Let's Not Meet: A True Horror Podcast - 15x09: My "Magic" Mirror

Episode Date: September 1, 2025

 Upcoming Live Shows: 11/17 - Phoenix, AZ @ Rebel Lounge - TICKETS 11/19 - St. Paul, MN @ Turf Club - TICKETS 11/20 - Chicago, IL @ Beat Kitchen - TICKETS Stories in this episode: My "Magic" Mirro...r | noah.exe (1:00) A Man Chased Me and My Friends at 3 am | Alternative_Farm_225 (8:18) Creepy Experience at Nature Spot | angelnike (10:50) Old Man at the Bar | Garbage (15:11) Hot Guy I Sold Coffee To | The__Dark__Wolf (23:12) Good Thing Mark Was Working... | aquatic_kitten19 (30:25) My Family's Dogs Prevented a House Break-In | Midnight_shnacks (37:14) Extended Patreon Content: My Mom's Husband's Son  | Hazel "No Toasted Bun" | Laney K. The Man With A Chainsaw | Elizabeth Antico The Crazy Neighbor Behind Me | TeeTee24 Due to periodic changes in ad placement, time stamps are estimates and are not always accurate. Send your stories to letsnotmeetstories@gmail.com.    Want Bonus Weekly Stories? Hate Ads? Join our Patreon for only $5 a month for over 100 hours of bonus content, and it's all ad-free! Let Grammarly take the busywork off your plate so you can focus on high-impact work. Download Grammarly for free at Grammarly.com/PODCAST. Join the Discord: https://discord.gg/84WXQud4gE 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 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.    

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Starting point is 00:00:00 We're taking Let's Not Meet on the road again this year, Phoenix, Arizona, I'll be at Rebel Lounge on November 17th, St. Paul, Minnesota at Turf Club on November 19th, and Chicago, Illinois at Beat Kitchen on November 20th. Get your tickets at let's not meetpodcast.com slash tour or follow the link in the show notes. I'll see you there. This podcast contains adult language and content. Listener discretion is advised. If you have a story to share, send it to Let's Not Meet Stories at GM. Enjoy the show. I live in a small house in the suburbs. My neighborhood is predominantly populated by older adults and the occasional college student. My house is a single-story house with an attic that has been converted into two separate rooms. From the main level of the house, the attic stairs lead directly up to my brother's room,
Starting point is 00:01:19 and my room is just beyond their room. Neither of us have doors to our rooms. My typical routine usually consists of going to school from eight to four. Then, when I get home, I do homework for about an hour and do whatever seems necessary to get done. My brother goes to bed at around 8.30. I'm usually in my room when they go to bed, either playing guitar or just playing video games. For them to be able to get sleep, I go downstairs and watch TV until around 10, and then I go back upstairs to read before going to sleep. I usually leave my light on when my brothers go to bed because the life.
Starting point is 00:02:00 Lighting helps keep them at ease as they go to sleep. Also, it's much easier for me to make my way back up there. So one night I went upstairs at my usual time, and then I climbed into bed, picking up the book Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell, and I began reading. This was my third read-through of this piece of art. By the time I'm at this part of my day,
Starting point is 00:02:23 I feel like my usual routine is done, and I mentally check off another successful day. Except for some reason, I didn't feel right this night. I remember this very vividly, because it was like the first time I had felt something this intense, yet so irrational, or so it seemed. I had a burning sensation that someone was watching me. It was like one of those feelings you get
Starting point is 00:02:50 when you see something that you know you weren't supposed to see, and you just hope to God there are no consequences for it. It felt like I had seen someone in the shadows, but I had hoped that they hadn't realized I noticed them, so I had more time to escape. But the thing was, I hadn't seen anyone, so there was no reason for this primal sense of dread to be kicking in, and that's exactly what was happening.
Starting point is 00:03:19 I'm sure every one of you are very aware what physically happens when you feel something like this, all the hair on the back of your neck standing up, It feels like every sense is heightened to an extreme. Well, I had that feeling, but it's so much scarier than I can describe. It's like you just feel this impending doom about possibly having to run from something that has yet to be seen. And there is no immediate or apparent reason as to why you're feeling this way. So anyway, all of my senses were heightened at that moment, and it was to the point where I could hear my brother's breathing.
Starting point is 00:03:55 So, I put the book down and turned off my AC unit so that I could hear everything clearer. Then I stared into the darkness of my brother's room, looking for the source of my assumed delirium. This was the scary moment. My brothers have this mirror in the back of their room next to the window. It's a big old oval mirror that's about five feet tall, and it rests on these hinges that tilt up and down. My brothers would play with it sometimes by pointing a flashlight at it and trying to shine it in my face via the reflection. The mirror is a heavy piece of work.
