Let's Not Meet: A True Horror Podcast - 16x20: Callbox Creeper

Episode Date: May 18, 2026

Story Submissions: [e-mail] in this Episode:Callbox Creeper | Doeeyeddreamer (0:44)He Tried To Break Into My Hotel Room | Anonymous (8:54) Followed on Campus | Ancient-Anything-212 (12:44) I Couldn't Tell Anyone About My Stalker | Adriana_Crown29 (17:33) Date With A Sociopath| ndlesslies (22:39) I Worked With A Creep | notme362o16 (29:31) Followed At The Store| snakcident (34:51) Home Invaders Weren't Interested in Money | PS (40:00) Be Careful Who You Give Your Keys To | Intelligent_Pea1026 (48:57) Extended Patreon Content:He Never Bought Anything | MykaelaAwareness is Powerfull | KimberleeHe Followed Us to My House, Then The Park | GreyThe Man in the Green Hat | Melissa Due to periodic changes in ad placement, time stamps are estimates and are not always accurate. 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! Join the Discord:https://discord.gg/84WXQud4gEFollow LNM:- Twitch - https://twitch.tv/crypticcounty- Website - https://letsnotmeetpodcast.com/- Patreon - https://patreon.com/letsnotmeetpodcast- Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/letsnotmeetcast/ If you're tired of switching litters looking for the ONE, get 30% off your Boxie order at Boxie.com/MEET and use code MEET. Refresh your everyday with luxury you'll actually use. Head to Quince.com/MEET for free shipping on your order and 365-day returns. If you like your money, Mint Mobile is for you. Shop plans at MintMobile.com/meet.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. The stories shared on this podcast are told from the perspective of the authors. Their accounts and opinions are personal and do not reflect the stance of the production team. 

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please contact Connix Ontario at 1866-531-2600 to speak to an advisor free of charge. BetMGM operates pursuant to an operating agreement with Eye Gaming Ontario. This podcast contains adult language and content. The stories shared in this podcast are told from the perspective of the authors. Their accounts and opinions are personal and do not reflect the stance of the production team. If you have a story to share, send it to Let's Not Meet Stories at gmail.com. Enjoy the show. Late August, I moved into my first department.

I graduated from university and was offered a job as a teacher, so I felt like I was well on my way to figuring out this whole adult life. I moved in with a long-time friend and neither of us had any complaints about our apartment complex. It was very nice. It's not in a wonderful part of town but it is truly a diamond in the rough.

The complex is well maintained, clean, and the other residents have been nothing but friendly. To get into our complex, there are two gates. If you live at the apartment, you're given a remote that opens either gate

that you choose to enter. But if you don't live in the complex, you have to go through a directory at the front door to find the name of the resident that you are visiting. The residents are listed by last name and first initial. And once a visitor finds a resident that they are wanting to visit in the directory, they can press the residence button. This will ping the resident on their phone,

who will then get a few options. The resident can choose to talk to the guest and decide to let them in by entering a key code into the keypad on their cell phone, or they can hang up and the gate will not be. be opened. Overall, I think the system helped save me from this situation that I got myself into. One night in October, I was driving home from my fiance's house. It was late at night, probably close to 2 a.m. I had just gotten off the freeway and was about to enter my neighborhood when I was stopped at a traffic light. I was in the left-hand turn lane, and there was one other car

in the right-hand turn lane, two lanes away from me. The light had changed, to a green arrow, and I proceeded to turn left, and the car, which had previously been in the right turn lane, maneuvered to follow me. I thought that this was weird because of how many lanes they had to cut across, but I figured they were lost, so I tried not to think too much about it. I continued driving down the road, and was able to make a right-hand turn into my neighborhood

when I was distressed to see that the car had turned in behind me. Still, I ignored my gut feeling and figured they lived in the neighborhood around my complex. I remember thinking that they were driving just a little bit too close. But again, I tried not to let my anxiety get the best of me. I do have high anxiety, so I figured it was just my brain playing tricks on me. I remember hearing that the best way to tell if someone is following you is by turning right until you essentially form a square. Honestly, I should have done that, but I talked myself out of this maneuver.

I wish I hadn't. I sped up just a bit, clicked my gate open, and pulled into the complex. The car following me, whipped in right behind me. Again, I convinced myself that this was just normal. I just told myself they probably lived in the complex as well. The gate opens up on the opposite side of the apartments, so you have to drive through the entire complex to get where my apartment is. I drove through quickly and prepared to exit the complex just in case this person was still following me.

