Let's Not Meet: A True Horror Podcast - 13x20: My Friend, The Murderer

Episode Date: November 11, 2024

Stories in this episode: Why Two Grown Men Won't Go Into The Woods | cooper (1:06) He Tried To Break Into My Room | TheGhostWalksThrough (10:22) Wrong Place, Wrong Time | QueenOfTheDead2023 (14:21) Overnight Security Guard | Bats (21:54) I Had A Stalker in Community College | Bryssa_Laina24 (28:59) Creepy Tourist in a Small Country Town in France | Morgxn_ (33:13) Creepy Psychic Woman | pastelflorist (37:39) My Crazy Friend Became A Murderer | ravenously_red (43:03) Extended Patreon Content: Angry Dude in The Circle | Katie Horror Film Gone Wrong | AgedbloodFX Steward | Anonymous I Was Living With My Own Stalker | Amalie Due to periodic changes in ad placement, time stamps are estimates and are not always accurate. Don't miss the next live stream episode on Friday, Nov 15th at 7:00 PM Pacific on https://twitch.tv/crypticcounty Follow: - Twitch - https://twitch.tv/crypticcounty - Website - https://letsnotmeetpodcast.com/ - Patreon - https://patreon.com/letsnotmeetpodcast - Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/letsnotmeetcast/ - TikTok - https://www.tiktok.com/@crypticcounty Check out the other Cryptic County podcasts like Odd Trails, Cryptic Encounters, and the Old Time Radiocast at CrypticCountyPodcasts.com or wherever you get your podcasts!    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].    To get 15% off your next gift, go to UncommonGoods.com/meet.  Download Grammarly for FREE at grammarly.com/podcast.  Go to https://StoryWorth.com/meet StoryWorth.com/meet and save $10 on your first purchase!  

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BidMGM operates pursuant to an operating agreement with iGaming Ontario. If you missed the live dates or your show got cancelled, don't worry, you still have a chance to hear all of those stories from the live set one last time before they get retired and uploaded to Patreon. This Friday, November 15th at 7pm Pacific, we'll be sharing those stories from the live set at twitch.tv slash cryptic county. Not only that, I'll be joined by Shelby Novak of Scare U to Sleep, Amanda and Cassidy of Drinking the Kool-Aid, and Sora Narnia of Knife Point Horror.

Yes, all of the oldest friends of the podcast will be there to help me share these stories with you. Again, that's twitch.tv slash cryptic county. Friday, November 15th at 7pm Pacific. Again, that's twitch.tv slash cryptic county. Friday, November 15th at 7pm Pacific. I'll see you there. Back in 2023, my partner and I were both living at his mom's house. After we would get home from work at about 5 p.m. most days, we would change and then go to the woods and the hills just outside of town. For context, the woods that we'd go to were 12 miles long and 4 miles wide.

There are some breaks in the woods with farmland and fields, which has created separate woods with different names all over the hills. While the farmland and fields are privately owned, these woods are public lands, so people can walk through the woods if they want to. There are paths winding through most of the woods, and if someone wanted to walk over the span of hills from one side to the other, it was possible. Most of that journey is made through the woods, and it's mostly uphill, coming from the south. The woods we always went to were called wind-down woods.

My partner and I would go to these woods nearly every day just to go for a walk or smoke, or both. On this particular night, we went about doing our usual routine, walking around and talking about our days. We followed this trail in the woods that looped around a large set of trees with dense tree lines surrounding the outside. The best way I could describe it is that I imagine it would kind of look like a donut from a bird's eye view. The path we were on eventually guided us down towards the car park once it met up with all

the other paths. As we were walking along this path, going back up towards the top of the woods, we saw a man in the distance walking down the path. He was still pretty far away from us, but I had this bad feeling, because the first thing I noticed about the man when we got closer was that he was wearing office shoes and carrying a pair of hiking boots whilst seemingly on a walk in the woods. We were talking about this as we were walking up and

laughing about how strange it was. The guy was walking faster than us as he was going downhill, and he reached the meeting point of the paths a few minutes before we did. But we could see him the whole time. When we got to the meeting point, all he did was stand there. He just stopped, and he looked around. I had a really bad feeling, as he didn't appear to be lost. He just looked like he was waiting for someone or something. My partner and I were pretty weirded out.

We were thinking about turning around and heading back down into the woods. We even thought about going back around the long way, just to get away from this guy's weird vibes. In the end, we decided that walking back down into the woods would ultimately look far too suspicious as the man had definitely seen us walking up the path towards him at the same time that we had seen him walking down. So, we just kept walking.

