Let's Not Meet: A True Horror Podcast - 9x15: The Seeker - Let's Not Meet

Episode Date: November 14, 2022

Stories in this episode: - Our Friend Brian, by Anita (0:50) - The Seeker, by 3milyBlazze (19:38) - Man in the Hostel, by Myshka (28:48) - The Man from the Slough, by Haley (36:09) - I Don't Ever Harm People, by JJ (42:25) Extended Patreon Content: - Worst 4th of July Ever, by Veronica - A Winter Chase, by Mallika - My Tenant's Son, by Just A Landlord - Lexus Predator, by Jae All of the stories you've heard this week were narrated and produced with the permission of their respective authors. Let's Not Meet: A True Horror Podcast is not associated with Reddit or any other message boards online. To submit your story to the show, send it to [e-mail].   Get access to extended, ad-free episodes of Let's Not Meet: A True Horror Podcast with bonus stories every week at a higher bitrate along with a bunch of other great exclusive material and merch at patreon.com/letsnotmeetpodcast. This podcast would not be possible to continue at this rate without the help of the support of the legendary LNM Patrons. Come join the family! Don't forget to check out this week's episode of my other podcast Odd Trails for your true paranormal fix as well as the first episode of my new podcast the Old Time Radiocast all at crypticcountypodcasts.com. To get 15% off your next unique gift, go to UncommonGoods.com/meet.  Go to grammarly.com/PODCAST to sign up for a free account! And when you’re ready to upgrade to Grammarly Premium, get 20% off for being my listener. You can get $15 off your purchase of a Skylight Frame when you go to SkylightFrame.com and enter code MEET.  - Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/groups/433173970399259/ - Twitter - https://twitter.com/letsnotmeetcast - Website - https://letsnotmeetpodcast.com - Patreon - https://patreon.com/letsnotmeetpodcast - Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/letsnotmeetcast/ - Twitch - https://twitch.tv/crypticcounty 

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That's dlpcapital.com-slash-wealth. This podcast contains adult language and content. If you have a story to share, send it to Let's Not Meet a True Horror Podcast. This started around 2015. I was a junior in high school and my friend group was in the grade above me. Within this group, I met a friend who will call Brian. I would describe Brian as a stoner, a little rebellious, and overall a friendly kid. We got along well. He was about five-nine, a redhead, wore glasses, and had a skinny figure.

He was a little strange, but his strangeness wasn't anything too crazy. I found myself in the same social settings as him all the time. Fast forward to my senior year of high school, I started dating my current boyfriend. He was in a different friend group, but he would occasionally be in the same social settings as me. I found out that my boyfriend and Brian were actually very close. Brian would sleep at my boyfriend's house often, and they even spent entire weeks together sometimes. They would share video game consoles, play games together on the computer.

Brian knew all of my boyfriend's passwords. My boyfriend used the same passwords for everything, even social media. All three of us became close friends, though. We would do things teenagers would do, always went hiking and shopping together, we would always go to parties together, nothing was unusual. Yet. Something about Brian, which had me on alert, was his home life. It was rare for him to stay at home because he had a bad relationship with his parents.

He usually crashed with friends. One day in the summer of 2016, one of our friends reached out saying that they hadn't heard from Brian in a few days. My boyfriend and I tried reaching out to him, but heard nothing. My boyfriend had an unfinished basement that we would hang out in sometimes. The setup was almost like the set from that 70s show, with the couch and everything. We went to the basement that evening, and our surprise, Brian, was sleeping there on the couch.

Brian, what the fuck? Everyone's been looking for you. What are you even doing?" My boyfriend asked. It was weird that Brian was there without telling anyone where he was. Brian woke up and seemed pretty startled that we found him and never let us know why he was there. Brian ended up hanging out with us for a few hours and then left.

It was strange. Brian ended up hanging out with us for a few hours and then left. I was strange. My boyfriend and I both agreed that it was odd to find Brian there. It was still common for Brian to sleep over frequently, so my boyfriend didn't get too mad at him for being there, but realized it was wrong of him to break in. Shortly after this occurrence, we noticed that little things like video games or spared dollars would go missing from the basement. After this occurrence, we noticed that little things like video games or spared dollars would go missing from the basement.

We never penned anything on Brian and remained friends with him. Soon after my boyfriend and I left for college, we were going to separate schools, but we visited regularly because our schools were not that far away from each other. Brian never attended college. He always worked part-time jobs in warehouses and restaurants. He never kept a steady job. Our next summer break approached, and my boyfriend and I were back home for the whole summer. Brian wanted to hang out.

