13x17: My Dad's Stalker

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Dark.

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This podcast contains adult language and content.

Listener discretion is advised.

If you have a story to share, send it to Let's Not MeetStories at gmail.com.

Enjoy the show.

This happened on the night of my country's national holiday.

After having a nice meal with some friends, my boyfriend asked me to go with him to check on one of his friends.

They have almost a father-son kind of relationship, and he was worried about his friend since he wasn't feeling well.

This friend also had some heart conditions.

So on our way home, we stopped by his friend's place at around 10 p.m.

When we got there, we drank a beer and we chatted with him and his wife, as well as his stepson, for a moment.

After about 45 minutes, we were getting ready to leave when we heard a crazy howling sound outside of the house.

In retrospect, it sounded like zombies growling.

My boyfriend's friend's stepson opened the door and asked whoever was out there what was going on.

He didn't even get a chance to finish his sentence before he was interrupted by a man at the door.

This man was covered in blood, and I mean covered.

He was plastered in dark dried blood.

I initially thought that he had a deeper skin tone since there was so much dried blood on him.

It took about 30 seconds, which felt like an eternity, to realize that the blood had been coming from gigantic slashes that he had on his head.

And I have to say he even looked like a zombie.

And that's exactly what my brain registered him as.

He had three deep gashes on his head.

The biggest was in the middle.

It was from his forehead to the back of his head, and the wildest parts of the gash were about two inches wide.

So, shortly after approaching my boyfriend's friend's stepson at the door, the guy screamed and fell to the ground.

Everybody froze.

After a slight hesitation, my instincts kicked in, and I jumped on the guy.

My boyfriend and I picked him up quickly, and we got into the car in a minute or less.

I can't really explain the logic that was going through my head, but I was certain that if we didn't head straight to the hospital right away, he wouldn't survive.

So I sat him in the passenger's seat, and I sat behind him so that I could keep him awake while my boyfriend drove.

I then called my country's emergency number, similar to 911.

After confirming our location, the agent on the phone asked me to have my boyfriend pull the car over to the side of the highway and wait for an ambulance to arrive.

We were nervous about doing this, as this guy was essentially freaking dying in my arms.

So we kept driving until we got to the hospital.

We arrived at the hospital before the ambulance and the police, and as soon as we got there, Some medics were already outside.

They came and helped him right away.

The police then arrived at the hospital and took our deposition.

But guess what happened next?

The guy that we brought to the hospital fell into a coma shortly after we got there, so the police didn't even get a chance to question him.

From there, the police started their procedure for launching a homicide investigation.

My boyfriend and I were, unfortunately, the first people that the police considered as prime suspects for the attempted murder.

They finally let us go home at 4 a.m.

and then they came to our place later in the day to let us know that they knew we weren't related to the crime and ask further questions.

They also informed us that the guy that we saved escaped the hospital the next morning in a cab, indicating the attack was probably gang or organized crime related.

They also said that the gashes on his head were produced by a machete and he was able to survive the attack since he was on heroin.

I will never forget that night, or those howling screams.

I'm very grateful that my boyfriend and I were able to save a life, but it sounds like he's on a dangerous path.

I hope he has since changed course, but just in case, let's not meet.

I want to tell you about a time when a woman knocked at my door.

When I answered the door, she said that she heard a child screaming and an older male yelling from inside my house.

She told me that it was very loud and insisted she heard the older man say something along the lines of There are people looking for you now.

I live in a duplex with my boyfriend and a dog.

We live on the main floor, and we do have a neighbor who lives by himself in the upstairs unit.

But there are no children in the building.

Also, just moments before she knocked, I was in the shared laundry room that's accessed from the backyard.

But I heard no noise coming from inside our building.

The way that she was talking and the look on her face seemed very genuine and concerned, so I was trying to assure her that there were no children in this building.

I suggested that maybe she heard one of the neighbor's kids or something.

We do live in a populated area with a lot of children who scream and make a bunch of noise, so I felt that this was entirely possible.

This woman and I just kept talking in circles, so I offered to let her peek over my fence and check the next yard over.

I let her know that's all I could do.

That's when she began to force herself through my doorway.

By this point, my upstairs neighbor and my boyfriend heard the commotion and joined me at the door.

She refused to accept my explanations and eventually fully pushed herself through the doorway.

