5x19: Mother's Day - Let's Not Meet (Feat. Weekly Creep)

[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.

[00:00:16] My name is Andrew Tate and this is Season 5, Episode 19 of Lets Not Meet, A True Horror Podcast. This happened back in the 1980s. I'm a female and was about 20 years old at the time.

[00:01:22] I had a female roommate, Carrie. One of our favorite things to do was to spend Friday nights smoking weed and watching horror movies. We would completely freak ourselves out and stay up all night scared and paranoid from whichever horror film we had just seen. We would check the

[00:01:43] doors and windows to make sure that they were all locked. We would jump at every noise. We would spend hours discussing the stupid things that the characters did or should have done and what we

[00:01:56] would have done to survive the movie. I don't know why we did this to ourselves every single week, but it was just fun to be stoned and scared. I can't remember why, but this particular fall,

[00:02:10] the weed dried up. We lived in the suburbs of Atlanta, so we never had a problem getting anything that we wanted whenever we wanted it. We tried every contact we knew. No one had weed.

[00:02:25] Everyone we knew was trying to find some. This went on for several weeks. We stopped doing our Friday night horror movie nights because it just wasn't as much fun sober. A little backstory about

[00:02:39] me, I'm originally from the Appalachian Mountains in East Tennessee and had moved to Atlanta when I was very young. My hometown is a very small and isolated town that sits in the valley surrounded

[00:02:53] by beautiful mountains. There are no subdivisions. People live on large farms in this area, and your nearest neighbor could be miles away. Like I said, very isolated. Most of my extended family, grandparents, cousins, aunts, and uncles lived in that area. I remembered one of my cousins telling

[00:03:15] me that people grew weed all over these mountains. They grew it between rows of corn and tobacco. So one weekend, we had the idea, my roommate and I, to take a road trip to my hometown and see if

[00:03:31] we could score some of this mountain weed. It was about a five-hour drive. We arrived in town just before sundown. I use the word town very loosely. It's more like one small mom-and-pop store,

[00:03:47] a gas station, and a red light. We decided to hang around in the store parking lot with the hopes of meeting someone who could assist us with our weed endeavors. One thing about small towns,

[00:04:00] news travels fast. Soon, guys and their big muddy four-wheel drive trucks began to pull into the store and check out the two girls who weren't from around here. We struck gold with one of these guys.

[00:04:14] He was growing weed and had plenty of it. We were excited, but first he wanted us to come to a party that was taking place in a large field not too far from his house, and then we could go back

[00:04:28] to his house and he'd give us all the weed that we could tote out of there, as he said. We agreed and followed him into the middle of this huge field in the dark. I know, I know,

[00:04:40] to be such horror movie aficionados, we were doing everything wrong. This is the part of the movie where Carrie and I would have been yelling at the TV, stop, don't do it, don't go with him.

[00:04:53] But we went. Sure enough, there was a large group of people gathered in the field. A bonfire was going, the country music was blasting, and beer was flowing. The smell of weed hung thick in the air.

[00:05:09] We were in heaven and having a great time with our new friends. We partied with them for hours out in this field, and everyone started to head home. Our friend who

[00:05:21] had invited us to the field said, come on and follow me to the house and I'll get you that weed, and if you guys need a place to crash, you can do that too. We had not planned this far in advance.

[00:05:34] Dumb, I know. We were in the middle of nowhere and at least 50 miles from a town with a hotel. We had been drinking and we were stoned. We would also have to cross the winding mountain roads in

[00:05:49] pitch dark to get out of this town. There are no streetlights out in the country. We stared at him in silence. The weed paranoia had begun to set in. I think we both realized

[00:06:02] at this moment that we were dumb girls in a horror movie. So I hesitantly asked, you live alone? No, he said. I live with my mom, dad, and brother. Don't worry, they won't care a bit if you stay. Folks are always coming and going from the house. Plus,

[00:06:23] my mom has insomnia so she'll be up watching TV and she loves to talk. So we agreed to follow him. In the car, we discussed if this was smart but what else are we going to do at this time of night?

[00:06:40] We finally decided that we were just being paranoid and that this guy had been nothing but nice to us. We drove for miles following him around these winding gravel roads. The entire time, all I could think about as I looked out into the endless darkness was,

[00:07:00] they'll never find our bodies out here. We arrived at his house. It was an old white farmhouse with a tin roof. It looked weathered and tattered but people are poor in this area so it's not unusual

[00:07:15] to see houses in disrepair. There was a dim light on in the house and I could see the flickering of lights on the TV. I guess his mom did have insomnia after all. I pushed the paranoia out of my mind

[00:07:30] and got out of the car. He said, let's go get the weed. So we followed him to a barn behind the house. The dogs and the pen were howling at us and he yelled for them to shut up. He opened the barn

[00:07:47] and picked up the flashlight. No electricity in the barn. He shined the light onto the biggest piles of marijuana we had ever seen. Holy shit, if this guy lived in a city, he would be making

[00:08:01] a killing. He grabbed a brown grocery sack and stuffed it full of marijuana and handed it to us. He said, sell this to your city friends and then when you come back for more, you can pay me.