But when I looked at the straightaway right behind me, I realized there weren't any headlights. Upon seeing this, I laughed at myself for being so nervous and then pulled into my parking spot in front of my building. As I parked and prepared to get out of the car, I turned for one last look and realized that the car that had been following me had reappeared. with its headlights off, and they parked in an unreserved spot just a bit down from mine. When I clocked this, I knew I should have started my car again and driven away. I knew that there was so many other things that I should have done, but in the moment, I jumped out of my car. I was panicking. I ran up the stairs and into my apartment. I then double-locked the doors, grabbed a knife, and ran into my room to call my fiancé.

I then heard someone shouting from outside, which is very unlike my complex, since it's so quiet there. My fiancé asked me what the person shouting outside was saying, but I refused to listen since I was scared. I just kept my fiancé on the phone and kept telling him what was going on. I suddenly heard more shouting,

and then it was silent. I had an overwhelming sense of dread. I remember not being able to stand, because my knees were shaking, and I tried to stop myself from crying, so I would be able to see if someone was breaking my door down. My fiancé made it to my apartment in record time with a baseball bat, which helped me ease my mind.

He stayed over that night and let me sleep with the lights on, but I couldn't get the sound of that screaming out of my head. It was obvious that they were calling for someone, and I figured it must have been me. I assumed the other person's screaming must have been another resident who was trying to make the person shouting outside be quiet because it was so late. I figured the whole situation was over

until I woke up in the morning. When I walked downstairs to my car, I discovered that one of my tires had been slashed to ribbons. I then realized I had left some mail with my name on it in my car as I was in such a rush to get to my apartment the night before. I didn't think much of that detail in particular until later. I got my tire fixed and tried to push that night out of my mind.

A few days later, however, I started to receive calls from the directory in front of my building. I wasn't expecting anyone, but it was someone who was asking to be let in. Even though I definitely knew I wasn't expecting anyone, I picked up and asked who it was. I was met with silence, so I hung up and didn't grant whoever was out there access to the complex.

I was called again, and I picked up and tried to ask it was out there again, but they still wouldn't say who they were, so I just let them sit there at the gate. They called obsessively from the call box for days. I finally snapped into the phone for them to tell me who they were, and a man answered. He told me he lived in the complex but needed to be let in because he lost his key. He told me he lived in the apartment next to mine, but I knew the family who lived next to me. A woman lived there with four children. There was no man. If the man who was calling me at the directory really did live there and lost his key, he would have been able to call himself to open the

gate. I told him I didn't believe him and I hung up, just as he started screaming at me to let him in again. And the calls continued. Finally, I had had enough. I marched to the office the next day, and I asked them to take my information and number off the directory. The man was unable to call after that, and I was at peace. I warned the office about the man who had damaged my car, and they increased security rounds in the complex for a few months. Thankfully, that was the last time I had contact with that man. I know how I handled the situation by not listening to my gut,

when it told me something was wrong, landed me in trouble. I allowed someone to follow me and learn my name, and they were able to torment me for weeks before I finally took action. I'm just thankful that my fiancé and the staff at my apartment complex were able to take action to help me stop the creep

from being able to contact me. So to the person who followed me home slashed my tire and screamed at me to let them in, let's not meet. When I was about nine years old, my family and I went on vacation. My father got a room at Embassy Suites for himself, five daughters and two of our female friends, all aged 9 to 15.

I guess this large group of young girls drew somebody's attention because, at night, somebody tried to break into our room. I had problems sleeping, even at that age. It was around 3 a.m. and I was sitting in the living room chair in the dark. I saw a man at the window that faced the mezzanine balcony when I heard the door open. It happened so fast. The chain lock snapped, nice and tight, halting the door. He still forcefully thrust at the door twice more, but the chain didn't break.

He was able to squeeze his face through the crack. I watched his single eye dart frantically around the room. He looked like he was coked up or something. His gaze passed over everybody sleeping on the floor. Then he noticed me sitting in the chair. I was perfectly illuminated by the light from the crack of the open door. We locked eyes for about 30 seconds. His eyes seemed to bulge.

He thrusted the door once more, still failing to break the lock. Then he closed the door and left. The whole time, nobody even woke up. I told my father about it the next morning, but he didn't seem to care. I've always been unsettled by a few details, though. For starters, due to the setup of the hotel, anybody manning the desk could have likely heard the commotion

and maybe even seen the man attempting to break in. Also, he opened our door so quickly. Did he have a key? I've also always been concerned with how brazen his attempt was. He seemed certain that he wasn't going to get caught or face consequences. Perhaps he had done it before. I like keeping my money where I can see it. Unfortunately, traditional big wireless carriers also seem to like keeping my money as well.

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And that was red flag number one of many. I was very naive back then. I had no experience with men at the time, and I should mention that I'm now 26 and am horrified at the decisions young me has made. We'll call this guy Gary. We met during one of my longer breaks between classes. He did the whole self-pity thing, saying he was unattractive and most people would just ghost him. I was young and naive, at least enough to play into this and give him a chance.

