6x01: Bus Driver - Let's Not Meet

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

[00:00:18] My name is Andrew Tate, and this is season six, episode one of Let's Not Meet, a true horror podcast. Hello and welcome to the season six premiere of Let's Not Meet, a true horror podcast. I hope you all enjoyed the season five finale as much as I did.

[00:01:06] I had a great time hanging out on Twitch with all of the guest readers and the viewers,

[00:01:12] and I'm already excited and hard at work planning for the season six finale as I want it to be a much longer episode with more guests and a bit of a bigger production.

[00:01:21] I know that's a ways into the future, but I wanted to pop in here just at the top of this premiere episode to give you a quick preview of what's to come in season six before we get started.

[00:01:30] I'm going to be having a lot of new guests as well as some returning favorites, but I'm also planning on putting out some more of those lost stories episodes like I did towards the end of season five just a couple of episodes ago.

[00:01:42] The feedback for that episode was extremely positive, and I got a lot of requests to do some more of those. So I will be putting together a few more of those and sprinkling those in throughout season six per request.

[00:01:56] A lot of you have never heard these stories before. They're no longer available online. It will take me some time to put them together, but I'll have them out for you as quickly as I can. But for now, I'm going to get out of your hair.

[00:02:07] Enjoy the show. I have a story to share, and let's just say it still sticks with me until this day. I don't remember the exact year, but it was either the fall of 2006 or 2007.

[00:02:39] At the time, I was college aged and dating an ex-girlfriend back in Albuquerque, New Mexico. The night of this story, I was leaving a party with my girlfriend, her best friend, and that friend's boyfriend.

[00:02:54] Before I get started, let me give you a quick backstory on the friend's boyfriend. Albuquerque is a medium-sized city that feels small. So to keep his identity hidden, let's call him Derek. Derek is a conventionally attractive male who is about six feet tall with a chiseled jawline.

[00:03:16] Everyone would joke that he looked like a model and he is financially well off. However, it felt like he had a secret that he was always hiding from us.

[00:03:29] At the time, he owned a nice house, always had new cars, and owned a timeshare in Vegas, even though his family never came from money. We were all pretty young and in school or working entry-level jobs.

[00:03:44] So this always felt off to my girlfriend and me because the only job we knew about was that he was a bartender and supposedly very good at the stock market.

[00:03:57] Every time all of us would go out, he would always have to step away for a sketchy phone call or some random dudes would approach him saying hello and he would have to leave the bar to talk to them.

[00:04:09] My girlfriend and I would always joke with each other that he was secretly a big-time drug dealer in Albuquerque. And those jokes stopped when he showed his huge gun room collection. Now I don't know how many guns, but he had it all.

[00:04:27] I mean AR-15s, AK-47s, anyone else getting Breaking Bad vibes? We were all leaving a party near the University of New Mexico probably around 1 AM on a Saturday. We were planning on ending the night at Derek's house and headed to the suburbs.

[00:04:46] I'm driving us home when we get to a red light and a sketchy low-rider car with tinted windows pulls up next to us. The tint on the windows was so dark you could barely see anyone in the car.

[00:05:00] I knew something felt off and I wanted to hurry up and to get to Derek's house. Derek and his girlfriend are in the backseat drunk and Derek decides to roll down his window and say something or give them a head nod. I can't remember exactly what.

[00:05:19] At that, everyone in the low-rider rolls down their windows with red bandanas covering their faces pointing large guns at us. At that very exact moment, I'm saying, oh my god, what the fuck. I floor it on the gas pedal and run the red light.

[00:05:39] All I'm thinking at that time is please let us get away from these people. My girlfriend yells, they just ran the red light, they're following us. There isn't any traffic at this time of night so I'm just going through every red light at about 60 miles per hour.

[00:05:57] Derek isn't scared at all and says, fuck, I forgot my gun. But fuck these guys, drive to my house and I'll take them out myself. My ex-girlfriend and I look at each other with wide eyes, what the fuck.

