Let's Not Meet: A True Horror Podcast - 1x04: Room 13 - Let's Not Meet (Feat. Texas 10-31)

Episode Date: February 11, 2019

Stories in this episode:  Room 13 - redback3   A semi-truck driver may have saved our lives. - WitchThatShit   My Ex-Coworker - myfairdrama  Star of David necklace - neuralpathways  ��Weird chick at the club - Heya_Akumu Check out Cassie Jackson and Hannah cooper in Texas 10-31 at https://www.texastenthirtyonepodcast.com/  Send in your stories: [e-mail] Follow Let's Not Meet: Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/groups/433173970399259/  Twitter - https://twitter.com/letsnotmeetcast  Website - http://letsnotmeetpodcast.com  Patreon - http://patreon.com/letsnotmeetpodcast  Twitch - https://www.twitch.tv/crypticcounty  

AT&T Fiber presents a straightforward moment. Your wine? Thanks. I'll pretend I know what I'm doing before saying it's good. And I'll pretend I don't know you're pretending. Are you a Gagillionaire? Yeah, I have AT&T Fiber. The straightforward pricing has inspired me to be more straightforward.

Me too. Ugh, this wine. I'll fetch you a better one. Straight forward is better. No equipment fees, no data caps, no price increase at 12 months. Live like a Gagillionaire with AT&T Fiber, limited availability and select areas, visit ATT.com slash Hypergate for details. My name is Andrew Tate, and this is season 1 episode 4 of Let's Not Meet a True Horror

Podcast. My guests this week are Hannah Cooper and Cassie Jackson from the Texas 1031 podcast. They'll each be sharing a story they've carefully selected from the enormous collection of submissions we've received in the last couple of weeks. So listen now to season one episode four of let's not meet. I first want to preface this story by saying that I am someone who does suffer from an over act of imagination. I tend to see things that are not there and can sometimes be sensitive to certain noises. I think that this is due to me having aspers, and I guess I just move on, but this story

was entirely different. I live on the top floor of an apartment that I rent from my family by myself. It's nice to receive the independence that I yearned for and it helped me to come out of my shell by getting back into exercising, cooking much more, and genuinely going about my day with a wider and happier stride. I've always loved horror movies and tabletop games, and though I am a self-professed coward, I tend to make a good impression with people that I meet thanks to years of growing therapy and helping me find myself.

I moved into this apartment in the winter of 2017. And when I was moving in, I noticed that the apartment opposite of me was empty. I spoke to my parents who said that they never saw who used to live there, but whoever it was, soon moved out and were never seen again, only to be visited by bay lifts, which have since stopped. The place had already made me uncomfortable when I had to face away from that door to unlock mine. The lock on my door was broken for a while, meaning that it had to be very specific with how I unlocked it or the key would end up getting jammed. I would always feel eyes burning at the back of my neck, looking behind me only to see that same white door.

My eyes leading up to the people. I remember once staring at that people for five whole minutes, looking for any subtle change in light. I'm quite a big guy, around 250 pounds at 6 foot 1, but there was this feeling. It was like I was 6 years old again. Each time I passed that door to number 13, I could swear I heard noises coming from within. Footsteps. Quiet arguing. Even the door jiggling. Each time, something like that happened, I felt a little bit of me dying inside. I soon caught myself unlocking my door and entering my safe haven to get lost in books, video games, or other stuff to get my mind off of it. That my job, I tend to work

later sometimes if I need to speak to the team in America, or if I just can't face waking up early. A work for large firm is an analyst. Although I wouldn't want to get into too much detail regarding that, and since it was bang in the middle of winter, they would tend to get darker around 4.30 or 5.00 pm. I would walk down the public driveway and look up to my apartment only to notice that the blinds next door were shut. I don't remember if they were always shut, as I never focused on it, but it immediately felt off, as if you were looking at a puzzle only to notice that there was a piece missing. I climbed the stairs leading up to my door, lost in thoughts because I had a particularly

bad day at work. I was staring at the steps in front of me before I found myself on that same landing, but this time something felt off. I could smell that something was off. I knelt down by the door, letting my backpack fall to the side as I leaned against it. It was from there. That was where the smell was coming from. My mind raced as I could not immediately pin what on earth was causing it. I laid on my front and tried to look under the gap of the door. Only to immediately start gagging, almost vomiting, as I keeled back. I gripped the carpet, rolling away, and knocking over a couple of things as I clinched my chest.