Starting point is 00:04:36 It's heavy enough that it naturally leans at about a 35-degree angle from the ground, and if you want it to stand vertically, you have to get on your knees to tighten and twist by hand these screws to get the hinges to defy gravity and keep it upright for about 15 minutes tops. Because it's so heavy it naturally weighs itself back down, Now my brothers had been asleep for almost two and a half hours at this point. I was sitting in my room, in dead silence, staring into their pitch-black room, and I saw the mirror slowly start tilting backwards until it revealed me, sitting in my bed,
Starting point is 00:05:14 eyes wide open. It was the scariest moment of my life. I was just sitting there, waiting for something to come out of the shadows. but all I could see was me. I knew that there was no way it could have pinned gravity moving the mirror because I had played with that mirror before out of sheer boredom. Even after I'd twisted its hinges as hard as I could, it would only stay upright, like I said, for a maximum of 15 minutes.
Starting point is 00:05:45 As soon as I saw the movement, I got out of there. I jumped over the stairwell divider and I ran down the stairs, skipping every other step as I went down. Then I went to the couch in the living room, and I laid down, terrified, out of my mind. Now would be a good time to note that the living room is located directly below my brother's room. Looking back on this,
Starting point is 00:06:08 this is honestly the scariest part. See, I was lying there. I was shaking and trying to push it out of my mind. Nothing happened the rest of the night, and eventually I convinced myself that I had to get to sleep so that I could go to school the next day. And I did exactly that.
Starting point is 00:06:27 When I got home from school the following day, I told my parents about what happened. As we investigated, we noticed that the plastic accordion-like cover for my brother's window, the part that the AC unit didn't cover, had been opened to fit something approximately the size of a baseball
Starting point is 00:06:43 or a hand through it. My dad started getting antsy about this, so he went to the roof to check the other side of the window. When he came back, I asked him what was up, and all he told me was that my brothers would be sleeping downstairs in the guest room for a couple of nights. He clearly saw something disconcerting up there. Later I overheard my parents talking about the situation. My dad expressed the necessity of getting motion sensor lights installed in the backyard. When she asked him why, he later told her that he had seen muddy boot prints on the roof
Starting point is 00:07:22 and said that there were two hard indentations left on the shingles as if a ladder had been placed there and removed. He said that they weren't fresh either, so it was as if this had been a reoccurring incident. Like I said, I think the most terrifying part is the fact that I went into the room under their room where someone was peering in. The couch in our living room is placed up against the wall that the ladder would have been on on the other side.
Starting point is 00:07:56 So whoever this was, was right there. I'm a female, and I was 18 when this happened. I was out with my friends, drinking and hanging out in some random field. We had such a fun time, and there were around 10 of us in total. We chose to hang out in a wooded area as we really wanted our own space. After a long night, we decided to head home. By the time we made this decision, it was around 2 or 3 in the morning. During the first part of the walk home, we got to stay to stay at home.
Starting point is 00:08:48 together, but then it got to a point where a few of us had to split off to take a different route to get home. It is worth mentioning that we were all living in a small town, so the walk wasn't very long. After some of my friends had split off, it was just me and two of my other friends left to walk home. At one point, we crossed the road to a bus stop, and there was a man inside the bus stop. He was wearing a mask that covered his whole head, and a gray track suit. in the UK, so his choice of attire wasn't exactly anything new to me. Once my friends and I had crossed the street, I couldn't help but look behind me as I was confused as to why someone was at the bus stop at 2.30 in the morning. The buses stopped running
Starting point is 00:09:35 in our area at midnight. As we kept walking, we heard him growl at us. We began to sober up immediately because this was a bit scary. We then started walking faster, and the next time I looked behind me, he was quite literally running toward us. So I told my friends, guys run, the guy's coming towards us. We froze for a second,
Starting point is 00:10:02 since we didn't want to make it obvious that we were scared, but when I started running, my friends followed suit and ran with me. A few minutes later, we turned into an alleyway and hid behind someone's fence, We stayed there for a bit trying to catch our breath after running.
Starting point is 00:10:19 After that, we never saw him again. I'm not sure if he lost track of us or what, either way. It was definitely creepy and bizarre. This wasn't the first time I experienced being chased at late hours of the night, but hopefully it was the last. I'm a 19-year-old female, and this happened when my 21-year-old boyfriend and I were at a pretty river in our town. It was a bit out of the way, but definitely worth the trip. We were there at about 7 p.m., which doesn't sound that late, but it was a bit late to be there.
Starting point is 00:11:09 This place was essentially open from sun up to sundown, and it was still a bit light out. so we figured we would be fine. We were only planning on being there for about 30 minutes or so. While we were there, we were relaxing and taking turns playing music on our phones. Then, about 10 minutes later, this man suddenly emerged from one of the houses up on the hill and shone a bright flashlight on us. I wasn't wearing my glasses, but my boyfriend said that he appeared to be in his 50s or 60s. We immediately turned our music off since we assumed he wanted to be.