[00:06:13] So my dumbass listens to him and I turn into a neighborhood, probably the worst idea, and they are still following us. Derek's girlfriend is on the phone with 911 and they're telling us to get on one of the main streets as there is a cop waiting up there.

[00:06:32] I'm weaving in and out of the neighborhood with my head ducked in case they shoot and speeding trying to get out and onto the main road. Finally, we see the lights of the police car on and the low-rider turns off and stops following us.

[00:06:48] My adrenaline is pumping throughout my entire body and I can't believe what just happened to all of us. We drive back to Derek's house and he's fired up about wanting to find out who those guys were.

[00:07:03] All that was on my mind was, did they recognize Derek and want to take him out? He never admitted that he was a drug dealer and just chalked it up as some random people wanting to terrorize us.

[00:07:18] Don't ask me why, but we still continued to hang out with Derek over the next couple of years. And I have other weird stories about him, but to the random low-rider car that followed us on that terrifying night, let's not meet. And Derek, let's not hang out again.

[00:07:37] I had just graduated from Sam Houston State University and graciously took a job for an ophthalmologist in Austin, Texas where I am originally from. I moved into a nice recently renovated apartment complex one mile from downtown.

[00:08:06] My parents helped me move in and most of my extended family lived in the neighborhood so I felt comfortable. My parents were just a phone call away, including my cousin, a 6'3", former football player, and my overly protective brother who lived in Houston a three hour drive away.

[00:08:25] My job was 15 miles west of Austin, so on my drive back to my apartment I would sometimes meet up with my other cousin for a drink or two at one of our favorite bars, the G&S Lounge near downtown. We would have a few cocktails, laugh, and unwind.

[00:08:43] Then I would drive back to my apartment which I shared with a friend that I had met online. My friend, we'll call her Kat, was a cool girl, a bit of a partier, and someone who frequently saw older men.

[00:08:59] I let her do her business and focused on my work. We both had cats and would occasionally cook together and go out to local bars. Needless to say, we would have a little too much fun and would often Uber home.

[00:09:13] Kat became involved with the finer things in life and she obsessed with this new sugar daddy app called Seeking Arrangements. Many times she would offer to Venmo me money for a happy hour tab after work just so she could bring home married men for sick pleasure.

[00:09:33] One morning on a Saturday, we woke up hungover, made some coffee, and decided to go for a hair of the dog down the street and get some brunch. When we walked out, our cats vigorously tried leaving with us and we noticed something odd.

[00:09:52] My roommate was a heavy smoker, Marlboro Reds to be exact, so she had a small table with two small chairs and a cigarette pot where she would leave her cigarettes.

[00:10:04] That morning, we walked out and noticed that the chair had been positioned in a way that it was looking directly into her room. And on the table, spelled out in my roommate's cigarette butts, was a message. Hi. Spelled H-I-G-H.

[00:10:26] We both ignored it. Maybe because we were both hungover and just wanted brunch, but the messages kept happening. Austin has a large homeless population and we would often see homeless individuals walking across the street.

[00:10:40] Well, one day as I was opening my car and going to work, a man with dreadlocks and beet red eyes started banging on my window. I had seen him before, but only kindly waved. He must have been sleeping near the dumpster near our complex.

[00:10:58] This time he kept banging and asking for food and help. I did my best to diffuse the situation and eventually drove off. A few days later, again on the weekend, we received another message on the outside table.

[00:11:13] This time it was cigarette butts in the form of a smiley face. Whoever it was had sat outside our apartment making these messages and signals for us. Kat would drunkenly leave her pipe full of weed in it and would wake up with the entire bowl gone.

[00:11:35] I always felt like someone was watching us. Maybe it was because of Kat's lifestyle. She would always wear provocative clothes, Louis Vuitton red bottoms, and probably had some angry wives watching her every move.

