later, we heard that same crunch of gravel. So we went silent and looked towards the school. Once again, it was the bike guy.

But this time, once he reached the basketball court, he didn't keep walking. Instead, he stopped at the edge of the field that we were sitting on. He just stared out at the field for maybe a minute or so, kind of like he was looking for us. We were a little creeped out by this point, so we started quietly packing up our things to leave. Then this guy began walking towards us. Once he stepped into the field, it became much more difficult to see him as the light from our school only lit up so far.

We took this as our cue to finally leave, but the only way to leave, without being extremely visible, was to take the path leading up to the townhouses. So that's what we did. We tried our best to be as quiet as possible as we walked up to the pitch black path. Keep in mind that we were not sober, so we were extra freaked out. I kept checking behind us constantly and I couldn't shake the feeling that something bad was about to happen. We finally reached the end of the pitch black path and made it to the decently lit townhouse complex.

We eased up a little bit and began trying to find our way back to the main exit. As we were walking through the complex, we started talking again. Right as we turned the corner to leave, we saw this same guy on the bike right at the exit. The three of us stopped in our tracks for maybe two seconds, and then the guy dropped his bike and darted right at us. My boyfriend and I began sprinting as fast as we could away from this guy. We turned random

corners and went down a bunch of back alleys. we just kept sprinting, not looking back once. I don't know when or where we lost him, but we wore ourselves out, and we stopped behind some bushes, noticing that the man was nowhere in sight. We stayed behind those bushes for about 20 minutes trying to calm down. At this point, we had both sobered up, so we decided to try and leave. At this point, we had both sobered up, so we decided to try and leave. We walked through the complex once more, and when we made our way back to the exit, we saw that the guy's bike was gone. We were both unsettled by this, as it meant that we had no clue where the guy went and we were worried that he would randomly appear again.

Lucky for us, we both made it home safe that night. But I'll never forget the feeling of my heart sinking when I saw the bike guy blocking our exit. This was by far one of the ago when I was 16 or 17. I was coming home by myself on a Thursday night after being out at a pub with some friends. We were in the central area of the city so I had to take a bus to get home to my residential neighborhood. I had done this hundreds of times so I didn't see it as being particularly dangerous, especially since I live in a fairly nice neighborhood.

Since it was about 11pm in the middle of a work week and because I lived in a residential area, when I got off the bus at my bus stop, the street was absolutely dead. There was nobody around. As I turned down the long residential street that led toward my house, I noticed a guy walking further down the street. At first, this put me a little on edge, but I was reassured by the fact that he had his back to me and was continuing his way down the street walking away from me. But as I kept walking, way down the street, walking away from me. But as I kept walking, I noticed the guy turn around and clock me.

I told myself that I was fine as I generally turn around when I hear somebody walking behind me, so nothing was too strange about that. But I noticed as we got further and further down the street, he kept doing it. He kept checking to see if I was still walking in the same direction as him. I was starting to get pretty freaked out, since I was painfully aware that we were the only two people around. Just as I was weighing my options, he turned down the path of one of the houses to our right, which made me breathe a sigh of relief, since it appeared that he was just going to

his house. I was happy, since it seemed as though I was just being paranoid the whole time. The houses in my area are terraced with the front doors being embedded into an enclave at the front of the house. So this means that from where I was walking, about 50 feet away, I couldn't actually see

the front door of the house that he walked up to, as it was obscured by the wall. Since I saw him walk down the path and disappear into the front enclave, my logical conclusion was that he was letting himself into the house. I can't describe exactly what made me feel like this, but after that initial feeling of relief wore off, I suddenly had this really bad feeling.

I just stopped walking, and I stood where I was. There was a tiny voice in my head that asked, What if he is faking you out? The feeling came on so strong that I stepped off of the pavement to duck down behind a parked car and wait. After a couple of minutes of crouching behind the car and staring at the house, I saw movement and my heart stopped. The man reemerged from the path and he walked back out into the street. He was looking around, looking for me. He must have been waiting for me in the doorway knowing that if I kept walking, I wouldn't see him until it was too late. Unfortunately for him, his hiding place also

meant that he couldn't see me. So when I didn't walk past as he anticipated, he had to come back out to the street to figure out where I was. Looking back now, I probably should have called the police, but my fight or flight took over, and I took off in a sprint down one of the roads running perpendicular to the street that we were on. This was a slightly longer route home for me, but I didn't stop running until I got home and double locked the door behind me. Amazingly, I didn't even think to wake anyone up in my family.

