14x21: Internet Girlfriend

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Enjoy the show.

This happened a long time ago in the late 90s.

When I was 19, I moved from Oregon to Florida to be with my boyfriend at the time.

Don't ever do that.

I was thinking I was in for white sand beaches and Mickey Mouse, but instead I got swamps, bugs, and dirt roads.

It was a huge shock to the system.

We lived in this small town called Hawthorne just outside of Gainesville.

It's a very small town with one stoplight and four stores, the Dollar General, Steve's Steve's Market, Eckard's Pharmacy, and Sonny's BBQ.

Anyway, I got a job at the now-defunct Eckards in the middle of town.

It was next to the grocery store, so everyone shopped there.

After about three months or so of working there, I walked in to start my shift one day when the manager pulled me into his office.

Laid out on his desk were thirty to forty opened letters, all addressed by hand to me.

Do I know this person?

The manager asked.

No,

I responded in hesitation.

Read one, the manager urged.

So I picked the cheerful yellow envelope.

Inside were two handwritten letters and a magazine cutout of a woman with long blonde hair, just like me.

As the Eckard manager watched on, I read the letter.

I skipped around a lot, out of confusion, desperately trying to find out why I was in this room.

From what I read, it was mostly someone imagining what spending time with me would look like, and a great deal of it was sexual.

There was a lot of commentary about my hair, washing it, smelling it, and something about the moonlight.

A few sentences were highlighted while others were underlined.

My first thought was, Am I getting fired?

My manager continued.

Do you know this David?

I said, Yes, I think so.

If this David was the same David I was thinking of, he was tall, lanky, with thick glasses and frizzy, dark blonde hair.

He was a regular who came in a couple of times a week to pick up Diet Coke and medication for his mom.

He appeared to be in his late twenties, and he seemed socially anxious.

On rare occasions, he would make small talk as I rang him up for his soda.

Once or twice, he would linger at my register and just stare at me, but I figured he was just trying to adjust his eyes or maybe he didn't understand social cues.

In any case, I perceived him as harmless compared to some of the other people that I had met in Florida, so I didn't pay much attention to him.

But all of that changed on the day that that my manager pulled me into that office.

I knew he had to be the one who had written these letters because of the strange encounter I had with him two weeks earlier.

While working, he came up behind me and caressed my hair.

As I removed it from his hands, he apologized.

While I thought this was strange, I didn't think any harm was meant by it, so I went back to work.

After telling my manager this, he informed me that David was was going to be banned from the store, and I was being sent home while they worked out the details.

Confused, I walked out of the store and drove home.

Two hours after I got home from my shift that was abruptly canceled, there was a knock at my door.

I looked out the window and I saw what resembled a SWAT team.

I saw men in tactical gear with large weapons, two men dressed in suits, and several uniformed officers.

In what seemed like slow motion at the time, I opened the door.

A female officer held up a few letters that were newly familiar to me as she asked, can we come inside and talk to you about these?

As I realized that seemingly everyone in town has read these letters, I wanted to pass the fuck out, especially since I didn't even know the guy who wrote these.

So we had a seat on the couch, and she began to speak.

Out of the corner of my eye, I see my boyfriend shooting me dirty looks from the bedroom.

The female officer mentioned getting the letters from Eckards as she was attempting to issue a trespassing notice.

She said they wanted to speak to him directly, since her whole department was well aware of David.

The officers confronted him at his residence and attempted to issue a trespassing notice from Eckard's store.

He wasn't happy about this, and for over 45 minutes he insisted that it was all a big mistake.

He said that he knew I was interested in talking to him.

He was so combative and so persistent that they decided to pursue stalking charges.

She continued, You need to be aware that David killed and partially dismembered his mother when he was 12 years old.

He was in a juvenile psychiatric facility, but he was released less than four years years ago.

My mind was now wandering.

I was confused by this since David always claimed to be coming into the store to get diet coke and medicine for his mother.

I even distinctly remember him saying, this is my mom's favorite drink.

We found disturbing materials at his home, she cautioned.

We believe he's been stalking you.

David was arrested the next day for stalking after he was found in the parking lot at Eckert's.

The last official word I heard about him was that he was sent back to the psychiatric hospital, at least temporarily.

I didn't have the chance to read the letters in full before they were entered into some kind of vault for evidence, nor was I ever told what had been found at his house, so I never got the complete picture of what was happening.

My boyfriend at the time was a huge jerk about the whole thing, so I just moved back to Oregon a few weeks later.

Besides, who wants to hang around when Norman Bates is fixated on you?

I'm a thirty-year-old female and the weirdest thing happened recently.