The whole time, this guy was still standing there looking around with the hiking shoes in his hands. Having no choice other than to walk past him to get to the car park, we kept going. As we were getting closer to him, I saw something else that worried me more than anything. The guy had a backpack on, and there was a handle sticking out of it. I could 100% tell it was the handle of a hammer or axe, and I knew it couldn't have been anything else. I also realized he hadn't been on the phone at all

the whole time we had seen him, not even when he was just loitering around. So more and more things were starting to add up, and this was freaking me out. As we walked past him and started down the path towards the car park, the guy suddenly decided he now knew exactly where he needed to go without pulling out a phone or compass. He immediately started walking behind us.

At this point I was freaking out, and so was my partner. I should mention that my partner doesn't usually get paranoid about stuff like this, because I'm paranoid enough for the both of us all of the time. For no reason. But it was evident this guy was not right. Plus, there were no other cars in the car park other than mine, so he had no reason to be walking there. We were walking as fast as we could without straight up running away from the guy. After what felt like a lifetime, we got to the car, locked the doors, and drove off.

I didn't even look back. After we left, I kept thinking about that guy and how strange he was acting. But then again, I thought about how strange we were probably acting in the instance that the poor guy was simply on a walk. Cut to just the other week. My partner and I were at our friend's house for their birthday. We were just hanging out, meeting other friends that we hadn't met before, and having a blast. But, as usual, with every small group hangout, it got late. So the conversations shifted into talking about weird experiences and spooky encounters.

Obviously, we told everyone about our encounter with the very strange man in the woods. A couple of the girls who were there work at a reserve called Fine Court, which is in one of the woods in the hills that we talked about. The girls seemed pretty rattled by the story that we had told and said that they had one that was pretty comparable. One evening at work, one of the girls was on a closing shift with her manager. They had been cleaning up the cafe and doing final checks when her manager told her that he was good with doing the rest of the closing up by himself and sent her home. Without any hesitation, she left and

went straight to her car. She sat there for a bit trying to chill out and roll a cigarette before starting her drive home. Later that night, she got a text. Don't ask, just don't come to work tomorrow. Then she found out that after she left work, her manager had finished cleaning up like he said before going to his car to leave. When he was getting into his car, a man approached him from out of the woods and started wrestling with him, trying to steal his car keys.

He managed to get the man off of him, and after he got into his car, he drove away and called the police. After talking to the police, they connected the dots to a call they had earlier that evening from a concerned neighbor living in a village a couple of miles from Fine Court. She reported a suspected burglary of one of their neighbors. The police also got another call from a mental health institution just outside of the woods saying one of their patients had escaped. Turns out the police put the whole story together.

This man escaped, quickly got a haircut, and then walked for miles out to this village in the middle of nowhere. He then broke into a house that he thought was abandoned, which was actually home to an elderly couple. The man living there was completely disabled and wheelchair-bound. His caregiver was his wife. The man who broke in murdered the elderly lady. Then he just left the man in the house alone after leaving and

walking into the woods where he wandered around looking for someone with a car that he could steal. That's when he ended up at fine court and tried to take the girl's manager's car. After he was unsuccessful, he ran back into the woods to find someone else. My partner and I are so sure that we encountered the same man at Windown,

and her story was from the same month as ours. The timeframes matched up perfectly to when we had seen him right after he tried to steal her manager's car. He was following us back to the car. But who's going to jump two guys in an open space? Especially since one of us could easily have made it to the road. I think he was trying to freak us out when he stopped at that meeting point to meander. I think he was trying to get us to turn around and go back into the woods.

The police eventually caught him just wandering around the woods. This whole story still horrifies me to this day. In the late 90s, I accompanied my mom to England so that she could see where her grandparents had lived. I was basically there to look after her in general since my dad didn't want to come and my mom tends to have a hard time doing things by herself. We agreed that after spending a week in England, we would spend the second week of our trip in Ireland. My mom is terrible at planning, so we ended up spending a week in this sort of limbo where we were in Liverpool waiting for the Irish Sea to calm down so that we could cross over to Ireland on a ferry.

It was September, which is the worst month to try a crossing, so we never made it to Ireland. This meant that I had to try to find someplace else for us to spend the next five days. I picked a hotel that seemed okay, and my mom paid for an additional room since she had restless leg syndrome, which causes her to shake violently at night. In the middle of our first night at this hotel, I heard a man yelling in the hallway. He seemed to be very intoxicated as he was pounding on the doors and hitting the walls while he was making his way up and down the hall.

Being the punk-ass kid that I was, I made the mistake of acknowledging him by telling him to shut up from behind my closed door. This enraged him. He started beating on my door and screaming that he was going to kill me. He tried the doorknob, and I wasn't sure if I had even locked it, but thank God those doors had automatic locks. I started looking around the room for the phone so that I could at least call the front desk or something, but there weren't any phones in the room.