[00:08:17] We thought, wow what a trustworthy and generous guy and we agreed to this arrangement. We were going to get rich from all this weed that he had. Then he headed towards the house and we

[00:08:29] followed as we excitedly chatted about our new fruitful business arrangement. He opened up the front door and we went in. I don't know how to begin to describe what I saw upon entering the

[00:08:42] house. I still remember it so vividly yet I can't put it into words. It's the thing nightmares are made of. There in the living room was an old lady that he called Ma. She was in a house coat,

[00:08:59] sitting on a tattered sofa, watching TV. The years had not been kind to her. She was missing most of her teeth. One eye was permanently closed and she was chewing tobacco and spitting it into

[00:09:12] an empty Coke bottle. She was very excited to meet us and yammered on but I have no idea what she was saying. There was something not mentally right with her because her actions and excitement

[00:09:25] were childlike. She was like a 12 year old girl trapped in an old woman's body. She seemed way too old to be this guy's mother so maybe it was his grandmother. Anyway, she was laughing and clapping her hands and chattering. We just smiled and laughed with

[00:09:44] her. I turned and mouthed to Carrie, we gotta go and she nodded in agreement. I looked around the living room and the inside of the house was in very bad repair. The aged brown wallpaper was

[00:10:00] peeling off the walls. There were missing boards on the floor. The couch was missing its legs and sitting on cinder blocks. There were holes in the ceiling and when I looked up at one of the holes

[00:10:13] there was a pair of eyes looking back at me. My heart stopped and I jumped back. The eyes disappeared and I heard heavy footsteps running across the floor above me and then down the stairs.

[00:10:27] I was freaking the fuck out. What the hell was going on in this house? In came a bouncing teenage boy who looked about 17. I say bouncing because he was literally

[00:10:40] bouncing off the walls. He was a very large, tall and heavy guy. He says, hey meet my baby brother. We stutter out a hello as he's trying to get very close to us. He wants to hug us but the guy that

[00:11:00] brought us there pulled him off of us. It's clear that he may also have some kind of disability. He's like an oversized six-year-old. He's jumping around the house singing and jumping off and on the furniture. The old lady is laughing hysterically at him. Her toothless grin wide open

[00:11:19] with black spit from the tobacco dripping out. We are horrified. Casually, Carrie touches my arm and nods towards the stairs. I slowly turn to look and all up the stairs and on the walls is graffiti.

[00:11:38] Very bad graffiti. It's black spray paint in zigzag patterns, circles and squares like a preschool art project gone bad. Like you see in abandoned houses. I see the words I love you mommy

[00:11:53] spray painted up the stairs. I look at Carrie and we both say at the same time Mother's Day. A reference to the 1980s horror movie titled Mother's Day about a demented old woman who lives

[00:12:08] in a shack in the woods with her two crazy sons. They capture female campers, torture, rape and kill them for the delight of their mother. I looked at Carrie to let her know it was really time to go.

[00:12:23] There was a dad somewhere in that house and I did not want to meet another of his family. I turned to the guy and say we have to go. I forgot that I have to work tomorrow.

[00:12:39] I was in such shock that that was all I could utter. At that moment, all I wanted was to get the fuck out of that house. Carrie and I moved quickly towards the door with the lights on.

[00:12:51] I could now see the spray paint on the ceilings and the walls of the kitchen, even on the appliances. I open up the front door and we head out onto the porch. We are moving quickly but

[00:13:02] trying not to run full on to the car. Carrie fumbles for the keys but she manages to get the doors open and we jump into the car. The guy comes running out towards us with his lumberjack brother

[00:13:13] in tow. God they're going to kill us I think. When he gets closer I can see that he's waving the bag of weed at us. Don't forget this you dummies and then he laughs. We had left it as

[00:13:29] we hurriedly exited this nightmare clown house. He then says be careful we'll see you in a couple of weeks. Just think about all the money we're going to make. I smile at him and say yep two

[00:13:44] weeks we'll see you then. I had no intention of seeing this guy ever again. Carrie whips the car around and we headed down the bumpy gravel road as fast as we could. We have no fucking clue which

[00:13:58] way to go but we just kept driving. We didn't say a word. We both kept checking for headlights behind us just in case. Two hours later we find ourselves in Virginia. We had gone the wrong way. We didn't

[00:14:14] care we just wanted to get away from that fucking crazy farm. We stop at the first hotel that we see and check in. Close the door lock it put the chain on the door position the desk chair under the

[00:14:27] doorknob and then we fall into the bed and begin laughing hysterically. I have no idea why we were laughing. We finally made it back to Atlanta with plenty of weed but we never watched horror movies

[00:14:40] again. We started watching comedies instead. We just wanted to forget the whole night. I lost touch with Carrie over the years but we recently reconnected on social media. The first thing she

[00:14:53] said to me was do you remember Mother's Day in Tennessee? We spent the next few hours talking about that night and how completely stupid we were and how lucky we were to be alive. Crazy Farmer, let's not meet again.