One morning I went to the gym at around 5.30 a.m.

The building is open twenty-four hours, and as such, there is always a security guard stationed at the front desk that sits in the middle of a large, fairly empty foyer.

Behind the security desk, there's a row of elevators.

The gym is on the fourth floor, and I'm not sure what's on the other floors above or below it, but I assume they're just filled with a bunch of other businesses and office spaces.

When I walked into the building, I walked in off of the street.

It was still dark outside, but I was ready to work out.

I was still pretty sleepy, and I noticed that the security guard who was stationed at the desk was one I hadn't seen before.

He greeted me with a smile from behind the security computer, and I immediately got this weird feeling.

Nothing out of the ordinary happened, but I just got these weird chills.

I remember thinking, I don't like this guy.

Before I could give him the benefit of the doubt, he stood up and walked out from behind the desk to wait with me by the elevators, which I thought was weird since, from my understanding, he was supposed to remain at the security desk.

I didn't understand why he would need to go to another floor.

I don't know what business he has as a security guard, but that being said, I knew I didn't want to ride in an elevator with him.

Something in me just told me to stay put.

When the elevator came, he made a gesture towards me as if to say, After you.

And he motioned towards the elevator.

I faked a phone call and smiled in a way that said, I have to take this.

Looks like the elevator is all yours.

And this is where things get messed up.

After he stepped into the elevator, I stayed in the foyer for another seven minutes.

I knew it was about that long since I listened to two songs in my headphones while I was lingering.

I then figured a sufficient amount of time had passed, so I pushed the elevator button.

It dinged immediately like it had never left the floor.

Sure enough, when the doors opened, I walked over to it and the guy was still there standing in the elevator.

He never left the floor.

He never went up.

He was just standing in the elevator the entire time waiting for me.

Then the creepiest thing happened.

He smiled at me, as though to say, Aren't you going to get in?

I took three steps backward.

He could tell that I was startled.

I I didn't know what else to do, so I took another fake phone call and then decided to take the stairs.

As I was working out, I was still thinking about the whole encounter, and it was only getting more and more bizarre the more I thought about it.

I can't help but wonder what could have happened in that elevator.

Thinking about this then gave me a horrible feeling, and it still does.

To that weird building security guard,

I really hope that we never meet again, especially not in the dark early morning hours.

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I've always been creeped out by the sound of a big truck idling.

If I'm in my house and I hear that spitting muffler and bassy rumble, I have this urge to get to the floor and hide.

I've never understood why until I connected it to an experience I had in a small logging town when I was about ten years old.

I was with my dad and siblings, visiting my grandma.

I grew up in a town of only around three thousand, so when I say my grandma lived in a tiny town, I mean it was postage stamp sized.

Being a timber town, there were towering evergreens surrounding it.

The evergreens almost seemed to swallow the house and scant businesses right up.

I always got this bad creepy feeling from that place.

There was just a stillness that seemed ominous.

It felt like people were hanging out in the shadows, just watching the fresh meat in town.

I know that probably seems dramatic to say, but you have to understand that I was a kid in the 90s.

I was raised on a steady diet of unsolved mysteries, rescue 911, and horror movies.

In other words, I was paranoid.

In my mind, the chances were good that getting kidnapped could happen at any time, and anywhere.

Once, while in my hometown, I was walking with my family when I noticed a man in a black trench coat who was walking parallel to us on the opposite side of the street.

What should have been just a mundane occurrence made me break down and cry since the guy looked like someone I had seen in a reenactment.

Looking back, I was exposed to way too much as a kid, but I still ingest true crime media now, so I guess it worked out.

Anyway, so my dad, siblings, and I were taking a stroll from my grandma's house to the main street, which happened to have an antique shop.

We We wandered in to look around and kill some time before supper.

As we walked in, a large man in overalls and a long red beard behind the counter immediately stood up and put his hands on the counter.

Well, hello, he said to us, as he looked me dead in the eye.

I averted my eyes, as one of my main rules was to not make eye contact with strange men, lest they want to kidnap me.

I had an Archie and Veronica comic curled up in my hands, and he asked me what it was.

When I showed him, he got a weirdly determined look on his face, and went to the back room.

I was confused, but before long he came back out to the glass counter with a giant stack of Archie comics.

They were dirty and mildewed, tied together with some kind of twine.

And there's more where that came from, he said, still serious, like he was earnestly trying to impress impress me.

Wow, my dad said.

That's neat, isn't it, honey?

Yeah, that's pretty cool, I said, trying to be polite, even though I felt off about the whole situation.

My dad then got distracted by my little brother and strode off.