I went to the window, but the window wouldn't open, so I just stayed there listening as he did his best to break the door down while continually shouting threats explaining what he was going to do when he got into the room. It went on for twenty minutes. Eventually, I fell asleep, and when I woke up the next day, I saw just how much damage he had done. He smashed the door with a fire extinguisher that he had pulled off the wall. There were dents and marks all down the hall from where he had dragged it violently from

end to end. I told the front desk clerk about this as we were checking out, but he just looked at me like I made it up. It's easy to lose a ton of time switching between tasks and different windows or tabs while you're trying to maintain a consistent workflow. Your time and expertise are valuable. And with professionals spending nearly half the work week on written communication, focus is one of the most important things to have while at work. With Grammarly as your AI writing partner, you can stay focused and get through your

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It makes sense that 93% of professionals report that Grammarly helps them get more work done. So get more done with Grammarly. Download Grammarly for free at grammarly.com slash podcast. That's grammarly.com slash podcast. That's grammarly.com slash podcast. Grammarly.com slash podcast. I've been thinking of sharing this incident for a while now. I've told people about this in person, but I want to get my story out there to help spread awareness about things like this.

I'm making an effort to help put this further behind me. For some context, this happened to me, a 25-year-old transgender female, back in early April of this year. This was back when I was pre-HRT and still wearing more masculine clothing. At the risk of sounding cliché, I never thought that something like this could ever happen to me. But it did. And the part that still bothers me is that it happened so close to where I live with my family. In fact, it was just two blocks away. There have been a few times in my family's house where no one feels like cooking dinner.

So we either ordered takeout or figured out what to eat on our own. The evening when this occurred was one of those times. I was craving pizza, so after putting on a light spring jacket and a pair of gloves I left my house. It was just before 7.30 pm when I started walking to the nearest Domino's, which is only about a 15 minute walk away. Halfway there, I came across an old white car.

I think either a Honda or a Ford. It was parked on the sidewalk. I was annoyed that it was blocking my route, but I didn't think anything of it. I just decided to walk around the front of the car so as not to walk onto the road. Unfortunately, listeners, that's when I had unintentionally caught the wrong kind of attention. I had just barely stepped ten feet away from where the car was when I suddenly heard two people calling out to me rather aggressively. I was in the middle of readjusting my gloves when I turned and saw two rather intimidating

looking guys. The younger of the two approached me, while the older one remained by the door of the building that the car was parked in front of. I don't remember much about the older guy. I mainly only remember that he was a big man with a big beard and a leather jacket. I'll never forget the younger guy, though. He was slightly taller than me. I'm 5'6".

He had short hair and a goatee. He was wearing sneakers, a ring, blue jeans, and a white muscle shirt. This guy was aggressive from the start, getting all up in my space and immediately accusing me of attempting to break into his buddy's car. The older guy interjected with something along the lines of, you better not have, which indicated that it was his car that I had just walked around, and was thus being accused of breaking into. I was trying to even get a word in to plead my case, but the younger guy wasn't giving me a chance. I remember the anger in his eyes as he continued to accuse me.

The next thing I knew, I was on the ground. I gashed my elbow on the asphalt, having just been punched in the face with a left hook. I remember screaming at him to leave me alone as he punched me once more just above my hairline. I remember putting my gloved hand to my head and feeling something warm. When I pulled it away, there was blood from where his ring had made contact with my face. I had to scramble to pick up one of my breast forms that had fallen out of my pocket and onto the ground before I managed to half-stumble, half-run away from these two guys.

They were jeering at me, saying that I better run. Looking back, I'm partially wishing that I had pulled out my phone to take a picture of the attackers, but I think I subconsciously felt that doing that could have made it much worse. I then got as far away from the building as possible before sitting down in front of a nearby soccer club and calling my sister, a 20-year-old female, for help. She immediately told my stepdad, and they both got in his car and came to pick me up. We stopped at the dominoes that I was headed to, and they helped me get my pizza and a

bag of ice for my injuries. After they dropped me off back at home, my dad took my brother, a 25-year-old male, and headed over to the building to see if there were any cameras nearby that could have captured what happened. Meanwhile, my sister stayed at home with me and helped sanitize my injuries. After that, I got some sense of clarity on what was happening. It turned out that the building in question was a base for a local biker gang. My stepdad and brother managed to talk to some of the members who were there. They later told me that the white car was

gone and the two guys I described were nowhere to be found. The members my stepdad and brother talked to made a few claims. Firstly, they claimed to not know who attacked me even though this happened right in front of the gang base. The guys said that they didn't know who I was when my stepdad showed them pictures that he took of my injuries. Secondly, they claimed that they were having a wake for a friend that they lost. And thirdly, an hour before I had walked by their base, someone was fiddling around with their car doors, so it was likely that when I walked past, the two guys thought I was

the person who was trying to break in before. Initially, I was thinking of not doing anything about what happened and continuing on with my life, but my dad called me to check on me after he heard about what happened. After I talked with him, I decided to go to the police station to file a report. We all had a feeling that it likely wouldn't go anywhere, as it does with most incidents of gang violence. But getting it on record for the police was the right thing to do.

