16x21: The Best of Season 2

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[00:01:01] [SPEAKER_03] This podcast contains adult language and content. The stories shared in this podcast are told from the perspective of the authors. Their accounts and opinions are personal and do not reflect the stance of the production team. If you have a story to share, send it to letsnotmeetstories at gmail.com. Enjoy the show.

[00:01:44] [SPEAKER_03] Welcome to a special throwback episode of Let's Not Meet. This week we're sharing some of the very best tales from the second season of the podcast. Buckle up because these are some particularly horrifying tales. I won't waste any more of your time though. Let's get on with the show. This is the best of season two. Enjoy. I was about 13 when my family went on our annual trip to Poland to visit my family. My mother and

[00:02:13] [SPEAKER_03] father both come from a small, rural village about two-three hours away from Warsaw. It's an idyllic little place that is surrounded by lush forests and wheat fields. Life is different there. Everyone is very carefree and relaxed. Being the small place that it is, everyone knows one another since everyone essentially lives in the same street. I had made a bit of a reputation for myself there,

[00:02:41] [SPEAKER_03] being known as the American girl who visits in the summers. So whenever I would arrive, the whole village would know. I loved the attention. All the kids wanted to play and adults doted upon me. One of the townspeople I saw most frequently was Tomek. Tomek was a funny guy in his upper 20s who would work in the village deli store. He would often give me extra meat anytime my grandparents would

[00:03:09] [SPEAKER_03] send me out to pick up food or offer to show me inside the kitchen. I never took him up on that offer, the idea of seeing how meat was made, was too much for my 13-year-old mind. Though I didn't know it at the time, Tomek had the reputation of being the town lunatic. He wasn't a stranger to the police force, nor the villagers, as he was a bit of a petty thief. My grandparents told me when I got older that my

[00:03:37] [SPEAKER_03] grandfather had not once but twice caught him trying the door of his shed to see if it would open, then excusing himself when he got caught as drunk and unsure of where he was. Despite this, I had never had a reason to fear or avoid him. The village had a tradition called the game of courage that would fall in between the dates of our visits. On this day, the village children would set into

[00:04:07] [SPEAKER_03] teams and then be given items to find that were hidden around the woods or the village perimeters. The event lasted all day, and the group that had the most found items would win a prize. The courage was the part of the game where you would be trying to attain the golden item, which would be in the woods and guarded by a few adults armed with water sprayers or water guns.

[00:04:35] [SPEAKER_03] The only way to get the golden item was to avoid being sprayed with water. If all members of a team were hit, then the team would lose their chance to attain it. My team consisted of four friends, Eva, Eric, Bartek, and Powell. Our strategy was to get as many of the items around town and then try our luck at the golden object when it got darker in order for it

[00:05:03] [SPEAKER_03] to be harder for them to spot us. We got a lot of the items throughout the day and worked up a good sweat after racing against the other children. Around 7pm, we had attained 12 items and were ready to try our luck at the golden item. We had heard from the other children that the adults were being relentless, guarding the object with ferocity. The wooded area that was the destination of the golden

[00:05:31] [SPEAKER_03] item was behind Eric's house. Therefore, we took the lead in devising the plan. Our plan was that we were going to split up into two teams. Eric, Eva, and Bartek were meant to grab the adults' attention and drive them away as far as possible while Powell and I would sneak in and grab the item. Feeling

[00:05:54] [SPEAKER_03] confident, we headed into the forest as the sun was slipping away from the sky. We followed the dirt path for about five minutes and then stepped off of it, following Eric as he navigated through the shrubbery with ease. He stopped us just as we reached a thick clump of bushes. Putting a finger to his lips, he motioned for us to look through the gaps in the shrubbery and see the adults. It was dark now,

[00:06:23] [SPEAKER_03] so it was hard to see who was actually guarding the item, but we could make out four shapes huddled together, chatting softly. Without hesitation, we moved into our plan of action. Our three friends navigated around and disappeared from our sight, only for us to hear their laughs and the voices of adults yelling to get them. Powell and I watched as the adults raced after our friends, all abandoning

[00:06:50] [SPEAKER_03] the area that they had stood around. I remember glancing around and getting ready to jump out of the bushes when I felt Powell's arm on my shoulder and saw him making a shushing sound. They might not all be gone. Wait a bit, he urged. We sat quietly, listening intently for any sounds. Then it happened,

[00:07:14] [SPEAKER_03] the slightest sound of something moving on the other side of the clearing. We couldn't make out who or what it was, so we stayed quiet, peering through the gaps of the shrubbery still. Powell saw it first. He pointed out what looked like a large, dark figure crouching behind a tree closest to the clearing.

[00:07:37] [SPEAKER_03] We watched as the figure moved from tree to tree, never stepping out from behind, simply just observing. Just as I was about to suggest that one of us should cause a distraction, we hear a yelp and turned to see the other team approaching, clearly happy that there seemed to be no one around where the golden item

[00:08:00] [SPEAKER_03] should be. We watched as this small group of two raced around the clearing, but didn't pick anything up. I kept waiting for the adult to step out and spray the kids, but the figure remained crouched, half visible behind the trees. One of the girls approached the area the adult was at, but she was busy looking up at the tree, musing

[00:08:25] [SPEAKER_03] to her partner that maybe the object was put on a branch. We watched as she began pulling herself up to the lowest branch, and I remember the way my stomach dropped when all of a sudden we saw the adult shoot out from behind the tree, grab her leg, and start pulling her into the darkness of the forest. Her partner ran

[00:08:49] [SPEAKER_03] off screaming, leaving me and Powell unsure of what to do. We watched frozen with horror as the adult began covering the girl's mouth in some attempt to silence her. Before one of us could do anything, all of a sudden Tomek came running up the path and threw himself onto the man. Powell shot out to help Tomek while I ran back to call for help. When I reached the backyard that was the destination spot for the end of the game, I was

