5x14: The Yellow House - Let's Not Meet

[00:00:00] This podcast contains adult language and content. The stories in this show can be disturbing and frightening for some. Listener discretion is advised. If you have a story to share, send it to letsnotmeetstories at gmail.com Enjoy the show.

[00:00:34] In the early 2000s, I was in high school and my little sister and I lived with our dad. She is three years younger than me. It was just the three of us. Our house was on a rural road, not terribly far from the highway. There was a handful of houses around us, all with large properties.

[00:01:37] No one ever locked their doors. My sister and I were alone one Friday night while my dad was out having some drinks. We knew he'd be closing the bar down as this was the routine two to three nights a week, but we didn't expect him home until the wee hours of the morning.

[00:01:56] I decided to call it a night and head to bed around midnight while my sister stayed up and watched TV. I remember making a conscious decision to leave my bedroom door open since she was staying up. My bedroom door was maybe ten feet from where she was laying on the couch, so if she needed me, it would be easy for her to wake me.

[00:02:19] I wake to a loud thud at about 2am, followed by my sister calling my name and running towards my room. We meet in the hallway and I bring her back to my room so she can tell me what was wrong.

[00:02:34] I knew my very intoxicated father was going to be home soon and since you never knew if he was going to be in a good or bad mood in that state, we always just tried to avoid him.

[00:02:48] She said she was just starting to doze off on the couch when she heard our dad come home. He was leaning on the bar between our living room and the kitchen, talking to the family dog. She pretended to be asleep so she wouldn't have to talk to him when she suddenly heard a commotion and then a loud thud.

[00:03:12] She got up quickly to her dad on the ground. He was mumbling. That's when she ran in my direction. I told her we needed to go check on him and when we came out of my room, we found him in his room staring at our cordless phone trying to make sense of the numbers.

[00:03:33] We asked him what he was doing and he said he had just been jumped and was trying to call the police. I panicked, fearing that he was too drunk to realize he probably just fell and I was terrified that he'd call the cops and they'd just come and discover that the story was just in his head and he was just another drunk guy wasting everybody's time.

[00:03:58] I begged him not to call. He was incredibly annoyed that I didn't believe him, but could see that I was upset and agreed to leave it be. We all went to bed, but after that excitement, my sister and I decided to share my bed that night.

[00:04:16] The next morning, we all got up relatively early and asked our dad what had happened the night before. He tells us that he was talking to the dog and having him do some tricks when he saw something in the corner of his eye.

[00:04:31] He turned around only to be met with a fist wearing brass knuckles headed straight for his face. He hit the ground hard and remember seeing legs and boots running out the door with the dog barking at the man who just ran by him.

[00:04:51] My blood ran cold as I realized the magnitude of the situation. I looked over at my sister and it was clear. The realization hit us both at the same time. Whoever that was, they were already in our house when my dad got home.

[00:05:12] Was he there for us, knowing that we were alone? Did my dad interrupt the evil plans that he had for us? Or was he there waiting for my dad to get home? I suddenly felt sick realizing I had blown any chance of him being caught by the cops.

[00:05:32] My sister and I were both pale and visibly scared. My dad told us to take a deep breath and then walk him through the entire night as detailed as we could remember. We told him I had gone to bed before my sister and I left the door open. I awoke to a loud thud.

[00:05:53] My sister said she was in and out of sleep on the couch. She mentioned that she thought she heard the floor creak and sat up a bit drowsy. She rubbed her eyes because she thought she saw a shadow move between my door and the bathroom, but after rubbing her eyes and looking again, all she saw was my closed bedroom door.

[00:06:17] So she laid back down and assumed her eyes were playing tricks on her. For the second time, I felt my blood run cold. She saw my closed bedroom door. I played that scene out in my head again.

[00:06:33] I remembered the thud, her calling my name, and the two of us almost colliding in the tiny hallway after I opened my bedroom door. My dad was determined to get to the bottom of it and told us to go to a friend's house for the night.