Afterward, the officer taking my report suggested that I go to the ER just to be safe, where I proceeded to wait for about six hours to be seen by a doctor. The whole time I waited, I was trying to stay awake as I was worried about what would happen if I fell asleep after having taken two blows to the head. Thankfully, the doctor reassured me that I was going to be alright while he sewed four stitches into the wound where the younger guy had hit me. Eventually, I was discharged with instructions to be mindful of my stitches while I shower,

which is what I immediately did as soon as I got home at three in the morning. I'm very lucky that I didn't walk away from this with more serious trauma than I did. After that evening, it took me an entire week before I felt comfortable going outside again. Even now, months later, despite that gang having long since moved their base, I still find myself reluctant to walk past that building. If I absolutely have to, I tend to walk on the other side of the road. I never saw either one of those guys again, though I did hear rumors that they were punished by the gang for assaulting me. Allegedly the gang was trying to be less violent, but honestly,

I hope to never see them again regardless. I felt a little shaky reminiscing on that evening while writing this out, but I wanted to get the story out there to help spread further awareness about gang violence. This happened a few months ago, but it has stuck with me. At the beginning of September I was working an overnight security gig. I've been a guard for 15 years. Other than getting into brawls at nightclubs, which happens more often than you think, I've had a pretty easy career, minus some contract work that I did in Central America. This particular night started the same way they always did.

I had gotten off from my first gig, and I went to my apartment complex to retrieve another night guard, who we'll refer to as Dax. I arrived, and Dax looked frazzled. He's an old martial arts guy. He works at the apartment complex for the same reason I do—half off the rent. As I walked in, I asked him what was up. He let me know that he encountered a guy by the gate who, and I quote, gave him the heebie fucking jeebies.

He asked if I would go back to my apartment and grab my firearm. I hesitated before I reluctantly agreed since I had worked in the security industry long enough to know that guns rarely lead to good outcomes, but Dax's fear was palpable. He was scared green. So I agreed. I went to my apartment and grabbed not only my gun, but also my 120-pound dog. I suited her up in her harness and grabbed her quick-attach muzzle in the off chance that something did go down. I figured I'd be better off if my dog was ready to go.

When I went back to the security post, Dax was elated to get the fuck out of Dodge. Before he took off, he gave my dog her standard good girl chicken strip. This is a nightly ritual, regardless of whether I say it's okay or not. Then he took off back to his apartment, and I attached my dog's lead to my waist as we set off for patrol. I live in Texas and our apartment complex is secured by gates that tenants have to have a code for, so I went to check the first gate and immediately came into contact with the person Dax was worried about. It was 93 degrees out, but this guy was wearing a trench coat and a hoodie.

Before we even got near him, my dog started going ballistic. out that this guy was wearing a trench coat and a hoodie. Before we even got near him, my dog started going ballistic. With hackles up, my dog stood between my legs, snarling like some kind of feral monstrosity. I gave her the command, instructing her to chill, and she did. But what bothers me is that the guy didn't even flinch. When most people see a dog that big, barking and snarling, they generally insist upon being no part of whatever it is the dog is protecting, and in this case, it was me. I then stepped forward to initiate contact.

Hey buddy, how are we doing? Are you alright? The man turned to face me. He was disfigured, with one eye missing, but the socket had been sealed up from a surgery. He had horrible scarring on the side of his face that was missing an eye, and his remaining eye was a brilliant blue. Yeah, I'm fine, he responded rather quietly. So do you live here? I haven't seen you around. Are you new in town?

I asked. Has anyone ever told you that you have incredible eyes? He responded. This simple question made my blood run cold, as I replied. I think that my mother used to tell me that, but can't say it's something I hear often. Listen, man, you gotta get moving. If you don't live here, you can't be standing here.

This made him go sort of rigid as he reached into his pocket. I didn't give him a chance to do much more before I drew my weapon. Hey, man, I continued. look, you have to leave. I'm not going to tell you again. I don't know where you're from, but I know it's not from around here. This is your last chance. Then he slowly removed his hand from his pocket

and revealed he was holding a 35mm disposable camera. He lifted it, snapped a photo, and said, Have a good evening. Your eyes are beautiful. And then off he went. I was still shaking about five minutes later when the cops arrived. I didn't call the cops, but it turns out one of the apartments close to the gate heard my dog going nuts and heard me raise my voice. So they called.

