Let's Not Meet: A True Horror Podcast - 12x13: The Body on the Side of the Road

Episode Date: March 25, 2024

Stories in this episode: Followed Home and Scared to Death! | CheeseyBreadstick (7:23) The Lure | tclarkec (8:21) The Body on the Side of the Road...  | Ok-Dark-9660 (14:01) She Was More Than Twice My Age | wheelsonice2020 (20:31) My Stalker Defended Me at a Hot Dog Shop | Jessibunnix (24:57) Lock Your Doors in D.C. | PhoKINGAmy (30:44) Bernice... | JudgeDrey (34:19) The Man Who Chased Me in the Dark | Stickygooch_grease (40:37) Always Listen to Your Gut | fuzzyfox41097 (44:53) Extended Patreon Content: No More Cemetery Trips at Sundown | Vince The Customer | Riley Mouse | Anoymous My Mom's Near Hit | McKenzie Due to periodic changes in ad placement, time stamps are estimates and are not always accurate. Get access to extended, ad-free episodes of Let's Not Meet: A True Horror Podcast with bonus stories every week at a higher bitrate along with a bunch of other great exclusive material and merch at patreon.com/letsnotmeetpodcast. This podcast would not be possible to continue at this rate without the help of the support of the legendary LNM Patrons. Come join the family! 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. To submit your story to the show, send it to [e-mail].   Check out the other Cryptic County podcasts like Odd Trails and the Old Time Radiocast at CrypticCountyPodcasts.com or wherever you get your podcasts! Learn to make time for what makes you happy, with BetterHelp. Visit BetterHelp.com/notmeet today to get 10% off your first month.  - Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/groups/433173970399259/ - Website - https://letsnotmeetpodcast.com/ - Patreon - https://patreon.com/letsnotmeetpodcast - Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/letsnotmeetcast/ - Twitch - https://twitch.tv/crypticcounty

This podcast contains adult language and content. Listener discretion is advised. If you have a story to share, send it to letsnotmeetstories at gmail.com. Enjoy the show. This happened when I was 21 years old in 1981. I was living in a smaller town outside of a huge city in the Midwest with my husband. I was expecting my first child. I worked at a fast food place that stayed open until 3am. My husband worked for a bowling alley as a manager and he was never off before 2 a.m.

Business was slow on this particular night, so I was sent home a few hours earlier than usual at about 1 a.m. In the town where I lived, there was a large private girls' college. At the time, women were being warned to lock their car doors because two men were targeting women around my age. They were still on the loose. There were several reports of these men following women home to attack them. And there were incidents where they forced women who were driving alone late at night

off the road. The men were assaulting and killing these women, and they had killed three by this point. Two of the women were found on deserted roads, one was found in her apartment. What made all of this even scarier was that there was no physical description of these men or any details of what kind of vehicle that they drove. After I was sent home from work early, I climbed into my car, locked my car doors, and started heading home. As I began driving, the hair on the back of my head stood on end,

and I had this gut feeling. Something was very wrong. I noticed that I was being followed home. I took several turns around town at random, trying to shake this car, but to no avail. The advice given by law enforcement at the time was that if you thought you were being followed, you should drive to the police station. My husband and I had recently moved to the area so I had no idea where the police station was.

I was terrified, panicked, and had no idea what I should do. This happened during the days of no cell phones, however payphones were available in different areas. Some payphones were situated closer to the street, and if they had a longer cord it was easily accessible without getting out of the car. Not all payphones were like this, though. Either way, you still had to deposit money into the phone to make a phone call.

Even if you were calling 911. I briefly thought about trying to get to one of these phones, but I was too scared, and I didn't think that I would be able to deposit a coin into the phone quickly enough before these men would have time to approach me. My parents were living about four streets over from where my husband and I were, so I decided my safest bet was to try and make it to my parents' house. As I was driving around, deciding what to do, I was still being followed en route to my parents' house. There was a short block that went around my parents' house, and I went around this block about three times, just to be certain that I was being followed.

I wanted whoever was following me to know that I was onto them, so every time I went around this block, I honked the horn. You would have thought that laying on the horn would be discouraging to these creeps. Maybe they would stop following me. However, it had no effect on them. If anything, they started following me even closer. I finally pulled into my parents' driveway, and these creepers pulled in right behind me. They turned their lights off, and I heard their car door open and shut.