[00:11:49] Then I get home after a night out. I had had a few drinks and my Uber dropped me off at the apartment. I walked up the stairs and opened my door. My roommate had also been out and was now in bed.

[00:12:07] It was 2 a.m. I laid down in my bed and my Kat jumped up into bed with me. My roommate and I often left our windows cracked open for a cool breeze. Our mistake. An hour into bed, I was awakened by a sound. Something moving the outside chair.

[00:12:29] And heavy breathing. My Kat was staring through the open window. I slowly got out of bed and walked to my roommate's room across the living room. I saw her, terrified and in bed. Outside there was a man staring into her half-opened window, breathing, watching her sleep.

[00:12:51] Sitting there with a cigarette. It was lit. Just watching her. We screamed and me being the tough person that I thought I was, ran to the door and opened it. He had gone.

[00:13:08] I moved out of that apartment shortly thereafter and have since not kept in touch with my former roommate. So to the creepy cigarette guy, let's never meet again. The story takes place about 14 years ago. I was 16 and in high school at the time.

[00:13:41] Like most high school kids, I was always out and about with some friends, occasionally finding trouble but never anything serious. Well that all changed one Saturday night when trouble found us. A trouble that still haunts me to this day.

[00:13:57] It started out like any typical night, hanging out with friends at a house party. This particular party was low-key and one of my friends and I had no interest in staying. Around 10 p.m., three friends and I decided to leave and with no plans in mind,

[00:14:17] settled on just going for a drive around town in a friend's old school minivan. After a fast food stop and many failed attempts to find the next fun thing to do, we found ourselves starting to tire out and noticed that it was already midnight.

[00:14:36] Our town had a strict curfew for the teens which was 11. We were never really phased but nonetheless, it was late and we decided that it was a good time to call it a night.

[00:14:49] We began our drive back home to a friend's house, the driver, to crash in his basement for the night. As we drove down the empty streets just minutes away from our destination,

[00:15:02] a car seemingly out of nowhere tails us then proceeds to change lanes and cut right in front of our minivan. We could see they appeared to be our age and possibly kids from our school.

[00:15:19] We then found our entertainment opportunity and thought it would be funny to tail the car. Genius idea, I know, but we knew someone our age was most likely driving home also worried

[00:15:31] about curfew so it would be funny to give them a bit of a scare. They cut us off recklessly after all. After several minutes of following the car, we decided it was indeed a guy from our school

[00:15:46] and he pulled into his house which was only about half a mile from our friend's house that we were headed to. The genius ideas kept flowing and we thought it would be hilarious to do a harmless

[00:15:59] ding-dong ditch and blow our classmates cover in sneaking home late. We wait a couple of minutes, park down the block, and make our move. We ring the doorbell at what is now around 12 30 a.m.

[00:16:15] and we run back to our minivan laughing the entire time. This is where things take a turn though. We walk around the corner and see the minivan except there's something different from the way

[00:16:30] that we left it. There's a man standing under the streetlight directly in front of our minivan. Immediately we thought great here's a deadly do-right police officer pulling curfew duties

[00:16:46] but as we get closer we see that this is no cop. Our laughter turns to fear and we try to avoid the man and get into the van but that was not in his plans. The man begins to block our door.

[00:17:02] This is an old-school van with only three doors so passengers could only enter in on one side. The man then yells, what the fuck are you doing? I caught you fuckers red-handed. Very confused we ask, excuse us but who are you? The man again yelling says,

[00:17:27] I'm the neighborhood watch and I got you. Again very confused we attempt to de-escalate the situation and we tell the man that we're very sorry for the ding-dong ditching and we would promptly leave. The man was not having any of this. He then yells back,

[00:17:48] I'm going to kill you. I've got a knife and I've got a gun and I'm going to kill you all. At this moment we all switched from confused to flat-out scared. We were all standing in line

[00:18:01] staring at the man blocking our van. In a fight or flight mode I didn't even think about whether this guy was telling the truth. I just assumed the worst. I turned to my friends and just said,

[00:18:16] and just said, run. The next thing I know I'm sprinting down the empty dim lit street. To my dismay none of my friends ran with me. They all just stood there frozen in fear. In a panic I turned the next corner and dived behind a row of bushes.