The police told me that they would increase patrolling in our area and they said they hadn't gotten any other calls about the guy. So to the odd man in the trench coat who snapped a photo of me while standing by the gate, let's not meet ever again. Spark something uncommon this holiday season with incredible hand-picked gifts from Uncommon Goods. They make your holiday shopping stress-free by scouring the globe for original, handmade,

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To get 15% off your next gift, go to uncommongoods.com slash meet. That's uncommongoods.com slash meet for 15% off. Don't miss out on this limited time offer. Uncommon Goods. We're all out of the ordinary. This happened about six or seven years ago when I played soccer for a community college right after high school. There was this guy who worked for the athletics department. He was another student at the community college.

On Tuesdays and Thursdays, I had a one-hour gap between classes. The guy noticed me in the library, and he asked what I was doing there. I told him about these hour-long gaps in my schedule, so he started coming to the library regularly to hang out. I didn't mind this because he seemed like a normal guy. He seemed like he just wanted to hang out. I didn't mind this because he seemed like a normal guy. He seemed like he just wanted to hang out, but then he wound up bringing me some little gifts like chocolate and candy. This happened a few times.

I thought he was being a little too sweet for someone I barely knew, but I shrugged it off and didn't consider these red flags. I think this was partially because he always downplayed it. He'd always say something like, there were extra Kit Kat bars at the office today, do you want some? Basically, he'd never say that he purposely brought something for me specifically. The soccer season ended before Thanksgiving. A few teams kept playing beyond that if they were going to be in the playoffs, and after

Thanksgiving finals took place. In that brief period after soccer season and before playoffs, he asked me about my classes for the next semester. I was never organized with course registration, so I genuinely didn't know what my next semester was going to look like. I didn't tell him that, but I remember saying, I knew I didn't want to have another gap hour like I had this semester, since it wasted so much time. I could tell he wasn't happy to hear me say that.

He also asked if I was going to play another season, and I said that I needed to focus on improving my time management, and playing soccer every day wasn't helping. This only made him further unhappy. Back then, I used to say too much without thinking about how it could affect other people's feelings. We had that conversation on the last Thursday before Thanksgiving, which meant that after Thanksgiving break, finals, and winter break, there would be no more gap hours for us to hang out. Everything seemed like it was going to be great, but then winter break was when the real problems started.

In the mornings, this guy showed up outside my house. The first time I saw him sitting in his car, I didn't believe it was actually him. But when he did this a second time, I confirmed that it was. But that's not all. Since I was on break from school, I liked to post on my Instagram stories and sometimes would tag places I would go. This guy kept showing up wherever I was. He would even show up when I was at

girly stores I liked to go to at the mall. Every time I'd spot him, I'd catch him aiming his phone at me as if he were taking pictures or videos of me. This was so weird that I stopped using social media entirely. After winter break, he kept showing up at my house, especially when my parents were at work. When he started showing up multiple times a day, I ended up calling the cops. They tried to talk to him, but he basically told them he didn't have anything to say, and that was it. I think the cops wanted to help, but they could never do anything, since he was always so careful about not breaking the law.

He was never technically trespassing, he never made any threats, and he appeared to be unarmed, so there was nothing ever done about it. I haven't seen him in a while, but I have no idea what he's doing. I hope his little obsession became old and he found other things to pay more attention to. But if he starts coming around me again, I don't have any idea what I'll do. This happened about a month ago on a Saturday. For context, I'm a 16-year-old French guy.

I was with my friend in my little French hometown on said Saturday. We had been casually hanging out on the edge of town for about an hour. The friend who I was with was a 17-year-old girl. We were sitting on big rocks that were situated behind the kindergarten school and right in front of a beet field. It was around 8 p.m. so the sky was starting to turn dark. Nothing ever really happened in our town other than a recent event in which a father stabbed his daughter and wife several times. This was pretty out of character for the town, though.

It's generally pretty quiet. It's also important to note that there aren't many tourists in the area, as it's a little-known rural town close to Paris. So I was sitting with my friend and eating snacks like we usually do whenever we hang out, when suddenly I spotted a man wearing a beanie. He had his hands in his sweatshirt and was walking right towards us. He appeared so suddenly that he was right in our vicinity before we had a chance to get up and walk away. He approached us and started speaking in English.

My friend doesn't speak English, so she didn't understand what was happening at the time. I'm able to speak English, and the guy noticed that, so he started talking to me directly. Even though he didn't appear to be drunk or otherwise under the influence, I declined his offer for a handshake when he extended his hand. He continued talking as he pointed out to the beet field that was behind us. I was really apprehensive about this interaction, and I knew if I turned to look at it, I would need to turn my back to him. He just kept pointing as he asked,

"'Is that cabbage?' Without turning around to look, I responded, yes. But he wasn't satisfied with my response. He was adamant that I turn around and look behind me. I pointed out that I could see the field in my periphery, and I didn't need to turn around, but he tried to get me to look again. The more he asked me to turn and look, the more insistent he became. I was getting more and more stressed since the guy was less than a meter away from me.