He had a place of his own, so we typically spent our days there, since my boyfriend and I were still living with our parents during our college breaks. Brian always acted weird when we would try to leave early, or if we were just quickly stopping by or something. He always made excuses and encouraged us to stay as long as possible. He even wanted us to spend the night there. One day we were all hanging out, and I mentioned that my laptop had a virus or something. It was causing pop-ups.

Brian's face lit up and he said, Oh, I can fix that. It's easy. You don't know how? Let me take your laptop so I can fix it for you. I trusted Brian. I knew that he was tech savvy, so I let him have my laptop. After a week of letting him have my laptop, I mentioned it, but he brushed it off. I didn't get my laptop back for two weeks. Another one of our friends noticed that at the time there was a Venmo account with the name Sophia connected to Brian's phone number.

My boyfriend and I asked Brian about this Venmo account, and he pretended that he didn't know what Vinmo was. We were confused, but eventually accepted his answer. A few weeks later, my boyfriend and I were laying down trying to take a nap. I was still awake scrolling through my phone when I got a notification that someone took a screenshot of the conversation between my boyfriend and me on Snapchat. Shocked and confused, I woke my boyfriend up and showed him the notification.

We realized there were private photos saved in the chat. My boyfriend looked at his Snapchat and he was logged out of his account, but someone else was logged in as him, and they were taking screenshots of our very private photos. I was shaken and upset. We looked up the IP address, signed in my boyfriend's Snapchat account, and the location displayed was Brian's area. We were weirded out, but we didn't confront him. My boyfriend changed his password and we slowly grew apart from Brian. My boyfriend stopped hanging out with him.

Our junior year of college was about to start and we were leaving to go back to our college towns. My boyfriend and I were on my street, outside packing up my car when Brian drove by. He was driving fast as if he were trying not to be seen. We saw him and weaved him down. We asked why he was in my neighborhood, and he said that he wanted to say goodbye. It was odd of him to come to my neighborhood because we never hung out at my house. We were always at Brian's place, or my boyfriends. After that awkward interaction, my boyfriend and I went over a year without even seeing Brian. He was living in a new place

in our hometown. I really had no interest in having a relationship with Brian at this point, but my boyfriend got a little bored after COVID started and went to see Brian's new place to see how he was doing. Brian did not take care of his apartment. He lived there with two cats and it smelled horrible. It was very dirty. He told my boyfriend about door dashing, so they started door dashing together. They would take breaks and hang out at his apartment together, so eventually I started

hanging out again. I noticed Brian was weirder than before, something was off about him. But he would do virtually anything to make money, whether it was online gambling, door dashing, or Uber Eats. Once when we were hanging out, Brian made a comment about my boyfriend's phone passcode and how it spelled something. He was always watching us type our phone passcodes in. We were ignorant of this at the time since we were used to him saying things like that.

In July 2020, we stopped by Brian's place because my boyfriend had left his Rayban sunglasses over there. When we got there, Brian was playing one of my favorite games and he asked if my boyfriend and I wanted to play. I didn't hear him ask us this as I was scrolling through TikTok. My boyfriend commented, she never gets off her phone now, she's addicted to TikTok. I looked up and Brian grabbed my phone. Brian said, I bet you can't go without your phone for an hour.

I bet twenty bucks." I replied, okay, sure take it, I don't care. We shook on it. My phone was unlocked when he grabbed it though. This pissed me off, but I didn't think too much of it because we were all in the same room. We started playing the video game, and he passed the controllers to me and my boyfriend. I get very competitive with games, and I didn't have my phone to distract me, so I was happy to play. A few minutes later, Brian said, I had Taco Bell today, and my tummy is not so happy.

He stood up and said, I'm going to the bathroom to get rid of this Taco Bell today, and my tummy is not so happy." He stood up and said, I'm going to the bathroom to get rid of this Taco Bell. 20 minutes go by, and I have a weird feeling that Brian has my phone with him. I let my boyfriend know. He was questioning it too. My boyfriend said, in five minutes, we'll do something. Oh my God, pull out your phone and check your snap maps, I said. For those who don't know, snap maps will show you if you've recently opened snapchat map

or if you are currently active on the app. It's very accurate. My heart was pounding as we opened Snapchat and looked, and sure enough. It showed my bitmoji where we were on the map, and said, last scene two minutes ago. My boyfriend and I both jumped up and ran to the bathroom. I know you have my phone, Brian, give it back. Open the fucking door. I yelled. He responded nervously. I'm not in your phone.