While getting to know him, he raised several. red flags, and I wasn't sure of how to handle the situation. First of all, he had a tattoo on his forearm that he showed me of a jack of hearts stabbing itself in the heart because he claimed to be constantly putting himself in a position to be taken advantage of. The next red flag was that he served in the military and said that he was disappointed that he spent all of his service stateside because he never got to shoot anybody. That was literally what he said.

He regretted that he never got to kill anyone. He also wanted to take me stargazing on our first date. This was a red flag for me because I couldn't drive, so he would be driving me out to the middle of nowhere. He was pretty dead set on this plan. This was all the information I got from him during our first conversation, which took place over the course of about 45 minutes.

We had another chat the next day, and towards the end of our second chat, we were standing outside one of the classrooms. While we were standing there, he asked, Do you trust me? He didn't wait for me to respond. He just grabbed the strap of my book bag and attempted to pull me towards him so that we could kiss. I panicked and nearly shouted, no, as I quickly ducked into my classroom. The visual of his face getting close to mine is still burned into my memory.

The next day was the part that really creeped me out. After the whole attempted kiss and all the other red flags, I wanted some distance. But I didn't know how to let him down gently, so I texted him. I said, hey, I need to get some reading done for my lit class. I need to go to the library instead of meeting up with you today. I made it clear that I was not looking for company. I then went to the library and I sat in the lobby near the front doors

since I wasn't hiding or anything. My back was to the entrance and I had both earbuds in with my music playing loud, reading a book. My phone then buzzed. He texted me. Everything okay? And I immediately felt that something was off. When I looked out of the corner of my eye,

I saw his Jack of Heart's tattoo on the armrest of the chair directly behind me. I froze and was internally freaking out. If he had shown up and started talking to me face to face,

I wouldn't have been thrilled, but this was strange. I casually texted back and said something like, yep, just catching up on some homework. I continued to sit there pretending to read. I also continued to pretend to be oblivious to his presence.

I quietly unzipped my backpack when I saw him get up and walk over to something on the other end of the room. I then shoved my book into my back, nearly ran out of the library, looped around the back of the building so that he wouldn't see me walking if he exited the building, and waited until I was concealed by some other buildings to text him and say that I wasn't interested in going forward with our upcoming date. He gave me a dirty look every time he saw me on campus after this,

but otherwise he left me alone as far as I know, and I very quickly learned to be much more picky about who I spoke to online after that. I still feel sick when I think about his intentions for that stargazing date. I sold drugs when I was younger. That harmed my community. It harmed many people, not just those I sold to. It also affected their families. I don't make excuses, and I can't understand.

do my past actions. All I can do now is take ownership of my mistakes and try to help others. Especially as a girl, I knew that selling drugs could be a risky business. I thought that I could avoid those risks by being selective and careful. I only sold to people I already knew and trusted. It wasn't that simple, though. My customers told other people and other people contacted me. It was hard to say no to the money. And that was how I met. Jerry. Jerry had a crush on me. It was obvious, but it felt harmless in the beginning. But I think the first red flag was when he started paying me tips. He would pay me for his orders, and then he would pay me a tip on top of that. Then one day he asked me for my shoe size. I told him clearly, please don't buy me any

shoes. He still showed up with a pair of rhinestone heels the next time he was picking up an order. He said that he had already bought them, and he told me that the store that he got them from didn't accept returns. But due to the pressure he gave me, I just accepted them. I was a lot more naive back then, but I still understood that the situation was going to create problems. I knew that he was going to expect something in return. It also worried me that he always had the power to report me to the police if he wanted to. I used to put my phone on silent every night before going to sleep. I still do that.

But then one morning, I woke up and saw at least 20 missed calls and more than 50 unread texts. They were all from Jerry. He was so mad because he found out I had gone to Disneyland with a boy. His messages said, You're so ungrateful. After everything I did for you, you're nothing but a two-faced bitch. You're dead to me.

Don't ever contact me again. Well, I wish I could say that I wasn't bothered by this, but I was. And that's because I was afraid of being on his bad side. I knew that he could report me. Also, his words were hurtful, and I did feel that. It was also concerning how he knew about me going to Disneyland with my boyfriend. We had kept that off of social media. In fact, the whole relationship was a secret at the time.

But that's a different story. The fact that Jerry blew up my phone about this was really unsettling. He had said never to contact him again, so I thought that would be the end of it. But I started seeing him everywhere. After he told me not to contact him, I was sitting at the public library, studying. Of all the empty seats, Jerry came in and sat across from me. He was pretending to read, but I could feel him observing me. Shortly after that, I was walking out of the manicure appointment,

and he was standing right outside. I was already having really high levels of stress about getting arrested since I kept hearing stories about other local dealers getting arrested themselves. I reached a point where every time I left the house, I wondered if that would be my last time. Jerry's behavior made me stress even worse, but since I was seeing him everywhere, I was also afraid for my physical safety. All that stress was building up, and it became too much to handle.