[00:15:24] My guests this week are Adam and Dulce of Weekly Creep, a podcast about true crime, the supernatural, and everything in between. Weekly Creep is a podcast for all your true crime needs as well

[00:15:36] as your spooky needs. Each week Dulce and Adam surprise each other with a new topic and you get to learn about it with them. It's a funny show, it's a creepy show, it's a heartwarming show. I

[00:15:47] love these two and I'm happy to have them on my podcast and check out their podcast wherever you get your shows. This happened when I was 20 and still a naive girl who thought she was an adult

[00:16:03] and knew how to handle herself in the world. I'm 28 now and reflecting on this story really makes me angry at myself because of how careless I was with my choices. I'm from Dublin, Ireland and

[00:16:15] really you don't hear many stories like this in Ireland. This is why I believe people need to know the dangers and how a simple situation can escalate so quickly if you're not thinking. At 20 I moved

[00:16:26] out of home for the first time and moved in with my boyfriend to somewhere close at the college where I can have less of a commute each day. My college was about six kilometres, nearly four

[00:16:37] miles for the American listeners. I didn't think it was worth the money to get a bus to and from college each day when I was so close, so I decided I would start cycling to and from college each day.

[00:16:49] Being a student I didn't have much money to go buy myself a bike, so a friend of mine that lived quite close to the college offered me her bike to use as she could walk with ease to and from

[00:17:00] college. I graciously accepted her offer and arranged a day to go over and collect it from her. My intention was to go over straight after college, that being roughly 7pm once all my

[00:17:11] lectures were done, and collect the bike and cycle at home. Of course I get there after college and some friends of ours are there having some drinks and smoking some joints. Being 20 and in college

[00:17:22] of course I was going to partake. I passed on the alcohol as I knew I had to cycle home and opted for a few blows to the joint being passed back and forth. A few hours passed and I realised it's dark

[00:17:34] outside and pushing 11pm, so I tell everyone I should get going as I have to cycle. One of our friends who is high as fuck offers to drive me home with the bike in the back.

[00:17:45] I refuse. Not wanting to sit nervously the whole way while worrying he's going to crash being so high and careless on the roads. Mistake number one. So off I set on my bike to cycle home.

[00:17:58] The route I take from my friend's house cuts through a huge shopping centre complex, the biggest in Ireland in fact. We call it Blanchardstown Centre, or more commonly known locally as just The Centre. As you cycle through you are surrounded by giant car parks on either

[00:18:15] side with shops creating the perimeter around the car parks to enclose the huge complex. One thing I forgot to note is that I have a heart arrhythmia which can cause heart palpitations, dizziness and lightheadedness when I'm having what I call an episode. These episodes can

[00:18:33] sometimes be triggered by intense cardio which is exactly what happened this night. As I cycled through the centre and came to where all of the bus stops are located within one spot, I felt an episode coming on. Now to preface this, it is 11 o'clock at night,

[00:18:50] the centre is completely empty, no cars or people in sight, all shoppers and staff now gone home. I'm feeling my heart start to pound faster and faster. I start to feel a bit dizzy,

[00:19:04] so I decide to stop at one of the bus stops with a shelter and bench to rest for a moment. I'm sitting there waiting for the episode to pass when suddenly I get this uneasy feeling,

[00:19:14] a feeling of being watched. Being the true crime fan I am, I know not to ignore that feeling and trust my instincts, so I stand up and move away from the light which is illuminating me for all

[00:19:26] to see and retreat to the corner of the bus stop which is not covered by the overhead light. Me, thinking I'm clever and have to outwit the person I feel but cannot see watching me

[00:19:37] as they cannot observe me while out of the light. I stand in the shadows for a few more minutes and my episode starts to subside. I still have that uneasy feeling, but I know now I can get

[00:19:49] back on my bike and get the fuck out of there, so I start to calm myself a bit, telling myself I'm just being paranoid from the previous joints consumed throughout the evening. Mistake number

[00:19:59] two. Like in a movie, a split second after I think I'm safe and ready to keep on going, a man emerges from the shadows as if from nowhere and begins to walk towards me. He's about 100