Your phone is dead. I'm taking a shit." My boyfriend chimes in pleading with him to open the door and give the phone back. Two minutes later, we heard a toilet flush and he came out and gave me my phone. It was turned off. I turned it back on and started freaking out on him. I'm not fucking stupid. Snapchat said that I was active when you had my phone. Brian was laughing nervously, trying to explain to me that it could have been a hacker. If someone logged into my Snapchat elsewhere, it would log me out, I argued.

I looked at my phone. It wasn't dead, It had a full battery. Brian shut it off in a panic. I checked my snapchat, and I wasn't logged out. I cussed him out, and we left. My boyfriend never got his sunglasses. I was so shaken up, frustrated, and upset at this point. I was crying on the way home to my boyfriend. We both agreed, never to see Brian again, and we blocked him on everything. I don't know what Brian saw on my phone or why he cared to go through it, but it felt like one of the biggest breaches of privacy.

Going back to the VINMO that he had, I had a conspiracy that he stole photos of me and maybe even other women online and possibly tried to sell the stolen pictures for money. I used Google Photos as a backup. Every single screenshot, video, every memory that I have had on my phone since I was 16 is in Google Photos. He could have accessed that when he was on my laptop or the day that he had my phone.

A few days later, I woke up to a text that was sent at 2 a.m. Your Google account was accessed on another device. I froze. I knew at that moment it was Brian. I opened my email and I was locked out of my account. I was shaking. I had to input my phone number to pass security

and change my password. I dug into the security features on my Google account. I never added an alternative email address, but there was an alternative email address listed now. It was my first and last name with the number 15. I never created this email address. I used my first and last name with the number 16 because I graduated with the high school class of 2016. I had a gut feeling it was Brian who created this alternate email address and added it to try and give himself another way of accessing everything.

I went to log into that alternate email address, the one that he created, and I clicked forgot password. It asked for the phone number associated with the account and showed me the last two digits of that phone number. I could see it was the last two digits of Brian's phone number. I input his phone number and it worked. I was shocked, but I caught him. I was scared, but I confronted him.

He had access to my entire life in my email. I told him how violated and uncomfortable I felt. I told him how much my boyfriend and I trusted him, and how we wanted nothing to do with him now. I showed him all of my proof. His response was, I can promise you it's not me, I like you, how long have I known you? It sounds and looks pretty bad, but I promise I would never violate you."

I had enough though, I blocked him. My boyfriend and I changed all of our passwords set up two factor authentication and told our mutual friends everything. No one wanted anything to do with Brian after that. I started receiving calls from unknown numbers. I answered sometimes, but I never heard anything. I knew it was Brian though. I had to block these unknown numbers until I set up a spam filter. I felt unsafe. I was worried that if he didn't have access to stalking me through my accounts online, he might drive to my block, maybe break into my basement like he had done in the past at my boyfriend's house.

Analyzing what we had experienced with Brian, we thought he could maybe be infatuated with me. Every night for weeks, I heard what sounded like his car driving by my house. I was positive it was him. We have ring cameras, which Brian must know about since he went through my phone. I reflected on his showing up on an announcement at my home that day a few years ago when my boyfriend and I were leaving to go back to college. I questioned if he had a habit of driving through my neighborhood without me knowing or

realizing it. I spoke to the police about my options. Coming from a town with almost no crime, the police didn't have the skill set to really assess my situation. I never filed a report, but I regret not doing so to this day. Upon sharing the story with other friends, someone else mentioned Ryan took their phone and tried to unlock a photo vault app that they had that contained nude photos. Luckily he wasn't able to get in. Another person shared that they caught Ryan taking their phone.

a caught Brian taking their phone. Brian sent an email to himself with photos of their girlfriend. Brian was a pervert. He must have been trying to sell those images. After hearing some testimonies from other friends, I thought of only fans and this sugar daddy website called Seeking Arrangement. I went to these sites and input his email address to log in. I went to these sites and input his email address to log in. I wasn't trying to hack him, but I wanted to see if he had active profiles. And to no surprise, he did. Men use only fans to buy photos and content, but everyone who knew Brian said he never spent money on it. He would use only fans for profit since he was always looking for

easy ways to make money. I had conspired in the past that perhaps he may have used my photos and other women's photos to create a profile pretending to be a woman, which reminded me of the Sophia alias I saw on Venmo. I'll never know what he did with those accounts. I'll never know anything that he took from me or why he did it. I still have nightmares about him, serious nightmares of me seeing him in person and confronting him. He scares me. I still feel unsettled about this.

