11x19: I Don't Know What To Do About Daryl

[00:00:00] This podcast contains adult language and content. Listener discretion is advised. If you have a story to share, send it to letsnotmeetstories at gmail.com. Enjoy the show. I've been listening to this podcast for a while and counting my lucky stars that I haven't had

[00:00:44] any encounters as bad as half of the ones that I've heard here. That is until I remembered Greg. I have a tendency to suppress traumatic events and this one is pretty up there.

[00:00:58] For the last several years, I've picked up bartending and I ended up getting hired at the very bar I happen to frequent the most smack dab in the heart of Flatbush. In my humble opinion,

[00:01:12] Flatbush is the best part of Brooklyn, hands down. Known as Little Caribbean, it has a large Afro-Caribbean population who welcomed this native Midwesterner right when I moved to New York City almost 10 years ago. The food, the music, and the general energy of Flatbush are just unmatched.

[00:01:34] I don't happen to have any Caribbean heritage, but I was still able to easily settle into my new work environment. I quickly earned the respect and favorism of the people who lived in the neighborhood. Based on the general vibe, our customers are mostly regulars,

[00:01:51] but we occasionally get confused people wandering in who are clearly new to the area. At first they tend to look trepidatious, then curious, and finally after a few of my infamous rum punches, simply delighted. Pretty much all of the visitors maintained an air of respect upon

[00:02:12] entering a place so heavily saturated in a culture that they had never encountered before. But Greg? Well, this guy was different. He was tall, slender, in his mid-fifties, and well-dressed.

[00:02:28] He was an average looking guy, but it was easy to tell that he had been told he was handsome so many times that he believed it. He immediately came off as cocky, almost demanding to fit in, and was even a little confrontational with a few of the regulars.

[00:02:47] I noticed his attitude right away, and made it my mission to humble him. I'm going to break here to give you a little context. I'm a 31-year-old female, and around this time I was 29. I look a lot younger than I am, even though I'm 5'10".

[00:03:04] My athletic yet slim build has been both the root and the solution for attracting and fending off creepy men. You see, although I started bartending a few years ago, my main and secret

[00:03:18] source of income has been dancing at gentleman's clubs in Manhattan. I meet all sorts of men, and the ones like Greg are always the same. They are overcompensating jerks who like to do coke,

[00:03:32] talk crap, and spend big money. I was sure that I could get good tips out of him, and with the $100 that he left me after closing his tab, he didn't disappoint. Of course,

[00:03:45] I had to deal with his erratic behavior, but being the type of woman who takes pleasure in bringing jerks like that down a few pegs, I wasn't really worried about it. Looking back, I really should have been. Greg quickly became a regular at the bar,

[00:04:03] showing up at almost every one of my shifts once he caught on to my schedule. At first, it wasn't too bad, although annoying. He would sit directly in front of whatever side of the

[00:04:15] bar that I was stationed at and stare at me hard while sipping his drinks. It irritated me, but those $100 tips just kept coming in, so I tolerated his endless chatter and pathetic attempts

[00:04:28] to impress me. One night, he managed to pique my interest by telling me that he had an interest in investing in a business that I mentioned I was starting up. I definitely didn't trust this guy,

[00:04:43] but the dancer in me could tell that he had money to back up what he was saying. I mean, this guy practically forced me to look at pictures of his yacht, and I definitely peeped the

[00:04:54] black card in his wallet. I got his contact information and planned to meet with him before my shift at the bar to discuss this possible investment opportunity for him. However, his behavior got worse, and due to him nearly getting beat up on several occasions,

[00:05:12] he was banned from the bar after coming in for three weeks. This was a world record. There were a lot of crazy things that went down at my bar, and the list of people who had been 86'd was a

[00:05:25] long one, but Greg was just doing entirely too much. I thought I'd never see him there again, but I was wrong. Greg had gotten banned almost a week before our big Halloween bash.

[00:05:39] Sucks for him, I thought. I put it out of my mind since I was hyped to get dressed up and see all of my favorite people wearing their costumes. Wearing a mask in addition to a costume

[00:05:51] is normal on Halloween, but you will always see the occasional non-festive person who slapped on a dollar store superhero mask with their street clothes just so that they don't have

[00:06:02] to pay the door fee to get into the party. At the party, I noticed a tall dude with a Grogu mask. That's Baby Yoda for those of you who aren't Star Wars geeks like myself.