[00:09:18] [SPEAKER_03] screaming uncontrollably in a mix of words that took me a few attempts to get out that help was needed. A large group of the men raced towards the forest while I hid in my mother's arms, waiting to see everyone arrive safely. My friends Eric, Eva, and Bartek approached me cautiously and asked what happened and why Powell and I hadn't come back. It had turned out that after Eva, Bartek, and Eric had distracted the adults

[00:09:47] [SPEAKER_03] and drove them away, the adults had decided to end the game and to get the golden item. They had just assumed that everyone had a chance to try and get it and didn't want the kids wandering in the forest after dark. One of the adults had already pocketed the item when they chased our group back towards the main yard. My team had assumed that we would see that there was nothing there and return as well,

[00:10:13] [SPEAKER_03] which is why they didn't come looking for us. As I retold what happened, everyone in the backyard listened to me with wide eyes. About ten minutes passed and we saw the group of men coming back. Powell walking beside his father and the girl who had been attacked in the arms of her assumed father. As they all approached, I asked Powell what happened. As the parents gathered and talked in hushed voices,

[00:10:41] [SPEAKER_03] Powell described to us how Tomek had beat the guy bloody but let him escape when he turned away, surprised by the men that arrived to help. He mentioned that a few men were still scouting out the forest land for the guy. I then asked the remainder of my friends why help was not sent earlier by the girl's partner that had run away screaming. Everyone had looked at me with blank

[00:11:07] [SPEAKER_03] faces and the sudden realization hit me hard. The next events became a blur. It's a mix of me racing to my parents, with my friends, and asking about the girl. A frenzy of people calling out her name and begging for her to come out. A whirlwind of everyone rushing to get their kids inside and a mayhem of adults swarming

[00:11:34] [SPEAKER_03] together to go search the woods again and call the police. It's been eight years now and she hasn't been found. Tomek was one of the main suspects, believed to be part of a two-man kidnapping operation but backed out when he saw that there was too much attention that was brought to the event. I'm not sure whatever happened to him, but I can't help but feel guilty that I didn't do anything to help either of those girls. I saw the girl run away.

[00:12:03] [SPEAKER_03] I, Powell and I were the last to see her. Sometimes I see a child with braided hair and I get thrown back to that night and I can still see her braids swirling around her figure as she disappeared from sight.

[00:12:17] [SPEAKER_03] I hope she's still alive. This story takes place some time ago. I was around 13 years old. At the time

[00:12:45] [SPEAKER_03] I was staying with my mom and older sister at my late great grandfather's cabin in the middle of the woods. It was a dark night around mid-August and we had been spending the summer there. Now this cabin has always had its distinct personality. My great grandfather had built it himself after he finished

[00:13:06] [SPEAKER_03] fighting the war during World War II. The interior is made up of entirely dark wood. The furniture still has that old pre-war Nordic and Eastern European feel to it, where my family is from. Carillion style, hand-woven carpets lined up the floors and the walls are all decorated with old worn out framed photographs

[00:13:32] [SPEAKER_03] of unknown but serious looking relatives of my family from the past. The house has always had a somehow mysterious, a little offsetting but still calming feel to it. Me and my sister being curious kids had just on the previous day looked through some old photo albums belonging to our great-grandparents

[00:13:56] [SPEAKER_03] that we had found in the library. A decision which we had both regretted. As it turns out, it was customary back in the day to photograph the dead. The albums dated after the war were filled with photos of dead bodies sitting or laying next to their relatives. We went through the album and there were tons of them,

[00:14:20] [SPEAKER_03] from full-grown adults to little dead kids to actual babies in tiny coffins. And what made it worse was almost all of the photos were taken unmistakably right in front of this cabin, on the yard. We shivered and wondered if the bodies had been buried here too, but decided that in that moment together we would never ask about it.

[00:14:48] [SPEAKER_03] I mention this photo album detail because it's relevant for understanding why I was already feeling creeped out that night. That evening my sister and I had decided to sit in the candlelit living room and read horror books together. Because why not? We were staying in an old cabin after all and it felt atmospherically appropriate. My mom, being a night owl and insomniac, had decided to go for a sauna and a shower in the middle of the night.

[00:15:18] [SPEAKER_03] The cabin's wood sauna is located in the stone basement of the cabin. Another important detail to note is that this cabin is quite in the middle of nowhere, in the middle of a forest. There are a handful of quote-unquote neighbors who all live at least a kilometer or about a half a mile away. The whole community has lived there for generations and everybody knows everybody,

[00:15:43] [SPEAKER_03] so as a rule, we never had a habit of locking the front doors when staying there. The only person that has ever locked the front door to that cabin was me, and I always did it accidentally by slamming the door too hard, so it locked automatically. So it was midnight. My mom was down in the basement, and my sister and I were reading horror stories in the living room. We were in a mostly light mood, despite both of us feeling a bit creeped out,

[00:16:12] [SPEAKER_03] when suddenly, out of nowhere, we hear a faint knock on the door. We both jump up. We barely ever had visitors during the day, and nobody has ever showed up unannounced during the night to this place. We decide, in that moment, that we are probably mistaken and feeling spooked by the stories, and it must be the wind that was making the noise.

[00:16:38] [SPEAKER_03] But no, the faint, calm knocking came again. Then louder knocking followed. We realized that, undeniably, there had to be somebody out there, and that they wanted to get in. In horror, we both ran to the kitchen to grab something to defend ourselves with. I grabbed the biggest kitchen knife that I could find, and had a quick chat with my sister on whether we should go to the basement to get our mom.

[00:17:08] [SPEAKER_03] The knocking continues, and this time, whoever it was, wasn't knocking on the door anymore, but they had moved to the curtain-covered window next to the door to knock on it instead. My adrenaline kicked in, and I was feeling a little braver, so we decided to walk slowly towards the front door, and I decided to take a peek out the window. I moved the curtain slightly to the side and take a look.