Even after years of therapy, it still weighs on me today. Well, one day Jerry approached me while I was out and about, walking to the grocery store. He asked if I wanted to hear a poem that he wrote. I told him, no thank you, left my cart there in a immediate. ran to my car. Later that day, I asked my boyfriend for help, and he said that he would take care of the situation. He brought some friends with him, and they confronted Jerry. As far as I know, they didn't hurt him, but they intimidated him enough to make him leave me

alone. By then, I knew I needed to leave that business behind. It really wasn't difficult to stop selling. I just told everyone I wasn't going to do it anymore. My customers had built a bond with me by that point, so some of them were disappointed, but I was by no means the only dealer in the area. I'm sure they found someone else to buy from. I hope they didn't actually, but they probably did.

I have no idea what happened to Jerry after that. The silver lining in all of this is that Jerry really made me start to consider my own safety. I'm a 24-year-old male. When I was 15, I was hanging out in a friend's basement with a former friend and two girls who had escaped from a psychiatric hospital. We were taking drugs, both amphetamines and weed. And that was where I first met someone named Scarlett. I found Scarlet to be very attractive and mysterious.

I liked her a lot, but what I didn't know was that at the time she was into me. I was into her as well, but she was different. It's hard to explain. Anyway, let's fast forward years later. I was at a rave, a tunnel rave to be exact, which was popular in my city. By coincidence, I ran into Scarlet again. She was on ecstasy.

I was honestly shocked to see her there, but we started talking. She told me she was into me when we met in my friend's basement back then, and she said that she still had an interest. I still thought she was attractive, but she looked just as interesting and mysterious as I remembered. So I spent some time with her that night. I made sure she was okay, got her water, and so on. Nothing seemed weird at first. I felt like I was just looking out for her.

We went to a nearby club after the rave. Inside the club, things escalated the way that you would expect after that kind of night, dancing, kissing, drinking. Oh, and there was this guy with her, a friend of hers, who honestly behaved in a very intrusive and uncomfortable way. He was constantly inserting himself into situations where he clearly wasn't wanted. It completely ruined the vibe, but after a while, he finally left.

Before I left, I took her shirt with me. I wasn't intending to be malicious or anything, but I really wanted an excuse to see her again. A couple of days later, She came back to pick it up, and that was when things got weird. The atmosphere was off immediately. She was extremely cold, distant, and essentially, emotionally flat. The conversation we had felt forced.

It felt like I had to carry every sentence. At some point she started telling me a story, which I'll paraphrase as best as I can. She described how a former best friend had hurt her deeply. In response, she then. and organized a house party to convince that person to come over to her place. After the party, she got that person into a separate room, restrained them, and harmed them with a razor blade. I honestly didn't know how to react.

I tried to stay calm and responded as vaguely and neutrally as possible. This whole situation felt extremely disturbing, but I ignored my gut feeling because I had known Scarlet since I was, a teenager, I wanted to believe that it was just talk. Eventually, we ended up sleeping together, but the entire experience felt wrong. It felt detached. She left that night at around 3 a.m., which honestly felt like a relief, and after that night, we didn't really talk that much.

Things escalated after that. A month or two later, I had been awake for about two days straight, due to being on amphetamines. While I was out getting groceries late in the evening, I suddenly received snaps on Snapchat from her. The first one was my front door. There wasn't any context. It was just a picture of my front door.

I opened this while I was in the store. I immediately felt a wave of panic. I was already sleep deprived and anxious, and this made everything worse. Then more snaps came. She sent a photo of a balcony. It was a balcony directly above my apartment. Again, there was no text and no explanation.

At that point, I felt extremely uneasy, so I stopped engaging with her entirely. I told my friends about it back then because I genuinely didn't know what to think. Fast forward about two years, which brings us to just about the present. A friend told me that Scarlett knew I had been talking with my friend,

friends about our situation. I don't know how accurate that was, but it made me uncomfortable. Then, by pure coincidence, I ended up at a club with some friends. Someone told me that she was there, too, and suddenly she appeared next to me. She immediately confronted me, clearly angry, asking why I had been talking about her. I don't remember too much after that. I had been drinking, and the situation became a blur. I just remember wanting to distance myself. We all make mistakes, but some people are mistakes. Let's not meet again.

