5x01: Camper in the Shade - Let's Not Meet

[00:00:00] This podcast contains adult language and content. If you have a story to share, send it to letsnotmeetstories at gmail.com. Enjoy the show.

[00:00:54] I don't know what compelled me to finally share this, but I've been thinking about it a lot in the past few days, and I thought that it would fit this sub relatively well.

[00:01:05] I'm one of those long-time lurkers who's been sitting on their own stories for ages, but I finally got around to writing my own experience down, and I hope someone out there finds this interesting.

[00:01:19] Apologies in advance for the length, I have a lot of thoughts about this as it was the first and only time I felt legitimately afraid for my life.

[00:01:29] When I was about 8 years old, my parents were going through a divorce and my older sister and I used to spend a lot of time at our grandparents' house.

[00:01:39] It's a nice, long ranch-style home on a corner in a very nice neighborhood that's a 10 minute walk from a gas station, grocery store, and a few fast food restaurants. The streets are long and lined with well-manicured houses cradled by big, scenic California valley hills all around.

[00:02:00] We were never really wealthy, but my grandpa bought a fixer-upper many years ago and the property value has skyrocketed since then.

[00:02:10] As you can imagine, it's a very safe spot and although there weren't many other kids in the neighborhood, it wasn't uncommon to see neighbors walking their dogs or pushing a stroller down the sidewalk outside of our house.

[00:02:23] Although my mom was especially protective all our lives, this particular neighborhood was densely populated and my family knew just about everyone who lived there. She grew up in that neighborhood herself, so she was understandably trusting.

[00:02:38] She would once in a while let me and my sister walk to Rotten Robbie, a gas station on the other end of the block, to grab a snack.

[00:02:48] I would always get a Ring Pop and my sister would grab a Three Musketeers before we made our way back home. My sister was about 11 at the time and this small amount of freedom was a really big deal to us.

[00:03:02] Nothing compared to walking down that street all by ourselves in the summertime, laughing and joking around. A couple of dollar bills in our pockets and it felt like we owned the world.

[00:03:14] The one oddity I never noticed around the neighborhood was a small camper parked on the side of the road opposite the gas station right along the back side of the fence of another house.

[00:03:28] It sat there in the shade like a permanent fixture, all the windows constantly covered by opaque beige curtains. I can't explain why, but it always gave me a deep sense of foreboding when I passed it.

[00:03:44] I was almost positive someone was living inside of it because at times I would hear air conditioning running as it sat stagnant in the same spot.

[00:03:55] The hairs on the back of my neck would always stand on end as I passed it, particularly as I passed the camper door. And I'd always try to keep an eye on it for the fear of one day it swinging open just as I would be passing by.

[00:04:11] I think what bothered me the most was a drawing taped to the front door on the outside. It was an extremely messy old sketch of odd lines and a brown colored pencil that was frustratingly indiscernible.

[00:04:29] I could see the outline of something, a vague shape, but I could never make out what it was intended to be. I never really had the nerve to stop and stare long enough to really investigate, but each time I walked by, I'd steal a glance.

[00:04:48] A year prior to the incident that I'm about to describe, I was walking with my mom past the camper in the shade. We had just gone to the park nearby and unfortunately had to pass the camper before we could cross the street to continue walking.

[00:05:05] I didn't want to seem afraid, so I kept just walking right behind her and didn't object when she walked past it.

[00:05:14] This time I felt a little more brave. I was frustrated not being able to decipher the drawing for so long, and while my mom was just feet away, I stopped in front of the camper door and took a moment to really look at the drawing.

[00:05:30] Upon closer inspection, the paper was filthy. I remember doing a project in elementary school where we soaked printer paper in black coffee to make it look aged, and that's what it reminded me of.

[00:05:45] My mom walked on without noticing that I had stopped following her, but my eyes stayed fixed on the indistinct mass of dirt cake scribbles until I could make out what looked to be a tiny, malformed face.

[00:06:03] My stomach turned. I immediately felt cold and disgusted as my eyes trailed over the rest of the image.

[00:06:13] I didn't know what kind of creature it was at the time, but now I can look back and say that it was just a badly deformed fetus inside of a mass of large, perfect circles like those made by a circular ring ruler.