Nothing was ever done about it legally, and I wish I would have done something. Two years have gone by, I saw him walking down my street last month, I saw red, I wanted to open my window and scream at him, but I didn't want him to see me. My boyfriend and I are finally leaving this town, and starting over somewhere far away, but I'm still terrified of him. I wish I acted on the red flags much earlier than I did. And I wish not to meet Brian ever again. You know it, your wife knows it, your friends know it. Yep, there's no getting away from the fact that there's an outdoor kitchen shaped hole in your life, and it's time to put things right.

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There are five of us. I have two older brothers and two little sisters. I'm right in the middle. I was around eight to nine years old when this happened, so my brothers would have been around thirteen or fourteen, and my sisters are only thirteen months younger than me. We lived in a crappy apartment in a bad neighborhood, and we were bored, so we would play our version of hide-and-seek, which involved turning off every light in the house. The seeker was given a flashlight, and the seeker is looking for everyone. They get to call out whistle three times, and everyone that was hiding had to whistle from their hiding spot.

I was usually the seeker. I was bad at hiding, so I preferred the seeking. I should explain the layout of the downstairs part of the house, the front door is right next to the stairs, and there were two paths. One led you to the kitchen, and the other led you into the living room. We had two couches. One was against the wall next to the door that led to the back of the apartment building. The other couch had its back facing the dining room. It was storming outside with thunder and lightning going off.

We turned off the lights and started the game. This was not our best idea in hindsight, but we aren't what you would call a bright group. I found my oldest brother fairly quickly because he used the opportunity to pop out from around the corner to scare me. After a few minutes, I called out, okay, whistle. I was confused when I heard four distinct whistles. I looked at my brother, who was sitting on the couch. I asked, why did you whistle?

He looked at me equally confused. I didn't, he answered. I pointed the flashlight at him and called out. Whistle again. My blood turned to ice when I heard four whistles again. I saw all of the color drain from my brother's face as he heard it, too. He stood up and walked over to the living room light and turned it on. He ordered.

Everyone come out right now. My other brother popped out from behind the couch. My sister climbed out from under the table, and my very thin, very tiny sister stood up from behind a large plant. We gathered in the living room unsure of what to do. I decided to call out once more. Okay, whistle again. A whistle came from the dark kitchen.

We all looked at each other again. My younger sisters were clinging to each other. We crept towards the kitchen. We were barely leaning in the doorway, and my brother was reaching for the light switch. I lifted the still lit flashlight to the opening that led to the front door and screamed. Everyone else joined in a split-second later, as we took in the sight of an absolutely

psychotic-looking person, crouched in the opening. He looked like he might be homeless. He smiled at us. His mouth seemed stretched unnaturally wide on his face. He had rotten, blackened teeth. His bloodshot eyes were flashing in the glow of the flashlight. His dirty brown hair was hanging and tangled knots on his head. He had his hands grasped in front of him.

They were fucking filthy, and they were bleeding. I couldn't really see his outfit since he was crouched over, but he wasn't wearing any shoes. His toes were missing their nails, and they were steadily turning this nasty greenish yellow color from what was probably an infection. He screamed right as we screamed, which only made him even scarier to us. We all stood there a good thirty seconds, screaming our heads off. He lurched forward on his hands and knees towards us, and he began

grunting. His eyes never blinked. I threw the flashlight full force and hit him right between the eyes. He squealed and landed on his side, clutching his head. My siblings and I promptly turned and ran out the back door into the pouring rain barefoot, and just our pajamas. We went right to a neighbor's house and pounded on their door until they opened it. We shoved ourselves inside and slammed the door. I was crying along with my sisters, while my brothers were trying to tell our neighbors what had just happened.