I was appalled and terrified. I watched in my rear view as the two men were coming up to my car. They split up and one was on each side of my car. My parents' house was a split level, and they had a double car garage. In order to get into their house, you had to go through the garage door or the front door. The front door was on the left of the driveway, about two car lengths away, and there was a set of steps leading up to the door. I laid on the horn again, but they continued approaching my car. My dad, who was retired military, often stayed up late at night watching TV, and thank God

this night was no different. He was still up. All of a sudden, he turned the porch light on and burst out the front door. He assessed the situation instantly and started yelling at these creeps to get the fuck away from my car while barreling down the steps towards them. At first, they hesitated, but after getting a good look at my dad, they must have thought better. My dad is about 6'4", very big boned. He wore a size 15 shoe. He made it to the front of their car and pounded on the hood several times before they were

able to burn rubber reversing out of the driveway. He was unable to get their license number, since they didn't have a front plate, but he was able to provide the police with an adequate description of them and he let them know the make and model of the car that they were driving. My dad said that he thought he heard a car honk more than once, and he was finally able to hear that it was me in the driveway when he shut the TV off. He had just shut it off and was heading to bed when I pulled in. Thank God my dad acted so quickly, or I might not be sharing this story today. The police ended up capturing these two creeps two weeks later,

and luckily, they never had a fourth victim. They were arrested, and turns out they were both on probation for kidnapping and assault. When they were released from serving sentences on those charges, they decided to up the ante and kill their victims, leaving no witnesses. My dad is still a hero today. His quick actions prevented me from being their fourth victim, and the color, model, and make of their car that my dad described to the police was an exact match to what they were driving when they were arrested. The police told me how fortunate I was that my dad had realized what a dire situation

I was in. I still get chills thinking back to that night. I remember it just like it was yesterday. This incident has caused me to be hyper-aware of my surroundings, and I never turn into my driveway without making sure that I'm not being followed. Always be mindful of where you are. Don't walk around with your headphones on or your phone pressed against your ear. You never know who may be watching out for an opportunistic moment.

It doesn't take much for someone with ill intentions to try something. Most importantly, make sure that you are aware of your local police station and where it is. If you ever get chills or a gut feeling that something is wrong, just drive straight to the police station. Someone will help you there.

Better safe than sorry. This happened a few years ago. One night, about a quarter after midnight, I was in my bed when I heard frantic knocking on my door. I walked out of my bedroom while the knocking continued, and I heard a woman crying, saying, Please help me. But it was faint. I looked out the people, and I saw nobody out there. There were no other doors being knocked on. Just mine. This was odd in and of itself because my apartment was on the third floor. Why would someone in distress walk all the way up to the third floor and knock on an apartment door. Something was definitely off about this. If somebody actually needed help, I figured that they would be banging on everyone's door. I decided to call the police, and the dispatcher told me not to open the door. I told the dispatcher

how odd the voice sounded since it was so faint. I told her it almost sounded like a recording. Now, I've heard of this tactic being used before. I had heard of a slightly different incident where a recording of a baby crying was used to lure women to check it out. It's just so sick that there are people out there that will try this and prey on the empathy of others. The police then drove by.

I saw them using their spotlight to look through the complex, but I had no idea if anyone was found. On the off chance that they did find somebody, I was worried that they were hurt. I barely slept after this. I was thinking of all of the possibilities. How did this person find me? Where had they seen me around? Was this someone random who followed me to my apartment complex? Or did they live in the complex? I live in my apartment alone, and I don't know many people in my area. I don't have any family close by either.

This made me wonder. Had this person been watching me closely enough to gather this information? I mean, thinking of all of this was making me go crazy. The next day, I talked with the management at my apartment complex and I let them know what was going on. They told me that nobody else had reported anything similar. I then tried contacting the police again for an update, but I was redirected to another police department, who wasn't the one who responded to my initial call.

I never heard anything back from them, but I wish I did because I really wanted to know if this happened to anybody else. I ordered and installed a Ring camera so that I would at least be able to have video of whoever this was in case they came back. I feel much safer now that I installed this camera, and I hope it's enough to deter anything like this from happening again.

