9x26: The Doomsday Prepper - Let's Not Meet

[00:00:00] This podcast contains adult language and content. If you have a story to share, send it to letsnotmeetstories at gmail.com. Enjoy the show. My name is Andrew Tate and this is Season 9, Episode 26 of Lets Not Meet, A True Horror Podcast.

[00:00:51] Not long ago, I was living in New Jersey. I lived there for almost three years and went to visit my family and friends for a holiday. Sometimes I like to wander around the late night scene alone because I feel free in my

[00:01:04] identity and choosing where I want to go. Since I know quite a few people who frequent the bigger local spots, I decided to take a detour and stop by this secluded strip mall.

[00:01:19] To the side, there was this log cabin style bar illuminated by a single street lamp which bathed the shack in an orange glow. The building was reminiscent of the Dive Bar in Death Proof, which is a movie I watched recently.

[00:01:36] It stars Kurt Russell's character hunting down unsuspecting women in a haunted 1973 Mustang. The structure of this bar was falling apart and the name of the bar was scribbled on the sign written in marker. It was perfect.

[00:01:51] I walked inside and I could tell the patrons of this bar had known each other for years, so when a new face crosses the threshold, it's enough to make multiple chairs swivel around. I didn't try to make myself inconspicuous either. I'm a 5'9 blonde gay woman.

[00:02:09] I was wearing a wide brimmed hat, a concho belt, and some pricey looking chelseas. I made my way to the bar with a sense of ease knowing that I knew nobody there. I was approached by a man who seemed to be a favorite at this local spot.

[00:02:26] He bounced from person to person before finally landing on me. He was about 5' tall, covered in tattoos, with gauged ears and mutton chops. He told me that he lived in Jersey City, New Jersey before arriving in this town 15 years

[00:02:43] ago to continue his career as a tattoo artist. We instantly bonded and shared a mutual interest in MMA, genre films, and survival TV. It was clear from the get go that he was not sober.

[00:02:59] From the way that he smelled when he got up to hug me throughout our conversation, it was obvious that he had been drinking for at least a few hours. I made it clear to him that I'm only attracted to women and it seemed like he wasn't interested

[00:03:13] in pushing my boundaries or flirting with me. He was just a strange little guy looking for a friend for the night. So we kept chatting, there were no issues and everything seemed perfectly fine.

[00:03:28] At 2 in the morning, we were wrapping up our night so we exchanged social media information and went outside for a smoke to continue the conversation. Then he asked me if I could give him a lift home and he invited me to stop in for a drink,

[00:03:44] to which I said no problem as I wasn't busy for the rest of the night and he seemed like a decent guy, what could go wrong? So we went on our way. In the car, he pulled out an Altoids container, separated the wrapper, and picked out two

[00:03:59] orange pills that he washed down with Bacardi. Do you want any? He asked. I said, no, I don't do pills. I explained that I was almost a year sober from drugs.

[00:04:12] I told him when I was a teenager I would regularly hang out with people who were struggling with substance abuse. One memorable moment for me was comforting my crying friend who woke up to find her drug dealer boyfriend murdered at her bedside.

[00:04:27] I reassured him saying that everybody has their own vices but he seemed very tense about this. He went on to talk about how Adderall inspires him to be an art-making machine. He said that this was his third day with no sleep.

[00:04:45] This made me a bit nervous that he was still wanting to party despite being that sleep deprived. I had no idea what kind of pills or how many he had taken but he had been really cool up to that point. As the night developed, he became increasingly unnerving.

[00:05:05] We arrived at his place which was a 45 minute drive from where I was staying. His place was situated down a winding dirt road. He told me to stay where I was in front while he disappeared into the dark.

[00:05:20] I tapped my hands on the steering wheel waiting for what felt like forever. When he returned, he was armed with a flashlight and he waved me down to the parking space in front of his home.

[00:05:33] There wasn't a single light around that house or the clearing which it occupied. Only the faint light of the TV through the window indicated that somebody else was there. Good, I thought as I hopped out of my car. As if reading my thoughts, he said, no worries.

[00:05:52] My roommate's here. He's having a DC movie marathon. We just have to be quiet. We then entered the house. I've been to many unsettling places in my time but this place was definitely up there.

[00:06:07] The interior was wall to wall wood with a concrete floor and no furniture, just a TV, a ripped up sofa and his roommate crashing on it. There was a strong odor of tobacco, sweet smelling chemicals and cat piss permeating every inch of this place.