[00:06:30] Its face was contorted as if in pain. It was so graphically disturbing and seemed to portray this odd sense of suffering that stuck with me for days.

[00:06:43] As a child, I didn't know how to process it, and the mental image still makes me sick to think about it. I'd never seen anything like it before.

[00:06:55] Adrenaline flooded my body, and my chest hurt with fear, but I selfishly thought of my glorious little trips for ring pops and said absolutely nothing as I followed behind my mom.

[00:07:10] This was, in retrospect, a classically terrible idea. It's one of those things you scream at main characters for in movies.

[00:07:21] Ever since my ill feelings towards the camper had been elevated by the drawing on the door, I thought about it every time we drove by, and about a month later,

[00:07:31] my mom once again graced us with several bucks and permission to walk down to Rotten Robbie and grab our respective snacks.

[00:07:40] I thought about telling my sister about what I had seen on the way there, but she was older and braver, and I was terrified that she would make me cross the street with her to check it out.

[00:07:54] It was a bright sunny day, and I told myself with false certainty that nothing was going to happen. If I didn't acknowledge it, maybe it would go away.

[00:08:04] We walked past the camper, and it was thankfully uneventful. On the walk back, I was feeling more comfortable, and I was focused on fighting open my candy wrapper while my sister walked alongside me.

[00:08:17] We passed the camper a second time, but I didn't give it half as much thought as the first time. I don't remember what we were talking about, but I recall being interrupted mid-sentence as my sister softly yet firmly said my name.

[00:08:34] There was an indistinct fear in her voice that immediately set me on edge. Like a bucket of ice water, all my senses heightened, and I became aware of everything, including the sound of haphazard footsteps about ten feet behind us.

[00:08:52] It was accompanied by a heavy rustling sound, like a heavy backpack, and nervously I half turned my head to look back. A man with a long, unkempt beard and wearing many layers of ragged clothing stood behind us, eyes unmistakably burning into our backs as he walked.

[00:09:15] His movements weren't normal. It was a drunken shuffle, like each of his feet were unimaginably heavy and needed to be moved one grand effort at a time. His shoulders were skewed, head tilted downward with a strange arch in his neck.

[00:09:37] I could hear his shoes scraping the gravel with every step, but rather than seemingly, genuinely intoxicated, it was as if he was intentionally meandering in our direction like a zombie with the effort to frighten us.

[00:09:52] Behind him, I saw the camper door was wide open for the first time in all the years we had spent living there, and I realized that this was the man who had been living inside.

[00:10:04] He's following us, I choked out, my eyes filling with tears. My mind was spinning as I stared straight ahead again, the wide street and sidewalks abnormally empty all around.

[00:10:19] My sister grabbed my hand, she squeezed it hard enough to hurt without looking my way, speaking carefully under her breath.

[00:10:28] On the count of three, we race home, she told me in a very serious tone of voice. I couldn't reply through the growing lump in my throat, but every single cell in my body understood that we had to put some distance between us and this man as quickly as possible.

[00:10:47] She began to count steadily while we walked faster, and the most terrifying part is that he started running before we even had a chance to.

[00:10:56] He must have heard her directions to me and tried to get a head start by sprinting in our direction before she got to three, but his footsteps were noisy and we bolted like deer the instant that we heard him behind us.

[00:11:10] I'll never forget it, the chase felt exactly like you would imagine in your nightmares, the fear that your pursuer is inches away from grabbing your arm or a fistful of hair.

[00:11:22] I pictured myself being dragged into the van with nobody around to see or hear me. We ran so fast we didn't even have the breath to scream.

[00:11:32] I peered back behind me about ten seconds later and I saw him running in our direction with none of the impairment he showed with those zombie-like movements before.

[00:11:43] I think back on it now, and he had to have been deliberately pretending to be handicapped to lower our guard so that we wouldn't start running. The thought is terrifying, but I can't rationalize it any other way.

[00:11:58] We made it to our grandparents' house and, without looking behind us, yanked open the stubborn old door before slamming it closed and scrambling past their excited dogs to get as deep into the house as possible.

[00:12:10] I don't even think we locked it, as our main goal was getting within line of sight of any adults as quickly as possible. My mom was talking to my grandpa at the table and gave us an unamused look when we bounded into the living room.