It was the smell of death. Have you ever smelled a dead animal? A fox on the side of the path that's rotting? You can see its ribcage slightly poking out as maggots writhing, squirm in the decaying flesh. It was that smell. I stared through the gap, only to be met by pitch black. I kind of swore that I saw something push to the side but I didn't want to stay

there any longer. I darted up and retreated inside calling my dad and telling him about it. It wasn't too long after that, maybe a day or so, when I heard that the building manager had went into the property, and that was it. Nothing else was said about it. No one could tell me what happened, and they didn't want to. I thought I saw a look in my dad's eyes when I questioned him. And it beckoned to me to just shut up and accept that sometimes answers don't give you closure. I never knew what happened behind that door, nor would I ever wish to know. I don't know if my mind is playing tricks on me when I get a nasty shiver raised down

my spine whenever I look at that painted oak door. I sometimes swear I can still smell it. I sometimes think that someone was dead. But I don't think I'll ever know. I don't want to know. Whoever you were or whatever that was, let's not meet. This was a story I grew up hearing from my mom.

It was really young when this happened, and I know for a fact, it was before I was five. I only have some foggy memory of the event, especially because my mom at the time didn't want to freak me out. Some context. We have family all over the country. I remember spending so much of my childhood just on road trips from state to state to visit family. So we know our ins and outs on traveling.

When I was a child, I would randomly hug strangers and tell them that I loved them. I was so filled with joy and love that it spilled over onto other people. There was basically only one stranger I never immediately latched onto. The second I saw them. And this is that story. So my mom was taking me to visit some of my relatives while my dad was staying at home with my brothers. She had to go house sit, and in general, it was a better caretaker of me than my father, so it made sense that I went with her. We were driving for hours until we finally had a rest stop and got out to use the restroom. Now there was already this guy in the parking lot. And according to my mom, it looked like he was watching everyone

who was entering and leaving the rest stop. The second we got out of the car, he watched us. My mom held my hand as we head into the restroom, but immediately picked up on the fact that I let go of her hand to hold her other hand. The side away from the man. Now looking back she told me that it was clear somewhere in my tiny child brain. I picked up on some sign of danger because I avoided the man as much as I could and would quicken my pace to the restroom and car. I never did that with another stranger ever again. I had never blatantly avoided another adult like that. Anyways, we do our business and head back to the car

and the man had gone back to his car and watched us leave. Only to then follow us in his own car. My mom immediately realized what was going on and tried to shake him off on the highway. He wouldn't budge and tried to get as close as he could. Apparently while doing this, a semi-trucker noticed how frantic and off she was driving and could see her looking back at his car. He realized what was going on and drove up to her side and kind of made eye contact with her, and they were on the same page from then on out. Turns out, the driver called up on his radio to other truckers and told them

what was going on, and a bunch of other drivers from different routes nearby came onto the same highway that we were traveling on. A few minutes later, they began blocking out the guy's car and essentially trapping him away from my mother and I as she turned onto an exit to get off the highway to another rest stop as the original truck driver followed us in. He got out and talked to my mother and told her he picked up on what was happening. He asked us if we were okay and drove with us to the Burger King and got something to eat. We talked and he followed us back onto the road until eventually we went our separate routes. So to the guy who probably was going to try and kidnap my mom and I, let's not meet.

Also, to the truck driver who probably saved our lives, thank you. Back when I was 17-18, I worked at a small local bakery. There were less than 15 employees spread across all the night and day shifts, so we only had a few people working during the day. One of these people was Dave, the delivery driver. Dave immediately gave me an off vibe. He was in his mid-50s and way too friendly to a teenage girl, but the boss told me straight up that, yes, he could be annoying, but no one worked harder than he did, so just ignore his antics. When I signed the paperwork, they never asked me to submit to a background check. And hindsight, that should have been red flag number two.