I'm in the process of getting a firearm and taking self-defense classes. Both take time and a lot of money, so it's been a process. I wanna make sure that I'm investing my time and money into something that will make me feel protected long term. So stay vigilant out there. Don't fall for these kinds of tactics. I'm thankful that I had heard about encounters like these happening, so I was somewhat prepared,

but I can't help but wonder if I wasn't aware, would I have opened the door? What would have happened? Would I be alive? This show is sponsored by BetterHelp. I'm always wondering what I would do if I had an extra hour in my day. Go for a run, take a nap. Well, a lot of us spend our lives wishing that we had more time. The question is, time for what? If time was unlimited, how would you use it?

The best way to squeeze that special thing into your schedule is to know what's important to you and make it a priority. Therapy can help you find what matters to you so you can do more of it. For me, therapy isn't just an appointment. It's time that I look forward to every week where I get to meet the person that I consider a partner that's always there to help me through the rough times. It's helpful for learning positive coping skills and how to set boundaries. It also empowers you to be the best version of yourself.

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That's BetterHelp, H-E-L-P dot com slash not meet. Now back to the show. A couple of years ago, my husband and I took a trip to Yosemite. We stayed outside of the park at a hotel in El Portal. One evening, while we were driving back from the valley, I noticed that our headlights caught what appeared to be somebody lying down on the side of the road with both feet pointed toward the road. I told my husband that there was a person lying there on the highway. I was concerned since it was pitch black, very dark outside.

My husband knows that I love true crime, so he thought that I was spooking myself, and he said he was certain that what I had seen were trash bags. But I was also certain of what I just saw. I insisted. No, that was a body. I saw a body. I know that it was a person. The rest of our drive was rather quiet since I couldn't stop thinking about it.

Once we made our way back to the hotel, just as we were about to park, my husband looked over at me and said, you are sure about this, aren't you? Do you want to go back? In desperation, I blurted out, Yes, of course I do. So we circled back out of the lot and made our way back to the stretch of highway where I saw the body. As we drove by again, I saw the feet even clearer than before. I yelled when I spotted the body again, and I had my husband turn the car back around.

I asked him to stop. He rolled down his window and called out, are you okay? There was no answer. Once more, even louder, my husband asked, Hello, are you okay? Suddenly, a woman dressed in all black sat up. She was wearing a nice down jacket and black pants. She had a purse with her and three water bottles. Her makeup was done nicely, and she seemed very sweet. My husband was absolutely

shocked. I asked her where she was headed. She said that she was trying to get to the Chevron station up the road since her mom was going to meet her there to pick her up. This struck me as a little odd since this woman looked to be in her late 40s. I knew that something weird was going on because I knew which chevron station she was talking about, and it was still another seven miles away. She explained that in her mind, she thought that it was only about a mile from the hotel that she was staying at, which was the same hotel where my husband and I were staying. She thought that the chevron seemed a lot closer and assumed that she could walk. We offered her a ride, and as she climbed into the back seat, I grabbed a thick scarf

to wrap around my neck and pepper spray for protection. As we drove, we tried to ask her questions, just to chit chat. I asked why she was lying on the side of the road, and she said that she had gotten tired of walking so she laid down, ready to give up. Which was crazy to me because it was winter. She had no hat or gloves with her, and I could tell that she was somewhat fragile, which made her even more vulnerable to the elements. Once we arrived at the Chevron station, she thanked us, got out of the car, and sat on

a bench in front of the closed convenience store at the Chevron station. We offered to stay with her until her mom arrived, but she said that she would be fine. I reminded her that there was no cell reception in the area, and I triple-checked that she didn't want us to wait with her, but she was insistent that she was fine. After that, my husband got back on the road and started driving back to the hotel. As we were driving, we noticed two police cars were pulling into the parking lot of our hotel. They had not been there the first time we arrived back from the valley that evening. I told my husband that I knew they had to be either looking

for her or asking about her. I calmly walked over to one of the police cruisers and I asked if they were looking for a missing woman. The officer told me that they were and asked if I had seen her. I explained the situation and said that I felt like there was more to this woman's story. I said that I was concerned that something very bad had happened to her. The officer I was speaking with thanked us for picking her up and giving her a ride. He couldn't tell me what happened, but he implied that her decision to leave and find

somewhere else to go was a smart choice on her part. I told him that she was very likely still at that Chevron station and asked that he go to check on her to make sure she was okay. After he bowled away, I realized that whatever happened to her, happened at the hotel we were staying at. Later that night, I looked up the local police log and I found that a domestic violence dispute had broken out at the hotel. According to the report, the woman had been beaten very badly, and she was so terrified that she was willing to walk in the dark without a flashlight just to escape.