[00:12:26] Since we were kids, running around wasn't anything out of the ordinary, and she didn't ask what happened as we collapsed onto the couch and tried to catch our breath.

[00:12:36] The inside of the house felt so safe and felt in such good spirits that I didn't even want to bring up what happened. It's like waking up from a nightmare you didn't want to talk about. I desperately wanted to go back to normalcy.

[00:12:52] I wanted to forget it entirely, to unwrap my candy and act like everything was completely normal for the sake of my own sanity. And that's exactly what I did. I asked my sister just a few years back if she remembered the incident.

[00:13:08] I'm 25 and she's 28 now. Her response was strange. She remembered immediately, without the need for me to provide any details.

[00:13:19] But she quickly waved it off and insisted he had to have been a bored homeless man looking to spook some kids, walking home with no real intent to harm anyone.

[00:13:30] I don't know. I'd like to believe it's some innocent misunderstanding, but like they always say about gut feelings, they're rarely wrong. I feel in my soul that he wanted to hurt me and my sister that day.

[00:13:47] I never told her or anyone about the strange drawing on the door, and I'm not sure if my sister saw the open door and connected him with the camper or not.

[00:13:57] It's one of my biggest regrets, as I would hate for any other children to have been less fortunate after innocently walking past that camper in the shade.

[00:14:08] I believe he may have chosen the spot between the park and the gas station deliberately due to the number of children walking around the area.

[00:14:17] I actually never saw the camper again after this. I'm not proud of how I handled this, though, and I would encourage anyone who finds themselves in a similar situation to contact authorities immediately for the safety of others around.

[00:14:33] I don't know if maybe this whole story comes off as melodramatic, but it was very, very real and very frightening in a way that I can't forget. So possibly deranged camper guy by the gas station, whatever your intent was, let's not meet.

[00:14:50] To give you a little background, I have a nervous tick where I laugh at the most awkward and inappropriate moments. I've always said that I would probably laugh even if someone was causing me physical harm.

[00:15:18] Not to the actual story, my family and I owned a small business in a not so great part of town. One day I was just eating my sandwich and watching The Young and the Restless as I did every day with a co-worker.

[00:15:32] Also, we were the only two there at the time.

[00:15:36] I looked up and saw a figure peering through our display window, but I just assumed that they were checking out some of the awesome display that my mom put in there because sometimes people only came to see what creative displays she had come up with that season.

[00:15:52] They suddenly opened the door and shut it, and I thought, hmm, that's odd. So I stand up to see what's going on. That's when I see a tall figure with a full face bandana mask on, with only the eyes and mouth cut out.

[00:16:12] He comes through the door and demands us to give him the money. Naturally I freak out, but I've always been told to just give them what they want and don't protest to it, which is what I had planned on doing.

[00:16:28] The next thing I know, my co-worker stands up and says, run, as she's running towards the back. So I just thought, um, okay, and I ran too.

[00:16:43] I went through the back door assuming that she was right behind me, and I get all the way to the back of the driveway, and I turn around to see that she's not even there. I start to panic. Where is she?

[00:16:56] I'm just standing there like a dumbass because I honestly don't even know what to do at this point, and I'm still trying to process what the hell just happened.

[00:17:08] I start walking down to the bank on the road beside us to tell them to call the cops since I left my phone inside. Then I hear a deep-voiced man say, take me to the money in a hateful tone.

[00:17:22] I turn around and there is the man pointing a gun at me. So I say, okay, freaking out obviously, and go with him. And then I start laughing like some kind of crazy person, and he gets agitated.

[00:17:42] He then yells at me to walk faster with the gun pointed at my back, and I tell him I'm so sorry, which why the hell should I be sorry?

[00:17:50] So I give him the whole $50 that we had in the register, and he takes me to the back and tells me to stand there. He tells me to count to 20. So I do that, then yell for my coworker, trying to figure out where the hell she went.

[00:18:12] No worries though, she was safe, hiding in the bathroom. The cops never found out who did it, but they didn't actually seem concerned since he only got $50, never mind the fact that someone had to go through a traumatic experience.