[00:06:29] Come this way, he requested, tightly coiling his hand around my wrist. He escorted me down to the end of the hallway to his bedroom and flipped on the light. Hundreds of revealing pictures of Miley Cyrus and a very young Britney Spears as well as

[00:06:45] other celebrities were plastered on his walls and ceiling. I think beautiful blonde women who can throw me around are just so hot, you know what I mean? He commented. Uh, yeah, I said, proceeding to make myself drink though clearly uncomfortable.

[00:07:05] Besides the pictures there were rows of weapons, tomahawks, nunchucks, machetes, knives of every size and various kinds of rope. He told me earlier that night he liked to collect weapons but by weapons I didn't think that he meant an arsenal.

[00:07:22] I joked asking if he was prepping for the end of the world. Maybe, he mused. Look over here, I know you're going to love this. He went into the closet and dragged out a green bag with numerous zippers and pockets.

[00:07:39] Here's my baby, I plan on taking her out to the woods when society becomes too much for me. It's fully equipped with enough to last me a couple of months, he explained. Very cool, I said as I turned my attention towards his DVD collection which captured

[00:07:55] more of my interest. Hey, hey, he almost shouted giving me a bit of a jump. Yeah? I asked as I turned to see him with a demeanor that I hadn't seen from him yet. He seemed pissed off, pissed that I wasn't giving him my undivided attention.

[00:08:14] His eyes wrinkled and he smiled as if to portray an I'm just kidding around type of energy. Nothing, you're just so pretty, he said. After a tour of his collections of figurines and comics that lasted way too long, we sat

[00:08:34] down on his bed with our beverages and started watching Naked and Afraid. We made light conversation and he showed me some Krav Maga moves that he picked up from his years of martial arts experience.

[00:08:48] I just want to say how much I appreciate that you're here with me right now. I don't bring people around all that often, especially people who are into this kind of stuff, he said with a sincere look in his eyes.

[00:09:00] Yeah, no problem, me neither, I replied, clutching my drink a little closer to my chest. It seemed a little too early in our friendship for this level of sentimentality. I could feel him leading into something. It's just that I have complicated issues.

[00:09:21] I want a real human connection, one where we bare our souls to each other. I want to know that when I die you'll be there, crying at my funeral. No amount of religion or therapy can fix how I feel. I only wish either of those worked.

[00:09:41] I don't care if you're gay, because you being gay only makes me more attracted to you. And there it is, I thought. I sighed a rehearsed phrase, hey I don't mean to be rude but I am who I am and that's not going to change.

[00:09:58] I think I should see myself out. I got up and grabbed my purse. Wait, he said, standing up almost toppling over. His body was beginning to shake and he reached his hands towards his quivering lips, repeating over and over that he couldn't feel his face.

[00:10:18] I asked him what was wrong and I asked what he took but he wasn't able to get any words out he just stared past me with wide eyes and a pain stricken contorted expression.

[00:10:30] I'm no medical professional or anything but I could tell that this was more than a panic attack it was possibly an overdose, seizure or some kind of stroke. I ran to rouse his roommate on the couch but he rolled over unfazed and passed out again.

[00:10:46] I gathered a towel, water and a bucket for him to hurl out whatever was in his system. I went back into his room and this man had projectile vomited everywhere. Do you want me to call the ER? I asked, feeling somehow responsible. You think this is fucking funny?

[00:11:05] He growled, standing up to face me. Confused, I asked, what? Do you think this is fucking funny? He repeated himself, still fumbling over his words. The way that he turned to look at me made the blood drain from my body.

[00:11:23] I've been in bad situations before but the animalistic way that his eyes focused on me told me that I was truly in deep shit. If he wanted to take advantage of any of the fifty weapons surrounding us at that moment he could have.

[00:11:38] No, I said flatly, breaking the silence. I have to go to the bathroom. I slowly sank away with my belongings to the bathroom and locked the door. From there, I slid out the window so that he wouldn't hear the front door.

[00:11:55] Just like that, I got into my car and I was gone. Serves me for checking to see if he was okay. I could care less now. I didn't look back to see if he saw me pulling away but I remember turning out of the driveway

[00:12:11] and seeing the light of the porch turn on. Since then, he has sent me several messages on Instagram, my phone and Facebook. I blocked him on all of them. To every woman out there, be careful who you go home with even if you seem to click really well.

[00:12:30] To the doomsday prepper that I met at the dive bar, let's not meet again. My girlfriend and I planned a weekend trip to Monterey and Carmel, California. It was quite a drive for us as we live in the Central Valley.