[00:06:51] Sunday morning when we came home and asked what transpired, he said that he met with the police, he gave a report, and they wondered if maybe I had a mad ex-boyfriend or someone that would want to seek revenge. I didn't, and my dad said he didn't feel he had angered anyone either.

[00:07:13] While we were away, my dad spent the night in the living room with a shotgun waiting for someone to return. No one ever did. Stumped, feeling defeated and like whoever was there, they likely would come back, we all went to bed that night but with the doors locked.

[00:07:32] Now, in the wee hours of Monday morning, I woke up to the sound of a loud older car with a manual transmission. I could hear the transmission downshift and it sounded like it was on the road that connected to the highway that our lane was just off of.

[00:07:51] I listened for it to drive down our lane and it never did. I also never heard it drive away. The road makes a sharp turn in the opposite direction from our lane so I assumed that they had made the corner going the opposite direction of our lane and that was why we could no longer hear them.

[00:08:12] Feeling unsettled, I laid back down and tried to shake the uneasy feeling so I could get some sleep knowing it would be a long day at school if I didn't.

[00:08:21] About 15-20 minutes later, I think I hear the door handle jiggle to our back door on the other side of the house. Keep in mind, we live in a double wide manufactured home. I say this because the distance from one end of the house to the other isn't far and it was an open floor plan so no real wall existed to block the sound.

[00:08:48] I slept with my door open and since we were in the country, the outside was always very quiet. I was frozen with fear and trying to convince myself that I was hearing things. That is until I heard footsteps walking across our wraparound deck that connected the back door to the front.

[00:09:09] I hear them jiggle the handle to the front door which is not far from my bedroom window. I can't move. I feel sick and paralyzed with fear. I hear them walk down the deck steps and I see the shadow of two hands on my bedroom window.

[00:09:31] This window shares the same outside wall as the front door. In the meantime, my flight response finally kicks in and I scramble to find my cell phone my mom had bought me so that she could always reach us.

[00:09:46] I called the house phone. No answer. I called again and my dad finally answers the phone next to his bed. I know it was only a matter of seconds but it felt like an eternity and once he answered, I just couldn't get the words out.

[00:10:03] But when I finally did, they came out as a scream. Someone is trying to open my bedroom window. The person messing with the window suddenly froze in place and then I hear not one but two sets of footsteps running away.

[00:10:23] My dad comes flying out of his bedroom wearing nothing but his underwear and his shotgun in hand. We couldn't see anyone and beyond the reach of our porch light, it was just a dark abyss. He told me to go back to bed and that he'd stay up and listen just in case they returned.

[00:10:44] It felt like a cold and unrealistic response. Like, hell, I won't be getting any sleep. I think in reality, he was just as freaked out as us. But he didn't want us to witness it if he found himself in a situation where he had to use that gun.

[00:11:03] My sister joined me in my room and the two of us laid back down and just stared at the ceiling. About 10 minutes later, we hear the car start and the idle of their engine as they tried to coast down our lane towards our house.

[00:11:19] Our neighbor across from us, they have this U-shaped driveway. The car drove in and back out of the driveway and headed back up our lane and away from our house at a very slow speed. It felt like they were toying with us.

[00:11:37] My dad raised his gun and tried to read the license plate through his scope. I can tell you the exact moment they realized his gun was pointed at their car because they quickly shifted gears and damn near killed the engine. They got the hell out of there and they didn't return that night.

[00:11:59] My dad made us go to school the next day and he said again he called the police to report this new incident. They promised they'd have a police officer monitor our lane for a couple of nights in a row and maybe they'd catch him in the act if they decided to return again.

[00:12:17] A couple of days went by and my dad seemed to go from someone who was just as freaked out as my sister and I to someone who made it out to be no big deal. I heard that truck almost every night, but my dad was no longer worried about them. Sometimes they'd stay on the road above our lane and other times they'd drive down the lane, but they always kept driving.

[00:12:42] My dad claimed that the police saw a newspaper delivery guy who made his deliveries in the middle of the night and he said that must have been who we were hearing. Frustrated I told him that made zero sense because why would the paper guy be near our house when we don't even subscribe to the paper and last I checked they delivered it to your porch not inside of your house.