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I worked with a guy named Nick, and from the moment I laid eyes on him, I knew there was something off about him. I didn't want anywhere near him. Unfortunately, that's exactly where he wanted to be all the time. Now, he didn't initially give me a reason to feel off about him, and I even felt bad about having this feeling in the beginning. See, Nick was very nice to everyone.

He was always polite, and he had a cheerful attitude every day at work. He greeted people, asked how they were doing, tried to make jokes, and he'd even send friendly texts in our group chat about how excited he was to work with all of us. Personally, I felt that he was a little too cheerful at work, and that was one of the things that I found to be off-putting about him. even unsettling. He always wanted to talk to me for some reason, so I was polite but nothing more toward him.

I would give him short answers to all of his questions, but I would let the conversations end there. I genuinely wanted nothing to do with him, yet he didn't really get the hint. Every time I was on break, and he happened to either be also on break or about to clock in, he would come over to my table and sit with me, which I always hated.

In my mind, I'd be telling him to get away from me, but I never said it out loud. He never gave me a reason to, and I knew I'd just look like an asshole if I did. I never made eye contact with Nick either. It always felt uncomfortable. It's just hard to explain, but there was something about looking into his eyes that felt off.

He was just too nice, if that makes sense. He always wanted to talk to me. He was always standing near my station in the kitchen, always trying to sit with me, and when I would have conversations with my friends, Nick would just insert himself where he didn't belong, which made me uncomfortable. If I waved to a friend, Nick would also try to wave to me.

If I high-fived a friend, Nick would also want a high-five, and I would begrudgingly give him one because I didn't know how to get out of it. Nick always followed the first. rules to a T as well. However, this was less about being good at his job and more about not getting in trouble. In his words, I'm on probation and I can't lose my job. That sentence felt unsettling coming from him. Now, a lot of my coworkers had been to jail for a multitude of reasons and I do love them, but Nick just made my stomach turn. Now that I've given you

all of this context, let me tell you about something that happened recently. I was on break, and I saw my 18-year-old co-worker Emma sitting with Nick. I'm pretty sure that she had sat down first, since she always sits in the same spot. Nick had probably sat down with her without asking, as that was his habit. I sat down at a different table, and Emma was quick to grab my attention, asking if I watched Doctor Who. I love Doctor Who. so I stood at her table and we talked about it for about a good 10 minutes, ignoring Nick the entire time. I didn't look at him,

and I disregarded everything he said in an attempt to join the conversation. Again, I couldn't stand the guy. Maybe I didn't notice it in the moment, but looking back, I think she wanted to talk to me because Nick was making her uncomfortable. When I clocked back in from my break, it took me a couple of hours, but I eventually noticed that Nick never clocked in for her. his shift. I turned to one of my friends and asked, wasn't Nick scheduled for the grill today?

Where is he? Oh, he got fired, my friend explained. He was creeping on one of the 16-year-olds in the ice cream section. I immediately felt vindicated. I was right about him the entire time. Something inside me knew that he was a creep, and I was right. How he got hired at a place like that with minors, taking up a third of the staff, instead of being in prison, I have no idea. Every bone in my body knew to hate this guy from the very beginning. I no longer feel bad about how I was cold to him, or about ignoring him all the time when he tried to talk to me. Now, because I look so young, I can't help but wonder if that's why Nick was so interested in talking to me.

He went after a 16-year-old who works with us. I'm constantly having people assume that I'm 15, and that makes me sick. I really wish I had been there when he made that poor girl uncomfortable and I wish I could have done or said something but at least he got fired and I can only hope that he ends up in jail.

For context, I'm an adult male. Recently I went to my local grocery store at around 6 p.m. to grab a few things. I was by myself and the store wasn't super busy but enough people were around. Normally I'm not as aware of my surroundings because I like to listen to music while I shop, but this time I wasn't, and it paid off. As I was walking through an aisle, I nearly bumped into this tall man with a

cart, who appeared to be in his 40s. I said, oh, sorry. He started to apologize as well, but then he stopped, looked me directly in the eyes, leaned in slightly with a smile, and asked, how was your day today? The way that he said this, immediately set off alarm bells in my head. I quickly said, I'm fine, and took a few steps down the aisle. Seconds later, he was behind me. I noticed it, thought that it was weird, but figured we were probably just headed towards the same area. Then I turned around, went down another aisle without grabbing anything, and there he was

behind me again. When I turned to look at him, he pretended to look at the groceries nearby. but didn't have anything in his card. By then, my heart was literally pounding, and I felt like something wasn't right. I thought that I could be reading too much into it, but my intuition was screaming that this was a dangerous situation, and I did not have a good feeling at all.