[00:18:27] As a side note, I had posted on Facebook that, quote, I would probably say I'm sorry to someone even if they were trying to rob me, just two days before this happened. Luckily, this was a while ago, and I have less anxiety about it than I used to.

[00:18:45] Although, all of these people wearing these bandana masks due to COVID do put me on edge lately. So to the robber who held a gun to me for $50, let's not meet again. To put this into context, I'm an 18 year old girl living in New Zealand.

[00:19:11] I suffer from anxiety and shut down in stressful situations, and I become rather overwhelmed when I'm not sure how to deal with something. This story happened yesterday whilst I was waiting at my bus station to catch the bus home.

[00:19:30] I had a long day at work and my legs were in pain, and all I wanted to do was get home to watch some YouTube in bed. It was getting dark, and the sun was almost completely down.

[00:19:44] As I was listening to some music in a rather deserted area of the bus station, a man considerably larger than myself sauntered up and sat down directly next to me on the bench, which I didn't think much of at the time.

[00:20:01] To put this into perspective, I'm roughly 55 kilograms. He must have been at least 100 and could have easily overpowered me. I noticed out of the corner of my eye that this man was staring at me

[00:20:17] and began to feel a bit uncomfortable but pegged it to him just looking at my mask. It's rather nondescript and it's just black. I ignored this and acted busy on my phone to avoid talking. I had a long day at work.

[00:20:35] The man began to talk, and I pulled out my AirPod to listen to what he was saying to me. The AirPod fell and landed onto the ground, to which he picked it up for me and held onto it

[00:20:48] and stared at it for a few seconds before handing it back to me. I was already getting bad vibes from this man. The conversation went something like this, Your eyes are beautiful. Did you get them from your mom or your dad? Uh, my mom I guess.

[00:21:08] I kept my replies short to try and signify that I wasn't in the mood for talking but he continued. What bus are you catching? Where do you live? He asked. I laughed nervously and told him that I didn't feel very comfortable sharing where I lived,

[00:21:27] but I told him it was farther up north. He then asked, Why? It's not like I'm going to rape you. Isn't it really fancy up there? He asked. This is where I began to feel seriously uncomfortable and I began to shake.

[00:21:45] He asked if I had a boyfriend, to which I said yes and he proceeded to ask if I planned to marry him, to which I laughed and said yes. Oh, it sounds like you're just rooting him. Are you sure you want to marry him?

[00:22:03] I was shocked and I looked at him before telling him again, yes, I do plan to marry my partner. How old are you? He asked.

[00:22:13] I don't know what came over me but I told him I was 21 to try and make it come across that I was old enough to stand up for myself. Are you on the pill?

[00:22:28] I'm sorry, I don't feel comfortable sharing that and I don't see why you need to know that. I responded. Oh, so you use condoms instead? He asked. I wanted to walk away but I was grounded to the bench and I couldn't move a muscle, even if I tried.

[00:22:48] I was uncomfortable and confused as to why he was asking me these questions. Do you have someone waiting for you at the bus stop or are you walking home? How far do you have from the bus stop?

[00:23:01] That was the question that made everything click into place and I realized this guy has malicious intent. He's not just being friendly. This guy is going to follow me home and either rape me or kidnap me. I began panicking and started deliberately looking for onlookers.

[00:23:21] A young man, possibly my age, walked out of a public bathroom and had overheard this conversation and was looking at the predator rather skeptically. I knew then I'd at least have someone to help if I could just ask for it, but I didn't.

[00:23:38] By this point, I recalled a video from online that I had seen about a highly pregnant woman and her daughter being followed to their car in an empty car park in the dark by an older man.

[00:23:51] This lady was stressfully trying to find her keys in her purse as this man was standing beside her daughters on the opposite side of the car, making small talk with them. He got impatient and had walked away before she found her keys.

[00:24:07] Someone commented on her situation saying this was a popular thing and that he was waiting for her to unlock the car so he could get in and control her via threats to the children.

[00:24:19] It occurred to me that I should skip the bus and catch another one at a later time. I did this exactly. He kept trying to ask where I lived and I continued to refuse to tell him.

[00:24:32] He also continued to ask how far I lived from the stop and if my partner was waiting for me. I deflected all of his questions and after 40 minutes, he began to get grumpy and he walked away from the station.