[00:18:39] I could hear the man yelling, nobody else better fucking move. I'm now nested in a bush watching my friends all stand stone cold while this man begins to bark orders. He tells the driver to get into the driver's seat and one by one tells the others

[00:18:58] to get into the van and he is going to sit in the passenger seat. I'm staring in absolute disbelief that this is even happening. It again takes another dark turn. In the minivan one of my

[00:19:14] friends had his baseball gear inside including a wooden bat. The first friend loaded into the van and suddenly pops out with the bat and begins to get into a shouting match begging this man to

[00:19:29] leave us alone and get out. The man then puts his hand in his pocket yelling back that he will kill them if they don't get into the van with him. After minutes of back and forth yelling

[00:19:42] my friend puts the bat away in fear that this guy would shoot or stab someone. They all get into the van with the man and drive off. My stomach felt like it was literally dropping.

[00:19:56] Extreme panic had set in and I started fearing that this is going to take a deadly turn and maybe the last time I ever see my friends. I try calling everyone in the van and I get no answer.

[00:20:11] I then dial 911 but I was too scared to actually make the call. We're all 16 and out well past curfew playing pranks. I wasn't thinking clearly though. I then decide to run to my friend's house

[00:20:27] and wait there and if I don't see or hear from my friends in 10 minutes I would wake up his parents for help. About two minutes into my frantic run I see a cop car flying by. I immediately start doing

[00:20:41] jumping jacks trying to get his attention but he doesn't see me at all. I then continue to run back praying I would see my friends again. After several minutes that seemed like hours of sitting on the

[00:20:55] front lawn I get a call from one of them. They say they are alive and to meet at the house that I'm already at. Minutes later my friends show up white as ghosts. They said that the man was drunk

[00:21:11] walking back from a local bar. During the ride the man punched my friend driving the car several times saying that he was thinking of what to do with them. Once they pulled up to the house the

[00:21:25] man got out and demanded my friends get out. The drunken man made the mistake of stepping out of the van and my friends immediately peeled out with the door wide open. The odd thing was the house

[00:21:41] was right in the middle of our community where we all lived. Without getting any answers my friends escaped unscathed. We debated the whole night whether we should call the police or not and

[00:21:54] ultimately decided to count our lucky stars and leave it alone and avoid that block that he lived on like the plague. Now our story made for great gossip material among our school and before long

[00:22:07] the whole school heard of our story. It was a week or two later that a girl in my class approached me and asked me if this story was indeed true. I told her yes and she asked if it was that specific

[00:22:24] date and time. When I said yes again her eyes grew wide. She said, I live on that block your van was parked and how all the yelling woke up their whole house. Their parents called the police

[00:22:40] and when the police arrived we were all gone. I'm certain this was the cops speeding past me on my way home. Needless to say this was a life-changing experience that shook us hard.

[00:22:54] From that point on we learned our lesson and never went out driving around late at night looking for fun again. To the man who threatened our lives and took my friends hostage for a ride home from the

[00:23:08] bar, let's not meet again. I grew up in the suburbs of Tucson, Arizona. In the summertime I spent almost every day at my friend Jade's house while my parents were at work. She lived in the kind

[00:23:33] of neighborhood that you only see in the movies. I would describe her street as a double cul-de-sac. So it was two cul-de-sacs on either end with the cross street separating them. We knew everyone on her side of the cul-de-sac, kids and old people alike. Every evening we would

[00:23:55] go out there and play with the neighborhood kids. We always felt safe. One afternoon Jade's mom, Susan, let us ride our racer scooters by ourselves down to the center cross street to check out the mail.