I literally just went to bed and woke up the next morning, then went to school. I dread to think about what could have happened if I hadn't just suddenly had that bad feeling and stopped walking. Part of me thinks that, on some subconscious level, my brain must have registered not hearing the front door shut after the man had approached the house. I'm glad that effectively triggered my alarm in my head because I had no perception of this at the time. Lesson learned, trust your gut. This podcast is sponsored by BetterHelp. If you've had the pleasure of getting to know me on a personal level, you're aware

of the immense pride that I hold for the bond that I share with my wife. Our journey together has been a profound learning experience, and it's shaped not only by our heartfelt conversations and attentive listening, but also by the invaluable guidance of therapy. However, let me assure you, it hasn't always been a cakewalk. Building and nurturing this connection has demanded dedication and a concerted effort from both of us. A common misconception about relationships is that they have to be easy. But sometimes the best ones happen when both people put in the work to make them great.

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therapists anytime for no additional charge. Become your own soulmate. Whether you're looking for one or not, visit BetterHelp.com slash NotMeet today and get 10% off your first month. That's BetterHelp, not meat. Now back to the show. I'm a 24 year old male and I've lived on my own for about two years now. I have a very small bungalow that I'm able to comfortably afford and in this bungalow I have an attic area. If I had to guess, I'd say it's about 200 square feet in size. I worked the overnight shift at a factory, which basically means I just sit around on my phone all night, and I usually get home from work at around 8am. I was coming home recently during a heavy storm, and when I got into the house, I was

so tired that I went to sleep right away. When I woke up, I looked at my phone and saw that I had notifications from the night before that I hadn't seen. I have a ring camera outside my front door which shows me anybody approaches my place. I saw that it had been triggered at 7.42 am, which was about half an hour before I got home from work. I checked the video and saw that it was a man. He was pressed right up against the door and was fumbling

around with the handle. He did this for about 10 seconds until he spotted the camera. And once he did, he very quickly scuttled away. This unsettled me, but didn't entirely creep me out since he appeared to leave, so then I got up to go make some food and discovered something in my kitchen. My back window was open. I of course instantly began thinking I might have a home intruder, but I slowly chilled out as I convinced myself that I must have left the window open myself. For the rest of the day I kept noticing small things that didn't seem right.

I was scaring myself with these observations so an hour before I had to leave for work at about 9 o'clockish, I tried to relax and just watch some TV. Then I spotted something that made my heart leap into my throat. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see it. The entrance to my attic was slowly being slid open. I vividly remember questioning my sanity. I thought surely I was just hallucinating or something, but I looked over and saw something that made me even more scared.

I saw fingers wrapped around the hatch as it began moving more. I didn't know what to do, but I could feel the panic starting to get to me. I wasn't sure if I should leave the house and call the police, or if I should acknowledge whoever was up there and yell at them. I chose a mixture of both. I began dialing 911 and ran into my bedroom so I could lock myself inside.

As soon as I began running, it sounded like the hatch was almost torn off with the speed at which it moved. I looked down the hallway and watched for a second. I saw only a little slice of blackness up in my attic. And I saw human hands still holding onto the sides of my ceiling. I yelled, whoever's up there, I'm calling the police, I have a gun. I do not own a gun. If you step out of there, I will shoot you.

The adrenaline was making my hands and my voice shake, but I tried to sound as tough and as capable as I could. Then I saw something I truly do not think I will ever forget. His hands slipped back into the darkness, and then he dropped down. I slammed my door shut and locked it as quickly as I could. The call to 911 went through and I was able to speak to a dispatcher and they dispatched officers to my house. I told them, I don't know if this guy's armed or not.

And the dispatcher told me to stay on the line. I heard the man approach my bedroom door and rattle the handle. He also went through the cupboards in my kitchen. I heard the man approach my bedroom door and rattle the handle. He also went through the cupboards in my kitchen. I am not sure why he stuck around after I made the call. I would have left if I were him, but he stayed until the police came and they arrested him. He was armed with a knife that he had snagged from my kitchen, but the police recovered it and told me that he had been seen in the area trying to get into other houses. Truth be told,

I am still very frightened by this. I am too frightened to sleep still. I sleep with my bedroom door locked and all my windows closed and I also sleep with a knife under my pillow. I know that this is unlikely to ever happen again, but I just cannot forget the way he slinked down from my attic. This happened a year and a half ago. I was working the night shift, and it was a little past midnight. I ordered door dash from myself and my supervisor since it was her birthday. I was happy to see that I had the same driver as last time, as I work in a small building, among other identical buildings, with a convoluted road system in between them all.

It can be confusing for someone to deliver to the area if they're not used to it. I had been watching the map and went outside once I noticed that he was close by. I stood under a cluster of bright lights in our parking lot and I was wearing neon yellow so you couldn't miss me. I got a call from my driver asking me to come to him. I looked around and I didn't see anybody until I walked a couple of yards to the center of the lot. He was sitting on the right side of my building by the dumpster. There wasn't any light there. He also had his lights off. I was thinking, what the hell dude? So I started waving my arms and telling him that I was in front of the building.