[00:24:50] He wasn't there to catch a bus at all but to prey on young women at the bus stop. I caught my bus about 10 minutes after he left and I ran home where I completely broke down and cried in the arms of my partner.

[00:25:05] This morning, I was so stressed. I contemplated taking a day off of work and staying in bed for the rest of the day. I was petrified. Well, I didn't. I'm at work posting this now. After that, I definitely decided that perhaps let's not meet.

[00:25:24] So this happened about 9 years ago when I was 17. I was a wild girl and was often getting into trouble with my two friends, Amy and Jackie. This one particular night, I was dropping them off after staying out late doing our usual shenanigans.

[00:25:50] It was about 3 AM and I was in the bathroom. It was about 3 AM and I was dropping them off after staying out late doing our usual shenanigans. It was about 3 AM and they lived less than a mile from my house in a safe neighborhood.

[00:26:04] First, I dropped Jackie off and next, Amy. They live one street over from each other off of a normally busy two-lane road with a median separating the traffic. But this night, we were the only car on the road. That is, until I saw headlights coming straight for us.

[00:26:27] I originally thought it was coming from the opposite side of traffic but it wasn't. I started frantically honking my horn because they were picking up speed and getting closer. I got as far right as possible and put on the brakes, bracing myself for a possible collision.

[00:26:49] Once the car was directly to the left of us, they abrasively skidded to a halt. I could see the figure of an older man between the ages of 50-60 with gray hair and glasses. I thought maybe he was having a medical emergency.

[00:27:07] I rolled down my window and started yelling, Sir, are you alright? Do you need medical attention? And this guy was staring straight ahead with his hands on 10 and 2, not moving a muscle. So I repeated, Sir, are you okay? Can you hear me? Do you need me to call 911?

[00:27:29] This guy ever so slowly turned his head to face us. I repeated the question for a third time, feeling uneasy now but still concerned.

[00:27:43] He still hasn't uttered a word when he slowly gets out of his car and just stands there in the middle of the road, staring at Amy and I. Slowly a smile starts blooming on his face and I realize it's time to get the fuck out of here.

[00:28:02] I quickly put my car into gear and when I do, this man starts sprinting at us, directly towards us. Now we're both screaming obscenities and what the fucks to each other.

[00:28:17] I look in my rearview mirror and now this guy is standing in the middle of the road, motionless, I decide to loop around to see if he's still there because I still have to drop Amy off.

[00:28:27] We loop around the same road maybe three minutes later and he's nowhere to be found. He and his car are gone, with the only proof of our encounter being the skid marks that he had left behind. Nine years later, I still have no idea what happened.

[00:28:46] Did he need medical attention? Probably not because he stood up and chased us. Why didn't he speak? Why was he driving on the wrong side of the road and why was he moving so slowly? It's a creepy ass dude who didn't speak, let's never meet again.

[00:29:06] When I was in 8th to 10th grade, I was extremely involved in this small building server. The average age was probably 15 to 17 and I joined the group of builders and skyped with them every weekend for hours.

[00:29:37] We all became very close, very fast and trusted each other enough that we would follow each other on Instagram. I became particularly close with one of the builders in my friend group named Peter. Peter was in the same grade as me and we were both very close.

[00:29:56] I heard rumors that Peter might have a crush on me. He denied them though. I found this laughable because it was the internet and I just brushed it off. Everything was fine for a while until something began to feel off when I talked to him.

[00:30:15] I was starting to constantly catch him telling small lies. This bothered me and I started to hate him. I figured that it was time to distance myself from Peter and I stopped talking to him. Cut to a few months later and no contact.

[00:30:33] Peter out of the blue texts me that he's going to be possibly transferring to my high school so that he can get in-state tuition for college. Peter's plan is to somehow live completely alone and support himself while in high school.

[00:30:49] My stomach drops when I read the text and I know this feels very off. I try to be calm and tell him that this is plain crazy. I tell him that it's oddly convenient that he chose my random suburb.

[00:31:07] Peter insists that his plan will work and that it's just a coincidence that he is going to my high school. I'm trying to call Peter's bluff and hoping that he's just screwing with me because I cut him off.