[00:17:37] [SPEAKER_03] However, I see nothing but darkness out there. I closed the curtain and turned to my sister when, suddenly, that somebody tries to pull the door open aggressively. We both flinched, but thankfully, as I was the last person to enter the cabin that evening, the door was locked. At this point in time, it's just us. Two kids with kitchen knives and some strange person trying to get into our cabin in the middle of the night,

[00:18:07] [SPEAKER_03] and the only thing separating us is an old wooden door. At this point, we've had enough spooks. So my sister runs down to get my mom from the basement as I stand there shaking by the door holding a big-ass knife. I hear footsteps on the front porch, but no more knocking or attempts to open the door. My mom comes upstairs, and she seems to be in disbelief that anyone would be trying to get in at this hour.

[00:18:36] [SPEAKER_03] We all stay in the living room, waiting for more sound, but an hour passes by and we hear nothing. Until suddenly, we hear loud, panicked knocking on the front door. We all jumped up at the sound, and my mom goes rapidly to the window to open the curtain and check out who it is. Suddenly, upon seeing who it is, she mutters, What the... and slowly opens the door. We hear her exchange a conversation with the woman,

[00:19:06] [SPEAKER_03] whose voice is familiar. We walk over to check out who it is, and realize that it's our aunt, my mother's sister, who lives on the other side of the country, standing on our front porch in the middle of the night. She looks scared and panicked, and my mom keeps apologizing to her. No, sorry, you can't stay here. I'll order you a taxi somewhere safe. And closes the door. After some time,

[00:19:35] [SPEAKER_03] we see a taxi arrive and watch her leave with it. My mom double checks that the door is locked and comes over to us, looking worried. We ask about what happened, and she tells us that her sister had told her that there had been some dispute, and now she's being chased by a handful of dangerous and angry men that want to kill her and are trying to track her down. She's been trying to run and hide from them for two days straight now.

[00:20:06] [SPEAKER_03] She's always lived a kind of wild life, but this was something new. The part of this story that really brought me the chills is that my aunt claims she had just arrived to our front porch that very moment when we all heard the panicked knocking on the door. She certainly had not been standing there quietly for an hour, or been knocking on the windows, meaning that whoever this person was

[00:20:34] [SPEAKER_03] that was faintly knocking on the door about an hour before her arrival was not her. We have no idea who it was or what their intentions were, but I know that given the extraordinary circumstances, I would reckon it was likely one of the men that were trying to track her. I still keep thinking back to that night. Whatever could have happened had that door not been locked? And for those of you who are a little more superstitious,

[00:21:04] [SPEAKER_03] there's another supernatural explanation for the knocking if you're curious. There is a mythology in my country that before something unusual or potentially dangerous is about to happen, ghosts may appear to warn you about it subtly. The old superstition claims that these mainly harmless ghosts tend to reside all around us, but they're often found living in wooden cabins. These ghosts will often show themselves by mimicking an event or a person before it happens.

[00:21:33] [SPEAKER_03] So if you hear a loud thump in the kitchen seemingly out of the blue, it may be warning you that someone is about to fall there. Or if you see a shadow figure standing by the door when there's nobody there, they are telling you that somebody is about to arrive. These ghosts are essentially insights that allow us to see or hear an event in the future before it takes place. said to normally show themselves only under extraordinary circumstances. Now I'm not much of a superstitious person myself,

[00:22:02] [SPEAKER_03] but on some level I must admit it's somehow more comforting to believe that it was a ghost out there instead of a potential murderer. Did you know there's an online cannabis company that ships federally legal THC right to your door?

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[00:23:59] [SPEAKER_03] about yourself and see if you're eligible to save money when you bundle your home and auto policies. The process only takes minutes, and it could mean hundreds more in your pocket. Visit progressive.com after this episode to see if you could save. Progressive Casualty Insurance Company and affiliates. Potential savings will vary. Not available in all states. I've had a few stalkers in my life and quite a few weird things happen, but none of those things bother me like this one does.

[00:24:28] [SPEAKER_03] When I was around seven or eight, in the 80s, when I answered the phone one day, the man on the other end somehow pulled me into this conversation. I don't remember what we talked about or why he was calling, but we talked about an hour. I don't remember anything creepy from that conversation. Well, not that one, anyway. Over the next year, he called six or seven times, and each time we talked a bit more. He usually let me talk

[00:24:58] [SPEAKER_03] all that I wanted, and I told him a lot of things. I don't really know why. Maybe because he was the only person who ever listened to me and didn't blame me for everything. He was always sympathetic and on my side. My home life was not great. He also had this raspy voice that was slow and soft-sounding. For about five years, he would call for a few weeks at a time,

[00:25:28] [SPEAKER_03] every three or four months. Eventually, he told me that he traveled a lot, and he was only in my area certain times of the year. He also said he worked with kids, but he never told me what he did. Over those five years, his questions got more personal, leading to more sexually charged questions. But he had earned some kind of sick trust from me, and though I was reluctant,

[00:25:57] [SPEAKER_03] he eventually got me talking about sex. By the time I was 13, I knew our conversations were wrong, and I started avoiding the phone. I never answered if I could help it. Whenever he did catch me answering, he would make me feel bad for avoiding him, like I was his only friend or something, and sometimes I felt he was my only friend as well. Around that time, he told me a story of a girl around my age

[00:26:26] [SPEAKER_03] that he had messed around with at a camp or something. How she'd asked him to touch her somewhere. I felt very uncomfortable when he told me, but continued to be nice, because I was a little afraid of making him mad. I don't know why, just my instincts, I guess. One day, he called and told me he'd seen me that day, walking home from school with my friends and told me what I was wearing.

[00:26:56] [SPEAKER_03] I was thoroughly creeped out now. I was beyond scared. I didn't know why I didn't tell my dad, who was a police officer. I guess I thought I'd just get in trouble because of all the stuff that I did tell the guy. Then he asked me to meet him at a Walmart parking lot nearby my house. I told him I would, but I had no intention of doing so. My phone rang so many times that night, and I wouldn't answer.