[00:13:05] He blew my concerns off and said it was something we needed to forget about and move on from. My dad is a stern fellow and when he's done having a conversation it is done. There's no going back.

[00:13:19] The only logical reason I could come up with for why my dad would flip a switch so dramatically is if they knew more than they were telling. His original fear was genuine but somewhere along the line he became indifferent. My theory is he knows who it was and somehow dealt with the situation.

[00:13:43] While they never came back to our house in the middle of the night, like a sixth sense, I would wake up every now and then to the sound of a manual car transmission downshifting on the road above our lane.

[00:13:56] This went on for two years. I had friends witness it and it wasn't a nightly thing. I could never place the exact pattern of their visits. We even fantasized about putting down a board full of nails to try and send a message to the creeps.

[00:14:11] They always stayed far enough away to do no harm but close enough to remind us of the fear we felt when they were trying to break back in. So to the jackasses who caused my sister and I so much fear and then mocked us with your drive-bys for years, let's not meet again.

[00:14:30] This happened to me many years ago. I was just out of high school and even though I lived at home, I felt like such a grown up. I had a job, my own car, and best of all, no curfew anymore.

[00:14:58] Having no curfew really wasn't as glamorous as it sounds because in my town everything was closed down by 10pm so the teens would all head to this large shopping center parking lot where we would typically just hang out, drink, and listen to music. Typical stuff, kids showing off their bitchin' stereo systems and loud mufflers.

[00:15:21] On this particular Friday night, per usual, my girlfriends and I were hanging out in the parking lot with a group. It was a chilly night so the crowd started to dwindle early. At around 11.30pm we were bored and decided to call it a night.

[00:15:38] I drove one of my friends home. I dropped her off at her house and started heading home myself. I only lived a couple of miles away but since I had been drinking, I decided not to get back on the main road and instead drove through a connecting neighborhood.

[00:15:55] These are older neighborhoods built in the 1950s with the traditional four-sided brick ranches. These streets twist together. At this time of night, all the houses were dark and everyone was sleeping. There was an occasional dim street light but for the most part, the streets were empty and dark.

[00:16:18] Before I had a car, I had walked through these neighborhoods many times going to friends' houses. I had never walked through here at night though. I realized just how creepy it was in the dark and thankfully, I wasn't walking.

[00:16:34] About three quarters of the way to my house, I take a right onto another dark street and there I see something ahead in the middle of the road. I slow down and get a closer look. I can't believe what I'm seeing. In the middle of the road is the body of a toddler.

[00:16:57] It's a boy facing away from me. He has a red baseball cap on, a blue checkered shirt, jeans and white tennis shoes. He looks to be about the size of a three-year-old. Now my heart is pounding. I'm in a panic. I can't breathe. I don't know what to do.

[00:17:19] I look around and there are no lights on in any of the houses. I decide not to get out and instead drive as quickly as I can to get to my house to see my parents. I come through the door yelling for my mom and dad. They both jump out of bed and are staring at me in disbelief as I tell this story.

[00:17:41] They look a little skeptical because I'm sure they can tell that I've been drinking. About that time, my older brother comes in from his night out. My parents tell him to go with me back to the place where I had seen the child and verify my story.

[00:17:57] So my brother and I jump back into the car and head back. My brother cannot believe it. He just keeps repeating, oh my fucking God, oh my fucking God over and over again.

[00:18:12] He turns the car around and we race back home. He confirms the story with our parents who immediately call the police. The police tell us to stay home. They'll check it out and then come by to get our statements.

[00:18:27] An hour or so goes by and we see a police car turn into our driveway. The policeman comes to the door and tells me how lucky I was. Me? What? I'm very confused by this.

[00:18:45] He goes on to explain that he found the toddler's body in a ditch, but it wasn't a toddler's body at all, but rather a toddler's clothes stuffed with towels and other materials to make it look like a body.

[00:19:02] The police found the footprints of two men in this ditch. They could see where the men had been crouched down. Apparently, this scheme was to get someone to stop and investigate the child's body and then the men would come out of hiding and rob or attack the Good Samaritan.