[00:06:15] The mask was too small for his head, and it looked odd, but he was still able to slip right past the security guard. I didn't think much of it, even though I knew that this guy hadn't shown his ID

[00:06:28] at the door, but the bar was packed. I could see gray hairs peeking out from the sides of his hoodie, so I finished up the drink orders I had racked up before approaching the guy in the Grogu

[00:06:39] mask. I asked him what he wanted, and he told me but in a muffled murmur as if it were a secret or something. The way that he was talking was odd, and he was standing very still. It was difficult

[00:06:53] to see his eyes behind the mask, but I knew that he was looking at me in a very familiar way. I was slammed though. I didn't really have time to analyze the situation. I just made the drink that he requested without saying anything.

[00:07:10] Once he took his drink, he thanked me by my name. I froze, and I wondered, how did this random person know my name? Uh, do I know you? I asked hesitantly. He replied much more clearly this time. What? You don't recognize me? Wow, that's crazy.

[00:07:32] My heart sank right into my gut. I finally realized why that gaze felt so familiar. Greg? I yelped. Listen man, you almost got me with the mask but you can't be here.

[00:07:46] I'm not gonna charge you for the drink but you gotta put it in a to-go cup and leave. He was caught, but he didn't take off the mask or say anything in retaliation. He just took the to-go cup from me and left. I was absolutely weirded out,

[00:08:03] but I shook it off and went back to work. Another month had passed, and I had almost forgotten about Greg until he sent me a text. He wanted to meet for dinner, saying he had another investor plus an expert in the field

[00:08:18] that I was looking to get into. He said that they would join us so we could get the ball rolling. I toyed with the idea of ignoring him completely, but I was nearing 30 and the thought of hanging up

[00:08:31] my stripper heels and essentially making money in my sleep was too tempting, so I obliged. I suggested a restaurant close to my house so I could get there and back quickly if I needed to. The meeting started off well, but once the drinks started flowing,

[00:08:50] old Greg popped his head right back out. He spoke about how he doubted a woman could handle the workload and he cut me off to talk about himself. He was just generally being rude to me and the

[00:09:05] people that he brought with him. I knew in my head that the whole thing was just a setup to see me since he couldn't come to the bar anymore, and as I sat there, I vowed to myself that I would

[00:09:16] never meet up with this guy again. He wanted to take the group to a second bar, but I declined with as much politeness as I could and took off. He and his friends were still waiting on their

[00:09:28] Uber, and I didn't want to risk him seeing where I was going, so I took a longer route. I stopped at a bar by my house and waited there for a while before going home.

[00:09:38] I had been there no longer than 15 minutes when I started to receive a flurry of messages and calls from Greg. When I picked up the phone, he was screaming that I was a user who was trying to

[00:09:51] take advantage of his money. He then said that he never wanted to see me again. All of this because I didn't want to go with him to another bar. Get out of here. I told him that he was drunk and to

[00:10:04] leave me alone. I then hung up the phone. I didn't hear from him for days, but when I did, again, it was a ton of messages. He was talking about how sorry he was and how he was just drunk.

[00:10:19] He said that he loved me and he missed me. I was horrified at his use of the word love since we barely knew each other. I decided I needed to shut it down as gently as possible

[00:10:33] since he was clearly off his rocker. I just told him I was sick and I didn't have the energy to deal with him. 15 minutes later, I got another message from him telling me to look on my porch

[00:10:45] because he had sent me soup. I told him he couldn't have possibly done that since he had never been to my house nor had I ever given him my address. I was thinking that there was no way

[00:10:57] that there would be anything out there, but I got up to look anyways. Sure enough, a bowl of soup with crackers was in a bag hanging from my front door handle. I immediately texted him, demanding

[00:11:13] to know how he knew my address, to which he replied, you gave it to me at the restaurant when I tried to call you a car. I was livid. I knew there weren't enough tequila shots in the world

[00:11:25] to make me give this psycho my address, let alone enough to make myself forget I had done that entirely. I immediately blocked him and told my roommate to be on the lookout. I also told her to

[00:11:37] never leave the house without her pepper spray. A week later, I came home to a bag of clothes that he had apparently purchased for me, and a week after that, I found roses and a gift basket on

[00:11:51] my doorstep. This went on for two months, and I was getting increasingly paranoid. The next and final instance was the straw that broke the camel's back. I was getting calls and texts from

[00:12:05] an unknown number, and based on the spelling and punctuation, I knew that it was Greg. I continued to ignore him, but eventually, I got fed up enough to respond. What do you want? I demanded. He replied,

[00:12:22] I just want to tell you I sent you another gift. I won't bother you anymore. Just look on your porch. I took a deep breath, and I went to the door. And there he was. I was too stunned to say anything.