[00:27:27] [SPEAKER_03] When someone did answer, no one was there. I pretended like I didn't know anything about it. I stopped answering the phone altogether. I made scheduled times for my friends to call, and I never walked home alone. I never talked to him again. But he did call many times up until I was 16. He would ask for me, and I'd say that you have the wrong number, and I'd hang up as soon as I heard his voice.

[00:27:56] [SPEAKER_03] But that's not the end. In 2005, I went to college. I was about 30, at the time. I was driving home from class, and I was flipping through stations on the radio, and a voice caught my attention. I kept listening, and I was certain that it was his voice. I was dumbfounded. It was a Christian station talk show, talking to a guest who was a youth pastor who traveled around. I know it was him.

[00:28:26] [SPEAKER_03] He even told some stories to the station that he had told me before. I listened to the whole way home. Once I got home, I turned it off, and I tried to forget about it. After a few days, I thought I should contact the station, but my radio wasn't on that station anymore, and I just couldn't figure out which one it was. In 2015, I was visiting my sister, who was 20 years older than me, and we got to talking about it. I told her a little,

[00:28:56] [SPEAKER_03] and she told me he had talked to her a few times as well, but she didn't know he'd ever talked to me. She didn't know who he was or how he got her number. I still wonder if he's out there, still preying on young and vulnerable girls, or what. I hate thinking about it now. I hate thinking now what he might have done to someone, and I hate that I never told my dad.

[00:29:25] [SPEAKER_03] Even though nothing bad actually happened to me, it did affect me my whole life, mainly the way I am with my kids. No one understands why I'm so overprotective. Even my adult children now, they don't understand. I don't trust anyone outside my inner circle, and I eye everyone as a potential creeper. It's kept me and my kids safe, I guess, but it didn't allow me for much living.

[00:30:07] [SPEAKER_03] This happened to me about a month ago. For some context, I'm a woman in my mid-twenties who lives alone in a cozy flat in the attic area of an old Victorian building. It was the old servants' quarters. I guess that's where I belong. The design of the roof hanging over my window and the high driveway walls means that I get some interesting acoustics. During the night, when it's quiet, the sounds bounce up from the whole long street,

[00:30:36] [SPEAKER_03] even from out of sight, and I can hear the footsteps and conversations of passerbys crystal clear as if they were in the room with me. Yet standing down on the drive, you can't hear them at all. It was almost 4 a.m. and pitch dark outside. I had been finding it hard to sleep properly the last few nights, so I was still up and pottering around in my PJs with the lights on. I had a window cracked and the blinds half-open to get some fresh air in.

[00:31:06] [SPEAKER_03] I usually keep them closed if I have a light on at night. You can see right up into the room from the street and the houses across, which I sadly did not realize for my first couple of months while living there. Sorry, neighbors, if you saw me dancing around and cooking in my underwear. However, I was so flustered from not getting to sleep and desperate for air, I thought everybody else would be snoozing. I had done the same thing

[00:31:35] [SPEAKER_03] for the previous three or four nights. Sleepless nights. I had just made some tea and settled down to read a book when I heard my door buzzer ringing. I remember thinking that it was odd that I had not heard anybody approaching as I was just sat by the window, but I brushed it off as being sleep-deprived. Nobody who visits me ever rings a door buzzer. They call me on my phone, so I grabbed my phone to check if I had missed

[00:32:04] [SPEAKER_03] something from a friend or family. No, there was nothing. I ran to the window to look down at the porch, but unfortunately I could only see the steps leading up to it. The motion sensor light was on and I could hear a strange scuffling noise and then some thuds. I figured somebody had called the wrong flat by mistake and was probably drunkenly stumbling around. Even with my rational explanation,

[00:32:34] [SPEAKER_03] a strange sense of unease overwhelmed me. I felt on edge after I heard the thuds and turned my lights off so that I could gop through the windows and the blinds without being seen. But unfortunately, I couldn't see much. After a few minutes, the noises stopped and the motion sensor lights turned off. Although I didn't see anybody come back down the steps, I figured I'd either missed them in the dark or the person they were looking for had let them in.

[00:33:05] [SPEAKER_03] After twenty minutes or so, I relaxed and turned my lamp back on to potter around again. About a minute later, my buzzer rang again. This time, it was ringing repeatedly as if someone was aggressively holding the button down. I froze and stared at it for a while, unsure of what to do. It was starting to get annoying and I began to worry that it might actually be somebody I know who needs help. Why else would they

[00:33:34] [SPEAKER_03] be ringing my door past four a.m. in the morning? I plucked up the courage to answer, albeit with a shaky hand. Hello? No reply. I hear somebody breathing heavily through the phone static. It sounded like a man. Who is this and what do you want? Again, no reply, just heavy breathing. I hung up, thinking that they'd got the wrong flat or the telecom was playing up again.

[00:34:04] [SPEAKER_03] I stayed by the wall phone for a few moments, staring at it, insure of what to do. The buzzer went off loudly again and I about jumped out of my skin as I was so tense. Who is this? Why do you keep calling me? All I could hear was static again, thinking that I was getting knocked down, gingered, and this is ding-dong ditched for my U.S. friends across the big pond. I went to hang up the phone again. Just before I did,

[00:34:34] [SPEAKER_03] I could hear a muffled voice and I whipped the phone back to my ear and demanded to know who it was. What was that? I asked. Let me in. Huh? Who are you? Let me in, please. Please. His voice starts breaking into panic. I'm not letting you in. You haven't said who you are. There's people

[00:35:04] [SPEAKER_03] coming to get me. They tried to jump me and I ran away. It's not safe out here. Please. You've got to let me in. Let me in. Help me. Please. Immediately, I hung up the wall phone. There was no way I was letting a strange man into my building who wouldn't identify himself, especially as I had to leave the safety of my own locked flat to physically go down to the front porch and open it. My gut told me that his story was complete bullshit,