Starting point is 00:11:44 us to leave. But it wasn't dark yet, so we knew we were allowed to be there. My boyfriend remained friendly as he called out to him and said, Hey, what's up, man? Or something like that. We called out to him a few times, but he never responded. He just shut his flashlight off and walked to the other end of his balcony. We were already creeped out by this, so I kept looking at the balcony. And about three minutes later, he turned around and shone the flashlight on us again. We weren't even playing music anymore or making much noise at all.
Starting point is 00:12:22 We weren't really talking since we were so focused on him. He eventually turned it off again and went inside, but I kept looking in the direction of his house since I was a bit freaked out. Then he came back outside, climbed over the balcony, went down the hill, and just hid behind a tree. tree. He then peaked at us from behind it, just staring. I stood up and demanded that we leave.
Starting point is 00:12:52 As we were leaving, my boyfriend, who's a bit of a hothead, yelled, fuck you, to the guy. Almost immediately after that, he's shown his flashlight on us again, so we booked it out of there. I think the clincher for me was when he hopped over his balcony just to hide behind a tree and peek at us. that was definitely the breaking point I don't care if he was just trying to intimidate some kids into leaving the public river that was by his house but creeping on them from behind a tree who does that
Starting point is 00:13:24 running multiple businesses and a podcast, means I've always got competing priorities. Some days it feels like my entire to-do list is just screaming at me all at once. But I've found that when I spend less time on rewrites, edits, and chasing the right tone, I can actually focus on the work that matters the most. And that's where Grammarly comes in. Grammarly is the essential AI communication assistant that boosts productivity so you can get more of what you need done faster, no matter what or where you're writing.
Starting point is 00:14:09 I use Grammarly for everything, from writing emails to drafting outlines for meetings, and I love how it helps me find the right tone without sounding robotic. Its suggestions feel natural, like something I'd actually say, and that saves me time and frustration, plus I'm actually learning from Grammarly because it's helping to improve my grammar. And I've used their AI prompts to jumpstart messages that were stuck in my head, and I can finally get them on paper. And because Gramerly works across more than 500,000 apps and websites, it's always there,
Starting point is 00:14:41 whether I'm working in a browser, email, or a doc. 93% of professionals report that Gramerly helps them get more work done, so you can rest assured that it can help you too. You deserve to be equipped with the best tools to do your job with the right AI support. Let Grammarly take the busy work off your plate so you can focus on high-impact work. Download Grammarly for free at Grammarly.com slash podcast. That's Grammarly.com slash podcast. I'm a 28-year-old female,
Starting point is 00:15:13 and I work as a bartender at a bar slash restaurant. Recently at work, I had a very strange old man come in for a drink. As soon as he sat down, I had a bad feeling about him. He ordered a beer and started talking about his day and whatnot. He said that he was from the area, but he moved to the state capital back in the 70s or 80s. He said that he likes to visit for one week every July. Now this conversation was normal for about 10 minutes.
Starting point is 00:15:45 He told me about his family and what it was like growing up in the area. After the conversation had finished, he pulled out some envelopes that had stacks of photos in them. My gut was telling me that the photos were something bad, but I had hoped that they were probably just photos from his trips. The first picture on top of the stack of photos was an AI-generated image of a cat on a surfboard. But after that, the pictures were all of young women.
Starting point is 00:16:16 The photos were all AI-generated, and the women in the photos that he was showing me were celebrities wearing a Daisy Duke-type outfit. Now, I tried to be friendly, and I told him how crazy it is that the internet can make these photos of celebrities look so real. at one point he showed me a regular picture
Starting point is 00:16:37 of a real woman whom he said that he liked to watch on YouTube it was similar to the other photos she was wearing tiny shorts but she was bent over the engine of a truck it was starting to get late so the cooks were leaving for the night
Starting point is 00:16:52 and I was the only employee left in the building other than the owner who was in the office doing paperwork I went back and let my boss know that I was getting a really weird vibe from this guy. He agreed and said that the cooks were talking about him since a co-worker had talked to him a previous night outside of work. He thanked me for letting him know and asked me to get him if anything else happened. So I went back to work. When I returned to the
Starting point is 00:17:20 floor, he was shuffling through his photos again, looking for some to show me. He let me know that he didn't think that he had any others that he could show me since the women were only wearing their panties or nothing at all. I tried to avoid this guy after that, but there were only a few other patrons in the building, and they were all sitting at tables. I went to do some cleaning behind the bar, and he began talking about this girl from YouTube
Starting point is 00:17:46 and how young and pretty she is. He pointed out that she was in her 30s, but she looked like a teenager. He stated, that was why he liked her videos so much. As a woman, similar in age and looks, this made me extremely uncomfortable. I ignored his comments about her, and he started talking about his family again.