[00:12:38] I expected another bag of some clothing that I was never going to wear, or some flowers that I was going to toss in the trash. I definitely did not expect to see him physically standing on my front

[00:12:51] steps. So you're really not going to talk to me? He asked sheepishly. I sputtered at first, but quickly composed myself. No! I yelled. I don't know what is wrong with you, but I don't want to

[00:13:05] see you. You better get off my property. I'm not playing with you, Greg. Leave me alone. I slammed the door and went back inside, fuming. I guess my tone must have put some fear in him, because that was the last I ever saw or heard of him.

[00:13:23] I knew his stalker behavior was only going to escalate from there, and I have definitely learned my lesson. Next time I see the slightest hint of crazy in a customer, I'll be keeping my distance, no matter what kind of dreams they try to sell me. And Greg,

[00:13:38] let's hope we never meet again. This happened about 20 years ago when I was 12 years old. It was Halloween night. My friend Melissa and I had my mom drive us to our friend MJ's house

[00:14:07] since her neighbor always set up a little haunted house in their garage. MJ wanted me and Melissa to go see it. When we arrived at MJ's, she wasn't able to go with me and Melissa to her neighbor's

[00:14:21] house. I can't remember if her dad told us that she was out trick-or-treating with her siblings, or if it was too late at that point, but I remember her family seemed to be in the process

[00:14:31] of getting ready for bed. Since we were there, Melissa and I decided to go ahead and visit MJ's neighbor's haunted garage. It was the typical do-it-yourself setup. There weren't any people jumping out to scare visitors. It was all sensory with lights, smoke, and scary music.

[00:14:53] That's why what happened next was so unexpected. All of the adults who lived in the house were sitting in fold-out camping chairs in the driveway. One of them had a bowl of candy for trick-or-treaters.

[00:15:07] The adults were just sitting and chatting while inviting passerbys to check out the haunted garage. They were all in costume, but none of them were dressed up scary or anything. But there was one guy standing by the group. He was wearing regular clothes, but he had a big

[00:15:24] rubber mask on. The mask looked like the ghost face mask from Scream, but instead of being plain white, it was colorful. Sort of clownish. I don't remember seeing that man when we walked

[00:15:38] into the garage initially, so I assumed that he came out of the house while Melissa and I were in the garage. After we were done checking out this haunted garage, Melissa and I were going

[00:15:50] to head back to my mom, who was parked nearby. As we were starting to head out, Melissa spotted the man in the clown ghost face mask. She froze up immediately since she had a long time fear of

[00:16:04] clowns. The man noticed her sudden reaction to him and decided to torment her. I was annoyed with this guy and I just wanted to leave. Melissa used me as a shield to get away from the man.

[00:16:19] Even though I was barely a teenager, I had a growth spurt in 5th grade and I was about 5'10", so I made a pretty effective shield. Additionally, I wasn't afraid of clowns, but I didn't want this

[00:16:32] grown man's attention either. I told Melissa I didn't want to be near this clown ghost face, but she still grabbed me and placed me in front of him. He heard me say that I didn't want him to

[00:16:45] come near me and decided to get right in my face. Since I was tall, he didn't even need to crouch to be eye to eye with me in his hideous rubber mask. How he suddenly invaded my bubble of personal

[00:16:59] space was so alarming that my fight or flight kicked in without me realizing it. It came out as fight. I slapped him hard across his rubber mask without thinking twice about it, and my slap

[00:17:12] didn't touch his actual face at all. It just hit the huge elongated jaw of the mask. For a brief second, all three of us stood there stunned. Then I could tell that the man was pissed. I screamed

[00:17:29] RUN to Melissa as we took off running towards my mom's car. He was very close on our heels, but I managed to dive into the passenger seat and Melissa jumped into the back. My mom locked the

[00:17:41] doors just as he reached the car, but then he started violently pulling on the passenger door handle trying to open it. I was horrified. What on earth was his plan if he succeeded in opening my

[00:17:53] door? Was he planning on pulling me out of the car? My mom was scared and asked what was going on as both Melissa and I were screaming. We yelled at her to drive. She put the car into reverse and

[00:18:04] prepared to flip a quick u-turn. When the guy realized that we were trying to leave, he abandoned my door and stood in front of my mom's car. He threw his arms open wide in an attempt to shuffle

[00:18:16] in whichever direction the car was moving. He was trying to prevent us from getting away. My mom was somehow able to whip our family van around the guy quickly enough without touching

[00:18:29] him and she sped away. I was very shaken up after that. I was just a kid. I didn't understand what a grown man was doing. Was he trying to scare us? And maybe unintentionally took it too far?