The man then motioned for me to come over to him, but I didn't go any closer because I was freaked out.

So he shuffled a little closer to me and started speaking with his voice lowered.

You know, I only have grandsons.

I want a little girl, though,

he said with a sly smile on his face.

Despite my surge of fear, I tried to tell myself to calm down.

He's just a lonely old man.

But my heart was pounding and my stomach was flopping.

Do you like horses?

he continued, leaning closer.

I have horses you can ride.

I've got tons of comics.

Would you want to be my girl and have all that fun?

I froze.

He may have been a lonely grandpa, but I was ten, and this interaction felt wrong.

I could also smell his rancid breath.

His skin had this greenish hue that just added to my horror.

Incidentally, my dad was rounding us kids up right about that time.

He thanked the man at the counter, and then started to shuffle us out.

Y'all visiting?

I haven't seen you around here, the man said, which usually happened in other interactions that we had with townfolk, but this scared me in this circumstance.

Yes, my mother lives here, my clueless father replied, before giving the man the exact cross streets where she lived.

Oh, that's just about a minute as the crow flies, the burly man replied, cheerily.

Yep, she's in the house with the giant chestnut tree in the yard, my dad boasted.

I could tell that this man could pinpoint the exact house where my grandma lived.

This made me realize just how badly this man seemed to want a little girl.

I could tell it was badly.

And what was going to stop him from coming to get me?

I tried to explain it to my dad, but he never doubted the goodness of anyone, much to his detriment, sometimes.

I remember sleeping alone alone in a room that night that faced the street.

I was sobbing and picturing the window being slid open by the crazy red-headed maniac.

Then all of a sudden, around midnight, out of the silence, came a rumbling engine that just stopped and proceeded to idle in front of my grandma's house for several minutes.

I looked outside through the Venetian blinds above the bed, and then ducked back onto the bed as soon as I saw the headlights and a strange truck in the street.

I didn't see if it was, in fact, the man from the antique shop as I was anticipating, but since I'm alive, I'm fine with that.

I didn't sleep much that night between my fear of imminent harm and the creepy porcelain dolls in my grandma's room that stared vacantly at me.

And that is how I came to fear the sound of an idling engine.

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Suffs, the new musical has made Tony award-winning history on Broadway.

We demand to be host.

Winner, best score.

We demand to be seen.

Winner, best book.

We demand to be quality.

It's a theatrical masterpiece that's thrilling, inspiring, dazzlingly entertaining, and unquestionably the most emotionally stirring musical this season.

Suffs, playing the Orpheum Theater, October 22nd through November 9th.

Tickets at BroadwaySF.com

I'm a female and I was 22 years old when this happened.

I worked in a grocery store that had been featured in the news.

I was in the clip on the news and it was clear where I worked.

I just came back from a vacation and my coworker told me that some guy had been coming around every day for a week asking for me.

When I asked who this was and why they were stopping by, my coworker told me they had no idea.

But they shared that he appeared to be around my age and seemed a little off.

A few hours passed and my coworker came and told me that the guy was back again and asking for me.

We'll call him James since I can't really remember his name anyway.

In the back room we had a monitor where the camera footage from all over the store could be seen.

I looked and didn't recognize James, but decided to go ask him what he wanted.

As I approached him, I could tell that he was clearly inebriated.

He said that he had seen me on TV and wanted to ask me out.

I was single, but I told him, I'm sorry, I'm in a relationship, and I need to get back to work.

Should I come with you?

he asked.

I was confused and repeated that I was working.

He then left, but I could still see him on the cameras outside.

He was in front of the store drinking.

A few hours passed by, and he was still waiting for me outside, so I had to use another exit when I left.

The next day when I went to work, I saw James waiting for me outside the store.

He had a huge smile on his face, and he walked up to me.

He followed me into the store and said, I need to talk to you.

I asked him what was up, and he said, How about we go to the movies?

I replied, I'm sorry, I have a boyfriend, remember?

As I was walking away, he kept following me and asked if he should come help me with my work.

No, thank you, I replied, as I stepped into the back.

Once again, I looked at the camera footage and I watched as he walked out of the store and then lingered outside, waiting for me.

At this point I started asking a male co-worker to escort me safely to the tram every night when my shift ended.

After this had been going on for a while, I began to get scared since he made it clear that he wasn't going to leave me alone.

So I asked my brother if he could drive me to work on his motorcycle.

I figured James would leave me alone after that, since I knew he was always somewhere nearby watching and waiting for me.

That didn't help, though.

That was when I started getting text messages that said things like Is that your boyfriend?

He doesn't need to know if we go out.

This confused me.

I had no idea how he had gotten my number.