[00:31:21] Peter says he bought the plane tickets already and he's going to stay in my town and going to visit some high school in the area. Fear washes over me and I realize Peter definitely has some unhealthy attachment to me. Peter was not bluffing.

[00:31:39] To my honor, he posts a picture on Snapchat at the airport. Peter asks to meet up while he's there and I of course decline. Later, I see on his Snapchat a story that he's taking a tour of my high school.

[00:31:57] Peter's taking lots of videos and pictures probably hoping that I can see. Luckily, I'm not sure what's going on. I spend the next few days on edge and afraid that he was going to ring my doorbell at any moment.

[00:32:13] Luckily, he was not smart enough to find out where I live and he flies home and doesn't follow his quote plan. The baffling part was that none of my old group of friends on the Minecraft server thought that he was doing anything creepy.

[00:32:34] I felt like I was going crazy for thinking that this was weird. I thought my rejection for this meetup and continuing with no contact would be the end of it but about two years later, I'm at my dream college.

[00:32:48] I stupidly still followed Peter on social media because I wanted some warning if he were to come to my area. Once again, Peter did. I see him posing in front of the library at my college with the caption saying, Transferring here is definitely the move.

[00:33:06] Cut to a few minutes later, Peter finds out I have a boyfriend and he directly contacts me for the first time in two years. He begins to ask strange questions.

[00:33:20] I shouldn't have answered but for some reason I did and I finally blocked him and stopped following him on social media out of fear. He has not tried to contact me since. I definitely made some mistakes because I was young and scared

[00:33:35] and had others telling me that it was no big deal but Peter lets not meet. I've suppressed this story for so many years, not even realizing that I hadn't told this to some of the most important people in my life

[00:33:49] when I had mentioned that I was thinking about writing in. Hearing so many stories of people's bravery and heart pounding situations has made me feel like I'm not alone. I'm not alone. I'm 29 now.

[00:34:19] I grew up in a suburb outside of Los Angeles in a small town where you'd run into the same people that you'd run into in your life. I was a young boy, I was a teenager, I was a teenager. I was a teenager. I was a teenager.

[00:34:38] I was a teenager. I was a teenager. I was a teenager. I grew up in a suburb outside of Los Angeles in a small town where you'd run into the same people every time you'd go to the grocery store. The crime rate was and still is extremely low.

[00:34:54] There's often multiple years in a row without any murders. Parents and expecting parents move there for the school districts. I was and still am blonde hair, blue eyed and at that age I was a little taller than most of the guys in my grade

[00:35:13] and I had an overactive metabolism. Oh, to be young again. I've always been an overly cautious person, even at a young age. I'd memorize license plates, survey rooms that I'd walk into

[00:35:29] and this probably stemmed from a video that my parents made my brother and I watch when we were young about kidnappers and the dangers of talking to strangers. Boy, did that video forever have an implant in my brain.

[00:35:45] Who would've thought I'd actually encounter a situation similar to what was on that video though? One stereotypical Southern California sunny day, I thought that I would take our English Springer Spaniel for a walk. This is a medium sized breed for those of you that don't know.

[00:36:07] I also think it's worth mentioning, while I thought I was aware at all times of my surroundings, I also for some reason thought I was invincible because I had my dog with me. My 11 year old self was so wrong.

[00:36:24] This took place on a weekend because I remember everyone being home. That included my mom, my dad and my brother who was probably playing guitar hero. I let my parents know Roxy, our dog, and I would be back in about 30 minutes

[00:36:41] and that I was going to take my usual route. So, I leashed her up and off we went out the front door. My parents' house had two ways of entry. One is their sliding door which we would use to get in and out of.

[00:36:59] We would take into the kitchen and this sliding door faced the driveway which pulling into actually looked down a level from the street. Think of instead of pulling up a driveway, you pulled down into the driveway.

[00:37:14] The other way is the front door which was used quite a bit less. Upon exiting the front door, which I chose to take for some reason, were about five to six long wide steps about four feet apart from the next

[00:37:31] all ascending towards the sidewalk which was next to the street. So, out the front door I went up the stairs and to the sidewalk headed for a nice calm walk with Roxy or so I thought. I was only about five minutes into my walk.

