1x13 RV (ft. A Paranormal Chicks)

[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.

[00:00:25] So this happened about a year and a half ago, and tonight something finally made me and my boyfriend realize that I wasn't imagining things. About a year and a half ago, after living in the apartment for five years, I all of a sudden started noticing that things would be out of place when I would get home from work. Things that almost seemed out of place on purpose to mess with my OCD.

[00:00:48] Sometimes I would notice knives that were put back into the knife block the wrong way, or little ornaments that I have all around my house being turned to face the wrong way. Sometimes my clothes were hung up in my closet the wrong way. Little things like that where I would feel like something was off, but there was no way to prove it. And in all honesty, I could have just been absent-minded when putting things away.

[00:01:15] After a couple of months of things randomly being out of place and always having that creeped out feeling, things stopped going out of place. And I put it in the back of my mind and stopped being so paranoid. I moved on with my life. That is, until about two weeks ago. For the past couple of weeks, my cat has seriously been trying to tell me something when I've gotten home from work. Any of you who have a cat will know that exact meow.

[00:01:42] It's not an, I'm hungry or an, I'm pissed because you've been at work all day, meow. But, oh my god, you will never believe what happened, meow. If that makes sense. I didn't really think anything of it, because cats can be jerks sometimes. And I just assumed he was being bored or wanting to complain.

[00:02:05] The other day when I came home from work, I noticed a pair of balled up socks that do not belong to me sitting on my bedroom floor. My boyfriend came over the next night and I told him that he left a pair of socks here when he had stayed over for the weekend. He looked at the socks and said that they were not his. My heart sunk. So did his.

[00:02:30] We both knew that someone had been coming to my house again, and that I probably wasn't imagining it in the first place. A few days later, I came home from work and found a bag from a lingerie store on top of my couch. It was empty. The bag had come from inside my house, as I had just bought a bathing suit from that store a couple of weeks prior. And the receipt was in the bag.

[00:02:58] At first, I thought my cat might have dragged it in there, but upon inspecting the bag, there were no teeth marks. As well as my cat couldn't have opened my closet door and gone into the paper cardboard recycling that I kept in there on the top shelf. The final and perhaps most unsettling thing happened tonight. My boyfriend met me after work and we went out to dinner. We went back to my apartment after.

[00:03:27] And I went to unlock the door and noticed that it was already unlocked. Locking the door when I leave my house is one thing that I am most OCD about. I don't just double or triple check it, I quadruple check it. It's not just a habit I have, it's something that is deeply ingrained into me. Everyone knows me and everyone knows this about me, as I even do it to their doors.

[00:03:54] I have to check four times or I get an icky feeling. Even my boyfriend was on red alert when he had noticed my door was unlocked. We entered my house and I was checking to see if anything was out of place. I ran to the sliding glass door and tugged it. It opened right up. I never leave that door unlocked. He witnessed me lock it on Sunday when I closed the door because it was getting too cold.

[00:04:23] He saw me check it four times. I have not opened it since then. We are both convinced somebody has been in my house. Whoever has been coming in somehow has a key. The fact that they left the sliding door unlocked makes me think that maybe they are planning to come back with ill intentions. But I mean, if they have a key, why would they need to unlock the sliding door?

[00:04:50] Unless they don't want to be identified by the security cameras at the front door of my building. Either way, I have already ordered a security system, but unfortunately it's not going to arrive for a few days. Any suggestions on anything I can do in the meantime to keep safe?

[00:05:30] This happened six or so years ago, when I was 16 years old. I didn't even realize how unnerving this all was until recently. When I was 15 or 16, I went through a phase where I would constantly get hair extensions put in. I had a favorite salon that I always went to. The two ladies were lovely and would always compliment me on my appearance. Stuff like, you are so pretty girl, do you have a boyfriend?

[00:05:58] I can't believe you're only 15. In which I felt absolutely flattered. During the appointment, they started chatting with me about being single, again. This time, one of the ladies started talking about her brother. She said that he lives in Africa, but he would absolutely love me and that I should meet him one day. I asked her how old he was and she said that he was in his early 20s. I was 15.

[00:06:26] Due to the age gap and the fact that my older brother would have killed me for even talking to a guy a year above me, I politely told her that I was not interested in meeting her brother, but thanks for the offer. She got visibly upset and said, Why? Come on! He'll look after you. Let him take you back to Africa. He'll make you the African Queen. I just shook it off because they were always nice and they just assumed that they were joking around.

[00:06:56] I remember telling a few friends about it and having a laugh. They said that I should have taken the offer. It was soon forgotten. Fast forward two years. I was around 17 years old at this point and I had just gotten my driver's license. It had been a while since I had hair extensions put in and I thought that I would treat myself to change up my look and of course see my old stylist for a catch up. I went to the salon and it went smoothly.