[00:35:34] [SPEAKER_03] but on the off chance that it was true, I was worried there was about to be a crazy fight on my driveway. I grabbed my mobile phone and dialed 999 as I ran to turn my lights off and shut the blinds again, peeking out through the crack. The man had been ringing my buzzer nonstop since I hung up, but shortly after, I turned the lights out, it stopped again. The weird shuffling and thumping noises on the porch started up again

[00:36:03] [SPEAKER_03] and I explained the situation to the emergency operator on the phone. She urged me to stay calm and stay on the phone with her and said that the police were already aware something was happening. Somebody else in my building had called her earlier to say that a man had been trying to break in the front door after trying all of the ground floor windows down the side and back. They'd had a similar call a few nights before as well. That explains the weird noises I kept hearing and why I didn't hear him approach from the street

[00:36:33] [SPEAKER_03] at the front. The noises had now stopped, but I was beginning to panic hard. I asked the lady when the police would arrive. She said that they would send out a unit as soon as one was available and to stay inside with the door locked. After about 10 minutes of no activity outside, the motion lights went off. The lady said to stay in the flat again, like I was going to do anything else and to call back if he reappeared and that they'd escalated on their end if he made it into the building

[00:37:02] [SPEAKER_03] and she ended the call. I sat by the window watching and sure enough, a few minutes later, the noises started again and the light below came on. I don't think he ever left or even went down the side to the car park at the back. I still couldn't see what was going on because of the angle of my window. I was about to call the police again when a taxi driver passing by slammed on his brakes and shouted out his window.

[00:37:32] [SPEAKER_03] I stopped to listen. Hey you, what are you doing over there? I dropped you off on the other side of town an hour ago. The taxi driver knew this man. What a twist. Oh hey, I lost my keys. My friends live here and I'm trying to get a hold of them to let me in. I see the shoulder and leg of the man come around the corner slightly. You told me you were going to sleep it off and you wouldn't be causing any more trouble like earlier. I asked you

[00:38:01] [SPEAKER_03] to get out and you begged me to drop you off at home. So I did and now you're not at home. I just said I had no keys to get in. I'm trying to stay with my friend. They live here. You could hear that the man was getting agitated and an edge was creeping into his tone as he lied again. So why are you skulking down the side and making a ruckus instead of ringing the bell? What's going on? What are you really doing? The man gets angry at this and storms down the driveway to confront the taxi driver.

[00:38:32] [SPEAKER_03] This is my first time getting a proper look at him although I could only see the back. He looked like a normal well presented young man with brown hair a black t-shirt jeans and trainers. I was surprised based on his appearance I would not think of him as somebody I would normally avoid late at night. I couldn't really make out what was said next as they were both shouting over each other but I could hear the taxi driver yell Police! The man suddenly leapt towards

[00:39:01] [SPEAKER_03] his car door. The taxi driver quickly screeched off down the road leaving the man standing there swearing and seething. It was at this point that I realized that I had been an idiot frozen by the window watching the scene unfurl beneath me without calling the police to let them know that he was back. I ducked down to pick up my phone which I must have dropped amidst the commotion. As I spoke to a different operator the man turned around and strolled down

[00:39:31] [SPEAKER_03] the driveway a little bit but seemed to hesitate and stopped staring up at my building. I tried to get a good look at his face but it was too dark to make out very much detail. He stood there for almost 10 minutes just standing there and staring up at my window occasionally swaying from side to side. I knew rationally that he couldn't see me peeking out but I could swear he was staring right at me and I knew

[00:40:00] [SPEAKER_03] that he knew I was there. He stopped looking at my window and turned to stare at the door for a few moments. I was begging the emergency operator to get the police out here sooner as I was worried he was going to try the door again. However I think the confrontation with the taxi driver made him lose his nerve and he was worried about the police showing up. I could hear him make an odd huffing snorting noise of frustration as he turned and left my driveway slowly walking down the street and out of sight.

[00:40:30] [SPEAKER_03] I updated the emergency operator with the direction he headed off and ended the call. About ten minutes later I saw the police car cruise by with its headlights off heading the way that he had gone. Unsurprisingly they never found him as it had been too long and there were too many side streets and alleys around for him to slip away down. He didn't come back again but I stayed vigilant by that window until sunrise crying my little eyes out and chain smoking like hell. I didn't sleep

[00:41:00] [SPEAKER_03] properly for weeks afterwards and I get extremely paranoid walking to and from my building now. I've stopped taking the bins down even if the light is setting slightly. Luckily I'd already begin the process to move elsewhere for unrelated reasons so I have to live here for a couple more weeks before I move to a big house with some friends. I liked living on my own before this. Now I'm very grateful to be losing my privacy to have some backup. Shout out to

[00:41:29] [SPEAKER_03] the brave taxi driver who stopped to confront him. You were more helpful than the local police and I don't know if he would have left if you had not scared him off. I wish I could ask you what the hell happened when you met that man earlier that night. So, strange man trying to trick me into thinking that you were in danger so that I would let you in. Let's never ever meet.

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[00:43:35] [SPEAKER_03] This happened over a year ago. Our oldest son, Caden, was three at the time and our youngest son, Connor, was around five months old. It still gives me chills and still makes me uncomfortable even walking by it. It was January in the evening in Pennsylvania. It was dark outside with a couple inches of snow on the ground and we had just finished eating dinner and I planned on giving our little one a bath.