[00:24:11] There were probably six or seven houses between her house and the community mailbox. The neighborhood felt empty and quiet that afternoon. It was probably 2 p.m in the middle of June, aka it was easily

[00:24:27] 110 degrees. No one was going outside unless they were in a pool. As we were riding our scooters down the street, we passed a strange man that we had never seen before. He was a large man,

[00:24:42] a bit overweight, leaning against his car combing his hair. Now I thought it was strange that he was combing his hair even though he was bald on top. All he had to comb were these long stringy

[00:24:57] gray hairs on the sides of his head. He was wearing black Ray-Ban style sunglasses and a white dingy t-shirt that covered his large belly. His car was an older style two-door sports car. It was

[00:25:13] white with a black soft top. He was parked on the side of the street between our houses, not in a driveway though. This was out of place for her neighborhood. We rode past him, making it to the

[00:25:29] mailbox. As we gathered the mail out of the mailbox, we suddenly heard the sound of the car speeding past us. We looked up and we saw the white car speeding into the other cul-de-sac. It was like he

[00:25:45] was drag racing. His car was so loud and it was going so fast. I remember Jade and I looking at each other in confusion, but we just started riding back towards her house. As we came off

[00:26:00] the side of the street and into the street, I looked back to see where the white car went. It was just sitting in the other cul-de-sac. It seemed far away, so we thought we were just going

[00:26:14] to ride home as usual. As we were riding down her street, the white car made its way towards us. We started riding faster. Eventually, the car was trailing right behind us. It was driving as close

[00:26:29] to the sidewalk as possible, going slow enough to keep up with the speed of our scooters. At this point, we're terrified. Our parents had always warned us about this scenario, but we never

[00:26:43] thought it would actually happen to us, especially not in her safe neighborhood. Jade and I riding our scooters for our life. I don't remember saying anything to each other. I also don't remember the man saying anything. What I do remember is the sense of overwhelming dread

[00:27:03] that overcame me as my scooter veered off the sidewalk and into the gravel. If this has ever happened to you, you know that as a scrawny nine-year-old girl picking up your scooter from

[00:27:17] out of the gravel, it's rather difficult. Not to mention that this is exactly how your scooter manages to swing around and wreck your ankles. I saw Jade ride further and further away from me

[00:27:31] as I struggled to shove my scooter out of the gravel. I'm glad I didn't look back at the man. I can only imagine what he was plotting. I managed to get back onto the sidewalk and catch up to Jade.

[00:27:47] We ended up having to cross the street to get to her driveway. I was sure he was going to try and run us over. Thankfully, her garage door was open. As the man pulled up and into Jade's driveway

[00:28:02] close behind us, we threw our scooters down and weaved between the cars parked outside. We ran into Jade's house and at this point we were both screaming and crying. We told her mom, Susan, that there was a man parked in the driveway trying to kidnap us.

[00:28:22] Susan knew that the garage door was still open and there was a very good chance that he could have been inside the garage or trying to get further into the house. Susan locked and barricaded

[00:28:33] the door with the heaviest thing in the room, the laundry hamper. She then called 911. We recounted the entire situation to Susan while she was on the phone but we didn't actually talk to the police.

[00:28:48] By the time they showed up, the man was gone. I think Jade and I spent the rest of the afternoon on her couch watching Dr. Phil and Oprah. We were too scared to go back outside and play with

[00:29:00] the neighborhood kids. Later that evening, my dad found out about what happened. He sat me down and asked me why I didn't drop the scooter and just start running when it got stuck in the gravel.

[00:29:15] Because it's not my scooter, it's Jade's. I didn't want to get in trouble for losing her scooter. I swear he almost broke down. He told me that we did a good job running away from the man but if

[00:29:28] that were to ever happen again, it would be okay for me to drop everything and run for my life. I've always wondered what happened to that man. Was he really trying to kidnap us? Did he see the

[00:29:42] cars parked in the garage and realize that there was an adult that could intervene with his plan? Or was he just trying to scare us for the fun of it? Also, did he ever kidnap anyone?