It's my guess that after walking about half a mile from the store, she was in so much pain that she needed to lie down. She couldn't go back to her hotel room because she didn't want to return to the person she was escaping from. She wound up quickly going back to the hotel, just to get some help from the front desk. She didn't stay there long since she was worried that her husband would know she returned and she didn't want him to come after her. The front desk called the police for her while she escaped.

It's my understanding that the man who hurt her was her husband. He was arrested. I've always wondered about her, and whether or not she went back to him. In any case, I hope she's safe. Ever since this happened, my husband says that he won't think twice when I say there's a body on the side of the road. A lot of these stories seem to be about men creeping out women, but this one is a little different.

This took place about 14 years ago in early 2010. I was 16 years old and played lacrosse. I liked girls, but I didn't know much about flirting or anything like that. One day, I was heading home with my lacrosse stuff and a woman walked up to me and asked me if I played. I told her I did, and I also blurted out that I was the captain of the team since I was so proud of that. She said that she thought that that was interesting and asked how old I was.

I told her I was 16 and she laughed and said that she was 38 years old. After this, she told me that I was cute and that she'd love to come to one of my lacrosse games. This woman told me to take her number down several times during this interaction, so I did, but I had no plans of actually reaching out to her or texting her or anything like that. The next day, I was talking to a teammate and I told him about the incident. He laughed and told me that I was a liar. To prove that I was telling

him the truth, I decided to text her, and I asked her to remind me what her age was again. She responded, Babe, I'm 38. I hope I'm not too old for you. When's your next game? I didn't know what to say, so I showed him her response, but I didn't reply to her. She then texted me again and sent me some nudes. I felt really put off by this, so I told her I was going to practice and I didn't respond any further. Later that night, she texted me asking what I was doing, and she asked if I wanted to

come over. I told her that I couldn't because I was doing homework. She told me that she could help out and show me a few things. This gave me a panic attack, so I quickly said no before turning my phone off and going to bed. A few days later, I was getting ready for my next game when I saw a familiar face in the stands. I took a closer look and realized it was her.

Hi, wheels, she called out with a purr. My stomach dropped, but I mustered up the courage to politely wave at her. I tried to put her surprise appearance at my game in the back of my mind, but I couldn't shake it. After the game, she came up to me and asked if I wanted to go home with her. I told her I normally shower after games. She promptly said that I could use hers. I then told her that I had to hang out with some teammates and tried to walk away. This woman grabbed my arm and asked why I had to hang out with some teammates and tried to walk away. This woman grabbed my arm and asked why I had been dodging her.

She asked if I was man enough for her and said I needed to stop playing games. My coach was nearby and happened to overhear what was being said. He came over and asked if everything was good. This woman still had a hold of my arm so I said, Fuck no, and tried to get her off of me. My coach ended up restraining her and I backed away. As I walked away I heard her yelling insults. This whole thing made me feel so sick.

I could have vomited. After that, I had to have a meeting with my coach, my parents, and the principal of my school. They explained that this woman was in the wrong and that she should not have sent me those messages or come to my game. They reassured me that I had done nothing wrong. I was fearful that I had, which was why I didn't tell anybody about the situation sooner. During that meeting, I promised myself and my parents that if I saw her again, I'd press charges for stalking and sending explicit photos to a minor. But, fortunately, I never saw her again. I'm a female and this happened a few years ago when I was 19.

I got a job at a hot dog shop that had a cheeky little phallic pun for the name. It was located in a somewhat shady area, but the shop itself was pretty well known as it had some fantastically dark local lore. Rumor had it the hot dogs were made out of horse meat. Allegedly, the whole operation was a front for something less savory. There were also several rumors that we had been shut down by health inspectors and reopened illegally. Even with all of these rumors in circulation, people kept coming back for our delicious hot dogs. After I started working there, I soon discovered that none of that was even remotely true,

but it was all fun to gossip about. Everyone who worked there would often give ambiguous answers to questions from customers to continue fueling their wide-eyed morbid curiosities. I got used to the quirky characters that would come by this hot dog shop pretty quickly. There was some older gentleman who was rumored to be involved with a local organized crime ring, the occasional

nightclub owner, and tourists. We also provided food to the many homeless and mentally ill people who hung around on the streets in our area. The community was very diverse and sometimes dangerous, but people looked out for each other. During one shift, in the early hours of the morning, I was working the register when a man came into the hot dog shop. He had long, dark hair, with thick stubble, covering most of the lower half of his face. The shop was busy, so he placed his order, then stepped to the side to keep chatting

with me while the other people in line made their orders. I was used to this, as I had grown up pretty comfortable with people rambling at me or hitting on me. I felt okay about this as long as I was on the other side of the counter. After telling me all his thoughts about all of the other men in the shop being posers, but before telling me how beautiful he thought I was, the man told me that he was a chef at a nearby restaurant. Like I said, the people in this area looked after one another, so I felt reassured.