[00:44:04] [SPEAKER_03] My husband drives truck for work so he isn't home very often. It's me and the boys during the week. Caden was playing with his toys in the room that has a door leading to the side deck. For little detail, we have no sensor light or even a porch light on that whole side of the house. It's not close to the sidewalk or even the next street over. Basically, an open space of yard is off of that deck. Anyway, Caden was playing

[00:44:34] [SPEAKER_03] in his toy room waiting for his turn to take a bath while I brought Connor into the bathroom. We were just about done with bath time when I heard Caden's little feet running towards the bathroom. He stands in the doorway and says, Mommy, there's a man looking in the side door. I think it's the mailman. My heart skipped a beat because one,

[00:45:03] [SPEAKER_03] no mailman is coming at 7 p.m. and two, the side door, as he called it, was never used, especially during the winter. I didn't hear anyone knock. I began to sketch myself out more by thinking about how there was no light on the deck and this person would have to walk through the yard in the snow and walk up the back stairs of the deck and go to that door where the front porch light was on

[00:45:32] [SPEAKER_03] and attached to a shoveled sidewalk. I took Connor out of the bath, put him in a towel in his little chair and told Caden to sit with his brother and not to come out until I said it was okay. He was confused but listened. They just kept asking what was wrong. I grabbed the biggest kitchen knife that I could find, had 911 ready to call and my mama bare face on. When I walked up to the side door

[00:46:02] [SPEAKER_03] I shined my flashlight on my phone through the window of the door at a distance walking up to it to hopefully scare someone away. It's mostly made of glass. The worst thought with this as a mother is that as I reached for the handle I realized it was unlocked. Someone could have walked right in. I flung the door open and shined my light held up my knife and yelled Hey!

[00:46:31] [SPEAKER_03] in the most threatening voice a 5'4", 120 pound woman could make. There were footprints in the snow leading up to the deck stairs and back down going into the field of woods behind our house. I slammed the door thoroughly freaked out and locked it. I called the police and we did in the bathroom with the boys. While I was in there I asked Caden Do we know who the man was? He said No

[00:47:00] [SPEAKER_03] but he smiled and waved at me for a really long time. I asked him what he was wearing. He told me A hat that looked like a mailman's hat and he wasn't wearing a coat. That's all I got out of him. The police officers came and searched and searched the property with flashlights before coming inside. He asked me and Caden questions and then informed me that he

[00:47:30] [SPEAKER_03] not only saw footprints leading up to the side deck but to the outside door to our basement and kitchen window on the other side of the house as well. He suggested I have someone come and stay with us for the night and that they will continue to follow the footprints that were left in the snow back to the field and the woodline. My father-in-law slept on the couch that night with his gun being the closest relative to our house.

[00:48:00] [SPEAKER_03] My mother was a nervous wreck and I got very little sleep. I never heard back from the police. I'm guessing the tracks were probably lost through the woods. Caden still mentions it from time to time randomly and we got a blackout curtain for that door. I'd still very much like to get better locks to be safe. My husband and my father think it might have been a man who saw me home alone while passing and wanted to

[00:48:29] [SPEAKER_03] hopefully sneak a peek but why just stand and watch my child and go around the whole back of the house and not by the front door or straight. I hope to never see the creep's face and I hope he never smiles or waves at my child again.

[00:49:10] [SPEAKER_03] I was 10 years old when we moved into a new apartment. It was in a bad neighborhood. My mom who was 8 months pregnant at the time had no choice in the matter. We had just been released from a domestic violence shelter and turning down a cheap house was not an option. No matter if it were in the ghetto or not. Our first and last day living there goes as follows. After we were dropped off we claimed

[00:49:40] [SPEAKER_03] our bedrooms even though we had nothing but a few garbage bags full of clothes and then there was not a single piece of furniture not even a bed. I claimed the upstairs because it was a cool idea to have two floors. I imagined running downstairs and catching the school bus. My 8 year old brother chose the room right next to mine. My 5 year old sister was sharing a room with our mom downstairs. It was right

[00:50:09] [SPEAKER_03] beside the front door. After our excitement wore down we had to walk to the grocery store since we didn't have food either. While I was reading the magazines I casually saw a cell phone that had been left on the racks. At the time 2001 very few people had them. Definitely not people like us. I picked it up and found my mom. I showed her with my face shocked.

[00:50:39] [SPEAKER_03] She immediately put it in her purse. I became angry at her. I knew this wasn't the right thing to do. We should tell the manager of the store or wait by the magazines and see if someone comes back to find it. Nope. My mom told me to hush and continued to shop. She wasn't a thief. I never saw her steal anything before then. I was still a little mad at her when we arrived back to our new home. We all obviously

[00:51:09] [SPEAKER_03] started taking turns with the phone, playing the classic game Snake. When it came time to sleep we literally piled all of our clothes on my mom's floor. It was the only thing we could use for a bed. Us kids were goofing around on our pallet and my mom was in the living room. That's when we heard the banging on the front door. Someone was screaming to let them in the house. A male voice. An unknown voice.

[00:51:40] [SPEAKER_03] Banging and kicking at the door. He screamed, let me in or I'll kill you. My mom grabbed the phone and immediately called 911. After she told them the address and information, she urgently said before hanging up, hurry or we'll all die. She ran us to the bedroom and told us to hide in the closet and she slammed the door behind her. Of course, me being 10, I immediately

[00:52:10] [SPEAKER_03] opened it back up, just enough to see through and see what was happening. I didn't see my mom. The kicking and banging kept getting faster and louder. He was shouting, I know someone's in there, open this fucking door. My mom came out of the bathroom, holding the lid to the toilet tank above her head. She stood by the entrance of the door, waiting for him to eventually break in.