Starting point is 00:18:09 I was responding with bare minimum responses, trying to make it to closing time in just 15 minutes. All the other patrons had left at this point except for him, and I let him know that we would be closing very soon, and he should start gathering his things. Instead of picking up his photos, he said something about why he moved to the state capital. I was barely listening until he said that
Starting point is 00:18:35 he was told to leave the city I didn't say anything or ask about it but he continued saying that the county court had sent him away years ago I was about ready to tell the owner to kick him out when he started talking about why he was sent away he shared a story about how he did something breast-related in his own words
Starting point is 00:18:58 to a girl in elementary school. I'm not very good at guessing people's ages, but there was no way that this man was in elementary school in the 70s or the 80s. He said that the girl told the teacher about him and what he did. He said it didn't happen, but no one believed him, so he got sent away.
Starting point is 00:19:21 He said he was resentful towards the girl for many, many years until he heard that she had special needs and wasn't mentally capable of making up a lie like that. I couldn't tell if he was saying that he did it, or if he was implying the teacher was the one lying. We were only two minutes away from closing, so I tried to wrap up the conversation by saying,
Starting point is 00:19:44 I hope your trip was nice, have a safe trip home. He then slowly packed his things as I walked around the bar and passed the tables to go to the front door. Then I stood there waiting so that I could lock it after he left. After he got all of his stuff together He walked toward the door Slower than I had ever seen anyone walk I was terrified
Starting point is 00:20:06 I called my husband And I put my phone in my pocket Just in case something happened Right at that moment The owner turned half of the lights off And walked over to me I politely told the man He had to leave right away
Starting point is 00:20:19 And again told him to have a safe trip As he opened the door to leave He turned back around and made eye contact with me Which he hadn't done the whole time he was there. Then he said, I'll probably be back tomorrow to see you. I don't leave town until Sunday. The next day was Saturday, and when I got to work, I immediately told my co-workers about the encounter. We were all just kind of joking around about the man, and at one point I told him, if he did return, I was going to card him just so I could get his name, so I could do a Google search.
Starting point is 00:20:54 I wanted to know if he was just creepy or if there really was a legit reason my gut just wasn't sitting right about him. My co-worker who had talked to him outside of work interjected and told all of us the man's first name. The rest of the night went by smoothly and the old man didn't come back. Some of the male co-workers walked the women employees
Starting point is 00:21:18 out to their cars just to make sure that they got home safely and he wasn't lingering outside. When I got home I spent an hour or so searching for this guy online I looked at all kinds of mugshots belonging to all kinds of men who shared that first name when I finally found him my heart dropped
Starting point is 00:21:38 I clicked on his mugshot and it was met with an article about a murder that happened in the 90s in the article it stated that he was the prime suspect in the murder the only DNA evidence police found was linked to him
Starting point is 00:21:54 he was sent to prison and after investigations revealed his mental state they did another round of testing on the DNA the second round came up inconclusive so he was then released then I found a handful of Reddit posts from the state capital about this old man he was somewhat infamous in the area for creeping on young women at their workplaces the stories were all eerily similar to mine
Starting point is 00:22:22 and even happened to several mothers when they were in their teens. Many of them shared how he was doing the same thing with their teenage daughters. I learned that the majority of people strongly believed that this man was guilty of the murder and after everything I had read, I believe it too.
Starting point is 00:22:40 I had an overwhelming sense that I should not have engaged with this man as much as I did and I shouldn't have been polite. I'm not necessarily scared of this man but I can't stop thinking about the teen girls. who have seen him regularly, especially since I had one encounter,
Starting point is 00:22:57 and it shook me to my core. I hope I never meet this man again. For reference, I work as a barista in a coffee shop, inside a larger store. I am one of a handful of male baristas at my shop. I'm gay and very open about this. I wear pride shoes, I have a pride flag attached to my name tag, and I have a couple of wristbands with rainbows.
Starting point is 00:23:31 One has a phrase that says Orlando Strong, and the other is from a local LGBT Plus center. So, recently, I was working my shift at the register, and a gentleman came up to me and smiled. I think he noticed the pride flag on my name tag, but he didn't explicitly mention it at. at first. He said that he didn't know what to order and asked me for my opinion. Now, I'm not particularly a coffee drinker, but I do know what drinks fit what tastes, so I asked him what he
Starting point is 00:24:05 likes so that I could try to give him some recommendations. As I was talking, I could tell that he was paying more attention to me than what I was saying, which I was completely okay with. He was a shorter, well-built man. He had beautiful eyes and a nice beard. Eventually, he decided on a very sweet iced drink that we had, so I went to make it for him. As I was making his drink, one of my coworkers leaned over and whispered, I think that customer just took a picture of you. That was a big red flag, but I thanked her, and ultimately I didn't think anything of it at the time. After I finished making his drink, I gave it to him, and he smiled.