So I left my card, and I went straight to a cashier, and quietly asked if she could walk with me, because I felt like someone was following me. She didn't immediately realize who I meant, but she started telling me about her own encounter with a creep who had been in the store before, some guy who she said was from Australia. When she told me about that,

it instantly reminded me of something that happened at this exact same store a few months ago when my mom, my sister, and I were loading my car. A man approached us, asked us about our day, and said that he was new to the area as he was from Australia. The guy looked very similar

to the guy who was following me around the store. Keep in mind, he didn't have an Australian accent at all. My sister and I immediately got into the car because we were both getting creeped out, but my mom carried on with the conversation for a bit before joining us in the car. After I talked to the cashier

about the guy who was following me, it hit me that this was the same guy. If I hadn't gone to her and jogged my memory, I probably would have never connected it. While I was still with her, the man nearly ran into us, smiled, and said, sorry. As we stood there and exchanged glances,

we confirmed that we were in fact talking about the same person. I was so thrown off that I couldn't even think straight about what else I needed to buy, so I just decided to go check out with what I had, and the guy ended up checking out at the same time right next to me. He seemed to be done first, but stalled a bit because he was quote-unquote having issues, scanning his items.

When I was done, I didn't want to leave because I didn't want my back to him. After a bit, I decided to go, and the cashier offered to walk me to my car. As soon as we went to leave, the guy was suddenly also ready to walk out of the store at the exact same time the cashier was walking out with me. The cashier and I exited out the far right door because I didn't want this guy to know where my car was. I also didn't know if this guy had a weapon on him. For reference, I'm 5'5, 120 pounds.

This guy was probably 510, maybe 2.40. We walked around a bit to fake him out. And sure enough, he ended up having to walk to his truck, which was parked all the way on the opposite side of the store. That completely confirmed that he had been following me, because why would he exit the same door as we did when his vehicle was on the other side? Thankfully, the cashier stayed with me until I was safely in my car, but the whole situation really shook me up. I've always been socially anxious, but something in me just clicked,

and I'm very glad that I went straight to the staff for help. I wanted to share this to raise awareness for anyone who shops alone. Of course, we see this happen constantly with women, which is just horrible. But it made me realize guys aren't immune to having these kinds of encounters. Please be aware of your surroundings and don't be afraid to ask for help if you fear you're being followed. This happened during the winter of 2007 in mid-Missouri. I don't remember what month it was, but there was some snow on the ground. I lived with my mom and dad in a three-story house at the time.

The first story, or ground zero, as my dad called it, was a finished basement that I essentially lived in. I rarely emerged from there, and pretty much only left the basement to sleep in my room on the third floor. I was always either in the basement or on the third floor. My dad was out of town on a business trip. My mom and I were alone at home, which was extremely rare. I was also a teenager and a smart ass, so I convinced my mom to watch Saw 3.

She's a pretty timid woman, so I expected her to make me turn it off. I thought that it would be fun to watch the movie with her in the basement instead of the living room. Not just because it was my habitat, but because, as I told her, good horror movies deserve a viewing in a basement. The only way to get into our basement was through a pretty hefty door that was just off of the hallway from the living room on the first floor. Basically, if you walked into the house, you normally wouldn't notice there was a basement door at all

because it was off to the side. In this case, the door was a little more noticeable since there were a lot of saw noises coming from that door. As we were watching the movie, my mom was performing admirably. honestly above average for her because we were in the middle of that scene where one of the characters in the movie named Carrie is strung up and she has to dig for a key in a vet of acid

I was feeling so proud that my mom was sticking around for this and in retrospect I still thank God that she didn't give up and run off it's entirely possible that she was about to but I have no idea whatever the case may be she stayed until it became time for us to leave Right when Carrie started fishing through the tank of acid, I thought I heard the door upstairs slam. Keep in mind, the movie was very loud,

with screaming and loud sound effects, all of that. When I thought I heard the door, I thought to myself, no, that's ridiculous. But then, a half a second later, I realized I was hearing footsteps above us. And remember, it wasn't my dad. He was on a business trip. Somehow I didn't panic,

but I probably waited a little too long processing what was happening and trying to listen. At the time, I thought I heard multiple people. I was thinking I was hearing at least three people upstairs, but footsteps are hard to judge. It sounded like they just kind of marched around from what I heard. But what I heard was very short because as soon as I realized what was going on, I told my mom we had to get out of there. The basement had a back door with lighting on the outside wall, unfortunately.

I was concerned about the lights when we were leaving. I remember being worried that whoever was upstairs might be able to see us when we ran out. But I decided not to turn the light off, thinking it would just be more obvious if that side of the house went dark when we ran out, then it would be if we just scampered out with the light on. It was around 11 p.m. So it was totally dark except for the lights in the basement and on the back wall of the house. The house next to us was vacant since it was for sale.