[00:12:57] We took smaller highways rather than the normal busy traffic riddled freeways. Everything went great. We had a fun time on the coast and felt that we had made the most of the trip. Once we finished eating dinner, we decided that it was time to head back home.

[00:13:14] It would be about a three and a half to four hour drive back home. Most of the drive was quiet and smooth. No traffic or lousy drivers. My girlfriend had fallen asleep since it was pretty late, probably around midnight at this time.

[00:13:31] We were driving on an isolated single lane highway surrounded by grassy hills and mountains just out of San Luis Obispo. It was pretty much pitch black besides our headlights and the occasional car driving in the opposite lane.

[00:13:47] I had music playing low in the background as I didn't want to wake up my girlfriend. As I looked into the darkness surrounding us, I began to imagine all of the creepy things that might be lurking out there that I couldn't see.

[00:14:03] I suddenly saw a pair of headlights zooming behind us in the rear view mirror. I found this to be odd as I hadn't seen that many vehicles on the highway just yet. The lights continued to grow closer and closer and seemed to maintain their high speed.

[00:14:22] As the headlights crept closer, I decided to pick up speed because I wasn't going to take any chances of getting hit by some reckless driver. It's important to mention that I drive a newer model turbocharged Ford Mustang.

[00:14:38] This being said, it didn't take long for me to pick up speed and create a safe distance between us and the vehicle that was lurking behind. This worked for about a minute or two, but again I saw the headlights creeping closer.

[00:14:53] I went back and forth playing this catch up game with whoever was driving that vehicle. I got to the point where I was reaching 100 miles per hour and the vehicle continued to keep up.

[00:15:05] We finally got to a point on the highway where there were passing lanes that would allow a vehicle to turn off the highway. I decided that I was going to pull over into one of these passing lanes and allow the vehicle to pass.

[00:15:19] I signaled into the other lane and just as I thought, the vehicle sped up to pass me. Except they didn't. The vehicle was riding side by side next to mine. I looked over to see that it was your typical white van that you always hear about in scary

[00:15:36] stories. I always knew to never let anyone pull up to you on the road, especially if you were alone. Being the only two vehicles on this isolated highway, with only our headlights illuminating the vast darkness, I wasn't going to wait and see if this person would pass.

[00:15:55] I began to brake to let the van fully pass so that I could get behind it. But this didn't work. As I braked, the van braked as well to stay level with my car.

[00:16:07] I was not going to let this happen and I hit the gas reaching speeds of over 100 miles per hour. I moved back into the lane in front of the van and quickly saw that it moved into the

[00:16:20] passing lane that I was in and began to match my speed. I slammed on the brakes again in an attempt to let this van pass me once and for all, only to notice that they were also braking to stay parallel with my car.

[00:16:33] I glanced over and was not able to see the driver since all of the windows had pitch black tint. I decided that this was going to be the last person that played this game with me and accelerated

[00:16:44] past him again, only this time I paid no mind to how fast I was going. My only concern was getting rid of whoever was tailing us. I drove for about 10-15 minutes, consistently going over 100 miles per hour until I could no longer see the headlights behind me.

[00:17:03] Eventually the highway converged with a major freeway that had multiple lanes and plenty of other vehicles. I had never been so relieved to be in traffic than at that very moment. My girlfriend and I made it home safe and I never saw that white van again.

[00:17:19] I still don't know who was driving that van or what they were aiming to do, but I sure as hell was not going to find out. So to whoever the hell was driving that creepy white van, let's not meet. This happened about a year ago.

[00:17:50] I was 24 years old at the time and had just moved out of state to a new city a few months prior. I had just finished grad school and was moving to finally start my career.

[00:18:04] I moved to a city that I had never set foot in before to accept my new job, so I didn't know a soul in town or even the state really. My parents lived a little over 5 hours away from my home state.

[00:18:20] I went through a breakup with my long distance boyfriend right after moving, so in addition to all of these changes, I was also newly single. I adopted a kitten shortly after moving so that I would have some kind of company while

[00:18:35] I was working on making new friends and meeting people in my new city. Just to summarize, I was in a new city, started a new career, had a new cat, and lived in a new apartment. I even bought a new car.

[00:18:49] Ms. Halt made for a very exciting transitional time in my life. My apartment was located just outside of the city's downtown area. It was a brand new complex, so I'm the first to live in my unit. It's a one bedroom apartment on the second floor of the building.