My brothers were pretty much screaming, but our neighbors got the gist of the situation. They called the cops. There was always a cop patrolling nearby, and he caught the homeless guy right as he was trying to hide by climbing into a dumpster in the parking lot. Apparently someone lost a key to their apartment, and since the landlord was a cheap asshole, he only used three different sets of keys for the units in the apartment building. This homeless man had found a key and simply tried it on all of the doors until he got

one open. He must have been looking for cash or something. He thought we were either asleep or not home because the lights were turned off. He saw my flashlight when we were playing and tried to hide, but decided to join in. Needless to say, we moved out soon after. Still standing is a podcast of hope. My name is Ali Patterson and I am your host. On this podcast, you're going to hear stories from people who have encountered a living God and found help and hope in their real life. No matter what your life is like right now or what you think of God, I hope you hear stories

like yours and I hope you walk away thinking there's hope for me too. Everyone on this podcast would gladly say it's because of Jesus that I am still standing. Come find out why. Back in 2018 I was on a school trip to Berlin. My classmates and I spent four days and three nights in an English speaking hostel. For some context, there were about twenty-five of us, and nobody was over the age of fifteen. There was one big room for the boys, and an L-shaped room for the girls. The layout of the room helps with the story, so that it will make a little more sense.

There were three girls in the front portion of the room, two sharing bunk beds and one on the left, through the doorway with no door, was me and five other girls sharing three bunk beds. Another critical piece of context would be that our section of the room had a window that looked out over the front door of the hostel. This is where people went to smoke, so our whole room's public cigarette smoke. It was very much against the rules of the hostel to smoke in the rooms, but drinking is okay, which comes into play later.

The whole group had been hanging out in the boys' room, being generally loud and annoying as most teenagers are. At around 11pm, quiet curfew started, so we went back to our room to play cards and shoot the shit before trying to sleep. The cigarette smell was getting strong, so me and my friend Jenny left the room. The smell was making us sick even after we closed the window, so we hung out in the hall, which was by no means against any rules as long as we were quiet. While we were in the hall, Jenny and I met and talked to someone who was from Australia that was returning to his room.

From this room, we could hear quiet talking, but nothing loud at all. A staff member from the hostel, who was probably in his 60s, walked past us, and asked if we knew which room was being loud. We both shrugged as he unlocked the room that the Australian guy had retreated to. We heard loud arguing before the staff member charged back out of the room, holding a bottle of beer. The staff member said that he would be back. We were confused in the Australian guy explained that the staff member just barged into their room and said they couldn't drink before snatching his beer bottle away. The staff member returned, and more half-german half-English arguing ensued.

Jenny and I decided to hide in the girl's bathroom until the argument was over. After that ended, we ended up back in the hallway at around 1 a.m. The staff member comes back again. He asked what was going on in that hallway. And I said that we were feeling sick because of the smell in our room. He continued to pry about what we were smelling. Jenny and I shared a look because we didn't want to say that it smelled like cigarettes because we didn't want him to think that we were smoking in the room,

especially after seeing how he reacted to the beer and the other. We made a stupid decision. We said to him, we're on a school trip with a bunch of teen girls, so it's just stuffy in there. I swear to you, his eyes lit up at the mention of teen girls." He responded, oh really? I'll come check it out. We rushed to convince him otherwise, not wanting an old man to come into our room and see our young schoolmate sleeping. He insisted, and I raced ahead of him down the hall. I managed to unlock the door and get into the room before him. While I was fumbling with the key card, he said, I bet somebody's passing gas. I'll find out who it is, and I'll

shove a bottle up there ass. Had I not been on a school trip, I probably would have socked him in the face. But I tried to ignore it, and hope that he would leave us alone. We rushed into the left portion of the L-shaped room, and our hearts were racing as we watched him lean in and sniff the girls in that front section of the room, before coming over to our side. He got uncomfortably close to Jenny's best friend, who was sleeping in the bottom bunk. Ginny stepped in front of her and he backed up to sniff the two girls in the bunk across the way. Thankfully as he was doing that, our friend Tilly was still awake.

Tilly set up to ask what was going on, I responded, everything's fine Tilly, go back to sleep. The man looked up and made eye contact with Tilly and then sprinted out of the room. Jenny and I rushed to shut the door. Tilly jumped out of the top bunk. In our panic, Jenny, Tilly and I rushed to the girl's bathroom where we locked the main door and hid in a stall. Jenny and I were breathlessly explaining everything that happened to Tilly. We had no idea what to do next.

Ginny called one of her moms while Tilly and I tried to decide what to do. Our female teacher was on a different level of the hostel and we couldn't remember where her room was. We went to our male teacher who was generally soft-spoken and kind. Ginny, Tilly, and I knocked on his door nearly in tears and explained everything that had happened. I had never seen our kind teacher get so angry before. He was shocked. He told us to go back to our room, reminding us to use the deadbolt and stay in there. We ended up blocking ourselves in the room.