[00:19:19] I began shaking, thinking about how close I had come to being attacked. The police were never able to identify the people responsible, but I also never drove through those neighborhoods again in the dark. I don't know what these men were up to, but let's not meet.

[00:19:42] It's the summer of 2017 in Ohio. My husband and I are on the lookout for our first house and eager to get out of our apartment. We were excited to see this cheery yellow, bi-level house close to our apartment in a neighborhood we really liked.

[00:20:20] We arrived, and the owners were not home. The realtor let us in. When starting, we were told the people living there were an elderly couple planning to move to Florida, so I was expecting maybe some outdated decor or something.

[00:20:39] All their stuff was still there, and while there was outdated decor, we were in for a lot more than we bargained for. We walked in, and the hair on the back of my neck immediately stood up, and I felt uneasy.

[00:20:57] My husband seemed fine, and I chalked it up to the fact that the house reeked of cigarette smoke. Not exactly a perk, but not something to totally turn us away.

[00:21:09] The living room was oddly decorated, though. One wall was all mirror-like floor to ceiling covered, while another wall was covered in thick red and white striped wallpaper. Not my style, but again, this can easily be changed.

[00:21:27] We continued walking to the kitchen that is fairly average, with a second living area on a slightly lower level. In this second area, there is a window completely broken, and an odd life-sized statue of an old-timey scuba diver suit. This gave me Big Daddy's vibes from Bioshock. Again, a little weird, but people have their quirks.

[00:21:57] Next we check out the backyard before heading to the upper level. It's such a nice backyard with lots of space and trees, except that you can't see any of it because when you walk out there, there's a small deck, maybe 7 by 7 feet, with a privacy fence surrounding it about 7 feet high.

[00:22:18] What is the point of going outside if you can't see it? My husband and I thought it was odd, but figured, oh well, we can just get rid of it. We walked further into the backyard and noticed a very randomly placed spot of tiles, about 4 or 5 square feet combined.

[00:22:39] This was in the middle of the grass for no reason, and the realtor offered no explanation. Mixed with the strange privacy deck, I wonder what on earth could be buried there? Or if I even want to know. We, myself a bit reluctant, continued on.

[00:23:00] At this point, I'm still very on edge. This place is giving me the strangest feelings, and with every issue, the realtor is just telling us we can probably knock off another thousand from the price.

[00:23:14] My husband is still interested, so we continue. We see a laundry room, a little grimy bathroom, and a garage, all fairly normal until we get to the second level.

[00:23:28] We go up the stairs, and there's a long hallway with a mirror at the end. I kid you not, it looks like it's straight out of that movie, Oculus.

[00:23:42] There are two bedrooms, a bathroom and a master bedroom. The master bedroom is fairly normal. Bed, dresser, TV, nothing really out of the ordinary. It all changes in the other bedrooms though.

[00:23:59] The bedrooms both have padlocks on the doors that lock from the outside. Whoever was inside would be locked in until someone let them out. The one bedroom door had a fist-sized hole next to the doorknob as if someone were trying to beat their way out.

[00:24:21] The second bedroom had a similar hole that looks more like a cutout, but still about large enough to fit a hand through and grab the knob. The door connecting the bedroom to the master bath had a padlock on it as well, and the doorknob was busted.

[00:24:43] While the master bedroom had furniture, the other two bedrooms were completely empty except for carpet and trash such as food wrappers, some scraps of paper, and whatnot.

[00:24:55] We got the fuck out of there right away. Why would they need padlocks? Who were they trying to keep in those bedrooms? Why was the backyard so weirdly private? I told my husband we needed to leave, and we were no longer interested.

[00:25:14] It's been several years now, and I still cannot rationally figure out why those rooms would be like that unless something sinister was going on. I could be wrong, but it just didn't give me the vibe of little old couple moving to Florida.

[00:25:33] So whoever owned the misleading cheery yellow house, let's not meet. In 2005, I was attending Auburn University in Alabama. Two friends and I were coming back from spending a weekend in our hometown a few hours away.