[00:19:08] You need a key fob to unlock the main door to enter the building and each unit itself had a locking door. As a woman living alone, I never really felt unsafe here since there were two locked points between the interior of my apartment and the outside.

[00:19:27] The apartment complex was arranged in a square. The space in the center of that square had amenities for residents as well as a parking lot, but this area was technically accessible to anyone via the driveway connecting to the main street.

[00:19:41] My apartment was on the second floor and faced this parking lot, so I was able to see all of the comings and goings of other residents. The wall of my apartment that faces the parking lot is essentially one large panel of windows and a glass door.

[00:19:58] You could even slide the glass door open to get some fresh air. Some of the apartments had balconies, but mine just had a railing around the windows, which is sometimes known as a Juliet balcony.

[00:20:10] The only downside to these large windows is that people could see into my living room very easily, especially at night when the lights are on inside. This doesn't bother me too much since my bedroom isn't visible from the parking lot,

[00:20:25] so I feel at ease about leaving the living room curtains open even at night. There is one row of parking tucked underneath the building, and my unit was right on top of this row of parking spaces.

[00:20:39] The complex wanted to have some covered spaces for the residents to park in. The area was relatively quiet, but the city is home to a large public university. There were the classic college parties and drunk kids that you would expect to see, but nothing too crazy.

[00:20:56] This university is a big football school, much like many other public universities in the southeastern area of the United States. This particular night was the first football game of the season. Normally these games were on Saturdays, but this game was on a Thursday.

[00:21:16] I didn't really pay much attention to campus sports, so I spent the afternoon and evening just hanging out with my kitten in my apartment as we went to sleep. At some point in the middle of the night, I jolted awake.

[00:21:30] It was around two or three in the morning. I looked around my room and everything seemed normal. My kitten was curled up against me in bed, per usual. But I noticed that she also seemed a little bit startled.

[00:21:45] She was staring towards the large window in the living room. Her ears were perked up. I just assumed that she had heard something outside, and that must have been what woke me up as well.

[00:21:57] Satisfied with this justification, I closed my eyes and attempted to get back to sleep. A few moments later, I heard a loud noise at the window. This startled me. Since I live on the second floor and my apartment sits over a row of covered parking spaces,

[00:22:15] it's not like I'm easily accessible to anyone. I thought maybe it was just a bird or something. Trying to stay calm, I lay there and listened to see if the noise would happen again. And it did. A bang against my window. Now I was confused and scared.

[00:22:37] I decided to investigate the noise from the safety of my bedroom. I slowly peeked through the blinds of my bedroom window and took a look at the parking lot where I saw two guys staring up at my apartment.

[00:22:49] They looked like they were probably in their early twenties, but they didn't look familiar to me at all. As I said, I had just moved into town. As I heard the noise again, I realized that these guys were throwing rocks at my window.

[00:23:05] I was annoyed that they woke me up. I figured my best move was to just ignore them. So I watched them through my bedroom window and waited for them to leave. After a few minutes, it seemed like they were giving up, so the banging on the window stopped.

[00:23:24] I got back in bed and tried to sleep. But they came back. I heard movement below in the parking lot again, so this time I crept toward the living room window because I wanted to see what was going on.

[00:23:39] To my surprise, I see that these guys have pulled their SUV under my window. They were standing on top of the car trying to reach the railing around my window. They were trying to get inside. Now thoroughly freaked out, I dial 911.

[00:23:59] But I realized that it was going to take longer for the police to get to me than it would for these guys to actually reach my window. With 911 dialed at the ready, I slid the glass door that these guys were attempting to reach

[00:24:12] open and asked, attempting to feign annoyance, can I help you? They seemed surprised. They looked up at me with blank stares. One of them spoke, but only said a man's name. Dave? It sounded more like a question.

[00:24:30] As if they were looking for some man, I responded, I don't know who that is. Will you please leave my fucking window alone? Again they stared blankly, but after a few seconds, they finally left my window alone.

[00:24:44] I immediately went to make sure that the front door of my unit was locked and got back into bed. It took a while for my heart rate to get back to normal, and I definitely did not get a restful night's sleep.

[00:24:55] I still live in the same apartment with my cat, and nothing like this has happened ever since. These guys were probably just some drunk college kids who ended up trying to break into the wrong apartment.

[00:25:07] But to those random guys who threw rocks at my window and got on top of their car to try and climb into my apartment, let's not meet. In 2014, I went to the French Riviera with my husband.