Then he mumbled, my driver told me there was cabbage, I've tried to ask people but they don't understand. Then he patted my shoulder, went behind me, crouched at the edge of the field, and told me to come and see if it was cabbage. I told him many times that it was cabbage, even though it wasn't, but I was trying to get rid of him. Right when I noticed that he was out of arm's reach, I told my friend to take her bag and start running.

At first she thought I was joking, but when she saw me running, she bolted as well. When we were about 20 meters away from him, I saw him coming after us. Then he quickly disappeared behind the kindergarten school. My friend and I were both unsettled by this, so we quickly said our goodbyes and split in two different directions. As I started walking by the elementary school that was right next to the kindergarten school to get home, I saw the creep coming from the road that was between the field and the kindergarten school.

I then quickly turned around and went with my friend to her house, where I could wait for her father to drive me home. Later that night, we told a friend of ours about what happened. He said that he had seen the guy, in the beanie, hanging out around town acting suspicious earlier that day. We were really unsettled and scared after hearing that. Thankfully, we haven't seen him since. I'm not sure what that guy was up to in our small, rural town, but my intuition strongly

urged me to get myself and my friend away from him. To the creep who made me feel and I was reminded of it because of Facebook memories. For a little context, from age 16 to 19, I was being abused by my ex and his mother, Monica. I lived with them because I was kicked out of my house, and she had power of attorney over me.

For the record, her name was actually super unique. I've never met another person with that name, nor have I ever seen it anywhere else. I was living in the middle of a neighborhood filled with bars and clubs. It was a Friday night, so my fiance and I decided that we wanted to go out. My fiance went to the bar about 30 minutes before I did, so that he could grab some food from a nearby pizza place while I got all dolled up.

Once I finished getting dressed, I left my apartment and started walking over to the bar that was about three blocks away. I noticed a woman outside of my apartment building, but I shrugged it off. As I said, I lived in a populated downtown area, so there were always people out and about in the neighborhood. As I walked past her, I heard her start walking behind me. It definitely creeped me out, but I assumed she was simply heading my way. I also thought maybe she was going to ask me for directions or a cigarette or something.

But no, what happened next sent a shiver down my spine. The woman called to me in a raspy smoker's voice, Monica? Monica. I froze. I hadn't heard that name in years. So I was terrified. Again, the name wasn't Monica. It was a very unique name.

I took a deep breath, assuming she had confused me for someone else. Assuming this was just a big coincidence, I turned back to her, smiled, and said, Oh, sorry, ma'am, I'm not Monica. My name is Lilac. I hope you find Monica, though. Have a good night.

As I turned to walk away, she replied, No, Monica, I know who you are. She then grabbed my shoulder and turned me to face her. I was frozen in fear but finally got a good look at her up close. She appeared to be in her early 60s. She had brown hair with grown out graying roots. She was wearing multiple layers of jackets and some scrub pants that were ripped. But what was most noticeable to me were her eyes.

They were dark and her pupils were so large they almost engulfed her dark brown irises entirely. Before I could even respond, she looked deep into my eyes and calmly asked, "'Are you ready to die tonight, Monica?' I instantly went into fight or flight. I smacked her hand off of my shoulder and then turned to run to the bar. I slipped my hand into my purse and grabbed a hold of my pepper spray, just in case she tried to follow.

But she didn't. She just stood there, laughing. I continued to hear that laugh and her question echoing in my ears as I ran into the bar. When I found my fiancé, I broke down and sobbed. He calmed me down, got me a drink, and then walked me home a couple of hours later to make sure that she wasn't still hanging around my building. The next morning, I heard from a neighbor that the sports bar across the street from the bar I went to had a fatal shootout in front about two hours after I left. A man shot and killed one person and injured two others.

He was arrested six months later and was connected to another bar shooting just one month prior. This holiday season, I want to give the gift to my loved ones that makes them feel special and unique, just like the relationship that we share. That's why I'm giving everyone that I care about story worth. Here's how it works. Each week, story worth emails your loved one a thought provoking question that you get to help pick. Things like, what is the bravest thing you've ever done? What's the farthest you've ever traveled?

Or how did you used to get to school every day? Storyworth makes the writing process a breeze. All your loved one needs to do is respond to that email with a story. Long or short, it doesn't matter. You'll be emailed a copy of your loved one's response as they're submitted over the course of a year. After that year of fun, Storyworth compiles your loved one's stories and photos into a beautiful keepsake hardcover book that you'll be able to share and revisit for generations to come.

I purchased Storyworth from my mom a while back and we pull the book out every holiday season. She loves it. Families love Storyworth. That's why it has more than 35,000 five-star reviews on TrustBilot, with millions of stories preserved since they were founded over 10 years ago. With Storyworth, I'm giving those that I love the most a thoughtful personal gift from the heart, and preserving their memories and stories for years to come. Go to storyworth.com slash meet and save $10 on your first purchase. That's storyworth.com slash meet and save $10 on your first purchase. That's storyworth.com slash meet to save $10 on your first purchase. I have this friend who was really into the occult.