[00:20:13] yards away from me. Even though there's a good distance between us, I know he's going to be a pest. Don't ask me how I knew, but I just knew this arsehole was going to be a problem from the

[00:20:24] way he stood there not moving, just staring at me. But me, being the stupid 20 year old that I was and thinking I'm tough because I grew up in a rough neighbourhood, I shout at the man,

[00:20:37] are you alright there? In a threatening, fed up kind of tone. He doesn't respond. I stand there in a stance of annoyance and huff and puff, and as I go to shout again, he says something so low

[00:20:50] I can't hear him, but his face contorts into this unyielding, unnerving smile that I'm taking aback. With that, I internally say, fuck this, and throw my leg over my bike, and just as I'm about to take

[00:21:04] off I realise this guy is in my path. My only way home is past him. Now this is mistake number three. Which I regret to this day, and honestly still feel the inner rage at myself all these years later as I type this story.

[00:21:22] I decided in my inner monologue that this guy looks like either an active or former drug user. Heroin is a big problem here in Dublin, and this guy showed all the classic signs.

[00:21:34] He wobbled in his stance almost drunk like. But growing up where I did, I knew this was a drug thing, not a drink thing. He was about 5'8", raked in, wearing a matching tracksuit with Nike Air Max

[00:21:49] runners. Me being a ballet dancer all my life and a very active person, I felt I could take him if it came to it, him being so fragile. With this, I made that stupid fucking choice to cycle right

[00:22:05] past this fucker to get where I wanted to go. So I take off cycling towards this man, and he watches me approach the whole time with this unnerving smile on his face, his eyes turning

[00:22:16] almost predator like in how he watched me. I knew right then and there that I had made a fucking mistake. But it was too late to turn around, right? Wrong. I should have turned around, but no.

[00:22:32] Prideful me had to continue with my chosen path no matter what. I cycle past him slowly, but not too slow that he could stop me or intercept me without getting even a little hurt if I hit him.

[00:22:46] I'm glaring at him with the most intense bitch face I can muster within me, sending out the fuck off vibes. As I pass, he swings around to watch me and I hear him say,

[00:22:58] I like feisty. A shiver goes down my spine and I begin to cycle harder, keeping in mind I cannot overdo it as I just had an episode and triggering another one can be dangerous. As I think this

[00:23:13] and stay conscious of my pace, I hear scuffles on the concrete ground behind me, like someone is running. Before looking around, I quickly try to process this noise. Who could be running?

[00:23:26] There's no one around and that fucker I just passed looked like he couldn't pick up a heavy coat never mind run this intensely. Wrong again. I turn to see who was behind me and there he is,

[00:23:39] the creep from the bus stop, running full sprint after me. I stare at him in wide-eyed disbelief and turn to continue pedaling, but this time as fast as I fucking could.

[00:23:51] I'm still trying to make it to the main road and get out of the centre, but as I mentioned before, this is the biggest shopping centre complex in the whole of Ireland. It's completely cut off

[00:24:01] and the only way to get to the main road is to go through the whole thing. As I'm frantically cycling like my life depends on it, I'm glancing back to see if he's making progress. I cannot believe how

[00:24:13] quickly he is running or where he mustered this strength and stamina from looking so fragile earlier. Tears begin to fill my eyes as I realise I can feel another episode coming on. I scream to myself in my head, please not now, not fucking now.

[00:24:33] I ignore the obvious signs of my heart begging me to stop this exertion, but I can't, if I stop he catches me and I don't know what his intentions are if he does, but I do not want to find out.

[00:24:48] I'm still cycling, glancing back to see where he is. His eyes are wild and he runs with such force and rigidness. I think to myself he must have done some sort of athletics, this is not

[00:24:59] normal. He's so close to me now I'm almost sure he's going to catch up with me when suddenly I realise I can hear cars. We're so close to the main road and the exit out of the centre.

[00:25:11] People, safety, it's all I want. I suddenly got a boost of adrenaline, that last bit I needed to power through not only a terrifying chase by a psycho but through my heart episode. By now I should have passed out,

[00:25:26] but the adrenaline and my survival instincts kept me going. Finally I can see the main road, just 30 more seconds, but in those 30 seconds he could catch me and we're surrounded now by a

[00:25:38] wooded area on this last stretch and all I can think about is how I will not be another one of those news stories like the ones I read which pique my interest to know how this girl got into

[00:25:48] this situation. Well here I was living it and I could not have felt more fucking stupid for getting myself here. I finally hit the main road and made a hard left into moving traffic, not caring if I got hit, just wanting away from that motherfucker.