[00:25:33] He had workshops every day, so I was left to explore on my own. We sent our youngest child off to college on the day that we left for this trip. My husband and I were going to use our new freedom without children to explore Europe

[00:25:48] after he had finished working with his clients. I wasn't used to traveling and sightseeing on my own. I enjoyed it, but I was also hesitant. I speak a little French, just enough to get by, but I primarily relied on my phone's GPS to navigate myself around the cities.

[00:26:07] My husband and I try to use local public transportation wherever we are, and luckily, our hotel was just a few miles away from the main drag of cities located on the coast. I took the bus, and it dropped me off close to shops, museums, and beautiful parks.

[00:26:26] I started walking and taking pictures. I went to a museum, but it wasn't air-conditioned and I became quite warm as I was wearing capri pants, a black tee, a scarf, and a thin cardigan.

[00:26:39] Weight takes away my appetite, so after the museum I stopped at a cafe to get something to drink but no food. After spending six hours in the city, I noticed my phone was dying.

[00:26:50] I was worried that I wouldn't be able to find my way back to the bus stop to get to the hotel, and I knew I needed to get cleaned up and ready to go out to dinner with my husband and his clients.

[00:27:01] I was hot and irritable, but I headed to where I thought the bus stop was. I couldn't find it at the time, but I learned a couple of days later that it was around the corner.

[00:27:13] I encountered a crosswalk and motioned for the black Mercedes that was in front of me to go ahead and pass since I was too tired to rush across. This black Mercedes didn't move. I kept trying to wave it through the intersection, but it still didn't move.

[00:27:31] I gave up and crossed the road. As I did, I saw the window of the car slide open and a man who looked quite like my father who died a year before said, Thank you. In a heavy English accent. He thanked me for being gracious.

[00:27:50] I told him it wasn't a problem and he asked me where I was heading. I rattled off the section of town I was heading toward and he asked me if I wanted a ride. Conveniently, he said he was heading in that same direction. I was 48 at the time.

[00:28:06] The French Riviera is filled with more beautiful women per capita than I've ever seen in my life. I never dreamt a woman of my age would be at risk. Plus, as I mentioned, I was hot, cranky, sweaty and worried that I wouldn't know how to get

[00:28:22] back to my hotel. This man looked warm and approachable like my father so stupidly and naively I said, Yeah, sure. My hotel was literally right down the road. He only had to make one turn on the main road and travel for about five minutes depending on traffic.

[00:28:41] The man made small talk at first. Apparently, it was rush hour. If there is such a thing in that part of the world, traffic was heavy. The man shifted and started to tell me how beautiful I was. He mentioned how I was just his type.

[00:28:58] He told me to put my phone away. I tucked my phone under my legs since I knew that it was about to die anyway. I only had a little travel purse with me and no portable charging device. But I still thought, what could possibly go wrong?

[00:29:18] He pulled off the main road and onto the freeway. This quickly turned into a moment of panic for me and I knew I had made a terrible mistake getting into this man's car.

[00:29:28] He was now driving fast, keeping up with traffic and he was heading in a direction that I didn't know. He reached at me, trying to put his hand down my shirt then into my pants. I started crying and telling him I'm married.

[00:29:43] He must have misheard me because he kept calling me Mary after that. It'll be okay, Mary. We'll just do this and we'll part ways, Mary, he said. He then exposed himself. Cars were all around us but I was frozen. I couldn't believe that this was happening.

[00:30:02] I couldn't believe he didn't care that there were people all around who could see through the windows of the car. He was driving me to who the hell knows where and absolutely no one had any fucking clue where I was or what was happening to me.

[00:30:18] He grabbed my head trying to pull me close to him but I resisted, I would not do it. He became angry after all of this. I'm not sure how long he drove, maybe 20 minutes.

[00:30:29] He became so pissed off that he pulled off of the freeway and into an area where a bunch of trucks were parked. He had complete control now and I knew I only had one shot to get the hell out of here.

[00:30:42] Since he had his hands on me, I was able to slip out of my car again. I bolted out of the car. Amazingly enough, the door wasn't locked. I left him sitting there with my cardigan in his hands as I sprinted across the road.

[00:30:57] A car honked because I wasn't paying attention to where I was going. I just ran. The best news is that there was a concrete median between the sides of the road so there was no way for him to immediately follow me. So now, I had a new problem.

[00:31:14] I had no fucking clue where he was. He could have easily turned around since there were no other cars on the road. I could feel hysteria rising in my throat, but I managed to contain it.