[00:18:44] Our friend MJ heard about the incident the next day from her neighbors. They knew Melissa and I were friends of hers so they asked her to apologize to us on their behalf. They said that

[00:18:56] they didn't know the guy in the mask very well. He was a friend of a friend of a friend who sort of invited himself over to their Halloween get-together. Hearing that made me feel even worse.

[00:19:09] Nobody knew this guy so they couldn't even vouch for whether or not he was safe in the presence of kids. I was also disturbed by how bold he was around my mom. I lived within walking distance of

[00:19:24] MJ's house so I was grateful that my mom had driven us. If Melissa and I had to walk back to my house that night, who knows how long he would have followed us. It might seem silly that

[00:19:35] something like this would have a lasting effect on me but to this day, I'm paralyzingly uncomfortable around people, in costumes, and in character. If people are just dressed up I'm totally fine, even if they're wearing masks, but if they're full-on pretending to be the character they

[00:19:51] dressed up as, I just get queasy. I get nervous that it'll go too far and they'll do whatever it takes to stay in character. I just can't trust somebody who goes to great lengths with pretending.

[00:20:06] I can't trust them to use common sense to stop if things get weird. This absolutely includes characters at theme parks. I know it sounds extreme but I had a bad grouping incident courtesy of a character at Disneyland back in my early 20s. Anyway,

[00:20:24] to the stranger in the clown ghost face mask who chased two young girls, and honestly, the character at Disneyland too, let's not meet. I was probably about 13 or 14 at the time that this happened.

[00:20:52] I was with two of my best friends who we'll call Brianna and Millie. The three of us were also with Millie's boyfriend Sam who was a year or two older than us but not old enough to drive.

[00:21:05] It was on Halloween night and we met at Millie's house to go trick-or-treating around her neighborhood. If I remember correctly, my parents were hanging out with her parents in the front yard enjoying a little fire pit. Millie's house was very close to the city cemetery.

[00:21:22] We live in a very suburban area with little to no crime and a lot of conservative Mormon and LDS around. We decided to cut through the cemetery as a shortcut to get to the next neighborhood quicker.

[00:21:37] We weren't particularly concerned about the cemetery. It was relatively well lit and completely surrounded by neighborhood homes. The cemetery was a new development as well, so it didn't have a very creepy vibe to it like some other graveyards. I'm sure we were walking

[00:21:55] through when it was technically closed since it was after dark, but 14 year old kids don't care about things like that. So we entered and started walking through the paved road, just chatting and

[00:22:08] doing our thing. The cemetery ground itself was kind of hilly and had huge pine trees that were very thick. The trees blocked out the light here and there since the needles were so bushy and dense.

[00:22:22] We were walking side by side in a horizontal line from left to right. It was Brianna, myself, Sam, and Millie. Millie and her boyfriend were holding hands, which is important to know for later.

[00:22:36] We were just cresting one of the hills and there was a large pine tree next to the road near Millie. As we approached it, a figure slid out from behind it. It happened so quickly. The path ahead of us

[00:22:51] was completely clear and then all of a sudden, bam, there he was. He said hello and we nervously nodded to acknowledge him. We said hi back as we tried to pass by him. Then he started talking

[00:23:07] under his breath a little bit. Millie could tell that he was trying to talk to us, so she stopped to be polite and asked him what he said. We all stopped. He walked a bit closer to us, just barely

[00:23:20] out of the shadow of the tree. We started to see some of his features, but he was still shrouded in enough darkness that it was difficult to make out very much. He smelled dank. He reeked of

[00:23:33] cigarettes, one of which hung out of the side of his mouth, pinched between his lips. That was probably why he was mumbling at first. He had scraggly, grayish-brown hair and an unkempt beard. He appeared to be dirty and his clothes were disheveled. He was probably somewhere in his

[00:23:54] 40s. My initial thought was that he was probably harmless and asking for money or food. We had a very small vagrant population in our town, but there aren't any shelters or places for people

[00:24:06] to receive assistance, so they usually travel a few hours down south to our nearest big city. It was a little surprising to see him, but not a huge shock. He took another step closer to Millie,

[00:24:21] just close enough to make us all feel uncomfortable. He said in a gravelly voice, these aren't really your friends, are they? You don't want to be around them. Confused and a little protective, Millie responded, um, no, these are my best friends. This is my boyfriend,

[00:24:44] as she gestured to us. The man then says, no, no, I can tell they aren't your friends. You better come with me. I can be your friend. You'll feel much better. He then reached for her arm in an attempt to pull her towards him.