[00:52:40] [SPEAKER_03] her face was frozen in the most serious expression. She was focused, holding this object, almost like a tennis racket. She didn't really move at all, ready to do something she probably never imagined that she would do, attack a stranger, and maybe even kill him. She never said a word back to him, or to us. I saw their headlights,

[00:53:10] [SPEAKER_03] before I heard them. The man was still cursing while the police subdued him. He sounded different, though, disappointed and defeated. The cops then opened up our door. I think he had just finished breaking it enough to come inside. My mom was still holding the tank lid in her warrior tennis stance. The cop calmly took it away from my mom and said, it's okay, we've got him. Within two seconds, she burst

[00:53:39] [SPEAKER_03] into tears and fell to her knees crying and thanking them. After we all hugged and calmed down a little, a cop offered to stay in patrol until sunrise, and they told my mom something in confidence. She shared with me years later that the stranger was a registered sex offender with previous burglary charges as well. The next morning, we got picked up by a family friend. We ended up staying with her until we found a safer place to live,

[00:54:09] [SPEAKER_03] right before my mom gave birth to my brother. I don't know why he picked our apartment, or why he tried so hard to get in. Let's Not Meet is brought to you by Progressive Insurance. Do you ever

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[00:56:38] [SPEAKER_03] This is a story from my childhood, one of the ones that haunt me to this day. Have you ever seen those memes where it says people react like a criminal when an unexpected visitor arrives at their doorstep? They freeze and drop everything they're doing and throw themselves onto the floor to avoid being seen in a window? This is my story of how I became one of those people. At the time, I must have been around maybe seven

[00:57:08] [SPEAKER_03] and a half. I was visiting the Midwest, Kansas to be exact, from South Korea, where I was born and raised, just visiting family, nothing major. On that particular night, the adults, our aunt and uncle and our parents, were going to have a date night, so our parents had ordered a pizza for us before they left and waited for it to arrive, so that we wouldn't have to open the door for anyone. My aunt and uncle had

[00:57:37] [SPEAKER_03] two kids, two boys, to be exact, and they were ages fifteen and eight. Like I said before, I was maybe seven and a half at the time. My older sister was eleven and our baby brother was the young tender age of three, so all in all, we're ready to have a fun night of games. After all, it wasn't that often that the cousins got to get together like this. They lived in the States and we lived in Korea, but we loved each other dearly.

[00:58:07] [SPEAKER_03] We saw our parents move out of the garage entryway. They made sure that we knew the rules and we would recite them back to them. They also would make sure that we knew where the telephones were and had the emergency numbers to accompany them. It was just going to be the typical night with no parents, or so we thought. It had been maybe an hour, maybe two after our parents had left. We were downstairs in the basement, in the

[00:58:37] [SPEAKER_03] playroom, or the game room, whatever people like to call it these days. We were down there just watching movies, playing air hockey, things of that nature, just being kids. We weren't being loud or anything like that, and even if we were, it wouldn't be that big of a deal because the way that the houses were in Kansas, the basements were built into the ground in case of a tornado. I had gone upstairs with my oldest cousin because I wanted to drink some chocolate milk. I couldn't reach the cups alone,

[00:59:06] [SPEAKER_03] so we wandered upstairs into the kitchen, which was on the far end of the house. The others stayed downstairs continuing their games. We had been upstairs for maybe 15 to 20 minutes because while I was drinking milk, my older cousin was making snacks since we were planning to watch a movie. Then all of a sudden, we hear the doorbell ring. I remember my cousin looked at me and told me to stay there. My cousin started to creep towards the door quietly. It was unnerving for someone to

[00:59:36] [SPEAKER_03] be ringing the doorbell. We weren't expecting any guests and the pizza had already been delivered before our parents had left for the evening. And before he's even halfway to the door, whoever is on the other side starts rapidly ringing the doorbell over and over, the constant ringing echoing throughout the house. And by this point, I had looked over towards a staircase, and I saw our other siblings starting to creep up the stairs, with the exclusion of the baby, who was still

[01:00:05] [SPEAKER_03] asleep in the crib down in the guest room. The oldest of the kids, James, put his finger to his lips and told us to be quiet and to make it seem like no one was home, despite there being lights on. He crept closer to the door as the banging and ringing on the doorbell continues, and he peeked through the peephole. I had never seen my cousin look so freaked out. His face drained in color, and he backed away from the door rapidly. He told us all to go

[01:00:35] [SPEAKER_03] downstairs, but of course, we didn't listen. Honestly, we thought he was playing a joke. Maybe it was some of his friends wanting to scare us, since he did cancel his plans that night to stay home and watch all of us. My older sister shoved past him and looked through the peephole herself, and for whatever reason, whatever was on the other side of that door made her have the same exact reaction, and she stumbled back from the

[01:01:05] [SPEAKER_03] door, just as pale. At the time, I didn't understand what was going on. I didn't think any of us younger kids really did, but something wasn't right. After a while, maybe 20 minutes, whoever was at the door stopped ringing the doorbell, and was completely quiet again. It seemed like they gave up. Maybe they thought no one was home. If only we knew how wrong we really were. We all sat in silence

[01:01:35] [SPEAKER_03] for a while, after this initially occurred. My other cousin, Kyle, mustered up the courage to ask his brother James, who was at the door, and why James and my sister were acting so skittish. James told us that there was a man wearing dark clothes and seemed to be carrying some type of package or large box, but they couldn't see his face. Of course, Kyle, being the little smarty pants that he was at the time, started to mock James,

[01:02:05] [SPEAKER_03] saying that he was just being a scaredy cat, and didn't recognize their neighbors. Kyle was convinced it was just a neighbor trying to drop off a package that might have gotten mixed up in the mail, seeing that it happened all the time. So we all agree that was probably the cause. Until we realized whoever was ringing the doorbell didn't leave the package at the porch. And isn't that what most neighbors do? In the case that no one answers, they'll just leave it?