She made it clear that she wasn't going to leave, so I called the police, and she remained in that doorway until they arrived.

After the cops talked with her and asked us some questions, we found out that she had used meth earlier that morning.

So, the cops told us that she was experiencing hallucinations due to coming down.

They had to keep telling her, you're free to go.

But she was so hesitant in leaving.

She kept turning around and looking at the place.

I know this could have ended much worse, but I'm still really nervous she's going to come back.

Ever since this happened, I can't stop looking out the windows.

So to the woman who thought a child was being held captive in my duplex, let's never meet again.

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Oh, watch your step.

Wow, your attic is so dark.

Dark.

I know, right?

It's the perfect place to stream horror movies.

Flick me.

What movie is that?

I haven't pressed play yet.

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Jimmy, what if I told you about scaring our guests?

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Several years ago, I planned a very quick trip to Denver where I was going to visit a friend before they moved away.

I was young, broke, and working a crappy entry-level job so a short 23-hour trip was the best that I could do as I was only able to get one day off.

I went straight from work to the airport and got into Denver International Airport at around 11 p.m.

I was bunking on the couch of an old college friend who lived about 40 minutes from the airport.

Fortunately, the light rail had recently been extended to the airport and my friend lived near the light rail.

I had taken the light rail often while living in Denver myself, but I wasn't so familiar with the newer additions.

I barely made it to the train before it set off, grateful to not have to wait around for another half hour at that time of night.

It was nearing midnight as the train pulled into a brightly lit union station.

I looked around for my connection, but it was nowhere to be found.

At the time I didn't realize that the connecting line wasn't where I thought it was.

Fortunately, I was able to flag down security and they pointed me in the right direction.

A few blocks away there was another brightly lit station.

However, the stretch between the stations had no light.

I was only traveling with a backpack, so I was able to move around quickly as I moved away from the Union station and towards another.

I was hoping that I was going to make the next train.

As I was in between stations, my eyes adjusted to the darkness, and I quickly noted a large figure standing in the middle of the sidewalk ahead of me.

I quickly gauged my surroundings and realized that there were no other paths to continue ahead unless I walked out on the road.

I decided to keep on the path and do my best to nonverbally communicate.

I see you and I'm not intimidated or scared.

As I drew closer, I saw that the figure was a tall, muscular man who appeared to be in his late twenties, maybe early to mid-30s.

When I got closer to him, I made eye contact to let him know that I was well aware of his presence.

When I looked him in the eye, he was already staring right at me.

He was mumbling to himself.

As I passed by, I was able to hear what he was mumbling.

He wasn't speaking to me directly, but he was speaking about me.

After I passed him, he began to follow me.

I noticed this right away, so I began to walk fast, and he began to walk fast as well.

All the the while he was commenting on my appearance and making other sexual and crude comments about me.

The second station was still another 100 yards or so away, and there was nowhere else that I could go in between the two stations.

So I pulled my cell phone out and I rang my dad, desperate for him to answer.

The call went to voicemail, but I pretended he picked up.

I kept up the fake conversation for a moment before looking back.

The man was nowhere to be found.

I made a run for it until I burst into the light of the next station.

I barely made my train, and ultimately missed my stop, since I was so shaken up.

So I had to back track on the train to get to the right stop.

I finally rested my head on a pillow at my friend's house at two AM, and I vowed to never travel alone at night again.

To the man who followed me and then seemingly disappeared on the dark street, let's never meet again.

This took place about four years ago when my family and I went away for a wedding in a popular wine region.

The wedding was on a lovely estate with a barn that had been repurposed for events and weddings.

I had been drinking and I was a bit tipsy, but I wouldn't say drunk.

In many cases, some of the details are a bit hazy.

At one point, during the reception, maybe around 10 p.m.

or so, my girlfriend, who is now my wife, and I decided to go for a walk around the estate.

I don't really remember why we wanted to walk away from the party.

I just remember leaving, and we started walking down a rural road.

The road that we were on led to other properties, and the distance between each property was quite long.

Each side of the road was flanked by dense brush.

There were basically no street lights, and there was very little noise aside from the wedding reception which could still be heard in the distance.

I remember walking down the road for about five minutes when I started to feel uncomfortable.

I felt like we were being watched.

As we kept walking, I looked at a light ahead in the distance that was about the same height as the trees.