Over the course of the year, so that I worked with Dave, I tried very, very hard to ignore him. He was rarely outright creepy, but he was always just a bit too friendly. He would stick around long after his shift was over to talk to me and the other pastry chef on shift. He always wanted to lick the bowl after I made rice crispy treats. He would always stand in front of the racks of equipment or ingredients just enough that sometimes my hand would brush him while reaching for something.

He always stood just a little too close. He was constantly asking me about my life. What I liked, what I did for fun, if I had a boyfriend. Almost daily he would tell me how a nice girl like me should have a boyfriend. How maybe a boyfriend would be good for me. I let this slide because sometimes older people can say things that were meant differently in their time. Then it was concert invites. Every other week he had tickets to one concert or another.

Once he figured out my genre of music, it was almost exclusively tickets to bands I desperately wanted to see. But I also knew I should not go anywhere with him. I don't like to associate with co-workers outside of work anyway, and I had seen way too many red flags about Dave to trust him for even a second. My birthday came. He brought me a t-shirt. It was two sizes too small. He told me to try it on. I said no. He told me to try it on afterwork and text him a photo. He gave me his number.

He asked for mine. I said no. He asked the other pastry chef for my number. She had my back and refused as well. He also brought me two tickets to a band I'd been wanting to see. VIP section 21 and up only. He said he could get me in, but I had to go with him and him alone. I refused.

He told me he could get me booze. I declined. For months and months this continued. I brought it up to one of my bosses, but they laughed at office, classic Dave. When he wanted to hug on his birthday and hug me without my consent, there's a Dave for ya. Offering to get me booze or pot. Aw, Dave, you scamp. When he pulled up his shirt and showed me his abdominal scar from a, quote, snowboarding accident, well that's just Dave. No respect for boundaries, but a good worker. I seriously

considered having one of my big, strong male friends come in under the guise of being my boyfriend just to play Kate Dave. I was repulsed by him, but he hadn't really done anything to classify himself as a predator. Besides asking for my number, he had never tried to harass me outside of work hours, and besides the odd hug or two that I was too afraid or shy to refuse, he hadn't gotten super physical. Then one day, Dave was gone. His name disappeared from the employee roster.

My boss asked to see me in the office. She informed me that Dave was no longer employed at their business. Dave had been fired. Dave was fired because Dave was a convicted sex offender. Davey here had two counts of rape and one count of kidnapping a minor from the mid-90s. About the time I was born, actually. They had never background checked him, and when they contacted a friend in the police department, they found out that Dave had been lying on lots of paperwork, hiding the fact that he

was a convicted felon and not notifying anyone when he moved. Once they brought this information to the police department's attention, they had a few more charges to add. They found out because apparently he had been stalking and harassing one of the clients he delivered to, showing up at her home when he should not have known where she lived. After his termination, Dave showed up to work one day. He had a weapon, but I never found out what he had. They told him to leave or the police

would be called. He ended up leaving in handcuffs. I'm so thankful I wasn't there that day. Oh, another little tidbit. The police officer, my boss's new, had been in the PD for a while, and knew one of the officers who had arrested Dave in the 90s. That of Domino Scar was from a run-in with the cops and he got injured trying to climb over a fence. That was a few years ago but sometimes I still think about how badly things could have gotten had I gone to even one of those concerts with him. So Dave, let's not meet. I hope I never have to see your disgusting face ever again. This happened just a few hours ago. I'm Jewish and I wear two items of jewelry, which I'm very attached to. One is a thumb ring and scribed with a prayer and Hebrew, and the other is a disc inscribed

with a Hebrew blessing and a gold star of David in the center. I was out part of the day to get a checkup at the optometrist and to buy some new knitting supplies. I was heading home and right outside of my apartment building an older man came up to me and asked me for a dollar. Now I don't carry cash and I told him that. He looked quite aggressive and probably very high, so when he told me to sit with him on a bench, I did. And hindsight, I should have walked away, but he was definitely high on something and that made him very aggressive.