[00:25:04] I think it's probably important to note, we definitely looked our age, if not younger, but Millie had developed a bit faster than most girls our age, and she was always self-conscious about it, probably because she always seemed to have older boys and men giving her unwanted

[00:25:21] attention. Still pretty stunned, Millie didn't really recoil at his reach, but luckily Sam was quick enough and yanked her by the hand away from the man. Within that swift motion, Sam sternly said

[00:25:35] we need to go now, to all of us, and bless his heart. As we started speedwalking away, Sam let go of Millie and ushered us in front of him like we were a little flock of terrified

[00:25:49] pre-teen sheep. He created a barrier between us and the man. We could hear the man yelling after us, but due to our quick steps and our pulsating heartbeats, none of us heard or comprehended what

[00:26:03] he said. I glanced back when I felt that we were at a safe distance, maybe 25 yards, only to see the creep slink back behind the tree from whence he came. Instead of turning towards the other

[00:26:17] neighborhood to continue our candy hunt, we walked out of sight and then took a roundabout back to Millie's house. We got back and told our parents about what happened. They seemed creeped out,

[00:26:30] but they weren't panicked enough to get up and do anything. They told us to go inside for some pizza and that they would be in after they put out the fire. The rest of the evening was pretty uneventful,

[00:26:42] other than the few times that we brought it up amongst ourselves. That was a little over 10 years ago now. Although I lost contact with Millie, Brianna and I are still friends, and I actually

[00:26:55] see Sam around with a different friend group from time to time. I texted Brianna to ask her if she remembered how old we were when this happened, and we got a good laugh about it. To the Halloween

[00:27:06] Cemetery creep, let's not meet for your sake because I'm now a loud-mouthed boss and I have no problem telling off a creep. On Halloween of 1975, I was 13 years old. I was one month into junior high

[00:27:31] and wanted so badly to be one of the popular kids. All of those things can lead to bad decisions, and they definitely did for me. My parents were going to a costume party, and I actually convinced

[00:27:44] two of the popular girls to spend the night at my house because several of the popular boys lived in my neighborhood. We met right at dusk on the main road near my house. Someone brought

[00:27:57] water balloons, and poor judgment ensued from there. Of course, we decided that it would be a great idea to throw the water balloons at cars passing by. There were these houses near the road

[00:28:09] that we could run to and hide behind after throwing the balloons. I didn't think too much about this plan. My main concern was that another friend of mine might catch us hiding behind her

[00:28:20] house and be upset about not being invited to my sleepover. Being caught by the drivers didn't even cross my mind. All that happened during the first couple of balloon throws was the sound

[00:28:31] of tires screeching. After the third balloon toss, which was aimed at a van, the two popular girls and I ran and hid behind my friend's house just like we had been doing. We heard the van stop suddenly

[00:28:46] and then turn around. We stayed very still and out of sight. After a few minutes, we didn't hear anything, so we assumed that the van must have driven away. I wanted to be absolutely certain

[00:28:59] that we were in the clear, so I walked over to another corner of the house to peek around. Right as I got to the other corner, I ran right into this man. Now being only 13, I didn't really

[00:29:11] have a good gauge of anyone's age, but I think he was probably in his late teens or maybe early 20s. He grabbed me by my arm and began yelling at me for throwing something at his van.

[00:29:22] In my panic, I denied. I don't know what you're talking about! It wasn't me! Then I realized he was pulling me around the side of the house. I began stomping on his feet

[00:29:33] and kicking him. I threw myself on the ground, but he continued to pull me by my arm. Even to this day, I have no idea why I didn't scream. I looked over at the van that was parked right in front of

[00:29:45] my friend's house. This guy was pulling me toward that van. I could see that there were two other guys in the van laughing. The guy and I were about 20 feet away from his van when I heard a voice

[00:29:57] say, let her go! I looked over, and the two girls that were spending the night with me were standing on my friend's porch. My friend's dad was with them. The guy dragging me by my arm stopped moving

[00:30:12] but didn't let me go. Then my friend's dad raised a big gun and pointed it at the van. Let her go, he said again. The guy holding me finally let go, and I didn't want to wait around

[00:30:25] to see what would happen next. I ran straight to my house. I was crying when my two friends walked in. They told me that when they saw the guy grab me, they ran to the front of my friend's

[00:30:37] house and knocked on the door and said that a guy is taking her. My friend's dad had a gun close by so he was able to grab it quickly. He kept the gun aimed at them until the van crept away.