And the house on the opposite side couldn't have seen anything because it was up on a hill. Point being, there was no one in the immediate area to help us out. So I got my mom and convinced her to run out into the dark and hide behind some bushes. Then I called 911 the second we got behind the bushes alongside the house, but I remember I went silent on the operator right before I could give her our address. She was saying something repeatedly while I had the phone down, trying to pretend I wasn't there. I did this since I noticed the light around the basement exit suddenly got brighter,

like someone had opened the door. I quickly realized it was because someone had definitely opened the door. the door. As I focused on it, I counted four shadows tearing out the back door of the basement. They ran at top speed into the woods behind the house. The cops arrived very quickly, and when they got there, I let them know I saw four people running out, but they were rushing out so quickly that there could have been one more or one less, it's hard to say. They took a look around and discovered that the front door lock was all jacked up, like it. had been pride at. While the front door had been closed after they came in, the back door to the

basement was left wide open after they took off. Our two dogs and two cats were outside when the cops got there. They were all indoor pets for the most part, so we were lucky that they didn't get scared and run away. Nothing in the house was misplaced or stolen or even vaguely disturbed, even though there were expensive electronics in both the living room where they entered the house and the basement where they exited the house. It's just so bizarre to me because I don't understand their intent entering the house if they didn't even take anything.

What were they looking for? Burglars don't go looking for people. They avoid them. So what happened in my house that night? The cops never searched the woods behind our house, but they did put a cruiser in front of our house for two nights, which was nice of them. the morning after it happened, having not slept,

I decided to watch the strangers as some way of coping. I was just a strange kid. Anyway, I'm not sure what was up with these freaky people or thrill seekers. I'm not sure what to refer to them as. I've been dancing around this because I've never admitted the fact out loud, but I think they came to my house that night with violent goals. I think they broke in and after stomping around and realizing nobody was on the main level of the house, they listened a bit and heard my mom and me watching a movie in the basement.

When they found out we had fled the basement, they left because they didn't have anything to act on. I only had a few seconds to duck into the bushes with my mom, and I try not to wonder what these people would have done if they had found my mom and me alone in that basement. So to those possible thrill seekers, whatever your thrills may have been, I've heard some of the moment. I've heard some many people say this here, but seriously, let's not meet. You know it's a dead giveaway that somebody has a cat? You walk into their place and you know it immediately. A smell hits you before you even get through the door. Now, as somebody who has cat allergies, this is double fold for me. I can smell it a mile away. I have many friends with cats, and for years that was just the vibe,

until I got them hooked on Boxy. And now, aside from my allergies, I can't even tell that there's a cat there. It's unreal. This podcast is sponsored by Boxi. Boxi is the last cat litter you'll ever switch to, and their Boxy Pro deep clean is the best cat litter money can buy. The Pro and Boxy Pro stands for probiotics,

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and make sure to use my code meat so they know I sent you. Several years ago, I was in the midst of an, acrimonious divorce from my then-husband. It was full of crazy allegations and typical angry filings centered around the custody of our child. As with many divorces, friends and professional colleagues

seemed to pick one side or the other. In many cases, there was one sort of professional contact who reached out to me after hearing about the divorce, who offered to be a witness for my case because of some of the experiences he related that I had previously been unaware of regarding my ex's behavior at networking events. After this initial call,

he started calling on a semi-regular basis to quote-unquote make sure I was okay. This wasn't somebody that I knew well before the separation, and he was much older than I was, but claimed to have experience with divorce and custody, and I figured it was a good idea to be polite and not alienate him, since his testimony was important, per my lawyer.

I kept things friendly, but I always had a weird feeling about him. After a few months, he called one day, and my son was very sick. When I told him I couldn't talk and explained why, he offered to run to the store for me, which I honestly appreciated. But after that, he would drop by the house uninvited, or unannounced, and he would stop by with cookies from my son and other things like that. Again, I kept telling myself to keep things polite because the divorce was coming up.

I told myself not to make this guy mad. He was always calling me out of the blue, and at this point I was worried that I was walking a very fine line. Being polite, but clearly not interested, I thought that if he got mad, he might decide to go testify for my ex and say, who knows what. During this time he had also helped me set up a security cam system that my dad mailed to me, and I also needed someone to walk my dog from me the day that he was helping me out, and he offered to do it.

He used and returned a spare key the same day. One evening he showed up while I was painting and insisted on sticking around to help, even though I was having some starting over catharsis and wanted to do it alone. Just after the painting day, he came around again uninvited with magazine photos of decor and started carrying on in this manic way about how we could finish decorating the house.