He hung up and just chilled there. He continued waiting for me to come to him. I was annoyed because our food was getting cold and this guy had delivered to me in this same spot just a week before. Finally after a few minutes of this weird standoff, he turned his lights on and came over to me. As soon as he pulled up, he was speaking another language on his phone, which then translated to English. He said something along the lines of, Hello, I'm practicing English and I need new friends, will you be my friend?

He then faced his phone towards me. I just felt like this was strange and inappropriate, so I said, Oh, that's a cool app. As I stood there, waiting for him to hand me my food. He kept speaking to the app, but I told him my supervisor was waiting for me, and I reached my handout for the order. He tried to grab my hand and then he asked for my number. By this point, the fact that he had tried to get me into the dark, plus his persistence,

turned my annoyance into fear. I told him I needed the food, to which he told me to get in his car in perfect English. Right at that moment, someone in my neighboring building came out to the lot. The door-dashor finally gave me my food and scurried away, which also freaked me out. Why did he speed off so suddenly when another person was around. His intentions were obviously not good. I reported all of this to DoorDash as well as my local police. I posted about it on social media. It turns out he did the same thing

to someone who lived two miles away from me. She made a late night order as well and he asked her where she lived and if they could hang out while he was holding her food hostage. His boldness and the fact that he seems to only drive late at night makes me think that he often tries to cross the line with other customers. DoorDash assured me that they had deactivated him and I really hope my regular gas station to pick something up.

When we pulled up, I left her in the passenger seat with the car running and I asked her to lock the doors. Then I came back out. She unlocked the doors to let me in before telling me that less than a minute before I walked out, a man came out of the gas station. The driver's side of my car was facing away from the gas station and she saw him walk up behind the car, between the gas pump and my side. Then, he tried to open the back driver's side door. When it didn't open, he kept walking while making eye contact with my friend.

And then, he went and got into the passenger seat of a truck parked nearby. As he was getting into the truck, she saw me walk out. Now, it's worth mentioning that the city that I live in is the top city for trafficking in our state, and our state is the ninth largest state for trafficking in the US. At this point, I was already pulling out of the gas station to get us the hell away from these people. When I stopped to turn right out of the gas station, my friend yelled, Holy shit, they're following us.

The truck is fucking following us. I wasn't having this, so I whipped a right turn and headed straight for the highway connection. They were still behind us, so I ended up pulling some fast and furious type of driving to put as much distance between us as possible. As I was doing this, I told my friend to find the nearest police station. When she put my phone up on the stand in front of me, I looked at where we were going and decided to take the longer way that didn't make sense. They continued to follow us.

We finally merged onto the major highway and got some vehicles in between us and them. But they were driving recklessly to try and keep up with us. I cut in front of a line of speeding cars and we lost them. We should have continued to the police station but we stopped and ended up sitting for a while to digest what just happened. Then we checked the exterior of my car for anything that they may have put on it. We then took another roundabout way to go home, which took us past the gas station again. We wanted to see if the truck was there, and we wanted to see if they would try and follow

us again. As we passed the gas station, we saw the truck. It was parked in the parking lot of the shopping center behind the gas station, facing the road that we had taken when we pulled out. When we saw them, I ended up driving to a church near my house to avoid leading them to my home. From there, we called 911 and filled the operator in on everything. Since then, I've been anxious to leave my house, especially after dark. It's like I have this weird feeling I'm being watched. I also ended up going to the local police station

to file an official report. At the time of the encounter, I was hesitant in doing so, since I didn't have any plate numbers. My state only has rear-facing plates, and since they were never in front of us, we never had the opportunity to get the numbers. Their vehicle was a blue work truck with orange lights on top and a ladder in the back.

I never heard anything back, but I doubted they had been in that vehicle in that area longer due to it having some identifying characteristics. My friends Jessica and James have been together for six years and they have lived in their house for over a year now. I am over there quite often, as I have been friends and coworkers with Jessica for four years. They are wonderful. They have kind of adopted me, and they help keep me alive by feeding me a few times a week.

I went over to their place for dinner after work a few weeks ago, and we all arrived around the same time, within minutes of each other. We started with some drinks, and after a little while, James went outside to grill up some steaks. Shortly after going outside, he came back in, and he asked why I kissed the door. I was confused, so I went over to the sliding glass door where he was standing, and sure as the world, there was a kiss print on the outside of the door, lipstick and everything. I should mention Jessica and James are both shorter than I am. He's about 5'8 and she's 5'2. I'm 5'11.

