Let's Not Meet: A True Horror Podcast - 3x16: While I Sleep - Let's Not Meet

Episode Date: February 24, 2020

Stories in this episode: Grocery store creep meets my guard dog - lindasburgerz. I think he watched me while I slept - Emma Ruelas. This dude went crazy for coco puffs - J. There was no basketball game - dimples. To try Shudder free for 30 days, go to http://shudder.com and use promo code meet.  Follow Let's Not Meet: Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/groups/433173970399259/  Twitter - https://twitter.com/letsnotmeetcast  Website - http://letsnotmeetpodcast.com  Patreon - http://patreon.com/letsnotmeetpodcast  Merch - https://www.teepublic.com/user/letsnotmeet 

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This episode of Let's Not Meet is brought to you by Shutter AMC's premium horror streaming video service. Try Shutter today for free for 30 days. Visit shutter.com and use promo code LNM. My name is Andrew Tate and this is season 3 episode 16 of Let's Not Meet a True Horror Podcast. This happened a few weeks ago and if it doesn't belong here, I'll go ahead and remove it. I'm a 24-year-old female, and I probably couldn't defend myself against a 10-year-old. I went to the grocery store to pick up some things the other night. When I got to the register, there was a man helping bag my groceries while the cash

year was checking me out. I was buying some dog treats, and he asked what kind of dog I had. I said, golden doodle. And he said, oh my god, me too. I didn't really get any kind of vibe from him, but he would stare, and he wouldn't break eye contact at all. I talked it up to him, missing social cues, and trying to be friendly.

After I paid, he started pushing the cart for me out the door. This isn't uncommon. They typically help you take your things to your car. I have social anxiety, and I feel very awkward and guilty having them do that for me. So I always say, I'm good, but thank you so much. And every other time they've said, okay, have a good one. When I said, I'm good to this guy, he said, no, I've got it. Very bluntly, and stared at me the whole time. I instantly got a bad vibe. It was about 8 p.m. at night, and hardly anyone was there. He said, well, my shift is over, so I'm walking out to my car anyway.

It was weird because he didn't clock out, but maybe he had before he did his last check-out, I don't know. He was very talkative in the store, asking tons of questions about my dog and telling me about his, but when we got outside, he barely said anything. I started asking questions about his dog because I felt anxious with the silence, but I actually regret that. He took it as an interest. He immediately said, well, if you give me your number, you can meet him.

I just stared at him again. I said, oh, I'm sorry, I don't give my number to strangers. I didn't want to say no because I have a boyfriend because he seems like he might get angry over that. I don't know, I just get that feeling in the moment. We had loaded all of the groceries into my trunk, and I was thanking God that I could get out of there. But no, the cart was between me and him, and he was positioned on the driver's side.

So in order to get to my door, I would have to go past him. I said, well, I got to get home. My dog is waiting for his treats." He just stared. I realized I was going to have to go past him if I wanted to leave. So I looked around to see if anyone was in the parking lot in case something happened. No one. I started to get extremely nervous. He could push the card into me or just grab me himself. I have had a traumatic experience before, and my problem is that I don't have a fighter flight response, I just freeze. Just like that, he walked away pushing the card to where

they are returned in the parking lot. I took the chance to get in the car and lock the doors immediately. I wish I left then, but I needed a moment to breathe. I saw in my side mirror him getting into his car. I quickly put the car in drive and drove out. The exit is a stoplight and just my luck it's red and I'm turning left. I see his car right behind mine, not 30 seconds later. I panicked, but then thought he said he's going home, it's nothing. I only lived two minutes from the grocery store.

I made the turn and he was hanging back. I didn't put my blinker on for the next turn. He made it, too. The next turn was a stoplight, and then a turn for my road. As I get to the light, it's red again. I thought maybe I should drive to the police station just in case, but as soon as that thought came, the light turned green. My boyfriend and I moved here two months ago, so I couldn't think in my head how to get to the station, and I'm terrible at using my phone while driving. I'm not even 30 seconds from the last turn onto my street. Our street is a dead end with only four houses on it.