But I gave him a fake name just to be safe. I then started seeing this guy around more often after I met him. It didn't seem uncommon at first, since the shop had its fair share of regulars, some of whom we even knew on a first-name basis. But when my co-workers told me that he had come looking for me and asking about me when I wasn't there, I started to feel uneasy. Every time I saw him, after learning that he had been asking about me, he seemed to be more intoxicated each time. He would always walk in and slur, hey beautiful.

He said this so casually as though he thought beautiful was my name. It made me feel sick to my stomach every time. One night, late, 2 a.m., after I finished my shift, I stepped out on the sidewalk only to see him there, on the other side of the road, watching the shop and waving at me.

I tried not to think about how long he might have been there, watching me through the shop's large neon sign-cluttered windows. I had my manager walk me to my car that night. Not long after that, it was a Saturday night and the shop was pumping as usual. Anybody who has worked in food and hospitality knows exactly what I'm talking about. There was a 40-minute wait just for french fries as the tiny shop was crowded with people who had sauntered out of one of the nearby nightclubs. The crowd was drug-addled and starving, signifying the 3am rush was in full swing.

During said rush, a big, bulky man in his mid-to-late 20s was growing impatient so he started getting in my face. He had ordered fries and was upset that he had been waiting for 30 minutes. I kept apologizing, but that only made him angrier. I was desperately trying to plan my escape from my post, which was within arm's reach of this guy. I tried to move towards the front door, where I figured I could get the attention of one of the club bouncers outside to have them come over and sort this guy out, but there was no hope.

This door was too crowded. As I was trying to think of what to do next, I heard a sloppy but familiar voice. Hey, leave her alone. Then my stalker randomly emerged from the crowd. He was a mere five-five, but he still fronted up to the massive man who was screaming about his fries, and the two of them started fighting. Luckily, the commotion caught the eye of one of the bouncers outside. The bouncer ran inside and swiftly de-escalated the situation, and shortly after that, I got

a job offer to work in a more stable environment elsewhere, and moved on. To my hot dog shop stalker, thanks for the help that night, but no thanks to anything else that you ever tried to offer me. ["The Last Supper"] This happened nine or 10 years ago in DC. After meeting with a couple of friends at a bar, my friend Robin and I decided to end girls night early. It was 1am.

We had spent the evening at Rocket Bar and afterward we went outside, got into the car, and started pulling out. My friend Robin was driving and I was in the passenger seat. We were going a bit slow since we weren't too familiar with the area and didn't want to miss any turns. The street that we were on was a bit dead at the time, but then we heard a yell followed by some really loud crying. It was clearly a woman's voice, so we slowed down to see what was going on. To our right, we saw this lady stumble out and onto the street.

She was clutching her chest and crying. Robin locked the doors and cautiously rolled my window up since I had it open, but she left it open just an inch. The lady came right up to my window and said, I need help. What's wrong, honey? I asked. She didn't answer my question. Instead, she kept repeating, I need help.

I need help. She said this over and over again. I was a little naive around this time, so I reached for the door handle and got ready to open the door to this lady. But I was grabbed by Robin, who whispered, "'Don't even fucking think about opening that door.'" With each repetition of this lady saying, I need help, her speech became more and more slurred.

But when she saw Robin stop me from reaching for the door, her eyes widened. She stopped slurring and firmly proclaimed, I need help. Robin and I were shocked. We jumped as she started yelling and frantically asked, how can we help you? This lady then shoved her fingers in the one inch opening of the window and screamed, let me in. We yelled at her to stop, but then the lady started yanking at my door handle.

At this point, Robin had had enough, so she yelled, hell no, and we started pulling away. As terrifying as this was, the next thirty seconds were even more terrifying. As we pulled away, I saw the lady yelling to someone, They're leaving! We then saw two guys emerge from a parked car a few cars behind where we had stopped in the road. After that, Robin sped away so fast, it was like a scene in an action movie. We looked in the rearview mirror

as we were making our getaway and saw the three of them standing in the street watching us drive away. Ladies and gentlemen, please be careful out there. I can't imagine what could have happened to me if it weren't for my friend. I know some people are inherently helpful, and as one of them, I know all we want to do is help.