We were trying to decide whether to wake the other girls up and tell them or not. We wound up waking them up, several of them cried and called their moms at 3 a.m. to tell them. We fell back asleep at around 6, but we were woken up at seven. I found out that our male teacher went and found that staff member right away after Jenny Tilly and I told him about what happened. He told the staff members to stay the fuck away from our room. Our teacher was still fuming the next day, so it really hit me how incredibly fucked up the whole situation was. Jenny and I were called aside during breakfast to give statements about what happened to management at the hostel.

After breakfast, my classmates and I went to some history museums, among other things, but I just remember constantly falling asleep on tilly, I was exhausted. The hostel created a new rule for the staff to never enter a minor's room without a parent or guardian present. The old man was let go due to that incident. So to the old man who forced his way into a room full of sleeping 15-year-old girls and sniffed them, let's not meet again. This took place about two years ago. For context, I'm a 28-year-old female who was born and raised right outside of Minneapolis. But about four years ago I met someone and moved to South Dakota. My house sits on seven acres and it's surrounded by miles and miles of corn fields in every direction.

There's also a slaw in my backyard. For those of you that don't know, a slough is a swamp or a shallow lake system. The closest neighbor to me is miles away, and any sort of convenience store is about a half hour away. We can all assume, safely, that I'm not accustomed to such isolation. It's odd, even though I live in the middle of nowhere, I constantly feel like I'm being watched. On my property I have a large shop that I often sit in, and one night, when I was completely alone, I was leaving the shop to walk back to my house, and I heard an odd, splashing sound, often the distance coming from the water.

It was a splash, unlike anything I had heard before, with the musk rats or any other animal that I've seen around here. It sounded like a very large splashing. I ran back to the shop to grab my dog in a flashlight. My dog is a boxer pit bull mix, and she doesn't bark at anyone or anything ever, and she's not in any way aggressive. But, when we walked out of the shop, I paused for a moment to see if I could hear that splashing again, and I did. This time, it was much closer, and all of a sudden my dog looked towards the water and started running towards it, growling and snarling like I had never heard before.

She was barking so aggressively that she was literally foaming at the mouth. I shined my flashlight to see if I can see anything into my horror. I see a man. He's standing there, and just staring back at me. But he was unlike any man that I had ever seen. I didn't know what to do. I couldn't bring myself to move or speak. I just stared. He was completely naked, extremely pale, and his eyes were so dark, yet no expression on his face. My dog was just sitting there growling and barking hysterically, leaping towards him, but she wouldn't get any closer to him than maybe three feet.

He was completely unfazed by my dog and continued to just stare at me. Once I could finally bring myself to move, I took one step backwards, this way I could start making my way back to the shop and lock myself in. I was still too scared to speak, but then just as quickly as he appeared, he took off. My dog was still going crazy, and this man, he turned around a bit and did this weird dive back into the shallow water and just swam away. About ten minutes after he left, my dog finally stopped barking and came running towards me. At which point we made our way back to the house and locked all of the doors and called

my boyfriend. I was crying hysterically telling him what happened. No one has ever seen or heard of this man or anything like that. To whoever that man was, let's not meet again. Fresh produce is the best produce. That's why at Crocker, we invest in local farmers to bring you the freshest seasonal picks. So no matter how you shop, your local produce always tastes 100% fresh, or you get a 100%

refund guaranteed. Croger, fresh for everyone! Save big on your favorites with the Buy 5 or More Save a Dollar each sale, simply buy 5 or more participating items and save a dollar each with your card. Croger, fresh for everyone. This happened to me in the summer of 2021. For context, I am married. I'm a gay man.

I'm in my 30s, 5, 10, 140 pounds, with a very slim frame. I live with my husband in a small city in California. This happened on Sunday the day before a national holiday. Our next door neighbors invited us to a last minute late afternoon barbecue in their backyard. My husband and I were planning on staying in, being lazy, having drinks and watching TV all day, but we decided to join them out of politeness. Looking back now, I wish we would have stuck with our original plan. My husband decided to make his signature cocktail drink to share at the barbecue. It contains a few different types of alcohol and liquor.