And I'm a somewhat shy person. I was planning on ignoring him in favor of a cigarette in my book, and then quietly slip away. That didn't happen. Is he immediately started insisting I take him inside to show him my apartment? There's no way I was going to do that, and repeatedly declined getting increasingly annoyed the more often he insisted, slurring the entire time. He asked for my name. I lied and gave him a fake name. Any time

I made a movement to leave, he would put his arm in front of my chest. I hate being touched, but I was too shocked, confused, and annoyed to tell him off. Within just a few minutes, I was very annoyed and feeling harassed. I stood up too fast for him to react, and then he spotted my necklace. It is a beautiful piece that makes me feel very manly and safe when I wear it. He got very excited and asked me how much I'd sell it for. It's not for sale, and I told him so. He threatened to slip my throat if I didn't sell it. I ran away.

I decided against going through the front door as you don't need to use your coded card to get inside during the day. I opted to go around the back of the building and use the back door, which requires the card at all hours, and the door shuts faster. I spoke to one of the guys at the reception about a half an hour later, and he wrote down some notes to give to security.

If they see him again, they'll ask him to leave or call the police if he doesn't. It's definitely not the first time I've been harassed, but it's the first time I've been harassed by someone definitely high, and also the first time someone tried to force me to invite them into my own home and threatened to slit my throat. I was working as a stripper for a time in a small town in the southwest while I saved up and figured out my next move in life. I really enjoyed my job. It was at a small club where about five of us girls danced regularly, and after a few weeks there, I'd grown pretty fond of them all, as well as the DJ and bartenders.

You always get the occasional out of town girls coming through to dance or desperate locals looking to get their cars out of impound, or sometimes just thrill-seeking girls who think it's going to be some life-affirming experience of empowerment or to fuck with their ex-husbands or whatever. Our club didn't usually see as much of this since there was a larger club across town that was often busier, but of course we had our share of one I'd only dancers. This industry can obviously attract some real weirdos at the best of times, but for the most part, everyone I met during my time at the club patrons included were decent,

usually just lonely people. Like I said, I really enjoyed working there for the most part, and since we had such a high turnover rate for bouncers, on nights we even had one at all, I kind of felt protective of my fellow girls. I'm tall, have resting bitch face, and generally just don't take shit from people. And even under the best circumstances, you really can't be too trusting, or naive in these kinds of environments. So I tried to always keep an eye out. On this particular night, I remember I stopped at CVS, like I often did, to buy some whiskey before my shift.

And when I was walking through the in-store alarm gate things, you have to pass through to get to the part of the store that sells alcohol, the alarm sets off. I had already paid, so it was fine, but I distinctly remember thinking, like, it kind of snapped me to attention if that makes sense. I remember thinking, that was weird. I wonder if something's going to go down tonight. I proceeded to work and after we get ready, we were out on the front porch area, smoking like we always did while we waited for customers to arrive. It was me and two of the other regular dancers, and I remember it was really windy that night, which is always unsettling, especially in that desert town. For some reason we were talking about bad vibes. One of the girls, we'll call her Cindy, started telling the story of when she worked at that for mention,

larger club, and how one night she got to work and just felt like something was off right away. Later that same night, she got jumped in the dressing room by three out of town girls, had to whack this one chicken the face with her shoes blood everywhere it's a whole thing. Cops are called, Cindy's okay, but the out of town girls escape with her bag. Don't fuck with out of town girls at the club y'all. Do not. Anyways, we got kind of serious talking about it and I said something to the effect of I just want y'all to know I would absolutely throw down for you.