[00:31:27] I passed by a person and realized I was approaching an industrial park of some sort with high concrete fences. If the man came back for me, there was no place to hide from him. I don't know how many miles I walked, but amazingly enough, I eventually encountered

[00:31:44] a bus stop. I waited and waited, and when one came, the doors opened, and I didn't bother with speaking French. I asked the driver if he was headed to the town closest to mine.

[00:31:57] He took one look at the stress on my face and said, get on the bus. I stood there in a bit of a daze, and he yelled finally, get on the bus. So I did. 45 minutes later, amazingly enough, the bus took me exactly where I needed to go.

[00:32:15] I stumbled up to my hotel room and lost my shit. I didn't want to call the police because what was I even going to say? After all, I willingly got into a car with a strange man in a strange country.

[00:32:30] I had no idea where he took me, what his name was, or if he even lived in France. Later on, not contacting the police made me feel very guilty because there was something so smooth and polished about this man. He definitely seemed like he had done this before.

[00:32:50] Age is no insulator for sexual predators. I worry that other people may have made the same mistake that I did. To the perverted man who looked like my dad and gave a mother of two children a ride then tried to take advantage of her, let's not meet again.

[00:33:24] My husband has a 14-year-old cousin that we like to take on vacation a couple of times a year to get out of her small town. I love having the opportunity to be a good influence on her and have girl chats that

[00:33:37] she would never have the opportunity to have with her family at home. Unfortunately, I'm also reminded of how there are many creeps out there in the world whenever we have her in our care.

[00:33:50] Almost every time we go out together, we experience a lot of comments and stares from groups of guys since she looks much older than her age, and I personally don't look much younger. So, when the two of us are together it's easy to assume that we're anywhere from

[00:34:06] 16 to somewhere in our 20s. On this particular trip, we stayed in Florida for a week. We took her to the beach for the first time in her life. One evening, around 6, she and I wandered to the beach for a few hours just the two of us.

[00:34:25] We were having a really great time laughing and picking up harmless jellyfish to throw back into the ocean while collecting fish bones for my art. This is relevant because many people interacted with us on that beach because it was crowded

[00:34:40] and people were curious about what we were doing. I've had some bad encounters in the past on top of other trauma, so I always carry a knife with me in my fanny pack wherever I go.

[00:34:53] I made a joke to my cousin-in-law early on in the evening, saying that we would throw fish bones in defense if we encountered an attacker. All the people that we spoke to were friendly and I wasn't concerned by any of them until

[00:35:08] a man who was by himself passed us making intentional eye contact with me. I'm not sure what it was exactly that made me notice him since he was a pretty average looking guy and there's nothing out of the ordinary about making eye contact and giving

[00:35:25] a smile and a nod to strangers as you pass on the beach. Maybe it was his sunset shorts that caught my eye. Anyway, I pushed him into the back of my mind as we continued our walk.

[00:35:39] We turned around to head back towards the house that we were staying at on the private end of the beach. Right when we got to where the beach started to transition from public to private property,

[00:35:50] my cousin-in-law stopped me and asked if we could discard several of the big shells and bones that we had collected. I didn't mind carrying them and I wasn't sure what her deal was but I agreed.

[00:36:03] She whispered to me that the man we had passed earlier turned around and followed us. He was sitting only twenty feet away from us just staring at the water. I didn't realize she had noticed him as well.

[00:36:17] We decided to walk back towards the crowded public area of the beach hoping that he would disappear and nothing would come of it. Not much further down the beach, I stopped to pick up a fish skull and the man casually

[00:36:32] walked less than ten feet from me and asked, ''Are you finding anything good?'' Ever the polite person, I held out my fists full of bones and said, ''Of course. There are all kinds of good things out here.''

[00:36:47] I backed up and started walking away to catch up to my cousin-in-law who was already walking faster ahead. One could argue he was a genuinely curious fella, maybe even a bone collector himself.

[00:37:02] But with my clear dismissal to end the conversation by turning and walking away, any normal guy would have gotten the signal and left us alone. We continued to walk down the beach stopping every now and then under the guise of looking

[00:37:17] for shells and bones while actually checking to see if he was following us. Every time we checked he was less than twenty feet away. Eventually we went to the parking lot section of the public beach.

[00:37:30] Just as the sun was beginning to set, we watched him walk up the beach and into the parking lot. We breathed a sigh of relief and even laughed about it, thinking that this was the end.

[00:37:44] We made it a little further down the beach before we noticed that he was coming back from the parking lot area and walking a little bit further down. This is when we knew that something was up.