But there are a lot of evil people out there. Some of them will go as far as disguising themselves or faking emergencies to do us harm. Be aware of your surroundings and always lock your doors, especially in DC. In 1991, I was 20 and newly single after being in a relationship with my first love. I was unemployed and living with two friends. I started hanging out with one of my friends' church friends. My friend's church friends weren't the typical church people.

They were kind of like street church people. They had no denomination. For the most part, they had pretty basic Christian beliefs, but nothing too crazy at all. About five of my friends' church friends were sharing a pretty big apartment. Since they had pretty ample space, we would all hang out there, and it was normal for people to drop by here and there. Then this one girl, who we'll call Bernice, dropped by one day. Bernice was a very pretty girl, who was 7 or 8 years older than I was. This age difference might not sound like much, but since I was 20, the age difference felt

pretty significant in my opinion. Although she was pretty, I wasn't immediately drawn to her, but when she first saw me she would not stop staring the entire time she was there. She was very obvious about it and everyone in the apartment could tell that she was acting creepy towards me. As everyone else looked at her, they noticed that she was extremely fixated, so much so that I remember one of the church friends trying to talk to her and get her out of this trance. Whenever someone would approach her, she would barely acknowledge them. She just kept staring at me. I was new in this group, and as a shy person in general, I don't want to come out and

ask what's going on. I'm sure many other people would have piped up and asked this, but I just stayed in my corner and kept watching TV. She stuck around for about two hours, and there was so much tension while she was there. Once she finally left, I felt like I could breathe again. Someone in this friend group eventually admitted that she had a few issues. The issues were specified to me at the time, but I can't remember what they were now that it's been so long. After this revelation, her odd behavior made a bit more sense, but it still didn't explain her fixation on me that night.

I chalked up her reaction to me being the new guy in the group that night. Since this group was somewhat established, I figured she probably just wasn't used to seeing anyone new around. Who knows, I thought. Regardless, it was a bit disturbing, and I felt anxious about seeing her again. About a week later, I dropped back in to hang out with everyone. As I walked through the door, everyone stared at me. The tension was palpable. What's going on?" I asked.

Bernice was here today, somebody explained. And? I said. She left a letter that she wrote for you here. They trailed off as they gestured towards the table in the corner. I walked over to the table and found a three-page letter written to me. She just left it on the table, no envelope or anything. She left it for everyone else to see, and they all had the opportunity to read it,

if they wanted to. I assumed they had, which would explain why they were all acting so freaked out when I had arrived. Basically, from what I recall, her letter started with Basically, from what I recall, her letter started with a bit of rambling, quite a bit of it. She said that when she first saw me, she thought that I was Jesus. And she went on and on about it. She wrote, I'm not 100% sure if you are Jesus or not, but I think you are. I love you with all my heart.

I can't stop thinking about you. I just want us to be together." I almost shit myself halfway through reading this thing. Everyone there was in suspense as they gathered around and watched me read Bernice's letter. Once I was done, I imagined I was probably as pale as a ghost. I seemed to remember them telling me not to worry about it too much, as they said they were going to make sure that she wouldn't come around, especially if I was there. I felt relieved about this, and luckily I didn't see her.

At least not for about a year. Due to the town that I was living in being relatively small, I eventually bumped into her at a club. It was about two to three days before Christmas. I said hello to be polite, but I honestly didn't have any choice but to acknowledge her since she came right up to me. When she approached me, my heart was in my throat.

I imagine I probably started sweating, instantly. I remember her talking to me pretty normally for the first few minutes. She started with normal chit chat, asking me how I had been doing and such. So I thought, okay, maybe she's come to her senses a little. At least, that's what I was hoping and praying for. to her senses a little. At least, that's what I was hoping and praying for. The normalcy of the conversation led to me letting my guard down a little, so I started to relax. But as the conversation went on, she blurted out an invitation to Christmas supper at her mom's house. She told me it was going to be her and her mother, and I would be the guest of honor.