[00:07:26] I went from short hair to long hair in a matter of two hours and I was on my way out. Before I left, one of the ladies asked if I wanted to come back tomorrow to try out their new hair oil serum for free. So I said yes. Nothing is free in this life. Sadly, I was a moth to a bright light. I went in the next day, super keen for this oil because my real hair was super damaged. When I arrived, there was a man in the salon too.

[00:07:56] I assumed it was their friend. I didn't know too much about it and sat down to get my free serum. The whole time, this man just stared at me. And when I say staring, I mean staring. He didn't say a word the entire time. He just stared and did a strange giggle every time I said something. His vibes were not sitting well with me. After they finished, I wanted to leave.

[00:08:23] So I gathered up my things and said thank you very much. Good day ladies and sir. One of them stopped me on the way out and said, This is my brother I was telling you about. Let him walk you to your car. Unfortunately, my car was parked literally 10 minutes away. And I did not want the stranger walking with me for 10 minutes. So I politely declined. They kept insisting, in which I kept declining. I said no, no, no, no. Thank you.

[00:08:52] I do not need nor want your brother to walk me to my car. Thank you for offering. And thank you for the free oil. Bye. I left the salon and started walking. However, I was not alone. The brother was walking two meters behind me. And where the salon was located was practically like in an alleyway leading into a car park, leading into back streets. I turned around and told him again.

[00:09:20] I did not need him to walk me to my car. I was very capable. Thank you. Bye. His reply was short and to the point. No, I come with you. So I walked briskly all the way to where my car was. And not a word was said. He just walked two meters behind me. Sometimes he caught up and would walk next to me. This went on for the whole 10 minutes.

[00:09:47] I felt so terribly awkward and uncomfortable and scared as it was getting dark and I couldn't see anyone else. When I was near my car, I had had enough of this grown ass man. So I turned around and said, I do not need you to follow me anymore. Thank you for walking to my car. So this is my car. Bye. He finally started talking. Where is your boyfriend? I don't have a boyfriend.

[00:10:16] What he said and did next, I will never forget. There was an elevator right where we were standing that went to the upper level car park. He summoned the elevator, which I thought was strange. When it reached us, he looked at me straight in the eye and said, You need to come with me or I will make you my African queen. He grabbed my arm and started trying to drag me into the elevator. Obviously, I started screaming and fight mode kicked in.

[00:10:46] He was a lot stronger than me as he was a male in his late twenties and I was a small 17 year old girl with a fresh weave. But boy, you better believe this girl can scream. My heart was in my throat. It felt like I was in a movie and I genuinely started bracing for assault in this elevator. An amazing gentleman who must have been in the car park somewhere heard me ran over,

[00:11:13] which made the salon ladies' brother let go of me and absolutely run as quickly as possible. Thank you to the kind man who saved me that day. I do not know what would have happened in that elevator. So to the salon ladies and their brother, let's never meet again. And for the 100th time, thank you. But no, I do not want to be the African queen.

[00:11:57] In 2014, I was home alone. My then boyfriend, now husband, was at work and I happened to have a very rare day off. I was watching the Golden Girls as I snuggled our two cats and relaxed. I remember feeling a strange, dreadful feeling. I sat up from the couch and noticed a man with shaggy and greasy long hair. He seemed to make eye contact even though he was roughly two blocks away.

[00:12:27] Then he suddenly broke out into a sprint. I felt this moment in every inch of my body. I rushed into the front porch and locked the screen door before rushing back into the house and locking the main door leading into the house. He was suddenly at the side of our house, punching and kicking the side window of our home as he screamed in audible screams. Either that or he was opening his mouth and not making a sound.

[00:12:56] I don't know which is more terrifying. I was shocked as I stared at him. Suddenly, he lunged off to the side and I realized that our side door might have also been unlocked. I ran to our side door and caught it right as his face appeared in the tiny door window. I began to cry as I locked it before running into our spare bedroom.

[00:13:21] I whipped out my cell phone and dialed 911 as I cried and tried to explain the issue. For some reason, the story in my memory skips to my upstairs neighbor calling me about five minutes later. Him, are you okay? Me, I think so. Are you? He began telling me what happened after I hid. Apparently, the man had run up to his apartment and knocked calmly, so he answered.

[00:13:51] He had no way of knowing that the person at his door was not of sound mind and I had not thought to warn him. He opened his door leaving only a thin screen between him and this man. He asked the man if everything was okay, to which the man began screaming, They're trying to kill me! Help! He was shocked and backed up saying, Please step back. I will call the police. By then, I was downstairs dialing already.

[00:14:20] The man punched his door and ran downstairs, kicking and punching his car in the driveway as he screamed about being chased and on the verge of being murdered. He pulled at the car doors and punched at the windows as he screamed and I begged for the police to arrive faster. The police finally showed up and the man was still fighting the neighbor's car. They had brought along an ambulance and took the man away, strapped to a stretcher in the back.