I was the one who got him into it, which turned out to be unfortunate. The two of us were mutually fascinated with the paranormal and all things weird so I thought that the subject would interest him. He picked up this interest quickly and started going really deep into the subject to the point where he wouldn't talk about anything else. He would even interrupt conversations in progress to force the subject back to occult matters. It was rude, but I figured sometimes people just go through phases where a newfound interest is all that they want to talk about.

I ultimately brushed it off as a mostly forgivable offense. I think I should mention that this particular friend didn't have a very large friend circle. His depression and introverted nature kept him inside a lot. He also didn't have the best of luck in relationships with women. His world was kind of small, but I enjoyed spending time with him, so I did my best to be a good friend. I didn't want to just brush him off just because he was acting stranger than normal. When we met, he was a pretty normal guy for a while.

We would chat and play games together on PlayStation or go see a movie with my boyfriend accompanying us, of course. We also liked to hang out at the park and go swimming. Overall, we had a great time hanging out. Things started to go downhill when he started smoking DMT. I think psychedelics are amazing tools that can offer insight into your life, but they should be used seldom and handled with care. My friend was able to start making DMT himself, since I guess it was a pretty easy thing to

do after a meager amount of research. So he began smoking it daily. Multiple times a day. For those of you who aren't familiar with the substance, dimethyltryptamine, when you smoke it, essentially transports you to a different world. An entirely new plane of existence. Your body and you, as you know yourself, simply don't exist anymore. It's like you're just exploring this alternate reality dreamscape. My personal experience with

it led me to see a dragon once in this kaleidoscope of cornucopia. Everybody's experience is unique, and as such, people see all kinds of different things while smoking DMT. Imagine what that must do to a person and their brain when they're smoking it upwards of 30 times a day. As my friend's DMT smoke ramped up, he started telling me he was the reincarnation of Osiris. He said that he was seeing Egyptian hieroglyphs all over the place, and he said that he had been having hour-long conversations with entities in his bedroom, even when he hadn't been

smoking DMT. Of course, I was very alarmed to hear all of this, and I told him he needed to take a serious break. I suggested that he stay away from drugs entirely for a few months so that he would be able to find solid footing in reality again. I was still hanging out with him because it was obvious that he needed some help, and as I said before, he didn't have a lot of friends who were able to give him that. He was also the black sheep of the family.

So I knew he wasn't going to get any kind of support from them. He was very close to his sister, so I attempted to reach out to her on Facebook. I wanted to express my concerns. I asked her to talk to him about getting some psychiatric help because he was slipping past the point of no return. I'm not sure if she took the messages seriously, since we never knew each other all that well. Plus, she's at least six years younger, so it's likely that she didn't really grasp how serious the situation was becoming. In any case, now that you have some background information, I'll jump forward to the part where things were getting particularly

creepy. My boyfriend had made arrangements to hang out with my friend at the park. I wasn't interested in going, as I felt I needed a break from him and all his nonsensical ranting. I just couldn't deal with it on that particular day. My boyfriend was telling me that my friend wasn't all that bad, and he convinced me to go anyway. So we got to the park, and my friend was his usual self. He was ranting about Egypt and a bunch of made-up gods that only he knew the truth about. He also had this large hunting knife that he kept fiddling with the whole time that we were on the walk. He told us that he had been using it to perform ceremonial magic, and that it helped to banish negative thoughts.

It made me extremely uneasy. As we were walking in the park, he kept doing this thing where he would take the knife and make stabbing motions near his heart or head. It was like he was mocking the stabbing himself. All the while, he was holding a conversation with me and my boyfriend. My boyfriend and I were both majorly on edge, and we didn't know what to do or to say about it. I tried to distract my friend from the subjects and his knife by bringing up other subjects

that might interest him. But he kept steamrolling the conversation and staying on the topic of his ritual. Keep in mind, we were walking on a trail, so it wasn't like we could just say goodbye, then and there, and leave. We had to walk back to our car and make sure my friend got back to his car before dipping. My boyfriend must have been grasping at straws because he panicked and suggested that we should get some lunch after our walk. I was doing my best to give him a look that telepathically conveyed,

No! Why do you think we should spend more time with this nut? But evidently my boyfriend didn't pick up on it. Or maybe he was ignoring it, I'm not sure. Either way, we ended up getting in the car and heading out to lunch. When we got in the car, I was driving, my boyfriend was in the passenger seat, and our friend was in the back. As we were heading through the busy part of town,

where all the shopping and restaurants were, I heard the distinct sound of a seatbelt buckle coming undone. Then I noticed that he took his pants off completely. I'm talking completely bare ass on the back seat. Instantly, I felt sick to my stomach, and all of that nervous energy I had been curbing throughout the day came flooding back into my head. I was trying not to shake and trying to ignore what he was doing back there while driving through heavy traffic. I kind of had a freeze response, I guess. The whole time I kept thinking about that huge knife that he had in his pocket.