The kiss print was at a height that if I popped up on the balls of my feet, I could reach that spot with my lips. But it was far above where Jessica would be able to reach and as much as I love the thought of James in bubblegum pink lipstick, I knew that he couldn't reach it either. I should also mention that I haven't worn makeup in many years. I don't even own lipstick. All I have is some mascara and an ancient eyeshadow palette. They both assumed that I grabbed one of Jessica's lipsticks and played a prank on them.

I'm a smoker and I'm frequently going in and out through the sliding glass door to get to the patio, so they thought that I was trying to freak them out. It was so baffling because it would be pretty difficult for anyone to otherwise get onto their patio. The right side has about a 30 foot drop and the left has a 10 foot drop and this is due to the elevation. Everything is fenced in and inside the fence is James' grill and some workout equipment. The space that they have out there is pretty narrow and not easily navigated due to it being pretty high up. Their front porch would be the easiest way to try and get in, but even that would take some dedication since there are tall boxwood edges along the fence.

After taking all of this into consideration, I thought that Jessica had climbed onto a chair and kissed the glass. Even though we never got to the bottom of it, James cleaned the kiss mark off of the glass and we just went on with our night. A few nights later, I was back at their place again. I was going out for a smoke when I saw another kiss on the glass. It was in the same place, but this time, the imprint was made with a nude shade of lipstick. And about a foot below the lip print, there was a heart smeared onto the glass.

I'm not sure if this person had really greasy hands or if they used saliva, but it was extra creepy. I pointed these out to my friends, and again, they thought that it was me. James even insisted that I clean it off of the glass. Jessica nor James have ever been ones to prank and neither have I, but I still felt like the most logical explanation was that Jessica was trying to elaborately prank James by setting me up or something like that. The next time it happened was a few days later when I hadn't been there.

Jessica called me and she was rattled and a little accusatory. I have a key to their house, and she asked if I had come over and used the key to get in to kiss the glass again since she noticed that there was a lip print on their door when they woke up. I told her, it's not me, and she let it go. But I could tell that she still thought that it was me. At this point, I was no longer thinking it was her. She seemed genuinely mad at me, and it didn't seem funny at all. And it ended up happening a couple more times. It happened once more while I was over. Then there was a break

for about a week, and it happened again when I hadn't been there. I had to go to another state for work, and while I was gone, Jessica, video called me. She saw that I was in my hotel room and started freaking out. She said this whole time she had been holding out hope that it was me. She said that even though it wasn't funny, at least it would be less terrifying if it were me, but I was a thousand miles away and there was a kiss print on their back door. that even though it wasn't funny, at least it would be less terrifying if it were me, but I was a thousand miles away and there was a kiss print on their back door with a heart smudged underneath.

She apologized to me for being so adamant about thinking it was me. She said that she just didn't want to be wrong. I told her it was okay and advised her to call the police. She called them and they came several hours later. They looked around for about five minutes and pretty much just told her it was weird. They said that she could take pictures and submit them online. Thanks, boys in blue. Big help. This left all of us feeling very freaked out. I suppose it's still possible that it could be her or James doing this, as neither of

them know when to call it quits, but I truly don't think that it is. Someone is very dedicated to leaving kisses for them. Thanks everyone for listening. Make sure you stick around after the music for your extended version of this week's episode. If you'd like to get access to that, and add free episodes as well as hours and hours of bonus content with stories you won't hear anywhere else, head over to patreon.com forward slash let's not meet podcast to sign up and support the show today. Thanks again to Scotty sign up and support the show today. Thanks again to Scotty Landis for joining the show. Make sure you check out the movie Ma, as well as his podcast Bananas on the Exactly Right

Network. It's a fantastic show. Again, that's on Apple, Spotify, wherever you get your podcasts. This week you have heard why I make sure my daughter can call for help by Sassy Pants 5. Creep tried to follow me home by technical fee 4195. The man I saw through my night scope by perpetual connection. Why I no longer sneak out by depressed mayonnaise.

When a gut feeling saves you by ramble rocks. Man in the attic by throwimmel Rocks. Man in the Attic by Throwaway1941029. Dodgy Door Dash Delivery by Anthony Borgame. Someone tried to break into my car by Musical Nerd 24601. And finally, A Kiss Good Night by Fudge Pirate. 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. As always, if you have a story to share, send it to Let's Not Meet Stories at gmail.com. Finally, make sure you check out the new episodes of my

other podcasts like Odd Trails, my True Paranormal Podcast, and the All-Time Radio Cast at Cryptic County Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. See you next week everyone, stay safe. I'm a 33 year old man who lives in the south. My story took place in my hometown.