My girlfriend asked why the hell was there a light up there and said that it made her feel uncomfortable.

I joked that it was a UFO to diffuse the tension, even though my uneasy feeling kept growing.

Despite this, we kept walking.

I then saw some movement in the tree line to our left, followed by the undeniable sound of leaves crunching under someone's feet.

I turned subtly, and I saw two people in black hoodies just off of the road in the tree line alongside us.

They were matching our pace.

It was very dark, and I couldn't make out any features, but I could tell that these people weren't too large.

They both had more of a light or medium build.

I tried not to draw any attention to the fact that I saw them, and I remained calm.

Seeing these people was so unexpected that I instantly sobered up.

I turned to my girlfriend and I said something like, All right, we've probably gone far enough.

We should get back for the speeches, otherwise, everyone's going to start wondering where we are.

My girlfriend agreed, so we turned around to start walking back.

When we turned, so did the people in the hoodies.

They continued walking alongside us, still just beyond the tree line.

I don't know how my girlfriend and I didn't notice them sooner.

It was so desolate and quiet, aside from the crickets.

There weren't any cars along the road that we could see, so I'm not sure how they even got there.

My girlfriend later revealed that she had also noticed them at some point.

She said that she tried whispering something to draw my attention to them, but I didn't notice.

Honestly, I think I was too busy committing to pretending that I didn't see them.

Thankfully, we ended up making it back to the estate, with nothing else happening.

By the time we got back, all the adrenaline was drained from my body and I was absolutely exhausted.

I have no idea who those people were or what their intent was, but thinking about them still scares me.

What could have happened if I didn't turn back when I did?

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High-paying careers for business researchers, analysts, project managers, and more.

So many jobs, you can take your pick.

What else does the data say?

How about a bigger backyard, a shorter commute, and a paycheck that goes further?

So crunch the numbers and our world-famous pickles.

It all adds up.

The career you want and a life you'll love.

Have it all in the heart of it all.

Dive into the data at callohiohome.com.

Oh, watch your step.

Wow, your attic is so dark.

Dark.

I know, right?

It's the perfect place to stream horror movies.

What movie is that?

I haven't pressed play yet.

ATNT Fiber with Al-Fi covers your whole house.

Even your really, really creepy attic turned home theater.

Jimmy, what have I told you about scaring the guests?

Get AT ⁇ T fiber with all five and live like a gagillionaire.

Limited availability coverage may require extenders at additional charge.

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This all started my sophomore year of high school.

I was 15 and at a new school, so I didn't have too many friends yet.

I was in that phase where I thought I needed a boyfriend to have validation, so I was actively trying to find a date for the homecoming dance.

A classmate suggested a junior in one of our classes, whom I'll call David, to be my date and got him to ask me out.

He seemed nice, so I said yes, which turned out to be a decision that would haunt me for the next two years.

David and I had fun at homecoming, so when he asked me to be his girlfriend, I said yes.

It's important to note that he was quite the loner.

He was very much into science and often spent time alone conducting experiments in his room and even continuing this during school at times.

I just brushed it off and assumed he was quirky.

I figured I shouldn't get in the way of his passions, but it was long before I realized there was much more to this nice guy facade.

Over the next several weeks of our relationship, we would talk over the phone and David would make increasingly inappropriate comments about things that he wanted to do to me.

I was fifteen at the time, and he was seventeen, so not only was I incredibly uncomfortable, but he was also nearly an adult himself, making these comments to a younger girl.

I kept telling him that I wasn't comfortable with the things that he was saying, but he always laughed off and told me that I was being a prude.

I was fed up with this after a while, so I told him that I was going to break up with him, and that finally made him stop.

I should have recognized the red flags and bailed at that moment, though.

However, I was naive, and I felt more concerned about keeping a boyfriend.

Although the inappropriate comments stopped for the time being, he became increasingly possessive and downright obsessive over what I was doing at all hours of the day.

He would impose on conversations that I had with my friends and want to know things that frankly weren't any of his business.

One day, when I was getting into the shower, he called, but my dad told him I would call him when I was done.

Instead of simply waiting like any rational person would, he called a total of four times over the next 15 minutes to see if I was out of the shower yet.

I began to feel suffocated, but every time I asked him to back off, he would cry about how depressed he was and tell me that he was only trying to talk to someone who made him feel like he was wanted.