Starting point is 00:24:49 He then pointed to the pride flag on my name. name tag and said, I love that flag. Where can I get one of those? I laughed and said, I got it from a pride event just a few years ago. He then replied, and where can I get the person it's attached to? I immediately felt a rush and started blushing, but I was trying to remain professional, so I brushed it off. He eventually took his drink and sat down at one of the tables. I continued going on about my day debating whether or not I should give in to this guy. Now and then I would glance at his table and I would see him looking at me. No matter when I looked, it seemed like he was always looking at me. I sort of had heart eyes at first, but then I started to get this weird feeling since I
Starting point is 00:25:36 noticed he hadn't taken a single sip of his drink. It was an iced drink, so I could see the level of his drink through the clear plastic cup. When there was a break in the line, I went to wipe down some of the tables. As I was doing so, I stopped by his table and asked if he didn't like the drink. I told him that if he didn't, I could make him a new one free of charge. Then he handed me the drink and said that he wasn't sure if it was too sweet for him or not, so he asked me to try it. I politely declined, telling him, I don't drink coffee.
Starting point is 00:26:14 He was shocked and asked me why I was working. working here if I didn't like coffee. As we continued talking, his questions begin to change. So, do you lift at all? He asked. No, not really, I answered. Well, how much do you think you could lift if you had to? He questioned. My job requires me to be able to lift 50 pounds, so I guess I'd say that much, I replied. Well, I've learned that it's good to be able to lift at least half your body weight, he explained how much do you weigh this officially set off alarm bells there was something about the combination of the drink and the two questions that made me feel like i was being asked how much of a fight i would be able to put up if i were drugged i've been drugged at a party before so i've learned to pick up
Starting point is 00:27:09 on red flags regarding this pretty quickly so i kindly ended the conversation and got back to cleaning up tables. As the hours went by, he continued to sit there, not drinking his drink. Other employees, and a couple of the managers, asked him if everything was okay, but all he would say was that he was perfectly happy. Every now and then, he took a phone call, and at one point, I swear I could see a guy on his phone who appeared to be in a different part of the store. This made me start to feel like there were more eyes on me than I realized. so I pulled one of my managers to the back and I told him
Starting point is 00:27:49 I was getting a weird feeling about that guy my manager listened to me and they kept an eye on him I was the closer on this shift and as we got closer and closer to closing time I noticed that he was still sitting there when the announcement that the store would be closing in half an hour was made
Starting point is 00:28:07 he came up to the counter and asked if he could walk with me to my car after I was off I told him that closing duties would take at least 45 minutes to complete after we close, hoping that that would deter him, but he said he would be happy to wait. I then fully declined his offer, and he asked me when I was going to be working again. I told him I would be off for a couple of weeks, so then he said, well, I feel like I should walk you to your car, especially if I might not be able to see you for a
Starting point is 00:28:39 couple of weeks. There was no way that that was happening, so I politely declined and eventually he left. After I finished my closing duties, I headed to the employee area. As soon as I got down there, I told one of my managers about the situation and asked if I could go through the side exit of the store. See, at our store, all employees exit out of the main doors after we close, but there is a side door that we can get into the building before we open. He agreed to let me use the side door and told me that he'd walk with me to my car to make sure that I got there okay. A few minutes later, I walked out of the side door with a couple of managers. I got into my car, and as I was driving away, I saw a large van with extremely tinted windows parked right in front of the front door.
Starting point is 00:29:32 There was no way to know for sure if my customer was in that van, or if it was as ominous as I thought it was. But I know that I was not about to stay and figure that out. And just in case, I took a long and winding path home that night. So to the very attractive guy who I sold coffee to, let's not meet. Unless, of course, I just read all of those things wrong, and you're just socially awkward, and were actually into me, and not in a creepy way. But let's be on the safe side and just say, let's not meet.
Starting point is 00:30:15 I'm a female in my 20s. I'm a student at a pretty big university in the Midwest. In addition to taking classes at the university, I also work as a desk clerk at one of the student libraries. I basically check books and equipment in and out, give directions around the building and surrounding area, and help patrons with whatever else they may need. I'm also quite talkative and friendly,
Starting point is 00:30:49 which makes me a good customer service employee. I'm someone whom people can easily stop and chat with. I know most of the regulars by name, and most of the people I see in the library are great people. Most of them. One night, at around 9 p.m., another library employee, Mark, showed up and started chatting with me. He works in another department.
Starting point is 00:31:13 that has him walking all over the building, so he frequently passes my desk and says hi. I had a headache, so I wasn't particularly up for a casual conversation, and knowing Mark pretty well, I told him that I wasn't feeling too well and was eager to be off of work soon. He wished me well, and went on his way. During this exchange, a patron had come up behind Mark to wait for my attention, which was normal considering that I work at the front desk. As Mark left, the man stepped up to take his place in front of my desk and just stared at me for a second with an uneasy smile on his face.
Starting point is 00:31:55 I had seen him mulling around the library a few times in recent weeks. He usually sat in the cafe area reading a local paper. He looked to be in his mid-30s. He said he overheard that I wasn't feeling well and asked if I wanted him to grab me a drink from the vending machine down the hall, as the cafe closed at eight. I politely declined, as I didn't want to accept drinks from many kind of strangers. He seemed a bit miffed, but didn't mention it.