[00:37:54] Why would he go to the parking lot only to come back down with nothing? The sun had set so the crowd was getting thinned out at this point with only a few families remaining here and there. The beach was completely deserted past the point we were at now.

[00:38:11] We had to come up with a plan, but we couldn't risk walking back to our side of the beach because we would be completely alone. If the man continued to follow us he would know where we were staying.

[00:38:24] There were businesses nearby beyond the parking lot but the man in the sunset shorts was blocking our way into the parking lot. So we weren't able to run through the lot to the businesses across the street.

[00:38:37] Finally we saw a group of adult women and their small children still on the beach not that far away. We decided to casually approach them as if we knew them and quickly told them that we were being followed.

[00:38:50] They asked if they could escort us to safety to one of the nearby businesses. The women were quick to take us in and assured us that we were doing the right thing by asking for help, adding that they were happy to help girls in trouble.

[00:39:04] As we headed towards the parking lot as a group one of the women subtly pointed out the guy asking us if that's who had been following us. It was indeed the man in the sunset shorts so we said yes.

[00:39:17] She said that he had emerged from the parking area again and he was now heading straight toward us not even attempting to be discreet. We pretended like we were with family as the women led us across the parking lot.

[00:39:31] My cousin-in-law looked back once more and when the man saw us he sprinted from the beach to the parking lot. I'm not sure what his hope was but the women walked us to safety to a bar across the street.

[00:39:47] Once inside we explained what had happened to one of the waitresses and the women who helped us wished us luck. They offered to drive us home but we declined. The bar told us that they had a free golf cart service that could shuttle us home.

[00:40:02] They asked if we would be willing to make a statement to the police since we had a good description of the guy and it wasn't the first time girls had been harassed around this area.

[00:40:13] After we made it home without incident I called the non-emergency line to file a report. I'm sorry to say that the police officer was completely unhelpful. He refused to file a report and simply told me that being creepy is not illegal.

[00:40:25] He said that there was nothing that could be done. I wasn't expecting them to go out, find the guy and arrest him right away. I just wanted them to take down his description in case this happened to anyone else.

[00:40:40] The cop told me, the beaches close at 9 for a reason, which is not only ridiculous but this happened much earlier than 9 at a beach anyways. I was furious at the lack of support from the local PD but I was impressed with my cousin-in-law

[00:40:57] for keeping her composure and staying calm until we were home safely. I don't know what would have happened if we had parked in that parking lot and gone out to our car by ourselves.

[00:41:10] I don't know what the man's plan was but I know it couldn't have been a pleasant one. Thinking about the incident later, I remembered my cousin-in-law asking me to remove some of my bigger things from my fanny pack.

[00:41:22] I realized she was trying to make sure that my knife was handy like we had joked about earlier. That poor girl has already experienced more than any person her age should and to this

[00:41:34] day I often think about the words of one of the women that came to our rescue at the beach. She said, I wish I could tell you creeps get better as you get older but they don't.

[00:41:48] As I ruminate on this experience and try to figure out why the man targeted us, I'm stumped. There were plenty of other women roaming the beach alone or in small groups wearing typical beach attire while my cousin-in-law and I wore long t-shirts.

[00:42:02] It almost makes me think that he thought we were significantly younger than we were which makes the whole situation even more disturbing. I do have his face burned into my memory so if I ever see him again, I plan on discreetly

[00:42:15] taking a picture of him and giving it to the employees at the bar nearby so they can protect themselves in case the police won't do anything. But that being said, to the man in the sunset shorts, I hope we never meet you again.

[00:42:46] This story took place in November 2017. I was 18. I'm a very short girl, only 4'10". I get anxious when someone even looks at me in a way to suggest that they might not like me so needless to say, I'm an incredibly non-confrontational person.

[00:43:03] My friend and I were out shopping. It was something that we would do every few months just to catch up with each other and bond since we didn't have much time to hang out due to college. She's just like me.

[00:43:15] She has barely scraped 5'1 and she's also a very non-confrontational person. It's probably why we became friends. This shopping trip didn't seem like it was any different but then things took a bit of a turn.

[00:43:29] I had barely stepped into the shop when a woman speaking some sort of Slavic accent stopped me. She jammed her finger into my chest. She demanded, spit out your gum. Assuming she was an employee, I very sheepishly said, I'm really sorry.

[00:43:46] I ran out of the shop and I spit my gum out. I threw it away. When I returned, I realized that this woman wasn't an employee. She was just some customer who was browsing and happened to be near the door when my friend and I entered the shop.