I asked all of my coworkers until a newer one fessed up and said that she had given my number to him since he said that he was a friend of mine.

I was pissed.

So I then asked my male coworkers to throw him out if he ever came back, which unfortunately was often.

Things eventually quieted down for a bit, and a couple of weeks went by without any harassment, so I thought he was finally leaving me alone.

I was wrong.

One day I went to work.

I was in the changing room when I heard that we had a new co-worker, and it was his first day.

I didn't think anything of it and proceeded to change into my uniform.

As I was walking out of the changing room, my jaw dropped.

There, right in front of the changing room, was one of my coworkers and James.

Hey, this is James, my coworker said cheerfully.

I looked at her in horror.

She asked me what was wrong, and I said, Oh, I know James.

He's the creep who's been stalking me for weeks.

James smiled.

I went and searched for my boss to ask him what the fuck.

My boss said he had no idea that he was my stalker and kind of laughed it off like it was no big deal.

I told him that either James needed to go or I would, but he said he couldn't fire him.

Then my boss promised that I wouldn't have to work the same shifts as him.

That ended up being a lie.

I had a lot of shifts with James, and whenever we worked together, he went everywhere I went.

He just kept following me without saying a word.

I would often have my lunch break by the computer so I could see where he was, and every day I could see him standing behind me, staring at me as I ate.

We had cameras everywhere.

This went on for a while.

He would text me every day, but at work, he wouldn't say a thing.

He would just stare at me.

My boss finally understood what a freak James was, and since he wasn't doing anything at work besides stalking me, he started to think about how he could fire him.

One day, I noticed that James was drunk at work, so I told my boss.

This is how he finally got fired.

And that was when the stalking finally stopped.

We know no one's journey is the same.

That's why Delta Sky Miles lets you do it your way.

From earning miles on reloads for coffee runs, shopping, and things you do every day, to connecting you to new places and experiences, a Sky Miles membership fits into your lifestyle, letting you do more of what makes you, you.

It's more than travel.

It's the membership that flies, dines, streams, rides, and arrives with you.

Every great journey deserves a great story.

And when you have a membership that's as unique as you are, there's no telling how your story will unfold or where that journey will take you next.

Skymiles is the membership that will be here for all your big and small moments.

The membership that's there for every solo adventure or family trip.

The membership that comes with the power of partnership from brands you love.

The membership that moves with you.

Learn more at delta.com/slash skymiles.

Sucks!

the new musical has made Tony award-winning history on Broadway.

We demand to be home.

Winner, best score.

We demand to be seen.

Winner, best book.

We demand to be quality.

It's a theatrical masterpiece that's thrilling, inspiring, dazzlingly entertaining, and unquestionably the most emotionally stirring musical this season.

Suffs, playing the Orpheum Theater, October 22nd through November 9th.

Tickets at BroadwaySF.com.

In 2003, I was 15 years old and living in a small city.

This was the place where everyone seemed to know everyone.

I'm a male, and I'm typically shy and often use the internet as a way to meet people.

During this time, the Instant Messenger ICQ was pretty popular among teens in my area.

So I would often stay up late, adding new people and chatting with them.

I would do this by searching by city and adding people that I knew from school, and that's how I met her.

Her name was Sarah.

We began chatting innocently enough.

We started out with normal hey, what's up, sort of check-ins, and then Sarah described herself as a 17-year-old girl who was short with brown hair.

She said that she was nerdy.

We hit it off pretty fast.

We had so much in common that I found it easy to open up to her.

I thought that it it was strange that I had never seen her in school, but she finally explained, I go to the Christian school.

We continued chatting for some time, and I eventually gave her my home phone number.

We then chatted regularly over the phone until, eventually, she asked, Would you like to hang out sometime?

Without hesitation, we made plans for me to go over to her house to hang out and watch movies.

When the day finally came for us to hang out, I made my way across town to the address that she gave me.

It was a small apartment building.

Slightly confused about how she and the rest of her family fit in such a small apartment, I made my way upstairs.

I knocked and was immediately greeted by a woman at the door.

She appeared to be in her late twenties or early thirties.

I knew this had to be Sarah, but she didn't look anything like she described.

I was instantly weirded out, but I followed her into her small one-bedroom apartment.

I naively asked, So are your parents home?

She laughed.

No, it's just me.

I awkwardly sat on the couch.

She asked, Do you drink?

While she looked at me from across the room.

Water, I joked.

We both shared this awkward laugh as she poured a glass of wine for me.

I never took a sip of it.

She then sat close to me after popping a bootleg copy of Finding Nemo in.

My brother got this for me while it was still in theaters.

