Wednesday One-Shot: Psycho Lollipop Man | He Took Too Much of Something

[00:00:02] Welcome to Wednesday One-Shots, the series where we share a bonus story with you in the middle of the week to help you get through that midweek slump. This week we have two stories. The first one is titled Psycho Lollipop Man from a listener named Kaylee.

[00:00:30] This happened in 2017 in Texas. I was studying at university and had finished class for the day. I was headed home on the bus. It was probably around 3 in the afternoon and broad daylight. I was looking down at my phone and accidentally missed my stop.

[00:00:48] I decided to get off at the next stop to avoid getting any further away from home. I wasn't familiar with the area, but the stop where I got off was a busy main street. Austin isn't exactly a walkable city, so I was the only person on the sidewalk.

[00:01:05] I started walking to the bus stop that would take me back in the direction of my apartment. I passed an old strip mall and I noticed there was a couple of men in their 20s or 30s standing in the parking lot.

[00:01:18] They were all dressed exactly the same, wearing red t-shirts and jeans. I assumed that they were all co-workers, possibly on a break together. I thought maybe they worked at Target or something.

[00:01:30] I kept walking and as I was passing the group, I caught one of the men out of my peripheral vision. He left the group and started walking on the sidewalk behind me.

[00:01:41] I tried not to jump to conclusions and thought to myself, hmm, I guess he's going in this direction as well. I decided to text my boyfriend at the time just in case. I told him, stay by your phone please, someone might be following me right now.

[00:01:56] A few minutes passed and I realized I was definitely being followed. I quickly glanced behind me at the guy. He just stared at me, dead in the eyes. I felt like I had to act quickly.

[00:02:09] I decided the best course of action was to get somewhere with witnesses as soon as possible. The only place of business I saw around was Sonic, thank god. I turned into the Sonic and the man followed me into the parking lot.

[00:02:25] The part of me that was in denial thought, maybe he literally wanted Sonic right now. The Sonic I went to only had the drive-thru and some drive-in stalls and the picnic benches outside. There was no indoor area except for the kitchen.

[00:02:43] Sonic was as empty as the streets, but I assumed I could find someone inside at least. I sat down at the picnic table as close to the door as I could. I turned my head and checked my surroundings.

[00:02:56] The man sat down at the neighboring bench and continued to stare at me, dead in the eyes. He was close enough for me to see his eyes better. I'm absolutely certain that this man wanted to do something bad to me and he was not being subtle about it.

[00:03:12] My stomach dropped to the floor. I texted my boyfriend and told him, I need you to pick me up immediately. I watched the man pull out a dum-dum lollipop and start to suck on it casually while still staring directly at me. What the fuck?

[00:03:30] Was he trying to scare me? Because it was working. A few minutes later my boyfriend ripped into the parking lot. I hopped into his car. I looked over at the man again and he calmly got up from the picnic bench and left Sonic as well.

[00:03:46] He only went there for me. When I saw him leave right away I started to cry. I'm lucky that my boyfriend wasn't in class and was able to pick me up so quickly. Anyways, psycho lollipop man, let's never meet again.

[00:04:03] The next story is titled, he took too much of something from a listener named Residential Nightmares. I worked at a substance abuse treatment center for teenagers. It wasn't a particularly safe part of town and many of the teenagers there would arrive

[00:04:21] from jail after being involved in gang life. For reference, I'm a young female who up until this point had no experience working in a place like this. I had quite a few experiences while working here, some supernatural and some not.

[00:04:37] The girls unit was definitely haunted and working night shifts on that side of the treatment center was always interesting and usually unsettling. There was a variety of noises that could be heard like clockwork, always at 2 in the morning.

[00:04:53] I was also forced to stand in the middle of many fights between both boys and girls in hopes of getting them to deescalate before I became bloody and bruised. One of the experiences that has stressed me out involved one of the kids that was a member

[00:05:10] of a major gang in the area. I won't say the name so as not to give away the location. He had broken his hand the day before and I had to take him to the doctor to have an x-ray.

[00:05:21] The treatment center was across the street from a crack house and the people that lived and hung around there always pulled a bunch of scary shit. They used to walk around the girls unit shining flashlights inside and scraping the windows.

[00:05:36] Most of this kind of stuff was done at night. This particular time I'm writing about happened right before sunset. Someone who had come from a drug deal was clearly high, most likely on cocaine or meth.

[00:05:49] He ran to our side of the street and he was banging on all of the doors and screaming about a fire and a murder. When one of the supervisors opened the door to figure out what was happening, the man

[00:06:01] tried to push his way inside to fight the patients. The look in that man's eyes and how angry he was is something that I definitely will never forget. He was banging on the doors so hard we thought that he was going to break through them.

[00:06:15] Given that many of the teenagers housed at this center came from juvie, it was hard to keep them calmed down inside and not jump the man. The police were consistently late to arrive at the scene anytime that we needed them, so

[00:06:29] we didn't have high hopes that they would be of any help. Sure enough, the guy eventually gave up and left. The police showed up a long while later and took a report. There, of course, was no getting the teenagers to settle down after that, so the evening

[00:06:45] program was pretty much thrown out the window. I have many stories from my time working there that had my adrenaline pumping, but this instance was the scariest. I'm just glad that the man did not get the chance to hurt anybody and we didn't see him again after that.

[00:07:02] Hello to the scary man that had taken too much of something that night. Let's not meet again. Thanks everyone for listening to this week's episode and thanks to our authors Residential Nightmares and Kaylee for submitting those stories.

[00:07:17] You can always send your stories in to letsnotmeetstories at gmail.com if you'd like to hear them on the show. We'll see you all next week for a full episode of Let's Not Meet, a true horror podcast. Stay safe. Bye.