It's very long, and we are at the end. No one goes down it unless they live there or they're lost. I turn, and he makes the turn, too. Fuck. I literally just directed him to my house. Thankfully, I have Bluetooth, so I called my boyfriend. I said, a guy from the grocery store is following me, turn on all of the lights, open the gate, and let Nike out. Nike is his German shepherd, and he was trained to be a German police dog, and then he got extra bite training. He can hold someone up for six hours, so knowing he was outside, I wasn't nervous. I was nervous, however, that my boyfriend wouldn't have gotten the gate open in time, and I would have to either

sit there in my car or get out and put the code in. As I pulled up, I saw that the gate was open. Thank God. My boyfriend was on the front porch with Nike on a leash. I'm not trying to have someone killed unless it's necessary. He also has his gun in the air. I fly through and down the driveway. This fucker follows. Does he not see the gun and the guard dog? Well, he did at that moment because my boyfriend let Nike go and he charged at the guy's car. Jumped up at the driver's window, frothing at the mouth, showing all

teeth in the hair on the back of his neck, standing up. He looked terrifying to me, and he was protecting me. They gave Nike his command to come back hoping that this guy got the hint that if he gets out of the car, he will die. He did. He reversed the car so God damn fast out of that driveway he nearly hit the gate. I collapsed on the front porch and hugged my boyfriend. Nike got a stake for dinner. I reported the man to the grocery store because I remembered his name on his name tag purposefully. They later contacted me and said that he had been served termination papers. As a result of everyone's response to this story, I contacted the local police station today. They have contacted the grocery store to get their report of the incident.

They said they could try and charge him for trespassing, but probably not since he never left the vehicle. They said they will keep me updated. They seemed to take me seriously, and were very nice about the situation. For some backstory, at the time I was 13 and in the seventh grade, my family was very overprotective of me. It was mainly my grandmother, who we lived with at the time. She was very paranoid. She always told me to be careful with every older man that I was with, even if it were a family member.

She's always had an opinion of me and my stepdad's relationship. We were very close. We would be rough with each other. We would push each other into walls, flick each other's ears, stuff like that. Of course, it was all a game, but my grandmother hated it. She always told me that a man should never put his hands on a young girl like that. But young me thought that she was overreacting. That is, until one night. I share a room with my younger brother, and at the time we had bunk beds. The beds were horizontal from the door that was in the corner of the room.

One night I was sleeping. When all of a sudden I was awoken by the sound of the floorboards creaking. The house was very old, and you could hear every step someone would make. I brushed it off as the dogs walking around the house. Then I hear my bedroom door being slightly opened, and someone walking through slowly. I moved over in my bed to try and get a good look at this person, but the moment I started to move, they panicked and quickly left the room, still leaving the door slightly open. Before they left, I did get a quick glimpse of a figure that seemed to resemble my stepdad. I was very confused, but honestly

I was just too tired to care. I started to drift off until I woke up again to the door being opened slightly more. The figure walked in again and just stared at me. Thinking that I was asleep, they came closer to my bed. A rush of panic fell through me, and I didn't know what to do. He pulled his phone out of his pocket, and I saw a flash of light come over my body. He was taking pictures of me sleeping. He then walked out and left the door open again. This happened a few more times that night, and every time he left the door slightly open just a little more than before. I pretended to be asleep the entire time. After a while of this cycle, I heard

the back door open and close, and that's when I sat straight up in my bed and tried reasoning to myself that this was all just a dream. I scratched, poked, and pinched my skin until I realized that it was all real. I still had so many questions. Was it really my stepdad? I still had so many questions. Was it really my stepdad? Why was he taking pictures of me? Had he done this before? These questions still remained in my head as I heard the back door open. My door was already opened enough that he didn't have to make a sound coming in this time.

He poked his head in and stared at me. I stared back, wondering if he somehow knew that I was awake. I think that out of all of this, that was the scariest part. That way he just poked his head through and just stared. No expression. Nothing. When I looked into his eyes, I soon realized that this was, in fact, my stepdad. He walked into my room, holding something in his jacket pocket. I stayed quiet the entire time, watching him move to the center of the room. He pulled out something sharp from his pocket, and to this day I still remember the fear that washed over me like a tidal wave. He then pulled his phone out of his other pocket, and turned it on to the home screen.

I quickly saw that the time was 12.43. He made a move to come closer, and that's when I fully panicked. I shot right up, and half yelled, what the fuck are you doing? He seemed taken a back, and put whatever was in his hands back in his pocket. You were talking in your sleep, so I came to see what was going on. He said nervously. What was I saying then? I asked, fully knowing that he was lying. I don't know, it was all gibberish, he said. It was obviously bullshit, but I wanted him to get

the hell out of my room quickly. I muttered, oh, okay. Then he quickly rushed out of my room. I heard his bedroom door where my mom was sleeping, open and close. I got up and made sure to lock my door that night and every night after that. The next morning, I didn't say anything, and neither did he. Our relationship has never really been the same after that. We've never talked about it, and I tried to convince myself that this whole thing was a dream. I still don't fully believe that it was, but I just hope to God. It never happens again. Amplify your career through training and development solutions specifically designed for

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Your wine? Thanks. I'll pretend I know what I'm doing before saying it's good. And I'll pretend I don't know you're pretending. Are you a gigillionaire? Yeah, I have AT&T Fiber. The straightforward pricing has inspired me to be more straightforward. Me too.