[00:30:50] My two friends never told anyone about what happened, and my friend's dad never told my parents. I'm 61 years old now, and I still haven't told my parents. I don't know if it's out of

[00:31:03] embarrassment or what, but I'm very thankful that my friends helped me and I survived facing consequences for my bad decisions. To the guys in the van in my neighborhood on that Halloween night in 1975, let's not meet. I've always considered myself a pretty unlucky person, but it dawned

[00:31:37] on me this year that maybe all of these misses mean the opposite. I mean, I'm seemingly unscathed and have a healthy skepticism, but I can still sleep at night so perhaps my unluckiness is

[00:31:50] unfounded. My mom always said that it was my massive eyes that have pulled the crazies towards me, but I personally believe I just live with my eyes wide open regardless. It all started when I was

[00:32:03] eight. My parents had decided to move from the city and set up roots four hours north of where we had been living. My dad was a pilot and wanted me and my two sisters to grow up in the fresh

[00:32:16] Canadian wilderness. The road that we built our new house on was technically a snowmobile trail. That means that it was a road that didn't have any winter maintenance. We were truly in the

[00:32:30] middle of nowhere. My older sister was upset, but I thought that our new surroundings were beautiful. There were thick pine forests and lots of grapevines all around. I had goats and chickens. My dad and I had made trails. It was the most gorgeous place to grow up,

[00:32:50] but my parents didn't know the reality they had moved us to. My sister and I were cautioned against ever leaving our property as we didn't know our neighbors and the countryside differs

[00:33:01] greatly from the suburbs. We hadn't even moved into our new home before our barn, where we were storing our furniture, was broken into. Someone had stolen our windows and my dad's new chainsaw. When the police came, they recognized the boot prints in the mud. They said,

[00:33:21] we know who did this, but we recommend you don't press charges. Trust us. You don't want this family on your bad side. So we literally did nothing about the stolen stuff and that was our

[00:33:33] official first taste of the kind of people who were living in the wilderness with us. As a side note, I'd like to paint more of a picture about this family. The son of that family was later

[00:33:45] charged with kidnapping and assault of a girl in their basement. He dumped the girl in the forest after a week and she was able to crawl to safety and ask for help. He's in prison now.

[00:33:59] Now flash forward a couple of years, weird things were beginning to happen. One time when my sister was home alone, she saw a woman running through our field wearing a blanket over her head.

[00:34:13] Seeing this woman terrified my sister and confused my parents since we were living 30 minutes away from everything. We weren't close to anything so there was no reason for anyone to be walking on our road, let alone running around in our field, especially with the blanket over their head.

[00:34:32] It was bizarre. Then we started hearing old haunting music coming from our nearest neighbor, Darrell's farm. Darrell was a retired police chief who became the owner of a private security tech

[00:34:46] company. I still to this day have never seen him in person. It wasn't that the music was scary, it just felt off. Scratchy Aretha Franklin and Billie Holiday records should never be blasted

[00:35:01] through a pine forest at night. It feels wrong and vaguely ominous but at least he had good taste in music I guess. My dad actually ran into Darrell once while he was snowshoeing with my sister.

[00:35:15] I guess they had unknowingly wandered onto Darrell's property. Darrell came ripping up on a snowmobile, holding a gun and screaming at them. My dad was able to settle the issue by explaining

[00:35:28] that he was the new neighbor who just moved from the city and he didn't know the property lines yet. He left with the knowledge that Darrell had cameras all over the forest. Between Darrell's approach and knowing about the cameras, my dad was pretty rattled. Nothing gets past me,

[00:35:47] Darrell declared while my dad and sister got out of there. Anyway, the instance I would like to talk about happened a couple of years ago. I was home alone. I was 20 years old. I still wasn't

[00:36:01] much of a fan of the dark. My parents had built our house with tons of windows and no blinds. They figured since no one was around, no one would be looking in. That night as I sat in the

[00:36:14] living room I saw three small lights flying around in the air outside coming close to the windows. I seriously thought that it was aliens but I quickly realized they had to be drones.