No questions asked if it came to it. Just kind of a random conversation to have, especially after the alarm thing. They was uncharacteristically somber. Later on, we're all outside again, except this time there are more of us, like three more dancers, plus the DJ and the door girl. And this car pulls up and out get three teens, I guess. I think they told us they were like 20, but they looked very young to me. I can't say much to describe the boy other than that he was normal looking and vaguely emo and there was a blanchick who had this really intense sunken hunched posture. Like

she was almost drooping over herself and her head kind of hung out over the front of her body with her hair all hanging down around it, and she just had a miserable face like E-Ware, except not at all endearing. And with them is this really small, weird, and I'm sorry to say it, ugly-ass girl. I'm not curly-cloth or anything, but this chick was just ugly. She was small and plump, had teeth that were creeping into bucktooth territory, a piggy nose,

a bunch of freckles, and a sort of squealy high-pitched voice. I instantly disliked her. She tells us some long, dramatic story about why she's here tonight becoming a dancer. Something about taking care of her kids and not wanting to live with her grandma anymore, who's putting her up while she gets her shit together or whatever. It's one of those things where it's taking a very long time to get her to shut up long enough to even get her in the front door. And let me tell you something about strip clubs folks, no one cares why you're there and no one is going to ask you. So it's already a little weird that she's out here spewing such a vast amount of personal information

to literally almost every employee of the club. She's never danced before, she's nervous, and we all assure her over and over again she'll be fine to just relax and try and have some fun. We decide her stage name will be Annie because she has basically a throw of orangey brown curls. She looks like an ugly orphan Annie. As soon as we get into the dressing room, she starts loudly and obnoxiously making extremely inappropriate sexual comments about me and my body, saying, I'm hot and she wants to fuck me. Yes, this is a strip club, but you still don't just fucking sexually harass people, especially people you've just met and it might be your new job. I decided to just let it go for now. She's like 5'2". I was over 6 foot in my heels, so I don't feel at all threatened, because I think this girl's a fucking nut job,

and I don't even want to be in the same room with her if I don't have to. She then proceeds to tell us she has no clothes to dance in, no shoes and no makeup. She has brought nothing with her. Okay that's a little weird. So we hustle some stuff together for, she continues to talk almost nonstop about her grandma, adding details to her weird sob story, all the while asking everyone to borrow stuff. Weird stuff, like eyeliner, clothes, just like stuff you would normally never ask someone you didn't know to borrow.

The rest of the girls, being the lovely people they are, are being super nice to her, trying their best to accommodate her and make her feel less nervous, but also wondering what the fuck this girl's deal is. As the night goes on, shit just gets weirder. While sitting at the bar watching a girl set on stage, she set an astonishment, we have to take our tops off. I was like, bitch, you're in a strip club. The fuck you mean we have to take our tops off.

Anyways, she goes up finally, she struggles her way through one set, and that's two songs, and then very dramatically trips as she's leaving the stage, making three people carry her into the dressing room, saying she's twisted her ankle. We sit her down in a chair, examine the ankle, nothing. She's literally fine. And very obviously, well, obviously to me anyways, lying. Door girl wraps it up with some meag shift bandage, Annie continues to ask us if she can borrow stuff.

Our phones are makeup. She wants to eat our food, drink our drinks, and at some point she says she's going to call her grandma. She starts a video call and hobbles towards the bathroom. I hear a loud yelp and a thump. Annie's knee has given out now. The knee on the leg opposite her twisted ankle, and she is lying on the bathroom floor, vaguely clutching it one of her legs while making dramatic faces to the person on the other end of

the call. As I get in there to help her up, I notice the person on the other end of the video call looks exactly like the guy who dropped Annie off, but wearing what looks like one of those face masks for sleep apnea, like with all these tubes and stuff. The phone is close up and it's all black except for the face, so okay, maybe it was her grandma and I didn't see it correctly, but I looked right at that fucking phone screen.