[00:14:47] So man who attacked my home, let's not meet.

[00:15:15] I was four years old when this happened and I only remember parts of it. So I had my mom tell me the full story now that I'm older. When I was younger, we would go to stay at my aunt's house when my family visited my mom's hometown. They had a lab and we only ever had a hypoallergenic dog. So I got a rash from it and oddly it spread down there, you know. My mom says it's because I was a kid and I probably wasn't washing my hands,

[00:15:44] then going to the bathroom with whatever I was allergic to still on my hands. Dog hair, I guess. My mom took me to the dermatologist right when we got home because it hadn't gone away. Neither of my parents used a dermatologist, so they asked a friend for a recommendation. My mom is a doctor, so she did look into this guy before she took me. He had a good reputation. When we met him, and I do remember parts of this,

[00:16:10] he checked over everything and said it wasn't much to be worried about and gave me a steroid for it. He then asked my mom if he would be able to take pictures of the rash to document it for research. Now my mom being a doctor is pretty okay with using cases for research. I know this because I am used for research study since I had a certain hip surgery at a young age. But she felt like this was off.

[00:16:39] She said she really didn't think of him asking in a creepy way. But she said regardless, if it was a rare case to be documented, she would never have let a doctor take pictures of her four-year-old's private parts. But she said that the biggest red flag was that he just said it as a common thing and not to worry about it.

[00:17:04] My mom being in medicine knows this means there is extensive research on it, and a picture of a quote-unquote common rash did not make sense. She forgot about it and obviously didn't take me back. She told her friends that recommended him about it, but we all kind of just forgot. That was until we saw him on the news.

[00:17:32] He was arrested at the America-Canada border and was found in possession with more than 200 pictures and videos of child pornography. So thank you mom for not always putting trust in doctors. People who we should put our trust in. According to the news report on The Morning Call, an Allentown dermatologist will serve three years in federal prison for possessing child pornography.

[00:18:01] Robert J. Thompson, age 55, was also fined $25,000 by U.S. District Attorney Cynthia Ruffey and ordered to serve 10 years probation after his prison term. Thompson was charged with possessing more than 200 sexually explicit photos of children stored in several home computers. He pleaded guilty to possession of child pornography. Thompson worked in Allentown and Bethlehem and was affiliated with St. Luke's Hospital, Fountain Hill,

[00:18:29] but stopped working there in May of 2009, according to the hospital. State records show that Thompson agreed to surrender his medical license. Thompson was arrested by FBI in August of 2008 after a two-year investigation that began with a probe of individuals treating child pornography via AOL.

[00:18:48] The sting led to the arrest of an Ohio man, and a review of his emails led agents to several AOL accounts that belonged to Thompson, according to court documents. Thompson was interviewed in August of 2008 and subsequently admitted to using several computers and the internet to view, trade, and download images, prosecutors have said.

[00:19:11] He described his activity as an AOL addiction that began with viewing adult porn but morphed into interest in child porn for as long as a decade, according to court documents. Prosecutors said that Thompson sought out internet chat rooms to find others interested in child pornography and communicated with them via email and instant messaging.

[00:19:35] He stored the photos in hidden folders on his computers and tried to erase the photos after learning of the FBI probe. Rufi suspended Thompson's license until February. Thompson has been freed on a $50,000 bail.

[00:20:15] I was recently thinking about this, and after sharing this story with my family and seeing their concern, I thought I would share it with y'all. I was at the moment in time, I was waiting for a while. When I was eight, my family decided to take a summer vacation to a big famous water park a couple of hours away. It was me, my older sister who was 11 at the time, my little sister who was five, my uncle who was paraplegic, and his girlfriend.

[00:20:46] We get to the water park and my uncle and his girlfriend end up staying at the cabanas at the entrance due to the fact that it was the only place with shade and he had no intentions of getting in the water with his wheelchair. So they let us go off on our own all day. Big mistake. Big mistake. Big mistake.

[00:21:09] Since there are only either single or double person tubes, my older sister decided to get on one with my younger sister and let me get on one alone, but just hold on to theirs. And that worked for a little while, but we got on the lazy river that went around the whole park. And at the end, they made it very fast and crazy with waves crashing into you.

[00:21:36] I ended up letting go of their tube and flipping out of mine. By the time I even realized it, I had lost them. I thought it was no big deal and I'd find them soon enough again. So I'm trying to get back on my tube and for some reason, I just can't do it. A man notices me struggling and decides to come help me.

[00:22:00] I finally get on and thank him and try to float away, but he hasn't let go of my tube. Instead, he starts talking with me and asking me why I'm all alone. I explain I lost my sisters and he suggests that he gets on the tube with me because he doesn't want me to get lost or drown. I say okay and we get on a tube together.