I always fell for it, but now I recognized the clear manipulation that was going on.

After a while, I finally had enough.

I broke up with him in person at school, and he bawled like a child.

I didn't let his crying get to me this time and firmly told him that I didn't want to be his girlfriend any more.

He pleaded, and even though he couldn't get his way, he somehow convinced me to stay friends with him.

Things didn't end there, though.

This was just the beginning.

Over the next several months, David kept trying to get me to go out with him again and again.

He even went as far as crying to other people to garner sympathy.

He also tried starting rumors about us having sex, which we didn't.

Fortunately for me, David earned a bad reputation throughout his high school career, so no one believed him.

Then, he started trying to trick me into going on a date by suggesting that we go see a movie as friends.

I always got around this by inviting my friends to come along as well.

They knew what he was doing, and they never turned down a chance to help a girl out.

In the last few weeks that I spoke to him, he would sit on the phone for hours on end, literally begging me to take him back, and thankfully, I held on strong and kept refusing.

One night, David's brother called me, telling me that David was crying hysterically.

So I finally had to tell David that I didn't want to hang out as friends anymore, since it was clear that he held ulterior motives.

After we talked it out, he agreed not to approach me anymore.

But, unfortunately, there's more to the story.

The very next day at school, David approached me like everything was normal.

I quickly reminded him of the conversation we had the night before and how we agreed not to hang out anymore.

He told me he was offended that I would even suggest such a thing.

Then, for the next two straight weeks, he followed me around school and called my house and my cell phone at all hours.

This was before smartphones, so blocking a number wasn't so easy.

I tried to get help from the school staff, but the vice principal told me that there was nothing that could be done since he wasn't trying to physically hurt me.

I was frustrated, but thankfully David seemed to back off when it was clear I wasn't going to give in.

The following year, my junior year, I started dating a senior named Justin.

Not long after we were official with our relationship, I noticed that David was following me again.

Justin was a football player, and he was a pretty big guy with anger issues, so he didn't take kindly to David.

Justin would hang out with me and my friends, and David would hover around nearby, making it blatantly obvious that he was spying on me.

One day, as such was happening, Justin walked straight up to David and confronted him.

He didn't lay his hands on David or threaten him in any way, but he angrily asked, What are you doing?

David managed to mutter some kind of excuse before scurrying away.

I figured that would probably be the end of it, but later that day I was called into the principal's office.

It turns out David claimed that Justin threatened him and physically blocked the doorway so that he couldn't move.

Justin denied this and told the principal that I was there and would be able to back up his claim, which I did.

Nothing came of it, but this was only the first of a long line of incidents.

Over the school year, David and his brother, who was a year younger than me, would try to get Justin in trouble every way they could.

They also started rumors and started threatening his life.

A classmate of mine overheard them talking about ambushing Justin and hurting him, and even though I brought this up to the school staff, nothing was done about it.

All the while David kept following me when Justin wasn't around.

There was even an incident in school one day, and a bunch of classes had to report to the gym and stay there for the period.

David and I were both lumped into this, and he made sure to sit close by on the bleachers.

I tried moving a few times, but he followed me.

I was on the verge of tears, but then I saw two guys that I knew sitting a few rows down from me.

I got their attention, and after explaining what was going on, I asked them if I could sit with them to feel safer.

They agreed, and we ended up having a good time talking about music and anime.

In spite of this, things just kept getting worse with David.

Finally, everything came to a head when David's brother wrote a letter to Justin's sister.

They had been good friends before this whole mess started, and in the letter, David's brother threatened physical harm to me and to Justin.

Justin's sister gave the letter to Justin, who then came to me, and we both brought it to the principal.

That was when the principal finally called everyone involved into his office and had a chat with us.

The principal showed the letter to David's brother and said, I can expel you right now, but I'm willing to let it go on one condition.

David and Justin were both about to graduate, so the principal gave them an ultimatum.

He stated that David and his brother were not to contact me or Justin in any shape or form the rest of the school year.

If they did, neither of them would graduate.

I was pissed because Justin did nothing wrong, but in the end, we just wanted this whole mess to be over with anyway.

From that point on, David didn't bother me again.

Thankfully, I'm still filled with anxiety to this day.

Not only did he make me fearful of walking the halls at my own school, he also made me afraid for my life.