He's like a hacker or something, she giggled.

She was very close to me.

I was uncomfortable, and being the weirdo that I am, I got down onto the floor with my back against the couch.

She then straddled me from behind.

You look so tense, she purred, purred as she began rubbing my back.

I'm really good at this.

I can make you feel so good.

I leaned forward nervously and said,

thanks, but you don't need to do that, I'm fine.

After I told her I needed to get going, she pointed to her bedroom and said, you can stay the night.

I've never had a guy stay in my bed.

She kept making these sexual advances toward me and told me how she hadn't had sex in a long time.

She said that she was waiting to meet a nice guy like me.

All the while, she kept touching my arms and my face.

Now, at this point in my life, I was still a virgin, but I knew that this lady was not going to be the one to change that, so I talked my way out of the situation and headed home as quickly as I could.

Over the next few days, I got several messages from her.

She told me that she missed me, and she said that she was sorry.

Eventually, I caved and responded to one of her messages.

I asked her why she lied and what her deal was.

She told me she was having a hard time meeting friends and that she doesn't like people her own age.

I forgave her since I felt bad, and we made plans to meet up and talk in person.

I then rode my bike to Sarah's apartment for my last interaction with her.

Once inside, I was greeted by not only her,

but her parents as well.

They introduced themselves and her dad quipped, Finally, we get to meet Sarah's boyfriend.

We've heard so much about you, her mom chimed in.

She's always going on about how great you are.

In my head I was freaking out.

This was not my girlfriend.

Sarah then grabbed my hand and laced our fingers.

She looked so happy.

Her parents were just stopping over to pick something up, and they were on their way to the door when I showed up.

I figured, if I was going to get out of there, leaving with her parents would be my chance.

So I grabbed the box that her mom was about to pick up and said, I'll take that down for you.

Her mom smiled and exclaimed, Oh, you're a keeper.

I then helped her parents load the box into their SUV.

I hopped on my bike and said, Well,

I was just swinging by to say hi.

I should probably get home.

Before I pedaled away, Sarah wrapped her arms around me and kissed me on the cheek.

As I made my way home, I was very confused, but decided I was never going to talk to that woman again.

She dropped me a few messages after that happened, but I never responded.

She also attempted to call me on my landline a few times, but we never spoke again.

I don't know what ever happened to her, and I'm not sure why her parents never seemed concerned about my age.

Maybe they were okay with it.

When I was a teenager, I was goth.

I was always decked out with my black hair, black clothes, and black makeup.

I even had a pair of black combat boots.

My friends and I, in typical goth fashion, hung out at the local cemetery.

We started going as a joke, but soon discovered that we liked the peace that we found out there.

But that all changed one night.

My friend called me to see if I wanted to hang out at the cemetery as usual, and I said that I was down.

None of our friends were available, though.

They were either working or recovering from partying the night before, so we were on our own.

So my friend picked me up and we drove up to the cemetery.

We were hanging out smoking cigarettes and bullshitting about the latest issue she was having with her boyfriend when we noticed a bonfire had been lit at the top of the hill we were on.

It was about 100 feet away.

The cemetery is just a block away from the campus of a major university, so it wasn't uncommon for college students to go there to party.

My friend and I sighed.

knowing that we would have to get going soon.

It was illegal to be in the cemetery after dark, and we knew that the police would show up because some jerks decided they needed a bonfire.

So we decided to finish our cigarettes and then take off.

Just then, the most horrible stench came wafting down the hill from the direction of the bonfire.

My friend gagged and covered her mouth while I groaned and said, What the hell?

My friend shook her head and replied, I don't know what they're doing, let's just leave.

Once we got in the car, one of us suggested, maybe we should go up and see what they're doing.

I can't remember which one of us had this idea, but I do remember right then and there, my stomach churned, and a cold shiver went through my body.

My friend must have had the same feeling since in unison, we both said, Nah, we should leave.

My friend then started her engine, switched on her headlights, put the car in reverse, and looked over her shoulder before backing up.

I was still looking up the hill, and I saw that a figure had stepped in front of the bonfire.

I could only see the silhouette, but I was certain whoever this was was watching us.

A feeling of terror hit me, so I said, Go, go.

I was getting louder and more panicked with each go.

My friend looked back up the hill for a second, and just as the figure took a step towards us, she slammed on the gas and peeled out of there, reversing down the hill.

Once we were at the bottom, she rammed the gear shift into drive and we were out of there.

We didn't say anything for a while until she finally said, What the hell do you think they were burning?

I shook my head.

I don't know.

She then dropped me off at home and I went to bed.

The next morning I woke up and went out to the kitchen.