[00:22:31] He starts forcing me to ride all of the sides with him and talks to me about how his hotel isn't far. And he has a whole bunch of toys I would just love to play with. I actually started getting interested because I don't have many toys and the ones I do have are broken for my sisters. He says that we can get on one last ride and then we'd head over. I agree.

[00:23:00] And while waiting in the line, he starts acting really giddy and weird. He kept swimming under our tube and would play with my feet and legs and told me that they were pretty. There was a young couple behind us who was watching this unfold. And I guess they could see the discomfort in my face because they tapped me on my shoulder to ask if I was okay and if I knew this man.

[00:23:26] He tried answering for me, but they cut him off and said they were talking to me. I reassured them that I was okay, but it was seeing the look on their face that made something click in my head and say that whatever was going on with this man was not okay. Once we got off this slide, I told him I had to go. And once we got to the opening of the river, I wanted just to be on a single tube by myself because I needed to find my sisters.

[00:23:58] He tells me that I can't do that and he needs to watch me so I can't leave him. For some reason, as soon as he said that, fear just came over me and I ducked out of the tube and started swimming. When I looked back, he was right on my tail swimming after me. I ended up swimming to the entrance of the river and got on a single tube, which he ended up grabbing and flipping me out of, saying I needed to be on a double tube with him.

[00:24:28] I did not feel safe anymore, so I ended up running out and running to my uncle and his girlfriend. I didn't tell them what happened, just that I got tired of being in the water. After sitting there a while, I saw no signs of the man and thankfully my sisters made it back to the cabana, safe and sound also, and we all left together.

[00:24:52] So, weird man that I met at the water park, I hope we meet again so I can punch you in the face for being such a creep.

[00:25:22] About three weeks ago, my mom told my brother and I this story. It straight up gave me the yucky feeling. Sally is a lifelong family friend. Sally would frequently visit her friends and family in Oklahoma. We live in a small town in southern Canada. Sally would drive. Sally would drive straight for 20 hours, at least, overnight, to get to our town from another small town.

[00:25:50] She did this simply to save money and obviously wanted to arrive as soon as she could. Now that you've got the prelude, here is the story. About 30 years ago, she decided to head south on one of these visits. No big deal, she's done this a few times, so she packs up and heads out. At some point after driving about 14 to 15 hours, she started getting pretty tired.

[00:26:15] Being that it was probably the 80s and a little safer, she decided that she would stop at a rest stop. It was more of a traveler's stop, my mom said. There, she would sleep for a little bit and resume her drive first thing in the AM. She parks in a very well-lit and busy rest stop. She parks right by the lights and felt at ease because there was an abundance of travelers stopping and going. She gets out for a bathroom break, comes back and settles in her car.

[00:26:44] About then, an RV pulls up right beside her. And an elderly couple get out. The man asks her about coming from Canada. They strike up a little conversation. Nothing odd. The couple talks to Sally for a bit. They tell her that they are driving from the south going north and just needed to have a sleep for the night.

[00:27:09] They wanted to talk because they were unsure if a rest stop was okay to stop at. But seeing Sally, they were at ease. They said goodnight and good trip and the couple went back into their RV. Sally locked up her doors and went to sleep. Two or three hours later, Sally woke up with a very unsettling feeling. She looks around. Nothing. A few people going in the stop.

[00:27:38] Parking lights are all on. She assumes she is feeling bad because she's tired and a car isn't the best place to get some sleep. After ten minutes, she said that this feeling actually got worse and it was a jarring, queasy, uneasy feeling. She sits back and tries to shrug it off. This didn't work and apparently she had every red alarm and instinct telling her that she needed to go.

[00:28:05] She panics, starts her car and peels off. She doesn't care where. She just knew that she had to get away from there. About 20 miles down the road, she finds a motel and a gas station slash restaurant stop. She decides to see if she could get a room for what little money that she had. She converses with the person in charge. He cuts her a deal as he doesn't want a young woman driving alone at night.

[00:28:34] She gets a key, pops into her hotel room, and sleeps for the night. No issue. All in peace. Around 9am, she wakes up, showers, changes clothes, and decides to relax for a few. She turns on the TV, and what was on it actually gives me chills. There was a breaking news story about an elderly couple killed in the middle of the night.

[00:29:04] The news shows the RV that Sally was parked next to. Exact spot. Exact rest stop. And she sees the fast food drink cup she dropped on accident that rolled under her car. Sometime during the night, a man broke into their RV and killed them, then left. Presumably right before Sally had left. The man was never caught.

[00:29:32] Sally then stopped at hotels for the night and avoided all rest stops.

[00:30:00] Thank you for listening to this week's episode of 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 let's not meet podcast. 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.

[00:30:28] 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.