Justin and I ended up breaking up that summer for unrelated reasons, and the following year I was able to start fresh, since I didn't have to see either of them as they graduated.

A few years later, David tried to send me a friend request on Facebook.

I had an immediate panic attack, and not only deleted the request, but I blocked him as well.

I even unfriended and blocked the two mutual friends that we had, just for good measure.

Sure, maybe I was being paranoid, but this made me feel a lot better.

There was one incident involving David, but it wasn't with me.

It was with my younger brother.

When he was 14, he took his then girlfriend to see the Transformers movie, and David walked in.

Upon recognizing my brother, David sat behind him in his date and kept laughing at inappropriate times and kicking the backs of their seats.

My brother tried confronting him, but it didn't do any good.

They didn't bother involving the manager at the theater, since my brother's date was too afraid that David would attack them if they even tried to leave.

Thankfully, that was the final incident that I or anyone else close to me ever had with David.

I'm doing much better now.

I'm thirty years old and ironically I ended up marrying one of the guys who I sat with in the gym that day.

My advice to any teenagers who may hear this is that you should always pay attention to red flags and get rid of toxic people in your life.

It's always better to end up alone than to be stuck with someone who makes you feel bad and treats you like your feelings don't matter.

As for David, let's not meet ever again.

This took place when I was about eight or nine years old, sometime in 1997.

My parents had gotten divorced several years prior, so my little sister, who's two years younger than me, and I used to stay with our dad every other weekend.

One day, he introduced us to his new girlfriend, Rachel.

She was a tall, blonde woman, who won some kind of beauty pageant or something.

I remember those first months of us getting to know Rachel.

They were fun.

She seemed like a nice lady.

I also think my initial impression of her was helped by the fact that she had a rather cuddly gray parrot and a pet raven who could talk, both of which, of course, made my younger self quite ecstatic.

But after a while, things started to change.

I began to notice that she could be a bit odd at times.

She would say weird things or act strangely, so my sister and I started seeing her less frequently when we were staying with our dad.

Eventually, he told us that they had broken up and we wouldn't be seeing her anymore.

He also told us that we shouldn't talk to her or go anywhere with her if she showed up at our school.

Not long after that, Rachel started harassing my dad.

She would randomly turn up places where we were when we went to visit during weekends.

Whenever she would spot us, she would make a beeline for us and try to talk to us.

If we were at my dad's house, she would call non-stop, crying and making threats.

These calls usually didn't stop until he he literally pulled the phone cord out of the wall.

Years later I found out that during these calls she had even threatened to kill me and my sister.

And when that happened my dad got a restraining order.

Rachel also keyed my dad's car and stole a lot of money from him that he never got back.

She even started writing threatening letters to my mom.

My parents always remained good friends after the divorce, but then everything culminated when my mom received a letter from the authorities.

It was a letter saying that my dad had been accused of being a child molester.

I still vividly remember how my mom sat me and my sister down in our room with the letter in her hand.

She had this deep look of concern on her face, and she asked if our dad had ever been inappropriate with us.

Of course, he never had.

Turns out Rachel was the one who falsely accused him of this, since she wanted to prevent him from seeing us.

I remember feeling very angry and upset that she had gone to such great lengths.

My last memory that I have of Rachel was from a few weeks before Christmas.

My sister and I were staying at my dad's place for the weekend.

He was living in a two-story apartment with a large window spanning the entire wall from floor to ceiling.

This huge window was in the living room where we had just sat down to watch TV.

Next to this window, there was a glass door leading out to the patio, bordering a lawn that ended with a tall hedge.

On this particular day, the outdoor lights had been switched off, so it was pitch black outside as we huddled around the TV listening to the intro to Superman.

A bit into the episode, I suddenly heard a strange, sharp noise coming from the window.

It sounded like something was clawing on the glass, attempting to get in.

The sofa that I was sitting on was placed right in front of the window, so I had my back toward it.

When I slowly turned around to look over my shoulder, I felt my heart thumping in my chest.

My hair was standing on end.

I felt like I was being watched.

As I looked at the glass, all that came into view was pitch-black darkness lurking behind my own reflection.

By this point, my dad had also heard the sound, so he got up and turned on the patio lights.

When the outside light flooded the patio, I suddenly found myself staring into the face of a smiling woman peering into our living room.