[00:36:29] My dad had a drone so I was familiar with the look of that eerie little red light. I was so creeped out. Someone had to be close to the house in order to fly those things close to the windows.

[00:36:41] I turned all of the lights off and I tried calling my parents but they didn't pick up. Classic. So I ended up calling my older sister who was dating a volunteer firefighter at the time.

[00:36:53] For those of you who aren't familiar with small town resources, some towns in Canada are so small that they don't have emergency response teams. They just have volunteers who are on call to jump

[00:37:04] into action when a rare emergency occurs. When I told my sister what I had been seeing, all she said was, hang up, I'm coming over, he might be listening. Um okay, I felt like I was living in a

[00:37:19] horror movie. What was she talking about? Who might be listening? Ten painfully long minutes later she arrived at the house freaking out. My sister is known to be a little dramatic so I thought that

[00:37:32] she was just being theatrical with her words but what she told me seriously chilled me to the core. Basically, she said three weeks prior her boyfriend, the volunteer firefighter, responded to a call regarding an emergency at Darrell's farm. Apparently someone at Darrell's residence had called 911

[00:37:54] gasping for air. The 911 operator assumed that it was the retired police chief who lives alone that was calling. The operator assumed that Darrell was suffering from a heart attack and dispatched the volunteer firefighters to locate him and transport him to the hospital. When the

[00:38:12] firefighters drove up the dirt road to his driveway, they were stopped by his security gate. Firefighters have wire cutters for this very reason so my sister's boyfriend grabbed them and started hacking at the gate while the other two men began running down the driveway holding

[00:38:29] a stretcher hoping to find whoever was in distress from the call. I can't and I try not to imagine what these poor men saw in the following moments. This was during winter so it was obviously dark.

[00:38:43] There were no stars and no moon in the sky making it exceptionally dark. The firefighters were running down Darrell's driveway which was lined with thick pine forests on either side and from the darkness a woman suddenly appeared. She was staggering towards them

[00:39:01] whispering for help. She was bloody and looked to be anywhere from 20 to 25 years old. Before she collapsed in front of the men she said, he's coming. I was in Toronto this morning. There are others. Toronto mind you is four hours away

[00:39:21] from us. Darrell then came barreling out of the forest behind her holding a gun. Darrell held the gun to the temple of one of the firefighters while the other firefighter was holding the now

[00:39:35] unconscious Jane Doe. They were able to walk back to the truck where my sister's boyfriend was still hacking at Darrell's gate with the wire cutters. From his perspective he saw one of his

[00:39:45] friends holding a bloodied unconscious woman while the other had a gun to his head which must have been a sight to see. Thank goodness volunteer firefighters are equipped with an alarm on their

[00:39:56] gear that they can press. This alarm will bring police to their location and in this instance they showed up very quickly but remember this small town police force knew Darrell. They knew him

[00:40:09] quite well because he had trained them. Darrell used to be their chief of police so when they pulled up they were using soft familiar tones with him. It was similar to how someone would

[00:40:23] address a skittish cat. Hey Darrell it's us you're okay. Darrell still had the gun and the firefighters were still in the middle of this nightmare. Darrell yelled don't listen to anything that girl says

[00:40:39] she's my niece she's crazy delusional. The police sheepishly responded okay okay it's fine you're fine then things settled down a bit. The gun was taken away from Darrell and the girl was pulled away

[00:40:53] from the firefighters who were then asked to leave. They were just volunteers after all so they were no longer needed for the situation. My sister's boyfriend and the other two firefighters left the scene traumatized. They pulled away leaving the unconscious girl behind with Darrell

[00:41:12] as he was chatting with his buddies the police and then that was it. The whole situation whatever it was blew over and straight up disappeared. My sister's boyfriend told her this story so that

[00:41:28] she knew why he didn't feel comfortable coming over to our farm. My sister filled me in on all of this while the drones were still flying around our windows outside. Think about it my sister said

[00:41:41] he owns a private security company he has tapped phones for a living he was the chief of police he knows how to handle evidence clearly someone is on to him and they must be doing surveillance

[00:41:53] on him. They're probably surveilling us as well we live so close to him. Creeped out doesn't begin to describe how all of this information and my sister's theory made me feel. I was officially

[00:42:06] well past creeped out. The drones eventually went away that night but my sister and I stayed up clutching our golden retrievers until we managed to fall asleep. The next morning I was obviously

[00:42:21] still scared so I called a friend of mine and I asked him to come over. My friend had a drone as well so I asked him to bring it over with him. I wanted to see whatever the people who were watching

[00:42:33] us were seeing themselves. I wanted to see what they were seeing on our property and Daryl's property. It was a beautiful sunny day and he flew his drone over our farm with no problem whatsoever.