Starting point is 00:32:26 He then said that he overheard that I was off soon, and asked if I wanted him to walk me to my car. Becoming wary and alert, I again declined and started to consider my options for escape. The desk is only staffed by one person at a time on weeknights, and considering that it was the spring semester, there weren't a lot of people around the library. With no coworkers available to cover the desk for me, I couldn't leave.
Starting point is 00:32:55 My bosses were working on the second floor in the administrative offices, but I knew my favorite supervisor wasn't working that day. I also felt like even if I called them upstairs, I wouldn't be able to sufficiently explain the situation over the phone, since he was right there. I knew that he would overhear everything that I said on the phone, so I didn't really know what to do. I couldn't think of any other legitimate reason to have them come downstairs, so I felt like there was no point in calling. Unsure of what to do next, I turned around to hide the confusion and fear on my face. Then I stood up, grabbed the disinfectant wipes,
Starting point is 00:33:35 and began wiping the counters just to have a job to do rather than sitting there idly while this creep continued to stand at my desk. I was turned away from him for less than a minute when I heard the sound
Starting point is 00:33:50 of the keyboard clicking at my computer. I whirled around and saw that he had my Facebook page opened. He must have done some kind of keyboard command to switch tabs to get to it quickly. my Facebook was open and logged in but in a different tab this situation was getting worse since now this guy has my first and last name at this point i was scared but honestly in the moment i was more pissed off than anything i asked him what he was doing as he had turned the monitor at an angle so that he could see my screen to analyze my profile after reciting my name he then said it's so nice to meet you. I couldn't lie. I couldn't say that my name was something else because the
Starting point is 00:34:41 picture on my profile was a clear shot of my face. That really got me. So I told him how rude that was and how it was an invasion of my privacy. He responded by saying, we're on public property. So all that he was doing was using a public computer. Personally, I wouldn't consider a computer behind a library desk as public. I went back behind the desk, and then he made a move toward me. He leaned over the desk a bit and tried to grab my arm. I was about to start getting heated when Mark came down the stairs, saying he had heard me from the stairwell.
Starting point is 00:35:22 I must have been talking pretty loud at this point. Mark could tell that I was visibly pissed, as I explained that this guy was trying to buy me a drink and walk me to my car. I also told him how the guy essentially stole my personal information by looking at my Facebook page on my computer. This also pissed Mark off. So Mark, who by the way is a pretty big, burly dude, stepped right up to the guy's face.
Starting point is 00:35:47 He told the guy to forget my name and face and get the hell out of there. This guy just put his hands up and smirked. And as he took a few steps back, he said, Hey man, it's cool. I'm just trying to. to make some friends out here. I audibly scoffed and told him I was going to call
Starting point is 00:36:07 building security if I ever saw him at my desk again. He told me to fuck off and called me ugly before storming off and leaving. After he was gone, Mark asked if I was okay. I asked him to cover the desk
Starting point is 00:36:22 for a few minutes while I went up and explained what happened to my boss. He was also pretty pissed at this guy and told me that he would get security to look at the camera footage to possibly try and identify this guy. He said that he'd be banned if he showed up again. Turns out he was a student at the university a while back
Starting point is 00:36:41 and had a history of stalking female students. Thankfully, I haven't seen him since. I called campus police, but I never heard back. Mark now makes multiple rounds by my desk whenever I work at night. Creepy library stalker, let's not meet. Before I get into the story, there are a few things that I need to explain about my country, South Africa, for you to fully understand the story. In South Africa, it's normal to have high brick walls with electric gates, electric fences, alarms, it's
Starting point is 00:37:31 because crime is rampant here. It's also pretty normal to have big gardens. My family and I are big animal lovers, so at the time of this story we had six dogs. With that being said, our dogs roamed freely in and out of the garden, and it's secure and fully enclosed. We usually left the veranda door open during the day
Starting point is 00:37:56 for them to do their thing. Another thing about South Africa is that it's normal to have live-in domestic workers, like a housekeeper and a gardener. Average families employ these types of workers. It's not only for wealthy people, and I'm only mentioning this since it seems to be different in other countries. For this story, I'll be referring to our housekeeper as Ellie and our gardener as Vince. This happened in 2007 when I was nine years old.
Starting point is 00:38:25 my older brother who was 10 and I had just gotten our first cell phones that day our dad surprised us with them after work now you may think that we were a bit young to have cell phones but they were used for emergencies or communications with our parents and this is an important piece of information for the story
Starting point is 00:38:47 we don't usually leave our veranda door open at night due to security reasons but I remember it being a hot summer night on this particular night. So, of course, this night of all nights, the veranda door was wide open, and the dogs were doing their thing in the garden. My brother and I were in my parents' room,
Starting point is 00:39:09 excitedly setting up our new cell phones. Ellie's daughter, we'll call her Anne, was 18 years old. She was like an older sister to us. She was helping my brother and me. My dad was elsewhere in the house, and my mom was in the bath. Now, I specifically remember Anne, commenting that the dogs wouldn't shut up and how annoying it was.