Ugh, this wine. I'll fetch you a better one. Straight forward is better. No equipment fees, no data caps, no price increase at 12 months. Live like a ggillionaire with AT&T fiber. Limited availability in select areas. Visit ATT.com slash Hypergate for details. This situation took place back in my high school days. At this time, I did not have great self-esteem and listen to my friends way too much. They introduced me to a dating app, note that this took place when I was 20. So I got into the dating app and started talking to a guy named Eric.

We started talking and after a few months, I figured that it was time to meet and hang out. My best friend at the time had a trailer out in the country where we would always go smoking and drinking. Eric lived in a town that was about 20 to 30 minutes away from me. I offered to him to get him and to go hang out at my friend's house. When I arrived, he got into the car. He looked just like his picture on the app so I figured he would have been just as nice and person as he was on the phone.

Boy was I wrong. I was not 21 at the time so I asked him to buy my friend and I had a little bottle of liquor for the night. He agreed and brought it with him. Once in the car, he asked if I could stop by the store, right up the road from his house. We stopped, and he said something that was odd to me. He said that I was not to leave him while he was in the store. This made me question even picking him up. Has someone done that to him in the past? He gets back into the car and we head out into the country to my friend's house. The whole time, he's trying to hold my hand while I'm driving. I got into a very bad car accident back in high school, so I'm a very cautious driver. He seemed kind of

mad at me, but I brushed it off since it was interfering with my driving. Once we got to my friend's house, we walk in and I introduce him to my friend and her then-boy friend. We started to talk while I rolled a joint. Among the talking, Eric noticed a bowl of cocoa puffs sitting on the table with chocolate milk. When I turned around to him, he picked up the bowl and screamed, Yo, is this chocolate cocoa puffs? I love this shit. I looked at him with a freaked out face and he started to drink from the bowl. Like how could you drink out of someone else's bowl of cereal is disgusting.

After we smoked a joint, my friend pulls me into her back bedroom and we start to discuss what we just witnessed. She started to tell me that she didn't feel very comfortable with him being at her house and at the time, I definitely agreed. Out of nowhere, Eric is at the time, I definitely agreed. Out of nowhere, Eric is at the door, waving for me to come to him. I did, and he started to

tell me that he missed me, and that he loved me. And this was out of the blue. I told him to go back into the living room with my friend's boyfriend, so we could finish our conversation. After thinking for a few minutes, we came up with a plan that my mom would call me and ask me to come home as soon as possible. I told this to Eric and once I said I needed him to take me home, he started to rant about how I was lying and that I never loved him, with tears filling up his eyes. Not once have I ever told him that I loved him. We were only talking for a few months.

That's just way too fast for me. Within a few seconds, Eric was out the front door, and the front yard yelling that I was lying to him. I honestly didn't know what to say to him. I told this to Eric, and once I said that I needed to take him home, he started to rant about how I was lying, and that I never loved him with tears filling up his eyes. After what felt like 20 minutes trying to coach him to get into my car, he finally did, and my friend and I head out to take him back home.

While driving, he continued to cry and scream that I didn't love him, and I was just playing him. Now this is the comment that really scared me. He started telling us that he was glad he brought his gun with him, and that it was in his pants ready to be used at any given time. I never noticed him having a gun, but at this point I didn't want to find out. My friend tapped me on the hand and said, let's stop at the store really quick. I really needed a drink. My friend and I got out of the car and went into the store.

We stood behind the shelves, so he couldn't see us due to the store having all windows in the front. Once he started talking about a gun, we knew we shouldn't go any further with him in the car. So we tell the store cashier what was wrong and she had no problem calling the police for us while we looked around the store. My friend and I stayed in the grocery store while the police talked to him. He was screaming and yelling at the cops that he loved me, and he was never going to hurt me. I told the police that I wasn't trying to make any problems.

I simply wanted to take him back home. The police officers began to do a search of my car from top to bottom for his gun, because it wasn't on him. Of course, they find my brand new bowl that I may have smoked out of once. They gave me a warning for my paraphernalia and took Eric with them. From what I heard, they didn't arrest him him but I'm hoping they took him back home. It may have been an hour after I got back to my friend's house, but Eric was already on the phone leaving me multiple voicemails threatening me. I never spoke with him again after that night, but I'm so thankful that the cops took him away. So to the guy who just loves chocolate cocoa

pups, I don't want to meet ever again. This is something that I think about to this day. It happened to me more than 10 years ago, and I'm thankful for listening to my gut response because for all I know, I might not be here writing this if I hadn't. When I was maybe 15 or 16 years old, and I believe sophomore year in high school, I had art honor society after school once a week. I lived in a suburb outside of Atlanta, and I've never felt unsafe in my area. However,

if you asked the richer folks on the other side of town, they would have a different opinion. After my club meeting, my sister was supposed to pick me up, but she often would be late by 15 or 20 minutes, sometimes 45 minutes to an hour. She absolutely hated having to disrupt her personal time to pick me up, and she got a mouthful from our mother, after that night. I always sat in the same spot on a bench that faced the cold sack like gloop around the drop-off section in the back of my school. It was just past dusk, and the sun had already set.