[00:26:06] The two friends we'll call them, Greg and Scott, were major frat bros and brought a pool table for their first frat house back in a U-Haul with us.

[00:26:17] Apparently the weight of the U-Haul can mess with your gas gauge, making it appear that you have more gas than you actually do. This led us to being stuck on the side of the highway in the middle of nowhere Alabama while it was pitch dark out.

[00:26:35] We called AAA, but they were going to take a couple of hours. This was 2005 and none of us had phones with GPS on it, so we just printed out some MapQuest directions.

[00:26:49] We figured that there must be a gas station ahead somewhere, and since I had to pee and didn't want to stay in the car by myself, I volunteered to go with Scott while Greg stayed behind.

[00:27:00] We'd only been walking for a few minutes when this car flew by us and slammed on its brakes. The suddenness of all of this was so strange, and for some reason it felt even stranger that it was a shiny bright red Mini Cooper.

[00:27:20] The car just sat there for a minute about 20 yards in front of us, and we were stopped in our tracks wondering what was happening. An awkward amount of time passed before the driver got out and looked at us.

[00:27:35] He was bald, maybe mid-fifties, and his face was void of emotion. He was wearing small rectangular glasses, a short-sleeved button-up shirt, and cargo shorts. Basically your classic serial killer uniform. My friend Scott said something friendly along the lines of,

[00:27:58] Hey man, thanks for stopping. We just ran out of gas and would really appreciate a ride to the gas station if you don't mind. The Mini Red Cooper guy who we'll just call Red looked at us blankly and said, Get in.

[00:28:15] Scott seemed okay with it, and while I was spooked, I was also a thrill-seeking idiot and didn't argue. Once we were in the car, Scott thanked him again and tried to make small talk, but Red was silent.

[00:28:33] I didn't know this, but Mini Coopers have their speedometer in the middle of the dashboard. I was sitting in the front seat and was alarmed as I was watching the speed accelerate from 60 to 80 to 100.

[00:28:49] We very swiftly arrived at the nearest exit with the gas station, and Red took the exit. Instead of turning right towards the gas station, Red turned left and got back on the highway, going the opposite direction that we came from.

[00:29:07] Scott said, Hey man, that gas station back there would have been just fine. Red calmly responded, We'll go somewhere cheaper. This is when I found out that when I'm truly terrified, I laugh hysterically. Red proceeded to ask Scott questions about his family and where he's from, etc.

[00:29:32] All of which Scott lied about, which gave me a heads up that he was probably scared too. We continued to pass possible gas station options, all of which were not cheap enough. The surreal possibility that this guy was going to murder us continued to set off my laughter.

[00:29:54] I don't remember how long we'd been driving, but eventually, into our belief, Red pulled off at a gas station, this time actually stopping. We got some gas, and I finally went to the bathroom.

[00:30:09] I kind of can't believe we got back into the car with him, but we did, and he took us back to our car with no weird detours. We thanked him, and we got out, but he didn't say anything, and just sped away.

[00:30:24] Maybe Red was just a weirdo about gas prices. Maybe he just liked fucking with people. Maybe he was going to kill us, but my laughter cracked his will. Who knows? From time to time I google Red Mini Cooper Alabama Hitchhiker Murderer, but I haven't seen anything yet.

[00:30:46] But to the Red Mini Cooper guy, thanks for the ride, but let's not meet again. This is a true story, and an unfortunate reality about how our parents were right about not getting into cars with strangers. It was my last summer before heading off to college.

[00:31:23] Two of my good friends at the time lived close by, so we were spending quite a lot of time together enjoying the beach, roaming the streets at night, and just being regular 19 year olds.

[00:31:35] On this hot summer night, we decided to head to our favorite hookah lounge that had an outdoor patio and mingle with people there. Once we had been sitting for a couple of hours, we decided to head downtown and see how the local bars were doing.

[00:31:54] We live in Canada, so the legal drinking age here is 19 in our province. The only thing about heading downtown was that it wasn't within walking distance from the hookah lounge that we were at.

[00:32:06] None of us were driving that night, so when leaving the lounge we headed towards the nearest bus station. Ubers weren't a thing yet. Once we got close to the station, a strange black car abruptly stopped right beside us.