[00:42:46] Our landscape was looking lush and everything looked normal but then he flew it over Daryl's place. This is where things get interesting as the drone flew over Daryl's property an alarm went off

[00:43:00] on the drone's controls that said system failure no fly zone. The drone's software told us that we would lose our connection if the drone wasn't flown back into range. I looked it up and I found

[00:43:14] out that it was possible to buy signal blockers to disable drones from flying over private land. Due to his line of work being an owner of a private security company there really were no surprises there. He clearly opted for these signal blockers. So after our drone investigation fell

[00:43:32] through my friend and I did the second best thing that we could do to creep on Daryl. Google Earth. I started by pulling up the address and I saw our happy little oasis, our house, our barns,

[00:43:45] and the goat paddock and then I scrolled over to Daryl's land. I saw his long winding driveway, his thick forests and swamps, and then there in the middle of nowhere far from any road I saw a

[00:44:00] maze. It was a huge creepy maze that was at least four times the size of my home. There were also multiple dirt roads that led to little sheds deep into his swamps. I hate swamps. Swamps freak me out.

[00:44:17] They are forever sinking wetlands. I was disgusted. Was the bloodied Jane Doe that my sister's boyfriend met that night being held in one of those sheds? She indicated that there were

[00:44:30] others too. So where were the other women? Why was there this huge maze hidden in the depths of Daryl's sketchy farm? Needless to say, I was thoroughly creeped out, which was completely

[00:44:46] justified by what I had seen on Google Earth and then I thought about the woman that my sister saw running through our fields years ago. I also thought about the music from the creepy scratchy

[00:44:59] records that we would hear. Had he been masking the sounds and activities with the soothing albeit haunting voice of Billie Holiday? My sister and I decided to tell our dad the whole saga and he was

[00:45:12] unimpressed. But since he had three daughters, he did his due diligence. He went out to the police in an attempt to gain clarification and possibly find some answers. After he returned from talking

[00:45:26] to the police, I asked him about it and he seemed confused. He said that the police babied him. They acknowledged that there had been police calls at Daryl's address and even confirmed that it occurred

[00:45:39] on the date that my dad asked them about, but all they would say was that it had all been a misunderstanding. When my dad asked them about the drones that I saw outside of our windows,

[00:45:49] they laughed in his face. So my dad told me to let it go, but I haven't. Since then, I've told a few people this story. I've gone on Google Earth with each of them to take a look at Daryl's property.

[00:46:04] Anyone that I have shown this has visibly cringed when they see Daryl's maze. It's still there. I've been asked why I haven't called the FBI or sent an anonymous tip anywhere, and honestly,

[00:46:18] I'm not sure why. I think I've been hoping that whoever has been flying those drones knows something nefarious is happening in that pine forest, and maybe they're still handling it. I would hate to interfere with an investigation that's in progress, but also, as I'm writing this,

[00:46:35] I'm recalling how truly horrific this whole thing is. So maybe it is time to send a tip in. Maybe you should keep your eyes on Dateline, everyone. My parents still live in that town,

[00:46:47] and the police force is still quite small and corrupt. In the meantime, Daryl, I seriously hope that one day I find out exactly what you've been doing all these years in your vast, creepy,

[00:47:01] and swampy pine forest. I've looked at your maze in detail, and I've memorized it. I know exactly how to get out of that thing, so don't mess with me or my family. I grew up in the wilderness too.

[00:47:14] I know how to look after those that I love, and how to deal with those I despise.

[00:47:55] Halloween 1975 by Melinda, and finally, I Don't Know What to Do About Daryl by Anonymous. 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

[00:48:10] boards online. As always, if you have a story to share, send it to letsnotmeetstories at gmail.com. And don't forget to check out the new episodes of my other podcasts, Odd Trails, my true paranormal

[00:48:20] podcast. Welcome to Paradise It Sucks and the Old Time Radiocast, all at crypticcountypodcasts.com or wherever you get your podcasts. We'll see you all next week, and everyone have a safe Halloween.