It contains white wine, red wine, Bacardi-Rain vodka, and some others just to name a few. Since I had recently lost a lot of weight, I've turned into a real lightweight when it comes to my alcohol intake. We arrived at the barbecue at around four in the afternoon. There were a few other people there that we hadn't met yet. Everyone seemed very laid back and easy to talk to. In the midst of good food, jokes, and fun conversations, everyone began drinking their choice of cocktails, beers, and wine coolers. I started the night sipping on some red wine,

but someone decided to bring out tequila shots. They also pulled out my husband's signature cocktail to share with everyone, including me. I completely lost track of how many drinks I had that evening. I was feeling very tipsy and from what I remember, so was everyone else. Now as is the case with trunk people, our voices and music began to get louder. It was around 11 at night when one of the other neighbors came over and told us to stop. Somehow in the haze of our drunken barbecue, we all complied with this request and moved the party inside. By this time, everything was a blur.

I remember waking up on the hallway floor of our house feeling very groggy and dazed, like I was in a dream state with no one else around. The following seems like mostly flashbacks, but thanks to our ring camera, I know this actually happened. I decided to wobble out of the house on my own at 204 exactly in the morning. I walked to a nearby bar about four blocks from our house. I don't remember how I started a conversation with a complete stranger who was leaving the bar, but it was closing time when I did. This was an older husky male in his late 50s to early 60s.

He said that his name was Joe. Joe had a long white hair in a ponytail. He was wearing a black baseball cap, and he was carrying a backpack. He very much resembled one of my good friend's dads. Maybe that's what compelled me to trust him right away and feel comfortable talking with him, at least while I was in that state. I remember sitting on the sidewalk outside of the bar, talking to him for a while. From what I remember, I was crying to him about my life for some reason. He asked me to come with him to his place to avoid getting arrested. By then the streets had cleared, and I was the only crying drunk guy left in the middle

of the street. When I asked Joe where he lived, he pointed to a set of tall commercial buildings across from where we were sitting on the sidewalk. These buildings are occupied by stores, restaurants, and a coffee shop on the lower level. From the lower level, there were sets of stairs enclosed by iron gates leading up to the top level of the building. I know at my age I should know better than to join a total stranger to his place, but as I said I was very intoxicated.

I lost all my inhibitions, so drunk me decided to follow him. I have lived in this city for many years and have passed and seen those buildings on a regular basis, but I had never been inside to see the top level. As we were walking in, for some unknown reason, something inside me snapped. As he was closing the gate to the flight of stairs that led to the upper level, my drunkenness dropped from a 10-2 maybe a 7. Joe was walking right behind me, and I tried to make small talk by mentioning how nice the view looked from above street level. I told him I would have never imagined there were

living spaces inside this building. I could feel a negative energy as he pointed at the door in the corner about 30 feet from where we were. He said, that's my pad right there. I pulled my phone out and said to him, okay wait, I share my phone location with my husband at all times, I want to make sure that it's still on so that he'll know where I am just in case he wakes up and doesn't see me. I also quickly shared my location with my sister, by the way. Joe said, in what sounded like a very defi- 18T 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 gigillionaire? Yeah, I have 18T 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 in select areas, visit AT&T.com slash Hypergate for details. He did voice. It's all good. I don't ever harm people. I wanted to take off running, but he locked the gate by the stairs. Plus my sense of direction was all distorted due to my inebriated state. I knew that even if I tried running, I wouldn't even know which direction to run in. We entered Joe's apartment. His place had black sofas and a small living room.

There was a big window covered with a black curtain. The place smelled like burnt rubber. There were black skeleton masks covering one of the walls. The couches were covered in black satin sheets. There were candles all over the place that had really dim lighting. He offered me a drink, and of course I said no. He kept staring at me and asked how old I was. He asked me to hand him my phone to charge it. He said that if I needed my phone back, the charger was in the kitchen, about 15 feet away from where we were sitting. I thought it was weird because I told him my age a few times,

but never mentioned needing to charge my phone. Then there was a loud bang coming from one of the rooms in the apartment. I asked what it was, and he said that it was just his roommate, being silly. I tried persuading Joe to go and check on his roommate by saying that he might have fallen off the bed or possibly need some help. I was hoping that if he went to check on his roommate, I could run to the door or call 911. Joe dismissed my suggestion by saying in a very calm way that his roommate makes banging noises all the time,

so he's used to it. At that moment, I felt that that would be my last night on Earth. A lot of thoughts were running through my head. I started thinking of how my husband, family, and friends would hear and react to my disappearance. I felt so stupid for allowing myself to be put in that situation. Being an avid true crime podcast listener and show watcher since I was in high school, I knew all too well how these stories ended. Then a moaning sound started to come from that bedroom. I pretended not to hear it and continued making conversation for what felt like forever. I was making an effort to stall time because my gut was telling me

something really bad was about to happen. He kept staring at me with a look that I can't describe. It was like an evil thing was watching me from inside of him, savoring my fear, ready to attack. Joe asked if he could hug me. My brain was telling me to scream and run, but my feet were not responding. I knew if I started yelling or grabbed my phone to call 911, he could easily overpower me to shut me up. 911, he could easily overpower me to shut me up. That's when my phone started to vibrate and let out that sound that I've hated ever since I started working. It was my alarm clock.