[00:29:57] We never saw or heard from him again. Now as a 26 year old woman, I still get a pit in my stomach telling this story. I know my friend Jade remembers it well too. Thank you for reading my story.

[00:30:11] It's not one that many people in my life know about but it's one that will stick with me forever. This happened many years ago but it still haunts me to this day and to be honest,

[00:30:37] I have no doubt that God was watching over me during these haunting months. To give a little bit of background, my mom and I had just moved in with my mom's boyfriend and now husband right on the county line smack dab in between these two tiny towns

[00:30:54] in southern Indiana. When I say we lived in the middle of nowhere, I mean it. When we first moved in, the address was a rural route which just as soon as I finally memorized it, we received a

[00:31:10] letter indicating that our address was being modernized as they said to make it easier in the case of an emergency. As expected, the move caused me to have to change schools and since

[00:31:24] we lived on the county line, I quickly learned that the bus route to and from school took literally an hour every day. In the beginning, I didn't mind it because for the remaining 30 minutes on the way

[00:31:39] home, it was usually just me and a couple of other kids so I considered this my me time. Something I didn't really have at home since my stepdad was very strict and very nosy. So much so that he

[00:31:56] removed my door from its hinges because he claimed I was always hiding things from him and being sneaky when all I really wanted was to just be left alone and allowed to relax. But enough

[00:32:09] about that situation, that's not why I'm here. The bus driver, I'll name him Jay. He was an older gentleman probably in his late 50s. Initially, he was a very nice and quiet man. My first few days on the bus,

[00:32:29] I sat near the front with all the little kids although I was around 13 or 14 years old. My only reason for doing this was because I was a shy girl that was in a whole new environment

[00:32:42] so my main focus was to sit down immediately as well as get off the bus as quickly as possible. This caused Jay to try and spark up conversations with me. Just the usual stuff such as

[00:32:58] introducing himself and asking how I'm liking the new school, etc. He seemed like he was just trying to be nice and make me feel less out of my element being on a new bus and around people that

[00:33:12] I had never met before. After about a week, I had made friends with a girl who was not only in all of my classes but she also luckily rode my bus so she and I started sitting together as we rode the

[00:33:28] bus home. I went from riding in the front of the bus with all of the little kids to being welcomed to the back of the bus with all the middle school or high school kids, people more in my age group.

[00:33:42] This didn't seem to sit well with Jay for some reason. His demeanor seemed to change for the negative. He started being more aggressive to everyone especially the little kids in the front

[00:33:56] of the bus. He'd start screaming at them if they got too loud or if they sat up on their knees to talk to their friends who sat either in front or behind them. He literally slammed on the brakes

[00:34:09] sometimes in the middle of a busy road. He didn't care where we were as long as he made that poor kid listen to him and sit down. It got so bad that sometimes a couple of kids got hurt when he'd go

[00:34:23] from driving 55 or 60 miles per hour to slamming on his brakes as hard as he could. On top of this bizarre behavior, Jay seemed to target me. When it was my turn to get off the bus, Jay would hold

[00:34:38] his arm out to block me from descending the stairs to my freedom and would ask, are your parents home? Are your parents going to be home soon? Which always made me incredibly

[00:34:52] uncomfortable because well in my opinion it was none of his business. So I said they were home every single time. Although in reality my mom and stepdad worked swing shifts so usually I was home

[00:35:08] alone for a few hours most days. He started doing this out of nowhere. To my knowledge, I hadn't ever given him any impression that I was going to be home alone at any previous time talking with him.

[00:35:22] He even began winking at me every morning as I climbed up onto the bus stairs and quickly rushed to my seat in the back, sinking as deep into the seat as my body allowed me to just to feel hidden.