It was so weird. I made an excuse to leave. I also started ignoring his calls and took my son and dog to stay with my parents for several weeks to avoid a drop in. I only came home for a call. custody exchanges during this time. When I finally decided to return home a few weeks later,

I assumed he had gotten the hint by then, and it was a quiet day. The following morning, I took my son on an outing. I can't remember what we did exactly, but I think we went to the zoo or something like that. We came back hot and tired, so I put my kid down for a nap in my bed and decided to close my eyes with him.

I woke up maybe an hour or so later. It took me a moment to realize that something was off. As I blinked my eyes, I realized there was a rose bush sitting on my bedside table. I definitely had not put it there. There was a post-it note on it that said something about planting it in the yard. I started shaking immediately. I recognized the handwriting. I stood up to splash some water on my face while I decided whether to call my parents or the police.

I didn't want any trouble because of the divorce, though. As I stepped into my bathroom, I realized that the mirror was covered in post-it notes, all with these super creepy messages that were intended to be notes of affection. But they all scared me. I was still waking up and trying to figure out how these notes could have gotten into my house when my front door was definitely locked while I was gone. But then, as I went from room to room, there were notes everywhere.

And I mean everywhere. There were hundreds of post-it notes covering my walls. They were also in my cabinets. There was even one inside my coffee maker. I started grabbing all of them and putting them into a pile, but when I got to one of them in the kitchen, it made my blood run cold. It said,

you are cute when you think nobody is watching you. I realized that there was a security camera pointed right where the note was left, the one that he had helped me set up months earlier when I didn't think he was a psychopath. I called my parents and hysterics, sent them a bunch of photos, and my dad insisted that I should not call the police.

Remember, I still had a custody battle at stake here. My dad then said that he would drive over to my house, change the locks, and put a chain on the door. We also immediately changed the passwords on the security cameras, which had been installed to document if my ex tried to break into the house. There was one on the front porch, three inside the house, including my bedroom, and this man helped me set them up,

so he was able to see and hear everything going on inside of my house for months. The only way I can figure out that he got into my house is that he must have made a copy of my house key the day that he had it and as for that day when I was home napping with my son my dog didn't bark or react to that guy showing up and putting the rose bush on my bedside table because he had gotten to know the guy. That was terrifying.

I was absolutely horrified. He was right next to my face and the feet of my son while we were sleeping and somehow thought that that was okay. I left and I stayed with my parents again for a few days, afraid of what he was going to do when he realized that he was now physically locked out of my house and unable to access the cameras.

When I came home, my son had gone to his dad's for the night and I was home alone, on the phone with another friend from out of town. At about 10 p.m., the man showed up at the door. pounding on it, trying the locks, screaming obscenities and demanding to be let into his house. There were no more niceties. This was someone completely furious and derailed.

All I could do was hide in the bedroom until he left, which felt like an hour. This was St. Patrick's Day, so I am sure that he had been drinking. After that, there were several other times where someone would start knocking on the door in the middle of the night, always when my son wasn't home. I think he figured if I called the police,

he would get in more trouble if my son was there. But he knew my son's schedule, so I know it was him. He's tried reaching out, through fake social media accounts several times, but I always block him. Years later, I discovered that he had friended my mom on Facebook and was therefore still able to see all of the photos of us that she posted or shared. She and I had a huge argument when I saw a conversation they were having about me

and how he could get back into my life. I sold my house two years later, and when I was packing, I found even more post-it notes from this incident that I didn't find initially. I am more than relieved that he no longer knows where I live. I don't post photos of my new house online, not in front of it anyway, and I've changed the privacy settings on social media. I avoid all the places that he used to go, the networking events that he attended, and I stay under the radar as much as possible.

I could never bring myself to play back the security camera footage from back in those days because I was traumatized enough, and I didn't want to see just how much danger my son and I could have been in. I hope to never cross paths with this man again. Stick around after the music of your patron 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 meet 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, plus weekly bonus extensions with stories you won't hear anywhere else. Again, that's patreon.com forward slash let's not meet podcast. Make sure to check out the new episodes of my other podcast's odd trails in the old-time radiocast

and follow me on Twitch at twitch.tv.tv slash cryptic county. If you have a story to share, send it to Let's Not Meet Stories at gmail.com. This week you have heard Callbox Creeper by Do-Eyed Dreamer. A man followed me into my hotel room by Anonymous, followed on campus by Ancient Anything 212. I had a stalker and couldn't tell anyone by Adriana Crown, 29. Date with a sociopath by endless lies. I worked with a creep by Not Me 362016.

Creepy man followed me at the grocery store by Snack'sident. Home invaders weren't interested in my money or stuff by PS. And finally, be careful who you give your keys to by Intelligent P-1026. 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 of the message boards online. If you have a story to share, send it to Let's Not Meet Stories at gmail.com. We'll see you next week. Stay safe.

23-year-old female. This happened two years ago.