I screamed.

Both me and my sister flew up from the couch like we had been scorched by a fire.

We immediately ran behind our dad.

When I looked at the window again, I saw Rachel with both of her hands tightly cupped beside her face as she was trying to look inside.

The patio door was right next to her.

I tugged on my dad's shirt and quietly asked if the door was locked when I noticed that she was reaching toward the handle.

The millisecond of doubt that flashed across my dad's face still haunts me to this day.

Rachel truly looked like a mad woman as she furiously jerked on the handle, trying to open the door while peering through the glass.

I remember thinking that my dad was oddly calm as he ushered us around the corner out of view from the patio door.

He told us to stay out of sight as he walked towards the patio door.

We begged him not to go outside since we thought that she could have a knife hidden somewhere.

So he slightly cracked open the door, firmly held onto the handle, and asked her what the hell she was doing on the patio.

She beamed a big smile, tossed her hair, and tried asking my dad to let her in, but my dad obviously, and thankfully, wouldn't budge.

He told her to leave otherwise he'd call the cops.

She eventually conceded, leaving a bunch of Christmas presents behind for me and my sister.

When Rachel was out of sight from the window, my dad went out to make sure that he was gone before picking up the presents that she had left behind.

None of us wanted anything to do with the presents.

They were promptly placed in the trash, fully wrapped.

Something just felt very off

about them.

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I'm a 36-year-old female living in Sweden.

I have worked in mental health care for the last 18 years, mainly with people with psychotic illnesses like schizophrenia.

I was working at a group home for nine years and was very close with my coworkers there, especially two of the women.

The last few years I worked there, another woman started working there, and we'll call her Marcella.

When Marcella joined the team, the four of us us grew very close.

She was timid but friendly, and we got along well.

She was often on long-term sick leave because of her own mental health issues, so we didn't see each other much at work.

However, she always showed up at our after-work dinners, so she continued to stay in touch even when she wasn't well enough to work.

She told us that she had a history of schizophrenia herself, just like the patients that we were treating, but that she was medicated and hadn't had any psychotic episodes for years.

Since I have an education in psychiatry and a long experience with schizophrenia, I have no judgment towards people suffering from the illness.

So being friends with someone who had a diagnosis like that didn't bother me.

Even after I experienced this story I'm about to share, I still feel the same way.

In the summer of 2023, 2023, I moved on to work at a new place.

I was still working within the mental health field, but this time for forensic psychiatry.

I was working at somewhat of a halfway house for mentally ill murderers.

My old co-worker and I stayed in touch and still met now and then for dinner parties.

At one of our gatherings, Marcella told us that she had been evicted from her apartment because of an incident where where she had accidentally entered her neighbor's apartment in the middle of the night.

She told us that in the huge apartment complex, all of the doors looked the same.

She simply walked in the wrong door by accident, and the neighbors created a scene purely for drama and reported her to the police.

This was her story.

While it sounded like an overreaction to evict someone for a simple accident, I felt that perhaps the landlord took that kind of action since he was judging her based on her medical history.

I felt bad for her.

I asked if anything else might have happened, and she claimed that it didn't.

And that was the full story.

In Sweden, it's very difficult to get a contract for an apartment when you have an eviction on your rental history.

Once that happens to a tenant, they pretty much get blacklisted.

Marcella asked me if she could move in with me.

Since she was literally living on the streets, I said, of course you can.

I've always gotten myself into uncomfortable situations by saying yes instead of thinking about myself, and I had no idea how severe the situation would get.

I live in a pretty small one-bedroom apartment.

The bedroom can really only accommodate a bed and a desk.

The living room is small as well.

It's furnished with a couch and a TV.

Other than that, there's also a small kitchen and bathroom, so there was no room for an extra bed.

I also have two cats living in this space with me.

We decided that Marcella was going to stay in the living room, and I offered to have my couch hauled away so that we could put a bed in there, but she said she was fine sleeping on the couch as it was comfortable enough.

Even so, I tried to insist that she have a bed since it would be better for her, but she declined.

The bedroom has a door which is located in the hallway, but the living room area didn't close off from the rest of the apartment in any way, so she wouldn't have total privacy.

In the archway where the hallway opens, I hung a thick velvet curtain to at least give her the sense of having a door and some more privacy.

I figured that was better than nothing.