[00:35:37] This became a daily occurrence and when we would stop every evening he'd never speak loud enough for any of the older kids to hear who were sitting in the back of the bus but that wouldn't stop them

[00:35:51] from noticing and asking me why he wouldn't let me get off the bus without talking to me under his breath. There were even a few times the high schoolers would pick fun and claim Jay had a

[00:36:04] crush on me which only made me increasingly more uncomfortable. To be honest there were a couple of times I intentionally missed the bus because Jay was making me more and more uncomfortable with his

[00:36:18] winking and curiosity of where my parents were and if they were going to be home when he dropped me off. A couple of times I intentionally skipped the bus ride were never positive experiences due

[00:36:31] to it enraging my stepdad. He would cuss and shout and make me feel like an utter failure and a piece of garbage for not being up for the bus. My only options were either being hit on by a creepy bus

[00:36:45] driver or be mentally abused and belittled by my stepdad. I felt defeated and decided to take my chances continuing to ride Jay's bus. I'm sure some of you are wondering if I told my mom and

[00:36:59] stepdad what was happening and to ease that curiosity I'd like to let you all know that I definitely did at first. My stepdad never took it seriously and treated it as if I were asking for

[00:37:15] it somehow or that I was lying to them because in his mind I was desperate for attention. Anytime my mom would try to take my side he would shout at her claiming she was babying me. I could tell

[00:37:28] she felt defeated as well in her own way so although I had told them about what was happening it didn't feel like it had been taken serious at all. Now this is where I truly thank God for my

[00:37:42] safety. One morning I woke up and made sure I was up and ready to go when that dreaded bus would slowly pull up in front of my house. I can see that day so clearly it was winter time and although

[00:37:59] there hadn't been any snowfall yet I remember taking a mental note of the beautiful frost that had formed on the glass of the storm door. I stood by it every morning before the bus arrived

[00:38:13] I remember looking at the clock and seeing that it was 6 50 a.m. Jay and his ugly yellow bus would be there any minute or so I thought. 7 a.m. rolled around and I thought to myself okay maybe one of

[00:38:29] the kids were a little delayed getting on the bus causing it to be here later than usual. 7 15 still nowhere to be seen. When 7 30 a.m. came the panic set in. Did I not wake up early enough?

[00:38:47] Did the bus come earlier than usual? What am I going to tell my mom and stepdad? My heart sank and I started to shake a little thinking about having to call my mom and stepdad at work

[00:38:58] letting him know that I had missed the bus again. I didn't want to get in trouble and something told me I hadn't missed the bus. If anything I was convinced that the bus didn't come by my house

[00:39:12] at all. I decided to call my mom because I knew she would handle the news a little better than my stepdad and boy was I right. I explained that I had been sitting there waiting for almost an hour

[00:39:24] and the bus never showed so she called the school to ask if something had happened to the bus. My principal explained to her that the bus had already dropped off the kids at school

[00:39:37] so he called Jay and according to Jay he accidentally missed my stop. It seemed odd since he had been picking me up every single morning Monday through Friday for months now.

[00:39:50] Anyhow the principal let my mom know that Jay was coming to pick me up in the bus which which realizing I was going to be on the bus with Jay completely alone this scared the hell out of

[00:40:06] me. I shit you not almost an hour later I hear the vehicle pull into our driveway and I see that Jay had come out to personally pick me up but not on the bus in his own vehicle. Once again my heart

[00:40:25] sank. He knocks on the back door and I fight not to show any fear or panic in my face as I open it quickly rushing past him and closing the locked door behind me all in one somewhat swift movement.