[00:32:23] We all jumped from fear and began laughing hysterically about how ridiculous we were being when we noticed that the man in the car was someone we had been chatting with on the patio at the lounge. He asked us if we needed a ride.

[00:32:40] We weren't scared about getting into the car with him because he wasn't much older than us, and he was a pretty handsome guy. So naturally, being young and naive, we asked him if he could drop us off downtown.

[00:32:56] He had no hesitations as he claimed he was also going downtown. We got into the car and headed towards the highway to downtown. We then started to notice there was something off about this guy.

[00:33:13] He had offered us plenty of cigarettes and alcohol to drink while in his car. The car ride should have taken no more than 15 minutes. However, once we passed a specific intersection where he should have turned left, he actually turned right.

[00:33:32] We grew suspicious and told him he wasn't going the right way. I'm taking the scenic route, girls. You haven't finished your drinks yet, he said calmly. I then proceeded to say, we won't be finishing these, we just want to get to the bar. He didn't respond.

[00:33:55] Things escalated at this point. As we were heading into the complete opposite direction of downtown, we pleaded with him, please stop the car. He kept driving faster. I thought we were going to have some fun, he said while clicking the locks shut on our doors.

[00:34:15] We started screaming, please, please stop the car! This went on for what felt like an eternity until we saw red and blue lights flashing and sirens following them. Three RCMP SUVs blocking this man's car from going anywhere, guns pointed towards us.

[00:34:36] One officer screamed for the three of us girls to get out of the car. We gratefully complied. Once we were out and into the hands of the officers, they had the man get out of the car for questioning.

[00:34:51] After about half an hour of questioning, the officer told us someone must have been looking over us that night because this man, he was involved in sex trafficking. And on a scale of 1 to 10 of being dangerous, he was an 8. They had been watching him for months.

[00:35:11] I still get shivers when I think about that. This was one of the scariest situations I've ever been in. We did get fined for having drank alcohol in a moving vehicle, but that was nothing compared to what could have happened that night if this man was not stopped.

[00:35:29] To this day, we still don't know what happened to him. Was he let go? Is he in prison? Is he still giving rides to young girls at night? We'll never know. To the man driving the black Chrysler 300, let's never meet again.

[00:35:48] For a little background, this happened when I was around 10 years old in a small town in Missouri. Sadly, I'm 19 now and I'm still stuck in this stupid town. But regardless, the day started off pretty normal.

[00:36:18] My mom dropped me off at my best friend Jade's house to hang out for the day. Since she was a couple of years older than me, she was always getting her and I into shenanigans that 10-year-old me wouldn't normally be allowed to get into.

[00:36:36] Cussing, stealing, lying, and attempting to pick up bad habits such as smoking cigarettes. She lived with her grandmother on the rougher side of town, but since they lived near a park and the elementary school that Jade and her younger brother attended,

[00:36:52] they had freedom to roam around a little more than I was ever allowed to at my house. This particular day, I brought a couple of dollars with me that I had earned from doing chores so that I could get us some ice cream at Dairy Queen.

[00:37:06] Now, the DQ was about a block and a half further than we were supposed to go, but it was hot and I knew Jade wouldn't mind bending the rules for ice cream.

[00:37:18] We told her grandma that we were going to the park and set out on our adventure to DQ. We safely made it all the way there and decided that we would eat our cones there in the nice air-conditioned building before actually going to the park.

[00:37:35] While we were there, we happened to see a car drive by that looked exactly like her grandma's ugly maroon PT Cruiser. I got spooked and said to Jade, Uh, we should probably head back. What if your grandma is looking for us?

[00:37:55] Because this was way before her and I had cell phones. She agreed. We tossed out the rest of our cones and headed back towards the house. As we were about to cross the street from the DQ to her street, Jade notices something in the road.

[00:38:13] A half pack of cigarettes and obviously being the hooligan that she is, she decided this is the day she picks up smoking. Since I was the only one with pockets in my shorts, she told me I had to carry them.