This may sound like an innocent and possibly a nice thing to do under normal circumstances, but when she mentioned that I would be the guest of honor, I couldn't help but think about her letter and how she was so sure I was Jesus. This was way too much for me. I got out of that club pretty quickly after that. I haven't seen Bernice since. This happened about two to three years ago. I was 16 at the time, and I used to work at a fast food restaurant. It was winter time, so it got dark pretty early,

around 5 p.m. I was called to come in to work on this particular day, but the weather was pretty bad, which caused business to be really slow. We didn't have any customers that day, so as a result, we had to close the store early. It was about 5.30 pm when my manager and I were leaving. My ride had not arrived yet, so after my manager locked the store, I had to wait outside until

my ride came to get me. About 20 minutes had passed since she left, and I was really cold, so I decided that I would walk to a friend's house. My friend lived nearby, just a few blocks away, so it was about a ten minute walk. I figured that I would go there to warm up and wait for my ride. The store I worked at was on a busy street near a residential neighborhood. As I walked away from the store, I started walking down the residential street

that ran behind the store. I was walking on the sidewalk on the left side of the street, as the sidewalk on the right side of the street cut off after a block. This road also has some woods on the right side of the road, which is why the sidewalk ends on that side. Walking on the left side of the road was more convenient for me anyway since my store was on the left side. This street wasn't lit very well, so the light from my store helped me see a little better. I walked about three quarters of a block when I got this feeling that I was being watched.

The neighborhood I was walking through had gotten pretty dark by the time I was walking to my friend's house. I had pretty much reached the end of the block and was getting ready to cross the street when I noticed a silhouette of someone walking on the right side of the road near the woods. The figure appeared to be a man who was about 5'10", maybe 180 to 200 pounds. I couldn't make out any features, though. Seeing this person on the right side of the road was unexpected, but I tried to stay calm as I'm the type of person who can be slightly paranoid. I've been followed, almost kidnapped, and stalked.

This is why I do my best to be aware of my surroundings. When I noticed him, I stopped walking immediately and got this sick feeling in my stomach. The man then noticed me and proceeded to walk slowly and yell out to me. He called out, Come here, I want to talk to you. I replied, No, I'm good, I'm only sixteen. Then I turned around and started walking back to my store while he continued to yell at

me, trying to convince me to come to him. At that point, something in me told me to run so I did exactly that. As I was running, I turned my head to see what he was doing. To my horror, I saw him chasing me. Then I turned up the speed and started sprinting as fast as I could. Thankfully, as I reached the store, my ride had arrived, so I ran straight to the car. As I tried to get in, the door was locked. It only took a few seconds for my ride to unlock the door, but that felt like hours. When I got into

the car, I just broke down and cried. I was kind of out of shape when this happened so my back was hurting from breathing so hard. I was so frazzled. This was the first time I was chased on foot, and let me tell you, it's so much scarier and more surreal and intense than you can imagine. To this day, I still feel traumatized by the incident, and it's been hard for me to go anywhere by myself, especially in the dark. So to the man who chased me in the dark,

let's not ever meet again. This happened when I was 13. My family and I were on our way home from a Wednesday night church service. My mom was in the driver's seat, and I was behind her in the back seat. My five-year-old brother was in the middle and my ten-year-old sister was on the other side. We were just down the road from my church, so we were on a familiar country road, but it was late and very dark, so nobody else was on the road. We were just coming up to our turn when all of a sudden a car came swerving from where we were about to turn. This little car was taking the turn so fast that their car came into our lane and almost

hit us. We swerved as they tried to get their car in their own lane, narrowly missing colliding with them. Unfortunately for them, they overcorrected as they made their sharp turn. Their car flipped and landed driver's side door down in a ditch. My mom, of course, hit the brakes and immediately jumped out of the car to go help whoever was driving. However, she only took about three steps away from our car before stopping dead in her tracks. My sister and I were sitting there with our mouths hanging wide open. We had no clue what was going on or what we should do.

I remember sitting there thinking, this isn't actually happening to us. This kind of stuff only happens in movies. But why was my mom not continuing to walk forward, to go help the person who just flipped their car into a ditch? It was summertime, so we had our back windows rolled down about halfway. I could hear a person yelling for help, so my mom started walking towards the ditch again to help them. But for some reason, she stopped again in the center of the road.