My mom was there drinking her morning coffee, and I joined her.

We talked about her job for a bit when she suddenly asked, Did you hear about what happened last night?

I shrugged.

No, I just got up, I replied.

She proceeded to tell me that a woman that she worked with was kidnapped from the parking garage.

Oh, my God, I replied.

Did they find her?

Yes, but it was too late, she explained.

Whoever took her, assaulted her, and then murdered her.

She was found early this morning up on a hill in the cemetery.

Whoever did this tried to dispose of her body in a fire.

I froze.

My brain was going a mile a minute as the realization was slowly creeping up on me.

That's what that smell was.

Needless to say, I never hung out at that cemetery at night ever again.

I often think back to my friend and me and how we decided to leave instead of investigating the fire.

That one decision could have changed everything.

Dark silhouette in the bonfire?

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Back in 1992, I was a sophomore in high school.

Unlike most of my friends in school, I didn't have a typical high school job like McDonald's, Taco Bell, some retail job at the mall, or working at the local grocery store.

I was very good with my hands, so I worked part-time at different jobs like construction, demolition, flooring, and auto mechanics.

I worked for all of my contacts under the table, as I started working at some of these jobs when I was 14.

Having me work under the table was beneficial for both of us.

I was only called in when I was available, and I was the guy willing to work only evenings and weekends.

One of my contacts worked on remodeling projects for commercial spaces like restaurants, bars, and retail shops.

These projects were a little more specialized as we could only get our work done during non-business hours.

Based on my availability, this worked out for the contact I was working for since I was available to work after school.

For this contact, it wasn't uncommon for him to leave me alone at a site with a list of things for me to do alone.

I was doing mostly demolition work, and I did this while the other crew was working on installation and remodeling work.

I was just a kid, but I had their respect because I did what I was supposed to do, and I did the work that was asked of me without complaints.

I was paid well, and in one night, I often made more than my friends did working all week at McDonald's.

There was this one instance where I got a call from a guy that I worked for.

He said he had a project for me.

It was a residential job rather than a commercial job.

He asked me if I would be able to work the following Saturday, and I said, Yeah, sure.

He told me to make sure to bring food and drinks to the site with me, as there was nothing near by.

This wasn't an issue, since I used to have a small cooler, and I would fill it with drinks like sodas, Gatorade, or whatever, plus I'd often bring chips and a couple of sandwiches.

Back then I could eat a whole pizza by myself and burn it all off.

Well, the guy who hired me for the job picked me up that Saturday morning.

I didn't have a car or a driver's license yet, so he would pick me up and drive me to sites for work and leave me alone there.

I rarely worked with his other crews, as they were more skilled labor guys.

I was more or less the demolition kid.

Here is the part that was my major downfall in this story.

I didn't pay attention to where we were going.

I was too busy talking to my boss, and we were talking about cars.

You see, at that time, my goal was to save up enough money to buy an old muscle car and restore it.

It took a long time to arrive at the work site, and as we were driving up, I noticed that it was in the middle of nowhere.

You might not think California has desolate places like what I'm describing, but this was back in the nineties, and we were out in the Mojave Desert.

I knew that this job was going to be out in the cuts, since we left the highway and drove down a few other two-lane highways for a long distance.

I remember he asked me about my drinks, as he pulled out a sealed jug of water.

It looked like he had it in his truck for a while, but he told me to take it just in case, since the water in the house I was working at was shut off.

As we pulled up to the property, he was in a hurry to drop me off with some tools since he had to get going to another work site.

So I hurried to help him with things like breaker bars, shovels, a pry bar, a hammer, a broom, and several big trash bins.

I also had a small tool bag that I often took with me.

He told me that he would be back to pick me up at about five or six PM, since that's just about how long I would need to complete what I needed to do.

That was always his way of saying, I'm only paying you until this time, so you better have everything done by then.

This was never an issue, though.

My workload was never too outrageous, and I always had a good understanding of time management and completing my tasks.

And with that, he reminded me that the electricity was all shut off at the house, and then he drove away, leaving me at this property alone.

I walked into the house, and it was mostly empty.

My job was to remove all of the remaining furniture, contents, and appliances.

I was also to remove the flooring, gut the kitchen, and bathrooms, and remove all of the wood paneling.

This project was essentially what we now know as a flip.

Whoever bought this house was just going to fix it up and resell it.

I was kind of spooked by this place.

It was very odd.

Mind you, I was completely used to being on sites alone, sometimes working all through the the night.

But this was daytime on a Saturday.

It was bright outside.

However, the house was old, dark, musty, and kind of cool inside.

The kind of cool that gives you goosebumps.