Starting point is 00:39:33 That was when I noticed it, too. Sure, they would bark, but it was usually the doxins that yapped, while the bigger dogs stayed pretty chill. Typically, when the doxins yapped, it would only last for a few minutes and then they'd get over it, but something was different that night, and even the bigger dogs were barking non-stop. My dad appeared in the room and mentioned that he, too, noticed the dog's incessant barking, and he was going to check if everything was okay. No alarm bells went off in my head, and I don't believe that my dad thought anything was amiss either.
Starting point is 00:40:09 Because of this, when my brother asked to go investigate with him, my dad agreed. Meanwhile, I was too engrossed in my new Sony Erickson. My dad ventured out into our garden with my brother in tow, when my dad had noticed the dogs were all grouped. They were growling and going crazy in a dark corner behind our in-ground swimming pool. And here's the best way I can describe it. Our garden, beyond our pool, hits a slight incline.
Starting point is 00:40:42 So we have a few steps leading down the hill to the bottom end of our garden. We usually have a lamp that lights up, but my dad noticed that the lamp seemed to be off. And this confused him because he could have sworn it was working just the other night. My dad then got this gut-wrenching feeling because of this and how the dogs were acting.
Starting point is 00:41:03 He called after them, and they would usually come running, but on this night they all seemed to just glance at him before turning back around and continuing to go crazy at this dark corner down the steps. My dad told my brother to go back inside the house and get a torch. He essentially did this as an excuse to get my brother to go back inside the house
Starting point is 00:41:25 instead of going with him since he had a gut feeling. When my brother went back inside my dad slowly approached the steps. He noticed how the dogs seemed to be snapping at whatever it was, hiding just out of view of the darkness. As he approached the steps,
Starting point is 00:41:43 he noticed that the lamp had been smashed. Confused, he put two and two together as he inched backwards towards the steps, but it was too late. my dad being an ex-vete and an avid hunter felt something cold against his temple and immediately knew that it was a gun out of the darkness stepped four other men in masks all armed shocked he stood there frozen on the steps the man holding the gun to his head was instantly aggressive and asked him where my brother was the man said that he saw my dad come out with my brother and saw my brother go back into the house so he asked why. My dad said that something came over him, and before he knew what he was saying, he responded. He's gone inside to press the panic button. As he said this, he saw how all of the guys began to panic. They started speaking in an African language called Zulu. They assumed that
Starting point is 00:42:44 my dad couldn't understand. It isn't common for white people to speak it, but my dad had actually grown up on a farm where he learned Zulu fluently from the farm workers. The aggressive guy holding the gun then said, and Zulu, shit, the cops will be here any minute. Let's just kill this fucker and grab what we can, then go. The others seemed apprehensive, and the smaller guy seemed particularly on edge as he continued to say how he couldn't go back to jail again.
Starting point is 00:43:13 He insisted that they needed to get out of there before the cops showed up, which would be any minute. He was really panicking. My dad fed on this guy's fear, so he interrupted them speaking in English, pretending not to understand what they were saying. He let them know that there were armed response vehicles that regularly drove in our area, and since my brother pushed that panic button so long ago they'd probably be here any second. And that's what did it for them.
Starting point is 00:43:41 My dad watched as their plan unraveled before them. The smaller guy full-on started freaking out on all of the other. guys. He told the others that they needed to leave as soon as possible, or else they'd get caught and put in jail. This seemed to make the others more nervous, and they all lost confidence, and began bickering amongst themselves as their plans slowly, as one of the guys said, turned to shit. The aggressive guy who had kept his gun to my dad's head, slowly lowered it as their bickering escalated, so he lost focus on my dad and shifted his focus onto his crew. My dad then used this as an opportunity to slowly back up the steps and turn to dart to the house.
Starting point is 00:44:22 As luck would have it, as my dad ran through the still-open veranda door, my oblivious brother was heading back out with the torch. Mid-run, my dad scooped him up under his arm, like a football, and sprinted into the house. He didn't even close the door behind him. I know this is silly, but I think he just wanted to get my brother inside as quickly as possible so he wasn't thinking properly. Anne and I were oblivious to everything, so we were surprised when we saw my dad rush in through the bedroom door, slam it shut, and tell us to go upstairs and into the attic. There are five guys outside with guns, he said. They're here to hurt us, go upstairs now. My heart sank. I remember my body automatically responding and I sprinted to the stairs with
Starting point is 00:45:13 Anne right behind me. My mom ran out of the bathroom in a room. towel and she wasn't too far behind. Once we were up in the attic, we sat there in the darkness in total silence. I swear you could hear a pin drop. I think we were all just waiting to hear something below us in the rooms. My mom cursed, saying that she didn't have a phone. My dad didn't have his phone either. But who happened to have their phone with them? Me. Clutched in my hand was my brand new Sony Erickson, and we already had an emergency to use it for. My mom dialed the police, and I kid you not, they asked where we lived. We explained, and they curtly told us that it wasn't even in their jurisdiction. They just said,
Starting point is 00:46:01 sorry, which was followed by an abrupt click, and then the line went dead. At that point, we were not only shitting ourselves, but we were flabbergasted as well. My mom, Mom began cursing like a sailor, and that's when my dad realized. He forgot to close the veranda door. What about Ellie and Vince? They were in their rooms blissfully unaware of the danger they were in. So, he then retrieved his firearm from the safe in the attic and told us that no matter what we heard, don't come downstairs.