[00:44:02] It should have been obvious to me at the time. No salesperson would react like that, at least not one that wanted to keep their job anyway. I kept my head down when I walked past the woman, holding my breath in hopes that she wouldn't single me out again.

[00:44:18] She didn't so I thought that I was in the clear. My friend and I browsed the shop making sure to avoid the woman. The shop wasn't very big, probably only 15' by 18', so eventually I ended up at

[00:44:32] the sales stand by the door where the lady had been standing. I tried to keep my distance while browsing. I was looking at price tags but realized I didn't know what the discount was so I leaned over slightly to check the discount sign.

[00:44:48] It's important to note that this woman had a push chair, which is a stroller for Americans who are listening. I thought that she might have a child in this push chair, but no, it was full of plastic carrier bags.

[00:45:02] I didn't look at the bags in the push chair too much, but I could tell that everything in there was double bagged and tied shut. Whatever was in those bags was obviously something that she wanted to protect.

[00:45:16] This sense of protection became very relevant because when I leaned over to look at the discount sign, I was leaning slightly closer to her push chair. I was about 3 feet away but apparently that was too close.

[00:45:30] The woman was on the other side of the chair, but the moment she saw me she ran around to where I was standing. She then hit me in the face. It was somewhere between a slap and a punch. I honestly couldn't quite tell because I was in shock.

[00:45:46] All I knew was that it hurt. ''Watch out for personal space!'' she hissed in my ear. I apologized. This woman hit me and I apologized to her. I regret that now but at the time, I didn't want to provoke her any further.

[00:46:05] Not that I knew what I was doing to provoke her in the first place. In shock, I turned around and I ran to the back part of the store, grabbing my friend's hand and pulling her away with me.

[00:46:18] The back area was separated by a tiny wall that only stretched halfway across the shop since that's where they stored adult toys. I stood there shaking as I was holding my friend's hand. I whispered, ''She just hit me'' to my friend.

[00:46:34] We stood there for a moment in silence. My friend positioned herself in a way so that she could see the rest of the store while I hid behind the wall. ''She's gone'' my friend told me. I let out a breath that I didn't realize I was holding.

[00:46:50] ''Can we stay back here for a while?'' I asked my friend, worried that the woman was outside waiting for me. The front of the store was open but she could easily be waiting a couple of feet down out of sight.

[00:47:04] My friend agreed and we slowly browsed the shop again. About five minutes later, we got to the counter to check out. The girl working at the counter looked outside and then back at us. ''That woman was here for thirty minutes.

[00:47:21] I didn't know what to do'' she told the two of us. Then she asked, ''What did she say to you?'' She told me to spit out my gum when we first came in and then she hit me because I was too close to her, I answered.

[00:47:34] ''She hit you?'' The worker was wide-eyed. ''If I had known that, I would have called security. I'm so sorry'' I just smiled and shrugged. ''It's fine'' I wasn't really fine but it wasn't the worker's fault.

[00:47:51] She didn't look too much older than me and I wouldn't have known what to do in that situation either. Still shaken up, my friend and I made our way out of the store. I looked around and I didn't see the woman. ''Can we go home now?''

[00:48:05] I asked my friend. We didn't finish browsing all of the shops but I was so paranoid that we would bump into the woman again. She agreed and we got on the bus to go home.

[00:48:16] When I got home, my parents encouraged me to report the incident to the police. I called the non-emergency line and their response was, ''What do you expect us to do about it?'' Unless I went back to the shop and requested the security footage, which I wasn't sure

[00:48:31] they actually had, they wouldn't do anything. I'm sure that the woman was likely to have been homeless or on drugs. It's the only explanation I can think of for her protectiveness over her bags that she was carrying.

[00:48:45] Those bags likely contained everything she owned or drugs or maybe both. I don't know. So to the woman who hit me, ''I hope that the current state of the world is treating you well and you're finally getting the personal space that you require.

[00:49:00] But let's not meet again.''

[00:49:38] 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.

[00:50:10] As always, if you have a story to share, send it to letsnotmeetstories at gmail.com. And don't forget to check out the new episodes of my other podcasts, Odd Trails, my True Paranormal Podcast, The Old Time Radio Cast and the first two episodes of my brand new

[00:50:24] podcast, Welcome to Paradise, It Sucks, all at crypticcountypodcasts.com or wherever you listen to your podcasts. I'll see you next week. Stay safe. Bye. Welcome to your Patreon extension.