I had forgotten to disable it the previous day. My phone alarm is set to go off at 5 in the morning every weekday, but Joe didn't know that. In my quick thinking I picked up my phone and pressed the cancel button on the morning, every weekday. But Joe didn't know that. In my quick thinking, I picked up my phone and pressed the cancel button on the screen, then I put the phone up to my ear and said, Hey, babe. I paused for a fake response and said, Yes, I came for a coffee at that building across from the bar.

I met this guy named Joe. He looks just like Andrew's dad. He lives on the top level and wanted to show me around. You wouldn't believe how nice the view looks from up here. I've been pinging you my location. After another pause, I continued. Oh, okay, you wanna come meet me? Sure, I'll see you here in 10 minutes.

Okay, love you. After I hung up, my fate call, I asked Joe if he wanted to join my husband and me for coffee. He simply said, oh no, I'm too tired, it's been a long night. I think I'll catch up on some sleep. I must have put on the performance of a lifetime. I mentioned in my location and his description and pretended that someone was coming there to meet me. That evil look left his eyes, and he then escorted me out of his apartment. The sun was already out.

I heard birds chirping in the sound of the city again. He led me down that flight of stairs, and once I heard the sound of the tall iron gate closing behind me, I started quickly walking back to my house, looking back to make sure Joe wasn't following me. I arrived home, and the front door was unlocked, but I felt safe. I realized that I hadn't taken my keys or wallet with me when I wabbled away at two o' four in the morning. My phone was the only thing in my pocket the entire time. My husband was still passed out on our bed.

He didn't even hear me come in. It took a shower and lay on the bed next to him. I went over our rain cam history and deleted the footage of me leaving the house and coming back. I contemplated all of the events of what could have been my last night on Earth. A strong feeling of shame and regret filled my heart. I now have a profound respect for all who have ended up in stressful and unpleasant situations, such as the one I encountered.

Making what might seem like a simple choice can lead you to someone waiting for the perfect victim to bump into them in the middle of the night. I know that there are many stories out there like mine. A normal person can make the wrong decision caused by alcohol consumption. To this day, I still don't know or remember which iron gate is the one that leads to Joe's place. But the thing I know for certain is that I'm lucky that I got away. So, stranger, maybe Joe, with pure evil brewing inside of you. Let's never meet again. Now forget to stick around after the music for your extended, add free version of this week's episode if you're a patron and if you'd like to sign up to get access head over to patreon.com forward slash let's not meet podcast to support the show today and get access to hours and hours of bonus content.

This week you've heard, Our Friend Brian by Anita, The Seeker by Emily Blaise, Man in the Hostel by Mishka, The Man from the Slough by Haley And finally, I don't ever harm people by J.J. 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. And as always, if you have a story to share, send it to let's not meet stories at gmail.com. I want to give you all an update on what's going on with the TV pilot. We started filming this week and I believe today is the very last day of filming. If you want to see some photos and updates from the set, you can follow me on Instagram. It's

at Let's Not Meet Cast. The link will be in the show notes It's in all of the episodes. If you follow me there I'm going to continue posting all of the photos that I'm allowed to post in all the videos from the set It's really exciting. I can't wait to share this pilot with all of you. Thanks everyone for all of your donations and support We're now at the point where we can start going through and honoring a lot of those tiers based on what you donated on our IndieGoGo. So look out for an email in the coming weeks from me and the team. Thanks everyone for all your support.

Don't forget to check out the new episodes of my other podcasts as well. Odd Trails, the True Pairnermal Podcast, as well as the Old Time Radiocast at crypticcountypodcasts.com or wherever you get your podcasts. See y'all next week. Stay safe. This was 10 years ago and I had just turned 14 years old. 18T fiber presents a straightforward moment. Your wine? Thanks. and I had just 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 in select areas, visit atat.com slash hypergig for details.