[00:38:30] Looking back now, I realize she might have only been friends with me because she could easily boss me around. But here I am, 10 years old, walking down the street with an obvious pack of cigarettes in my pocket,

[00:38:46] sweating balls that were going to get caught too far from home with cigarettes on us. And this is just as her aunt pulls up to us walking down the street, yelling out the window.

[00:38:58] I know you girls ain't supposed to be this far from the house. Get your ass back home before I call your grandma. And then she drives off and unlike myself, Jade is not scared of punishment. She just kept walking as if nothing even happened.

[00:39:16] I'm over here shitting bricks thinking she's going to tell her grandma, then her grandma is going to tell my mom, and my mom is going to ground me until I'm 30. I got to find something to make this pack of cigarettes more discreet.

[00:39:32] I opened the first dumpster I see in hopes that there's an old cup or something with a lid that someone might have thrown away. And bingo, there it is. At this point you're probably thinking, why don't you just get rid of the pack?

[00:39:47] Well, I was terrified of Jade not wanting to be friends with me so I did whatever she told me. Anyways, I shove the pack of cigarettes into the cup and as soon as I turn around, a truck pulls up and stops right next to Jade and I.

[00:40:03] I have no idea who this man is, but because Jade seems so attentive, I assume she knows him. He yells out the passenger window, Hey, do you girls know where such and such street is? I thought it was over here somewhere.

[00:40:21] I pointed towards the way that he was headed and told him I thought it was that way, but I'm not sure. I'm literally 10, how would I know? He says thanks and drives off. Then as we're passing the school parking lot, literally three houses down from Jade's house,

[00:40:41] he pulls up next to us again and this time his driver's side door is nearest to us. You know, I have two daughters that look like you guys. I bet they might even go to the same school as you. Where do you go to school at?

[00:40:58] My alarm bells are going off now. I am now realizing that Jade in fact does not know this man. I turn around and pointed to the school literally 50 yards away from us.

[00:41:13] Neither one of us said a word, but we're slowly trying to keep walking away from this man. So I guess you live around here, huh? He asks and Jade being the smartass kid that she is mumbles under her breath. Wouldn't you like to know jackass? He blurts out.

[00:41:34] Sorry, I couldn't hear that. Could you come a little closer so I can hear you? Jade having the biggest balls of any 13 year old I know takes a huge step towards him and yells inches from his face. Wouldn't you like to? Wouldn't you like to?

[00:41:51] And before she can even finish that sentence, bam, he reaches out of the car and grabs her around her upper arm attempting to pull her into the truck through the window.

[00:42:01] I dropped the cup and grab her other arm and start screaming bloody murder praying that someone comes to help. Just as we hear two ladies yelling running towards us from the school parking lot. Jade lands on top of me and he speeds off out of there.

[00:42:21] The two ladies happened to be janitors at the school and saw what was happening. By the time they got to us, we were a crying hysterical mess.

[00:42:32] They asked us if we got the plate number and told us that they would watch us the rest of the way to Jade's house. We didn't tell anyone until years later because we thought we would get in trouble for walking too far or for the cigarettes.

[00:42:45] Looking back, I really wish we had told someone because three months later after our incident, a girl named Haley was stolen from her front yard and murdered by a man in a truck that substituted at the school Jade went to.

[00:43:02] I don't know if it was the same man but I feel like it's just too coincidental. So to the murderer that almost made my friend his first victim, I hope you rot in prison and let's never meet again.

[00:44:03] Again, if you want to support the show and get access to bonus content and merchandise, head over to patreon.com forward slash let's not meet podcast. Thank you for listening. This week you have heard Childhood Mystery by True The Toddler's Body in the Road by Listener DO

[00:44:22] The Cheery Yellow House by Lacey Mini Red Cooper Guy by Megan Smith Never Get Into Stranger's Cars by Danica And finally, I Was Almost Kidnapped by a Substitute Teacher by Maddie

[00:44:39] 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.

[00:44:50] If you want to hear your story on the show, send it to letsnotmeetstories at gmail.com. I'll see you all next week for a brand new episode. Stay safe.