[00:40:42] When he led me towards the car I asked him why he didn't bring the bus. He ignored my question and opened the passenger door winking at me. I wanted to get sick

[00:40:56] and I'd be lying if I said that my mental state wasn't collapsing with every step. I was both terrified of the consequences of staying home and dealing with the wrath of my stepdad as well as

[00:41:08] terrified of getting into the car not knowing what was going to happen next. Everything was everything inside of me was screaming because both options were potentially awful. Against my better judgment I got inside he slammed the passenger door shut and I reluctantly buckled

[00:41:30] my seat belt and stared out the window just trying to keep myself composed and not show any weakness or fear. He gets into the driver's seat buckles and backs out of the driveway

[00:41:45] turning in the direction of one of the back roads that would eventually lead to my school. This gave me a slight relief knowing that we were at least heading in the right direction but Jay was driving so incredibly slow that we might not have been moving at all.

[00:42:04] Shortly after we left my house he begins trying to talk to me but I can't bring myself to respond louder than a whisper. I guess noticing that I wasn't really interested in talking I hear him

[00:42:18] struggling with something and glance over at him quickly to see that he's trying to pull something out of his pocket. When he finally retrieves it he hands me a small laminated

[00:42:32] piece of a newspaper clipping. I was so confused until I flipped it over and saw that it was a picture of me. He had clipped it out and laminated a photo. I guess the local paper

[00:42:47] had taken of me and a couple of classmates at school but he cut out the classmates and all that was left was me. Now if all this isn't incredibly alarming enough he then begins telling me how beautiful he thought I was and that when he saw that picture

[00:43:08] he knew it was his chance to get a picture of me and laminate it to preserve it for as long as he could. You can't make this shit up. I wanted to dive out of that car so badly. I almost did

[00:43:24] until the realization of what was going to be waiting for me at home hit me. He thankfully did take me to school but Jay drove slow as slowly as possible and complimented my looks

[00:43:40] the entire ride. When I told my mom she was obviously furious, thankfully not at me, but at my school for allowing this bus driver to pick me up in his personal car instead of the bus.

[00:43:52] My principal had no idea and he was shocked. Jay ended up losing his job not long after and the bus driver we had after that was the kindest most incredible woman we could have ever

[00:44:04] asked for. I'll be turning 29 in a week and this was my first time ever writing this out to share with anyone other than my mom and my boyfriend. It still gives me extreme anxiety thinking about it.

[00:44:18] I've kicked myself in the backside many times for putting myself in such a potentially dangerous situation as a child but as I said in the beginning God was truly watching over me and I'm forever thankful for the protection. As for Jay the creepy nosy winking bus driver

[00:44:36] I don't know nor care where you are today but let's not meet ever again. I kind of broke the rules this time around. I normally use the seasonal format as an excuse

[00:44:58] to come up with some new music for all of the episodes in each season but I enjoyed the music in season five so much and many of you did as well that I figured I'm just not going to try and

[00:45:08] fix something that isn't broken and just keep things the way they are. I really enjoy it. In any case thank you so much for listening to this week's episode of Let's Not Meet, a true horror podcast. This week you have heard Near Death Chase by Listener James,

[00:45:25] Creepy Cigarette Man by StorySoltex, Hostage Car Ride by Raphael, Nine Year Old Girls Almost Kidnapped by Selena Moreno and finally Creepy Mr. J by Lauren. All of the stories you've heard this week were narrated and produced with the permission of their respective authors. Let's Not

[00:45:49] Meet, a true horror podcast is not associated with Reddit or any other message boards online. If you want to hear your story on the show send it to letsnotmeetstories at gmail.com.

[00:45:59] If you want to get access to all of the bonus episodes every single week as well as much more bonus content and exclusive merchandise head over to patreon.com forward slash let's not meet podcast

[00:46:10] or follow the link in the show notes. I'm also going to be uploading all of the videos from the live stream that we did last weekend to the Patreon so they will be available there forever

[00:46:20] for you to go back and watch as you please. Thank you for all of your support. Thank you for sticking with me for all of these years throughout the life of Let's Not Meet, a true horror podcast.

[00:46:31] It's been a great ride and I'm happy to be back for another season. We have a lot of great things coming up. Thanks again. I'll see you all next week.