[00:26:03] Thankfully the car I pulled out in front of had time to react and not hit me and as I pulled to a halt, surrounded now by screeching tyres, I looked right at him. He's stopped at the corner

[00:26:15] of where the entrance to the centre meets the main road. He stares at me and smiles again, that horrible smile, and he turns, casually, and walks away like nothing has happened. He didn't run, he didn't really do anything, he looked like a normal guy, no swaying like before

[00:26:36] and he put his hands in his pockets and strolled away without a care in the world while whistling. I stood there in complete disbelief, still standing in the middle of the main road,

[00:26:46] half mounting my bike, staring after him, when a lady gets out of her car and puts her warm hands on my shoulder and says, love are you alright? I turn to look at her and immediately

[00:26:57] see the warmth and concern in her eyes and I break down crying in her arms, shaking. Now realising the severity of the situation and how this guy had clearly planned this kind of

[00:27:09] attack, it all starts to click in my head. The guy had dressed in a certain way, acting like a drug addict who was just out of it to lure people into a false sense of security, or at least that's what

[00:27:23] I thought had happened. The police came, and an ambulance, and I was taken to hospital due to my heart condition as my heart rate would not stabilise. While in the hospital the police

[00:27:34] came to interview me as it didn't look like I was getting out soon. They asked me to walk them through the whole evening, I left out the drug part. I told them everything, described everything

[00:27:45] he wore and his face as much as I could and they took their leave with reassurances that they would catch this guy. Well to my surprise I got a call from the police 6 months later asking me to

[00:27:57] come down to speak with them. They found him, and apparently I was not the first girl this had happened to in the area. I was one of 26 reports of being chased along with 3 confirmed rapes he

[00:28:10] had committed. They wanted to know if I would stand and identify him in court. Without hesitation I agreed, and me and 14 other brave ass women stood up and put this fucking creep in prison for 7 years.

[00:28:25] I found out during the course of the trial that he used the disguise, as I thought, to look less intimidating. I know it might seem strange that we would identify a drug addict as not intimidating,

[00:28:37] but most of the heroin users around Dublin are just people down on their luck and are not bad people and tend not to cause trouble to others. I can't say the same for their poor families,

[00:28:47] but they tend to be non-violent for the most part and mostly polite to be honest. So he was using this knowledge to fly under the radar and approach women and rape them.

[00:28:58] Thankfully that fucker did his time. He's out now and I haven't heard a thing about him since. But to the creepy guy who chased me and 26 other girls and scared us to death, let's not meet again.

[00:29:11] This was roughly 16 years ago. I was in 7th grade, and I was one of those kids who was generally good but had zero interest in school. I was sitting in my math class, paying probably zero attention. The bell rings and it's time for

[00:29:45] new class. Before I can dash out the door my teacher calls me to inform me that he would like me to stay an extra hour after school so that he can work with me on some of the equations.

[00:29:58] Great, I think. But I tell him okay and go about the rest of my day. I make it through my extra hour of math hell and race out of the school to get home.

[00:30:10] So to set the scene, my school doors face east, and to walk home I would head south down the street, make two left turns, head down a decent hill, make a right, and then I was on my street and

[00:30:24] my house was two blocks down. A total of about one mile, all through neighborhoods and the hill was on a decently busy residential road. At the time, my mom would work the grave shifts, so I knew

[00:30:39] she wouldn't even notice me being home late as she was probably still asleep. I had noticed it was really quiet out. Even only an hour after school had gotten out, there was no one around. It was a

[00:30:53] chilly day, probably sometime in late January, maybe February, because I remember wearing two coats and I clung my binder to my chest. As I was coming down the hill, I noticed an old truck

[00:31:07] coming up the hill. I only noticed it because it was the first vehicle I had seen on my walk. The truck slows down and makes a u-turn and proceeds to turn down my street. Okay, whatever,

[00:31:22] they probably missed their turn. The moment I turned the corner, there that truck is, parked on the wrong side of the road, two houses down. My stomach did this weird flop and I felt gross. I immediately walked to the other side of the road and just kept going.

[00:31:42] I didn't even look over at him as I passed. He then drives past me slowly and then turns down the first side street, just a few houses down. At this point, my heart is beating so fast it feels

[00:31:57] like a hummingbird has taken root in its place and my mind has gone completely fucking blank. I have no clue what to do in this situation. There are still zero damn people around and I've lived

[00:32:13] in this neighborhood going on five years at that point, and this was not normal. I think about it now and it reminds me of when there's a predator in the woods and the little creatures all hide

[00:32:24] quietly. I'm coming to the corner, my house is literally six houses away, and I can see my front yard. I step off the corner and practically run across the road, looking behind me. A man has

[00:32:38] gotten out of the truck and is following me fast. I'm actually crying when I turn my head forward to run for my life, and as if out of nowhere a vehicle was coming towards me, a big old as hell

[00:32:52] yellow Chevy, looking like a golden chariot of all that is good and wholesome in the world. My stomach ate my heart and I briefly look back to see this attempted kidnapper guy running back to his truck, then driving off. The truck stops and a younger blonde guy says,

[00:33:12] hey was that guy bothering you? In tears, I frantically scramble out a weak ass, yeah, while nodding my head. He tells me that he'll take me home and that he had been in the

[00:33:25] area when school had gotten out and that this guy was harassing the groups of girls walking home and he still had a bad feeling, so he decided to stick around the area just in case.