I was growing concerned about it, as he was completely off his rocker now, but I was too afraid to say anything or confront him since I had no idea how he would react. In case you were wondering what my boyfriend must have been thinking, he didn't even seem to notice. The whole time, he kept rambling on about God knows what. I couldn't listen because my thoughts were 100% laser-focused on driving and trying to act like I didn't know what was going on in the back seat. Once we got to the restaurant, my boyfriend ran inside to grab our food.

This meant that I was left alone in the car with our friend. I tried to act like I was aimlessly browsing on my phone when I was actually watching as much as I could out of my periphery and listening intently. My friend and I didn't say a single word to each other while we waited for my boyfriend to come back. When my boyfriend returned, I said that I was tired since it had been a long day and suggested that it was time to drop our friend off at his car. So, I drove us back to his car.

But he didn't get out. He just sat there. I figured I needed to be a little curt, so I flatly said, Please get out and go home. He then got out of the car and walked over to the passenger side of his car. I started getting scared as I didn't know what he was going to do next. I was suspecting the worst. Then he pulled a gun out of some sort of bag that he had on the seat.

And then he walked back over to my car with it. I don't know why I did this, but I was so pissed. I got out of my car and walked right up to him. I was three feet away from him when I finally registered he had a loaded 9mm. Shocked, but trying to stay calm, I repeatedly asked him, what are you doing? That was all my brain could think of to do. I then told him again to get into his car and go home.

He never said a word during this whole exchange. He lightly cried and had this wild look in his eye. But for whatever reason, he eventually got back into his car and drove away. I told my boyfriend we were never going to hang out with him again and that I didn't even want to talk to him anymore moving forward. No contact. A few months passed and my friend would occasionally message me through PlayStation or send me a text.

He only said a bunch of random stuff, so I always ignored it. Turns out, shortly after our last odd hangout, he moved down to Tennessee. I'm not sure why. But after he moved, he had a roommate, and I think their girlfriend lived there. I was unsure about the situation but hoped that maybe he was turning his life around and getting a fresh start with new surroundings. I decided it was best to continue refraining from contact to let him regroup. I wasn't interested in reconciling my friendship with him and I knew he needed help beyond

what I would be able to offer anyway. I reached out to his sister again and I let her know that I found out he had a gun. She told me that she managed to get it away from him somehow, but it did little good in the end. One night at around 11 PM I got a call that woke me up. When the man who was calling claimed that he was a detective from Tennessee, my heart skipped a beat. I started sweating as I promptly asked what was going on. He let me know that my former friend stabbed someone to death on Halloween Day.

I don't know all of the information about what happened, and the only articles I've found are kind of sparse with the details. The whole thing is so surreal, and I've been feeling like I'm lucky that I didn't get shot when he was approaching me in my car with a gun. This happened last summer, and I'm still feeling creeped out about the whole ordeal. Thanks for listening. Stick around after the music for your extended ad free version of this week's episode if you're a patron.

If you want to get access, sign up for our Patreon over at patreon.com forward slash let's not meet podcast today. You'll get instant access to ad free versions of all of our episodes at a higher bit rate and hours of bonus content with stories you won't hear anywhere else. And if you're signing up on an iPhone, make sure to use a browser like Safari, Chrome, or Firefox to save 30% on your initial subscription as the Apple Store and the Apple App for Patreon will add an additional charge. However, you can still use the Patreon app after you've signed up with a browser. This week you have heard, Why Two Grown Men Won't Go Into The Woods Just Outside of Town by Cooper.

He Tried To Break Into My Room With A Fire Extinguisher by TheGhostWalksThrough. Wrong Place Wrong Time by QueenOfTheDead2023. Overnight Security Guard by Bats. I Had A Stalker When I Was In Community College by BrissaLana24. Creepy Tourist In A Small Country Town in France by Morgan. Creepy Psychic Woman Outside My Home by PastelFlorist and finally, My Crazy Friend Ended Up Becoming a Murderer by RavenouslyRed. 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. Make sure to send your stories in to letsnotmeetstoriesatgmail.com if you want to hear them on the show. Also make sure to check out the new episodes of my other podcasts like Odd Trails,

Cryptic Encounters, and the old time radio cast at crypticcountypodcasts.com. Finally, don't forget to join me and all our podcast friends this Friday at 7 p.m. Pacific at twitch.tv slash cryptic county to hear the live set from the 2024 Let's Not Meet Tour one last time. I'll see you then, everyone stay safe. Back when I was in 8th grade, I was living with my grandma in a small town in Southern

California.