Another car flew from behind us, and the guy driving that vehicle didn't hesitate to jump out and run to the crash to start helping out. This man hopped into the ditch and started prying the passenger door open so that the guy inside could climb out from that side. I was watching my mom, and I noticed that she seemed like she wanted to jump in and help, but she was frozen. She couldn't move from that spot. She just stood there and watched as the good Samaritan, who pulled up behind us, successfully

got the flipped car's passenger side door open. The guy from inside pulled himself out of the door and got into a frog-like crouching position on top of the car. At this point, my mom started shuffling back to our car. When I looked back at the guy on top of the car, I saw that he had this crazy look in his face. He looked directly at our car and my mom as he launched himself off of the top of his car, hitting the guy who just helped him. After knocking the guy to the ground, he started running at our car, prompting my mom to break into a sprint. He must have known that he wouldn't reach our car before my mom did because he changed directions and ran to the car

behind us. My mom then jumped into the car and locked our doors just as the guy jumped into the vacant driver's seat of the car behind us. He slammed on the gas before he even had a chance to close the door. He almost hit us for a second time. The next thing we knew, the guy who was just carjacked ran up to my mom's window and started screaming and pounding on the window. My mom was so shaken that she didn't want to roll her window down, but she cracked it so that we could understand what the man was saying.

He was yelling, asking us to call 911 because his phone was in the car, along with his girlfriend. My mom immediately started searching for her phone to call, but since she was so frantic about what was going on, she couldn't seem to find it in the moment. I took a break from comforting my little brother and my sister to dial 911 on my phone, and then I handed the phone to my mom. While she was explaining what happened to the 911 operator, I heard a woman screaming down the road. The man who was at our window didn't hesitate in taking off running in

the direction of the scream. He returned a few minutes later with a severely scraped up woman in his arms who turned out to be his girlfriend. My mom unlocked the doors and let the man set her down in the passenger seat while we waited for the cops to come. The girlfriend told us that the man who stole the car didn't notice her until he started speeding off. He tried to hit her, but she scratched and punched him while pleading with him to stop the car. He kept coming at her until he finally rolled down the window

and shoved her out while he was going about 60 miles per hour. When the cops finally showed up, they talked to all of us to get our stories. While talking to one of the officers, my mom learned that the man who had stolen the other guy's car shot and killed a man behind some apartment complex, and that is why he was driving so fast and trying to get away. The man ended up being caught later that same night as he was trying to steal another car. He had already ditched the car that he stole from the guy who pulled up behind us. What really helped with getting this guy apprehended and convicted was that when this woman was

fighting him off, she grabbed the wrap off of his head before she was shoved out the window. She didn't even know that she had successfully pulled it off of his head until the police got there and found it where she was pushed out. The man spent time in jail, but I was never informed of how long or anything like that, and honestly, I never cared to ask. When we finally got home, my siblings and I were all told to go to bed, but of course, I wasn't able to sleep that night. So I went downstairs to talk to my mom. I worked up the courage to ask her why she stopped running to the car when the other guy didn't.

She told me she had such a strong feeling that she should stay in the car with us that it was almost like she could hear it. When she heard him start yelling for help, she dismissed this voice and started back to help again, but the overwhelming feeling that she had was telling her to stay put. To this day, I wonder what would have happened to my mom and all of us if she had not listened to her gut feeling. The man could have easily overpowered her and got into our car if she had been any closer to patreon.com forward slash let's not meet podcast to sign up and support the show today.

You're going to get hours and hours of bonus content with stories you won't hear anywhere else. Again, all ad free. That's patreon.com forward slash let's not meet podcast. This week you have heard Followed Home and Scared to Death by Cheesy Breadstick. Belure by T. Clark EC. The Body on the Side of the Road by Ok Dark 9660. She Was More Than Twice My Age by Wheels on Ice 2020. My stalker defended me at the hot dog shop by Jesse Bunny. Lock your doors in DC by Fuh King Amy.

Bernice by Judge Dre. The man who chased me in the dark by Sticky Gooch Grace. And finally, always listen to your gut by FuzzyFox41097. All of the stories you've heard this week were narrated And finally, always listen to Your Gut by FuzzyFox41097. All of the stories you've heard this week were narrated and produced with the permission of their respective authors. If you have a story to share, send it to letsnotmeetstories.

Let's Not Meet, a true horror podcast is not associated with Reddit or any other message boards online. Finally, make sure you check out the new episodes of my other podcasts like Odd Trails, my trueormal podcast, and the old time radio cast at crypticcountypodcasts.com. We'll see you all next week. Stay safe. This happened a couple of years ago.