To add to the spooky factor, let me describe what I remember about the house.

Imagine walking back in time to the 1960s, or earlier.

This place had dark green carpet that looked like matted down broccoli.

There was pine wood everywhere that had a darker stain to it.

The wood paneling wasn't that superficial sheet paneling used in the 1980s.

Instead, it was actual board paneling, tongued and grooved.

The windows had old curtains that looked like they were made by somebody's grandma.

The kitchen had an avocado green sink, stovetop, and oven.

The stuff that was left behind was mostly old furniture, but there was also a closet full of old stuffed animals that looked to be about thirty years old.

The style of this house was like an old western ranch, and there were wagon wheels inside and outside the house.

I had an old battery-powered radio, but could only dial into a few stations, which was okay.

I was just happy to have some noise.

Once I was settled in, I started removing all of the junk from the house, and as I normally did on a project, I made a trash pile outside since there wasn't a dumpster.

Next, I tore up all of the flooring, and to my delight, everything seemed to come up with ease.

Essentially, all I needed to do was rip, cut, and toss.

I then took a big demolition hammer to the kitchen and tore it apart in less than an hour.

I ended up using that big jug of water that my boss had given me to wash my hands and face periodically, but by late noon, the dryness of the desert started to majorly deplete my hydration, especially since I was hard at work.

So by late afternoon, I was down to my last drink, and I had already eaten everything I brought.

I didn't find this too concerning, though.

I figured the guys would be here in a couple of hours to pick me up.

As the time for them to arrive and pick me up got closer, I was already done with all of my tasks.

I even swept the entire place, so it was ready when the rehab crew got there to work on updating this place to make it look more modern.

Due to the time of year that it was, that day wasn't a typical hot desert day, but as soon as the sun started to go down, the temperature cooled rapidly.

Luckily, I had a flannel shirt with me, but that wasn't enough, and it was only starting to get dark.

This is the time before teenagers having cell phones was a commonplace.

But since there was no electricity, there was no phone service at the house.

And as a reminder, there was no water either.

So I climbed up to get to the top of the roof to get a better look to see if I could see anything in the distance.

What looked like miles away, I saw a smaller road that this dirt road I was on led to.

A few homes appeared to be out there too, but those homes were all dark.

After that, my first thought was to hike down to a neighbor's house in a more immediate area to ask them to use the phone.

At the nearest house, nobody was home, and the other home that I saw appeared to be abandoned.

If you remember, during the early 90s, there was a decline in the economy resulting in a recession, so it wasn't uncommon to see a lot of foreclosed homes.

A lot of the homes that I worked on back then were foreclosures.

So I started to think about my options as darkness was fast approaching.

One of my options was to stay at the house that I worked on until morning and then try to hike out to some sort of civilization.

Or my other option was to head out into the dark Mojave Desert with the little water that I had left.

This was when it suddenly occurred to me that no one knew where I was except for my boss.

I don't know if he told anyone else where I was, and I knew that my family wouldn't clock my absence until maybe Sunday night.

But I didn't even tell them where I was going to be working.

They knew me and how much I was willing to work to save up for my car, and as such, they never really worried about me not coming home.

As darkness enveloped me, it was amazing to look at the night sky.

Lucky for me, the moon was bright since I didn't have a flashlight or any way to make fire.

I tried to make a small bonfire out of broken up construction debris, but I just couldn't get anything going, and the temperature started to fall to the low forties.

My only option at that point was to go back inside the empty, creepy house that somehow seemed even cheaper as I sat alone in the dark.

At about 8 p.m., the batteries on my radio, which was my only source of light and noise, began to die.

So I grabbed an old wooden chair and sat in the living room of this house, just facing the door.

I was starting to hear wind and other odd noises, which I assumed were desert animals in the distance, but I also heard a noise that sounded closer.

I swore I was hearing what sounded like leaves crunching under someone's feet.

It was then that I started to shiver from the cold.

So then I tried to start a fire in the fireplace.

Just imagine Tom Hanks trying to start a fire in Castaway.

At least this was keeping my mind off of the situation.

As I sat in this living room next to the fireplace, the house seemed way darker than it should have been.

I mean, in the daytime it seemed dark, so with only the moonlight, I was pretty much sitting in complete darkness.

My mind then seemingly started to play tricks on me.

I was seeing shadows moving outside and inside the house.

I swore I was starting to hear someone talking in whispers.

So I got up from my chair and yelled out a firm, Hello?

Just as I did that, I heard something fall from the other side of the house.

So I ran over to the door and went outside again.

At least, outside in the moonlight, I could see a little better, and off in the distance I heard noises and saw movement, but I couldn't make anything out.