[00:33:38] Thank the gods he listened to his guts. He takes me the short distance home and I burst through my front door, running downstairs to wake up my mom. She thanked him profusely and that was that.

[00:33:52] A couple of months later, I went out with my dog to go for a walk around the block. It was a small block full of playing children. The sun was in the stages before setting,

[00:34:03] still warm but bright orange and picturesque. I walk the one house over, round the corner and I get probably four houses down and suddenly that feeling looking up, which was looking right into the sun, I see that fucking truck. It was also a Chevy or maybe a GMC,

[00:34:28] this ugly ass greenish teal with custom white and purple pen striping along the bottom of the doors just sitting there on the corner that I would be turning on. I panicked and for whatever reason,

[00:34:42] I waved down a car who took me and my dog home. I was 12 and like I said, I panicked. Again, only six houses away from my home. This time my mom lost it. Getting my dog in the house,

[00:34:58] she told me to get in the car. We proceeded to chase this man around the neighborhoods at speeds way too fast while my mom gave real-time updates to dispatch officers on her cell phone. Eventually, my mom listened after several attempts by the dispatcher to disengage with this man

[00:35:19] and that they had everything they needed. So we headed home. I never saw that truck or that guy again but my mom did get one update on him a few days later. He apparently lived a city over,

[00:35:32] was married and just had a baby. They told my mom they would be doing extra patrols after school and would keep an eye out for him. I am beyond grateful that that person decided to hang around

[00:35:47] a little longer. He definitely saved my life and I hold a special hope life has found a way to reward him for his good deed. As for the creepy motherfucker who tried to kidnap me after having

[00:36:01] a baby, I hope you become a comatose vegetable so that you never get the chance to follow through with whatever sick plans you had. Let's not ever meet. When I was 14, I was asked to babysit my three younger cousins aged 8, 4 and 1 in an extremely

[00:36:31] rural mountainous part of Pennsylvania. My aunt and uncle had a wedding to go to over an hour away and wouldn't be back until very late. Their house was situated on a steep mountainside,

[00:36:44] their back deck had a 15 foot drop onto a rocky hill below leading down to a river. Their closest neighbors were about half a mile away. The closest main road was a mile away

[00:36:56] and at night there were no lights to be seen anywhere around them. Basically it was in the middle of nowhere and you would have to know where you're going to get there. You don't just

[00:37:06] accidentally end up there. My aunt and uncle left us with some pizza and their cell phone number next to their landline. I didn't have a cell phone but even if I did, I wouldn't get reception there

[00:37:18] anyway and headed out. The baby was already asleep, the four-year-old wasn't feeling well and was quietly watching TV in the living room as he dozed off and the eight-year-old was playing

[00:37:29] guitar here with me up in the loft. The loft overlooked the living room to the left where I could keep an eye on the four-year-old and there was a huge window that overlooked the driveway to

[00:37:39] the right. This description of the driveway is an important detail to the story. The road that led to their house ran straight into their forked driveway. It was a dead-end road, the house was

[00:37:51] as far as you could go. Go to the left driveway and there is a large open carport and that's where my aunt, uncle and anyone who ever visited would park. The right driveway led down a very short

[00:38:05] but very steep hill to a large leveled out area and ended up against the garage door that opened to the basement of the house. It was never used as a garage but served as my uncle's man cave

[00:38:17] and where he would spend most of his time. Right beside the garage door, a normal door with a window so you could see right in. But this driveway was exclusively used by the kids as a play area

[00:38:30] because it was the only flat yard-like area on the property and being on a mountainside, there isn't much room to safely play otherwise. No cars ever drove down there. Ever. There are too many toys

[00:38:44] and bikes in the way and friends and family knew this. It was about 10 p.m., pitch black outside, no moon to illuminate the area either. My cousin and I were still playing Guitar Hero when

[00:38:58] headlights caught the corner of my eye and not my aunt's minivan headlights, huge truck headlights with those roof lights you often see on jeeps or other off-road trucks. Not only that, the truck

[00:39:11] was going down the right driveway, the kids play area. This was not my aunt and uncle. This was not anyone they knew. Panic and dread filled my body. I was a small teenage girl, alone in an

[00:39:29] isolated house on a mountain at night with children in my care. In a terrified voice, I asked my cousin who is that? Jake, do you know whose truck that is? And then he looked panicked. No, I've never

[00:39:46] seen that truck before, he replied. I quickly ushered him downstairs, still unsure what to do, but the two little ones were sleeping down there and I wanted to make sure they were safe.