I was simply sat with my MP3 player listening to music, annoyed with my sister's chronic lateness. And then I saw headlights creeping up the path. Given that I was the only one out there, I kind of sat up expecting it to be my sister, but as the car pulled around the loop, and eased to a stop I could tell immediately it wasn't. They didn't pull up right against the curb. The car was reminiscent of an old beat-up Cadillac, and it was a steel blue with rusted paint. A man leaned out his window.

Arm hanging out, as he poked his head out and looked over at me. Immediately I felt uncomfortable. He stared at me for a very brief moment, and I tried not to notice him, but then he started to wave his arm at me, as if to gesture for me to come over to him. He knew that I had seen him, and I thought it would be rude to ignore him. I slipped my headphones off and called out some generic, can I help you? He gestured more vigorously as he wanted me to approach him. I stood up and approached, stopped short of the curb, never stepping off. Too far away for him to lunge or jump out. I kept a safe distance and assumed maybe he was just hard of hearing

and needed directions. He didn't look like he could be a parent, too young to have a kid in their teens, but also too old to be a student. Hey, you know where the basketball game is? I blinked, confused. Granted, I was the artsy type. I kept to my art club and wasn't one to go to school games and functions. But I heard nothing about a game happening that night. And while I didn't go to many events,

I was one of those people that made friends with all sorts of people from different groups. This definitely weirded me the fuck out. I timidly replied, committing his face and card of memory. Uh, no, but the school gym is on the other side. They gave him some simple directions on how to best loop around the school. He didn't seem to listen. Hey, come closer.

I took the smallest baby step, still not stepping off the curb. I didn't want to upset him, I guess. Do you need a ride home? He asked. Hell, nobody, I thought. No my sister just called me, she's just a few minutes away. You sure? I can give you a ride, he pressed.

Why the hell would this guy want to give me a ride if he was trying to get to some basketball game? Alarms are now ringing. No thank you, she's probably right around the corner or something," I said. I could easily be waiting there for another 20 minutes, though. But he didn't know that. I turned to retreat back to my bench, but he called that again. Hey, hey, hey, spoke a smile on his face, but it was weirdly forced. The way creeps smile when they try to put their victims at ease, I wasn't buying it.

I can give you a ride, come on. No thank you. I spoke a little louder and continued walking. In retrospect, he could have easily jumped out of his car. He gave me this look as if he were contemplating if whatever he wanted to do was worth it. Then he leaned back into his car and turned around. I thought quickly enough to grab the most convenient thing and wrote down his license plate number, illuminated by his car lights, and what was left of the sun disappearing completely.

The next day I walked into my school's police office first thing. We had two officers that always patrolled our school, and I reported the incident. They looked at me. Their faces troubled, as they informed me. There definitely wasn't a basketball game last night. The expressions suddenly made me incredibly unsettled, but it only confirmed that this guy was definitely not up to any good. One of them assured me that they would look into this and would keep me updated.

They thanked me for my fast thinking and that I did the right thing. I later learned that they found the guy and he had some warrants out for his arrest, but I can't remember if they ever told me what they were for. They could have been just for traffic tickets for all I know. They hoped they were just for traffic tickets. Creepy man and assistant on giving me a ride home let's not meet. Thanks for listening to this week's episode of Let's Not Meet a True Horror Podcast. This week you have heard, Grocery's Store Creep meets my guard dog by Reddit user,

Linda's Burgers. I think he watched me while I slept by listener Emma Ruelis. This dude went crazy for Coco Puffs by listener Jay. And finally, there was no basketball game by listener Dimples. Send your stories into Let's Not Meet Stories at gmail.com to hear them on the podcast. And if you want more horror, go to patreon.com-forward-slash-let's-not-meat-podcast to get access to all kinds of bonus content, including full additional episodes of Let's Not Meet, as well as original stories by me. In preparation for next week's episode,

please check out my friend Sapphire's new podcast, Stories with Sapphire. I'll be on her show telling my true horror story in detail that happened to me this week. And then she'll be coming on Let's Not Meet next Sunday to read a couple of stories with me. Check her show out at storieswithsafire.com or wherever you listen to podcasts. Thanks for listening everyone. I'll see you then. I'm going to be a little bit more careful. 18T Fiber presents A Straight Forward Moment

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