[01:02:35] [SPEAKER_03] And why would they try to bring it over to the house at night instead of just waiting until the next day? We went back to the kitchen, grabbed the snacks, and started to head back downstairs until we heard the banging again. But it wasn't from the front porch this time. We were in shock. We were frozen in fear. I mean, it was coming from right behind us. We turned slowly and looked back into the direction from which the sound came from. We were currently standing in the dining

[01:03:05] [SPEAKER_03] room. We had already passed through the kitchen. It was like someone was banging on the kitchen window. You know, the one that's typically above your sink? So your mother and your father can watch the kids while they play in the backyard? While they wash the dishes? So James and my older sister, who I'm just going to call Nicole for this story, got down on their hands and knees and crawled back into the kitchen, much against our charging. Just as they crawl

[01:03:34] [SPEAKER_03] into the kitchen to take a peek, they crawled back to us almost in hyper speed, and they told us to get low and stay low as we crawled into the den further down the hallway. James had us all huddle close to the fireplace out of sight from the windows, and he told us to stay there, and he was going to be protecting his home and his family the best he knew how. James quickly crawled away. I didn't know where he was going, but I was scared. The banging was getting louder, and it was getting

[01:04:04] [SPEAKER_03] closer and closer. At some point, I started to cry, and I remember Kyle putting his hand over my mouth and my sister hugging us tight. Around that time, we saw James starting to appear back around the corner, and he had a baseball bat. He had crawled up another staircase to get to his room. He crawled past us and put a finger to his lips again, and that's when we realized he was crawling towards a doggy door. He was attempting to close off the one entrance to the house that wasn't locked. Thankfully, he managed to get it latched in time

[01:04:34] [SPEAKER_03] because I don't think that the man outside realized that the house had a doggy door. But when he heard the lock click into place, the banging became more erratic and more violent. And all of a sudden, much like before, the banging stopped, but we heard pacing. Someone was walking back and forth across the porch slowly and deliberately, thumping. His heavy boots thundered across the red oak porch. And then, without warning, the pacing stopped.

[01:05:03] [SPEAKER_03] And it became quiet. Eerily quiet. Then, the man called out, Why won't you open the door? I have a package for you. We didn't respond. We stayed quiet, or as quiet as we could be with the way that our hearts were pounding and how ragged our breath was. The stranger called out again, Open the door! And again, we didn't answer. The man called out angrily, I said open the door!

[01:05:33] [SPEAKER_03] I have a package! Like before, we didn't answer, nor did we make any sudden movements. The man started banging again, this time directly on the panel window of the room that we were sitting in, yelling, I know you're in there! I know you can hear me open the door or I'll open it for you! The banging continued. The window rattled and shook violently with each impact from the strange man. Thankfully, our cousin's house had

[01:06:03] [SPEAKER_03] reinforced windows, so they weren't easy to break into. But unluckily, we didn't have any neighbors close by, so we didn't think anyone could hear the commotion. But while he was making all of this noise, we took this opportunity to book it into another room and get to a phone. At one point, while we were on the phone with the police officers, they asked us if we could describe the man, and all we knew was that he was tall and wearing black. So Kyle and I

[01:06:32] [SPEAKER_03] decided to be brave. So if something did happen to us that night, they would at least have a better description of who did it. We crawled back into the den, and we dared to look out of the small corner of the window. We gently moved the curtains out of the way, and the man was still banging. He had moved the shutters off the side of the window. They're basically hanging off the hinges at this point, rattling with the wind.

[01:07:03] [SPEAKER_03] We made eye contact with the deranged man. Direct, soul-searching eye contact. I don't think before this night that I had ever believed that there was pure evil in the world, but when I looked into this man's eyes, I didn't see a soul. I know it sounds crazy, but those were not the eyes of a human. It was something unlike I had ever seen before. Animalistic, maybe. The only word I could use to describe it, besides demonic,

[01:07:33] [SPEAKER_03] was evil, unnatural. It was something I would never want to see again. When he saw us, he smiled, a twisted grin that I'm sure he thought was reassuring, and he crouched down so he could get a better look at us. And then he said, Do you want your mail? You have mail, and I can give it to you, but only if you open the door. I remember just grabbing onto Kyle's hand for dear life,

[01:08:03] [SPEAKER_03] and Kyle shook his head no, and he threw the curtain back over the window, and before we even had a chance to move any further, the man started violently banging on the window again. At this point, James had had enough. He passed the phone to my sister, and he yelled, Leave us alone! The police are on the way! You're not getting in here! After that, it seemed like the man panicked, and the banging abruptly stopped, and then we heard rapid footsteps on the porch.

[01:08:33] [SPEAKER_03] Kyle and I peeked out the window again, and the man was running through the yard, past all the trees. He jumped the fence, the wooden 22-foot fence at the end of the yard, and then into the alley that separated the neighborhood from the old cemetery. We stayed on the phone with the police until they arrived, and our parents arrived not long after, but the man was never caught, and we don't know what happened after that night. He just disappeared in thin air.

[01:09:02] [SPEAKER_03] To this day, I'm 21 now, whenever I hear doorbells ringing. When I'm not expecting a visitor, my heart drops and I break into a cold sweat. Mystery package, man. Let's not meet again.

[01:09:31] [SPEAKER_03] Stick around after the music if you're a patron for your extended version of this week's episode with bonus stories you won't hear anywhere else. You can sign up at patreon.com forward slash let's not meet podcast to get access today. You'll also get access to ad-free versions of all of the episodes at a higher bit rate. Don't forget to check out the new episodes of my other podcasts, Odd Trails, and the old time radio cast. And follow me at twitch.tv slash cryptic county. Finally, be sure to send your stories in to lets not meet stories at gmail.com if you'd like to hear them on the show. This week you have

[01:10:01] [SPEAKER_03] heard The Game of Courage by Thief in the Shadows, Midnight Encounter at the Old Cabin by Alien Ale, He's Still Out There by Kate IJ, Let Me In by Emma the Junicorn, Man Looking Into Our Son's Window by Brittany Ballistic, Tank Lid by Jenna Ferry, and finally Mail from Hell. By Teas and Model Tay. 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.

[01:10:30] [SPEAKER_03] If you have a story to share, again, send it to letsnotmeetstories at gmail.com. We'll see you next week. Everybody stay safe.

[01:11:04] [SPEAKER_03] This happened to me three years ago. I'm 28 now.

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[01:12:35] Thanks for listening to the The The The you