[00:37:48] I crossed the street and was on a long path that was behind my middle school with residential houses on the other side with the same street still in between. Then, what seemed like out of nowhere, a lady pulled up to me and slammed on her brakes.

[00:38:08] Taken aback, I start taking mental notes of her. She looked like a modern day witch with curly black hair and a mole on her face. She was in an old 80s dark grey Honda with a thin red line across the middle of it.

[00:38:26] She had her window rolled down and she quickly yelled at me, get in the fucking car as I'm staring at her probably looking like a deer caught in the headlights. She's waving her hands all around and pointing them at me

[00:38:43] and then pointing in her car like she's signaling me to get in. And then I see what I assume by my better judgment in this quick moment all of this is happening

[00:38:56] is a man hunched over in the back on the floor of the car trying to hide himself. But I can see part of his head sticking up and the short curly dark hair.

[00:39:10] I'm taking all these mental notes as I always do and actually have to put them to use now. As soon as the driver sees my eyes glance back there and notice him, she now gets extremely angry.

[00:39:26] I can see it in her face. Her eyes turn black like they're fully dyed. Her eyes turn black like they're fully dilated and she starts yelling at me in Spanish which I don't understand. Still strongly using her hand signals to get me into the car.

[00:39:43] And then I just sternly yell, no! And I turn around and I run so fucking fast you would have thought Roxy and I were a pair of gazelles. I turn back and look after we start running to make sure that no one was getting out of the car.

[00:40:04] But she instead reversed so fast and skirted the car around that it made a mark that would be left on the street for months to come. She was following me home speeding up her old car as Roxy and I were running as fast as we could.

[00:40:19] I knew she would know where I lived but I had nowhere else to go at that point and cell phones weren't given to 11 year olds back then.

[00:40:29] I got back to my house so fast and I ran down those long steps towards the front door only needing one foot on each long step as I could feel the impact of the ground slam up through my shins.

[00:40:43] And then I locked the door behind me thinking myself that I had left it unlocked so it was easy and quick to get back in. My adrenaline has never been higher. I could hardly spit a word out to my parents.

[00:41:00] My throat was dry from the sprint and I could feel my heart pulsating in it, barely getting out the words. We looked out the front from the kitchen window and that bitch had the nerve to park in front of the neighbor's house.

[00:41:15] What was she waiting for? Me to come out? Because that sure as hell was not going to happen. Or were they trying to come in and get me but saw my parents looking out as well?

[00:41:28] Needless to say we called the police but she took off before they arrived and in all my mental note taking I wasn't able to get a view of the license plate.

[00:41:42] In this whole experience I was so shocked at the time thinking why would someone kidnap me while walking my dog? I have my dog with me and I'm really tall. Why on earth would she be trying to take me of all people?

[00:41:59] I guess that means absolutely nothing to a person with evil motives. I was very naive then but since and today it makes me wonder about the what ifs. Did they just want a child to raise on their own? Did they want to murder me?

[00:42:20] Or what I think is even worse, sell me to be in a child sex ring? The police officer that came and took the report was very pleasant, a woman, and very empathetic.

[00:42:32] She said they'd do everything that they could to find them. I'm not sure if they ever did but a few years later I was walking to the AM PM to get slurpees and nachos with a friend, cell phone on me this time.

[00:42:46] And as we walked by a house on our way I saw a dark old grey Honda with a red stripe across and my stomach rose to my throat. It could have been pure coincidence but my gut told me otherwise.

[00:43:02] Psycho ass lady and hunched man in the back that didn't do a great job of concealing himself. I hope you got caught before any child was put in danger. And because my flight has now changed to fight, you better pray that we don't meet again.

[00:43:40] Let's Not Meet, a true horror podcast. If you'd like to get access to ad-free versions of all of our episodes and over 100 bonus episodes with stories you won't hear anywhere else, updated weekly, sign up and support the show at patreon.com forward slash letsnotmeetpodcast.

[00:43:56] 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.

[00:44:06] If you have a story to share, send it to letsnotmeetstories at gmail.com. Finally, make sure to check out all of our other storytelling podcasts like Odd Trails, our true paranormal podcast and the Old Time Radiocast at crypticcountypodcasts.com or wherever you get your podcasts.