[00:39:59] I checked on the baby and then grabbed the phone to call 911 and then I started to hear the metal garage door being shaken violently. No one ever opened that garage door. More panic fills me. I hear them try the door beside it, the metal doorknob jiggling. No one

[00:40:21] was actually knocking. It's not like they were checking to see if my uncle was down there. Plus, the lights were out. It was dark down there and they knew no one was down there.

[00:40:32] They were definitely breaking in. The door leading to the basement steps was right next to the phone so I could clearly hear all of this going on. I quickly turned the little lock on the doorknob

[00:40:46] just in case they did make it to the basement. My heart was practically jumping out of my chest. I'm talking to the 911 dispatcher as my 8-year-old cousin clings to my arm. The operator is calm

[00:41:00] and trying to calm me, but I knew it would be at least 30 minutes until a police officer could get up there, assuming they didn't get totally lost on the mountainside in the pitch dark.

[00:41:14] I just kept thinking, we are fucked. We are dead. This is how I die. The operator asked for the number my aunt and uncle left me so she could have another dispatcher call them to let them

[00:41:26] know the situation. I turned around to grab the paper with the number on it and to my absolute horror, I see a man peering in the large sliding glass door. A huge, burly, what had to have been

[00:41:41] a 6'4 man with long scraggly red hair and a big red bushy beard. And what made it worse? He was grinning at me. Grinning in a way that still scares me to this day. Meanwhile, I had to have

[00:42:01] looked like a terrified deer in the headlights. I was shaking so hard I could barely hold the phone. There was a second man behind him I couldn't see as well. I have no idea what he looked like,

[00:42:14] but he was equally as tall, but a bit more lanky than the larger man at the sliding glass door. I screamed, oh god they're here! And before the 911 operator could say anything, my 8-year-old

[00:42:30] cousin goes, Mr. Jim? His voice was very confused. It wasn't like my cousin was happy or even relieved to see him. I asked, you know who that is? But before my cousin could answer, I turned my attention

[00:42:48] to the man in the door. I'm on the phone with the police! I shouted. I'm grateful he didn't try that door because I do not think it was locked. The man stared at me hard for a moment, eyebrows furrowed

[00:43:03] like deciding what he wanted to do next, but he then just backed away into the darkness. What seemed like an eternity later, I saw the truck lights back out of the driveway and then

[00:43:16] back down the road until they disappeared. I was still scared shitless and so was my cousin. He had only met that guy a few times, an acquaintance of his dad. It wasn't like it was a

[00:43:29] close family friend. And obviously, because again, he went down the wrong driveway. Visitors never go down that way. The 911 operator asked for a description of the man, then told me they'd

[00:43:43] gotten in touch with my aunt and uncle and they were on their way home. She stayed on the phone with me until the police officer showed up a bit later to make sure the men were gone and they

[00:43:54] stayed with us until my aunt and uncle got home so they can ask them some questions. My uncle was furious, not at me for calling them home early, but at this Mr. Jim guy. He muttered something like,

[00:44:09] I'm gonna fuck him up. My aunt was mad at my uncle and told him to tell Jim to never come back again. I didn't know at the time, but my uncle had a drug problem. I don't know what Mr. Jim or his

[00:44:21] accomplice were doing or what they would have done if I wasn't on the phone with the police, but that grin was not a friendly one. It was sinister. And again, he also had to have known

[00:44:35] my uncle was not there because the basement was dark. He would have seen through the windowed basement door. He also tried lifting the garage door, something not even my uncle did. He intended

[00:44:47] to break into the basement. That much is clear to me. There is no other explanation. I never did babysit for them again and I don't think I ever went back up there because not long after,

[00:45:00] my aunt divorced my uncle and moved out. So Mr. Jim, the grinning burly mountain man, who tried to break into the house where I was babysitting, let's not meet again. This story begins in 1980. I was a young girl of 11 in a small town in the state of Minnesota.

[00:45:33] I'm now 52. This was a town where you are close to your neighbors. Kids play in the streets until dark. Kick the can in the yards until the streetlights go on and all your friends' parents

[00:45:46] are your parents. I was in sixth grade at a public Catholic school, you know the ones with the plaid skirts above your knees, knee-high socks, and the white short-sleeved shirts, no matter the season. We walked to and from school 10 blocks each day along the route which was

[00:46:07] straight up our road, Warner Avenue, and then we would take a left onto Grove Street three houses down into our school. There were several other kids in the neighborhood that also went to the

[00:46:19] same school. One boy lived south of us and he would walk up to our driveway each morning to wait for my brother and I. As we went up the road, we would gather the other kids from the other