And to be perfectly honest, it freaked me the fuck out. Like in that one second, I went from this girl as an absolute nuisance with some kind of agenda to who the fuck is this girl and what the fuck is her agenda. As soon as she sees me, she ends the call. We put her back in her chair and the other girls are gently trying to convince her to call her friends to come pick her up since this is obviously not working out. She doesn't want to dance and can't walk but also doesn't seem to want to go home. She has also brought a cell phone with her but claims she can't use it to make calls besides the video called a grandma apparently for a variety of vague and unsatisfactory reasons. It's a little hard to recall the exact details now, but it was like she kept trying to get

us to do shit for her. Like not only borrow our phones, which by now none of us feel comfortable letting her do, but like she was waiting for something. It's so hard to explain, but she just went over the top asking us for stuff while making every weird excuse she could not to leave. If she'd just been some nervous girl who changed her mind about stripping but wanted to save face, which again is ridiculous because no one cares, by claiming she was injured, why the fuck wouldn't she leave? We knew her friends were on call to come get her because they had literally told us that themselves when they left, so it just

didn't add up. And on top of all of this, she isn't wearing any pants. The pants she walked into the club wearing are lying at her feet on the floor, but she now claims they're too tight and she can't get them over her injured ankle and knee, neither of which are swollen or red or looking anyway injured. She's pretty obviously not an actual pain. I've seen strippers in pain, y'all. It's a physical job. And keeps actually forgetting which knee she's claimed gave out.

She refuses over and over to put her pants back on. She wants to borrow a pair of someone else's pants. No one obviously wants to give this girl their pants. The door girl and the rest of the dancers are completely flustered, nobody knows what to do now. There's just the weirdest fucking vibe emanating from this ugly ass little pancillus Annie demon, and she refuses to leave our dressing room or the club, and nobody can figure out what the fuck she wants, or how to get her out of here, since aside from the pants, she claims she can't walk, and also won't use her phone. I had only been there a couple weeks at that point, and I didn't want to overstep my authority,

but I had finally had enough. I mean, I smelled shit on this bitch from the get-go and I had already given her a pass for sexually harassing me because I tried to be merciful like that. But I had my limits, refusing to put on your own pants, I mean, what the fuck? So I haul my ass to the back, grabbing Dorgirl on the way so I have a witness. I stand over Annie in all my stripper glory looking down from six foot four above staring into her beaty little eyes. Are those your fucking pants, I ask, pointing? Yes, but shut the fuck up.

Are those the pants you wore in here? Yes, then put your fucking pants on now. Slowly, pissily glaring at me, she puts on the pants. Door girl and I force Martyr to the booth behind the front desk station where I stand next to her while I make her use the club phone to call her weird friends. I tell her she's to sit in the booth until the friends arrive at which point she is to leave and never ever come back here. She sits in the booth looking pissed until emo boy and hunchback girl arrived 20 minutes

later. The majority of her limp mysteriously disappearing. She can now walk un-aided. It's a miracle. As they screw out the door, I then hear hunchback ask her what happened in a fierce whisper. Fuming, Annie shoots back. I'll tell you in the car, just go. I work there for another four months and met all kinds of people, women and men, but never anyone as weird or unsettling as Annie. Every single one of us there that night was absolutely sure that chick was up to something, not just really bad, but like genuinely sinister. The fact that none of us had even an inkling of what that really bad something was made

it all the more unsettling, even in retrospect. Talking about it later on, we all felt like we dodged a bull bullet that night. Doing that kind of job you develop not only a pretty thick skin for weird people, but also a decent intuition for when shit is off. Girls I knew who'd done time in prison admitted Annie had freaked them the fuck out. I will never forget the face I saw on the other end of that video call and she remains to this day the strangest human being I have ever encountered inside or outside the club. So Annie from the club, let's not meet again. Thank you for listening to this week's episode of Let's Not Meet, a True Horror Podcast.

This outro has been recently re-recorded, as some changes were made at the request of an author for safety or privacy reasons. The credits for this week's show are all still available in the show notes. 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. If you have a story you'd like to share,

send it to Let's Not Meet Stories at gmail.com. Thanks for listening. See you next time. AT&T Fiber presents A Straight Forward Moment at gmail.com. Thanks Me too. Ugh, this wine. I'll fetch you a better one. Straight forward is better. No equipment fees, no data caps, no price increase at 12 months. Live like a Giga Gillionaire with AT&T fiber. Limited availability in select areas. Visit att.com slash hypergig for details.