Starting point is 00:46:36 He told us that we needed to stay hidden no matter what. I was sobbing at this point, begging my dad not. to leave us, but he told us he had to go get Ellie and Vents before something bad happened to them. This resulted in even more tears, as reality hit us. There were two people still in danger, Anne was understandably in hysterics because she was fearing for her mother downstairs.
Starting point is 00:47:03 Then my dad disappeared, and the air was thick with tension. We could hear the dogs still going crazy, indicating that those men were still on our property. My mom then called another number. She called the armed security that drives around the area. She said that they would be over in 10 to 15 minutes. They told us to wait and stay hidden until they arrived and rang our bell at the gate. We waited there in silence fearing that we would hear gunshot or something else indicating that these men were outside.
Starting point is 00:47:37 But there was just silence. The only sound was the dogs barking outside. After what seemed like hours, but was most likely a couple of minutes, we heard stomping coming up the stairs, and my heart rate quickened. I remember shutting my eyes and praying that it was my dad with Ellie and Vents. Luckily it was. We all hid together for a while, and no one dared to speak. The dogs seemed to have calmed down considerably, but they were still barking now and then. When the gate intercom rang, my dad told us to wait, while he checked to see if it was the
Starting point is 00:48:15 security company, and sure enough it was. He opened up and the nightmare was over. I remember standing up, and then my knees buckling from the adrenaline my body endured. The armed security somehow notified the right police and everyone investigated the garden. They found that there were actually seven pairs of footprints. They were also able to figure out that these guys bent the spikes on our wall to climb over. We got an electric fence shortly after. This meant that there must have been two other guys hiding in the shadows that my dad hadn't even seen, which is creepy in its own right.
Starting point is 00:48:57 South Africa's violent crime is quite bad, and it's sickeningly common for torture and assault to happen during these home invasions. I was so young at the time so I didn't know the horrors of the world and was just scared of my family getting hurt now that I'm older just the thought of four women being in the house and my mom being in nothing but a bath towel
Starting point is 00:49:23 gives me chills the cop said that the fact that there were so many guys indicates that this group of seven men likely had sinister intentions thank goodness nothing happened to my family and I'm forever thankful for my dad's quick thinking regarding the panic button. Also, I'm so glad my dad understands Zulu and could manipulate the situation to benefit us.
Starting point is 00:49:49 Lastly, my family will forever be in debt to our good boys and girls who warned us that night. A terrifying and life-changing outcome would have been 100% what happened that night had it not been for our incredible dogs. From that day onward, My dad always gave them leftover rice or meat with their dinner. In conclusion, I'd like to say rest in peace to all of our dogs.
Starting point is 00:50:15 I'm sure there was a special place in heaven reserved for you angels. Don't forget to get your tickets for the Let's Not Meet Live shows, November 17th. in Phoenix, Arizona, November 19th in St. Paul, Minnesota, and November 20th in Chicago, Illinois. Links for the tickets can be found in the show notes or go to let's not meetpodcast.com slash tour. If you're a patron, stick around after the music for your extended ad-free version of this week's episode. If you want to get access, go to patreon.com forward slash let's not need podcast. To sign up and support the show today, you'll get access to ad-free versions of all of our episodes at a higher bit rate for the best listening experience.
Starting point is 00:51:02 Plus, bonus content every single week with stories you won't hear anywhere else. That's at patreon.com forward slash let's not meet podcast. And be sure to check out the new episodes of my other podcasts, like Odd Trails, My True Paranormal Podcast, the old-time radio cast, and our new podcast, Degrauds, the Degrassy Rewatch podcast with Shane Kipple and Mike LaBelle. You can find all these shows at Cryptic County Podcasts.com
Starting point is 00:51:26 or wherever you get your podcasts. This week you have heard Magic Mirror by Noah E. A man chased me and my friends at 3 a.m. by Alternative Farm 2.25. Creepy experience at nature spot by Angel Nike. Old man at the bar by garbage. Hot guy I sold coffee to by the Dark Wolf. Good Thing, Mark was working by Aquatic Kitten 19. And finally, my family's dogs prevented a house break and by midnight snacks. 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. Send your stories to
Starting point is 00:52:10 let's not meet stories at gmail.com to hear them on the show. We'll see you next week, everybody. Stay safe. When I was growing up, I lived with my mom and my sister.

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