[00:46:32] homes. By the time we were at school, there were 10 of us in all. One home in particular was the Braun residence. Sheila Braun and I were good friends. We had been in the same class together

[00:46:45] since we started kindergarten. On this particular late summer day, my mother allowed me to go over to Sheila's after school and hang until dusk. It was a Friday and I could not stay the night

[00:46:59] as I was to be home before the streetlight at the end of our driveway went on. We were listening to a record in Sheila's room when her mom opened the door and said, I better get going, it's getting

[00:47:12] dark. I gathered my backpack, put on my shoes, and said goodbye. If I had to guess, it was about 8 p.m. As I walked towards my house which was seven houses, one dead-end road, and an empty lot away,

[00:47:29] I saw a neighbor girl up a dirt road hanging out with a boy on a bike and said, hey. As they went out of sight, a car came over the small hill in the road towards me. As it approached me,

[00:47:43] they slammed on their brakes and the door of this large car opened. I'm not sure why or if it was instinct, but I started running as fast as I could. When I cleared the lot of trees on my left,

[00:47:59] I entered the front yard of our neighbor three houses away from ours. I made a straight shot to the back door on our house. When I reached the back corner of my house, it was pitch black.

[00:48:13] Someone forgot to turn on the outside light. I could not see my way to our back door. I then see a man running at me up my driveway. He was so close. I screamed. What I could not

[00:48:27] believe is that I had run diagonally into the dark across people's front and side yards to my backyard and they backed up exactly to my driveway. Did they know me or my family? I could not see the

[00:48:43] man's face as the street light was behind him. I could only see the outline of his long blonde hair as he got closer. It was the era of big hair bands like Motley Crue, Rat, and Quiet Riot. He was young,

[00:48:59] maybe 18 or 23 years old. When I screamed, my parents came to the back door and the light went on. The man in the drive ran back to the car, jumped in the passenger seat, and they drove off.

[00:49:12] My father ran to the front door, but he was too late. I was very lucky that night. My parents were supposed to be gone square dancing. Square dancing was a thing in that era and my father

[00:49:24] was a square dance caller. My father wasn't feeling well when he came home from work so they stayed home. My mom told me that my older brother had accidentally locked the back door handle and if

[00:49:38] they had not been home, I would not have been able to get into the house. This guy was at the front corner of our house and I at the back corner, only 18 feet divided us. I was frozen in fear

[00:49:52] and he was running towards me when I screamed. The girl on the dirt road called my house to see if I was okay because she heard the car brakes and a minute later heard me scream. My dad called

[00:50:04] our constable. He came, asked questions, and took notes and that was the end of that. In 1980, you did not hear about kids being abducted on the news. Sexual assault? What was that to an 11-year-old?

[00:50:19] From a devout Catholic family at that, when nuns are your teachers and none of your peers have even started puberty, we were as innocent as the snow. Years later in 1992, I gave birth to my first

[00:50:33] son. One night, I had a terrible but vivid dream. A dream that was too detailed not to be true. I needed to talk to my mom. When my mom was home from work the next afternoon, I called her and I asked her

[00:50:46] about the dream. Yes, she said, that did happen exactly as I dreamed it. What the fuck? I had blocked this entire experience out for 13 years. The birth of my son and my instinct to protect him brought

[00:51:02] this memory out of my subconscious. It really does happen. I remember it all now and I have for years. I now know what kind of car it was. I've asked my older brother if he remembered who owned that

[00:51:16] kind of car during that time of our lives. He could not recall exactly, but he had some ideas. I did too. I remember that car. I still wonder what he or they would have done to me. I am thankful

[00:51:31] I could run so fast and that I had the instinct to run. Everything went right for me that night. So to you, wannabe child abductor, Let's Not Meet. Thank you for listening to this week's episode of Let's Not Meet, a true horror podcast. This week

[00:52:08] you have heard Mother's Day in Tennessee by D.O. Crazy Guy Who Chased Me, Let's Not Meet by listener Tracy. How My Bad Math Skills Almost Got Me Kidnapped by T from Utah. Mr. Jim by Kristen.

[00:52:24] And finally, a story by listener Lisa. 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

[00:52:35] not associated with Reddit or any other message boards online. If you have a story to share, as always, send it to letsnotmeetstories at gmail.com. Thanks to my guests Adam and Dulce for coming on

[00:52:47] the show this week. Don't forget to check out their show Weekly Creep wherever you get your podcasts. And don't forget if you want to get weekly half hour bonus episodes of Let's Not Meet,

[00:52:56] a true horror podcast with a bunch of other bonus content, head over to patreon.com forward slash let's not meet podcast to support the show. This podcast is not possible without the wonderful

[00:53:07] patrons. Thank you all for your support. I'll see you all next week for a brand new episode of Let's Not Meet, a true horror podcast.