I had my pile of tools by the edge of the house ready for when my boss came to pick me up, so I ran over there and grabbed the tool that I used to refer to as Big Daddy.

It was a heavy pry bar that I used during demolition.

I was ready to defend myself with it against whoever or whatever was out there.

I had to keep moving since my undershirt and flannel just weren't enough to keep me warm.

The wind was also starting to pick up, and for as far as I could see, there were no lights around me.

I didn't want to try and make it up to the roof of the house again for fear of falling in the dark, so I got up on top of the gate just to try and gain a little bit of altitude to see if any of the nearby house lights were on or if any cars were approaching.

My mind then started to think of all of the stories that were circulating at that time about how people would come out to the Mojave Desert to bury bodies.

I also thought about all of the Satanist groups that were said to come out here and how people would mysteriously go missing.

Every noise had me on edge, and every shadow had my heart pounding.

Now, I knew no one was in that house, but I swear I heard noises inside.

So I huddled up on the front porch and looked in the living room window, as I was expecting to see someone at any moment.

At around 11 p.m., I looked at my watch and I remember thinking, this is going to be a long night.

I didn't know how I was going to make it another six hours until daybreak, but I decided that the moment the day started to appear on the horizon, I was going to take the little water that I had and start walking east.

I knew that if I went east, I would eventually make it somewhere.

Luckily the dirt road I was on led to a paved road.

As midnight approached, I was wide awake.

My eyes were fixated on the dirt road, as I was thinking that a car would be coming down at any time.

I figured whoever was driving could call for help for me.

I remember casually turning to look back into the house since I kept hearing noises.

I kept telling myself that it was maybe a rat or some kind of animal.

And then I saw the shadow of a person moving from the kitchen to the hall.

I was sitting down, but this made me jump all the way up to my feet.

I remember thinking, that was not an animal.

That was definitely a human.

I then cautiously started backing my way out of the porch towards the trash pile that I had made.

I tripped over the debris and I fell to the ground.

I got up, but instantly fell again.

It was like something pushed me down.

And then all of a sudden, I saw these bright lights that appeared to be coming closer to me as I was lying on the ground.

When I jumped up, I saw that it was my boss.

He was looking at me like, what the heck are you doing?

I was just so glad to see him.

I wasn't even mad that he was six hours late.

I just calmly asked him what happened.

He said he was sorry since he thought the other crew was coming to get me.

They thought that he was coming to get me, so nobody came.

He didn't realize the mix up until later in the evening when he asked the other crew leader about how far along I had gotten.

When the other crew leader said that he didn't come out to the site that I was at, my boss finally realized I was still out there.

It took him almost two hours from where he was working to drive out there and come get me.

He felt really bad and told me he was going to pay me for the entire time I was out there.

He also grabbed me a can of Coke from his cooler and asked me if I was thirsty.

I drank it in one gulp, and once we got back towards civilization, he went through a drive-through, and I ate like I had never eaten before.

As he was driving me home, I asked about the house.

I told him how creepy it had been, but he said he didn't have any information about it.

He only knew what we were supposed to do.

After this experience, I've always made sure to keep extra batteries and a flashlight with me.

And I always make sure to bring double the amount of liquid as well.

Thanks for listening and stick around after the music for your extended version of this week's episode if you're a patron.

If you'd like to get access, head over to patreon.com forward slash let's not meet podcast to sign up and support the show today, where you'll get access to ad-free versions of all of our episodes at a higher bit rate, plus weekly bonus content with stories you won't hear anywhere else.

Again, that's patreon.com forward slash let's not meet podcast.

Be sure to check out the new episodes of my other podcasts like Odd Trails and the old time radio cast at crypticcountypodcasts.com and follow me on Twitch at twitch.tv slash cryptic county for my live streams.

This week you have heard Beware of Small Towns in Florida by Zentini.

Security Guard at the Gym by Tadpole Conscious 975.

Now tell me the sounds that scare you by Made for Mordor.

Stalker at Workplace by ASD ASD 666.

Internet Girlfriend by Corzone.

One Decision by Dreams.

And finally, Being Left Alone at a House in the Middle of the Mojave Desert by 4th Degree Night.

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 of the message boards online.

Send your stories to let's not meetstories at gmail.com to hear them on the show.

I'll see you all next week for a brand new episode of Let's Not Meet.

Everybody, stay safe.

This story took place in 2015 when I was 24 years old.

Suffs!

The new musical has made Tony award-winning history on Broadway.

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We demand to be seen.

Winner, best book.

We demand to be quality.

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Suffs.

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Tickets at BroadwaySF.com.

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