My bedroom also has a second door which leads to the

I have to keep one of the doors in my room open at night since my cats need to go in and out to use their litter box.

It's in the bathroom, and their food and water are in the kitchen.

I opted to keep the door leading into the kitchen open instead of the door that leads to the hall, since this seemed to create a little more privacy for Marcella.

I should mention that I have very bad insomnia, and I need to combine medications with my ambient.

But even with that, I still wake up very easily.

I was working a few different shifts, so sometimes I had to get up at 6 a.m.

and sometimes I didn't get home until 11 p.m.

She wasn't working at this time since she was out on one of her long-term sick leaves.

I told her that I would appreciate it if she could try and stay quiet on nights when I had to get up early, and added that it was totally fine if she was loud when I was working evening shifts or had the day off.

She was a heavy smoker and a coffee drinker, so I bought her a coffee maker.

I personally don't drink coffee often, so I didn't have one, but I wanted to make her living situation more enjoyable.

The coffee maker and the sink were right outside my bedroom door and on our first night of living together, I had to get up at 6 a.m.

for my shift.

As usual, I had a hard time falling asleep.

Plus, Marcella had gotten up several times that night to go out and smoke, and I woke up every single time.

Then, at 5 a.m., she started making coffee, and since it was literally outside of my bedroom door, I was wide awake from the sound of it.

I went into the kitchen and politely asked her why she was up so early, and I asked if she had any plans for the day.

I mean, she was on sick leave, so why not sleep in later than 5 a.m.?

She told me that she couldn't sleep.

I empathized with her, but said that I would appreciate it if she could wait until 6 a.m.

to make coffee since I needed that last hour of sleep before getting up for work.

Another reason why I need my sleep is because of my epilepsy.

It gets really bad when I don't get enough sleep.

I'm prone to a lot of seizures if I don't get at least four hours.

As I was talking to Marcella, I knew that I would probably get seizures during my workday.

This meant that I was going to have a stressful and potentially dangerous day, as there was a huge risk that I would fall and hurt myself.

It's not a good thing to cramp up and get seizures among mentally unstable, criminal clients who you are supposed to be caring for.

My workplace at the time wasn't ideal to work at with my condition, and I did end up quitting after only six months.

She apologized and said that she liked to have coffee with her cigarettes, but that she would try to wait until I woke up next time.

I accepted the apology and went on with my day, but things didn't get better.

She continued to wake me up early in the morning and all throughout the night.

She continually promised to stop, but insisted that she needed coffee with her cigarettes.

I suggested that she make the coffee the night before, or drink iced coffee, or a Coke instead, but she didn't want that.

And now would be a good time to add that she required that I kept quiet past ten PM since that's when she wanted to go to sleep.

And I respected that.

She used to have these moments of binge eating where she would empty my fridge and the pantry of all their contents.

I remember this one time when I had bought a big loaf of bread, and she texted me thirty minutes after I left the apartment and said, Hey, I'm sorry.

I ate your whole loaf of bread.

I'll buy you another one when I get money.

I told her when she moved in to feel at home, and I let her know that what was mine was also hers, so I couldn't get mad, but it started to annoy me, since it was kind of getting expensive.

She would eat such huge amounts of food, and it was always at inconvenient times, like after an evening shift when the store was closed.

So I would come home hungry, and there would be nothing for me to eat, as she had emptied the kitchen.

Marcella had long black hair.

I would find this hair everywhere, all over the sink, the floor, and the bathtub.

I'm by no means a clean freak, but I think anyone could understand that this wasn't the nicest thing to step in or see in clumps everywhere.

She also let her nail clippings fall to the floor in the bathroom, and she wouldn't bother to clean up after herself.

I found a silverfish on my bathroom floor after never seeing one prior to her moving in.

They eat hair, skin, and nails, so I figured that that little fella probably enjoyed life due to the newly unkempt condition my bathroom was in.

At first I didn't want to bring it up, since I thought that it would hurt her, and I didn't want to make her uncomfortable.

So I just put a broom and dustpan in the bathroom to imply that we needed to sweep the floor more often.

This didn't work, so after a while I politely said, Do you think we could try and clean up the floor in the bathroom more often?

We tend to lose some hair from brushing and I'm afraid it's going to attract more pests.

I saw a silverfish the other day and I don't want it to get any worse.

I always made sure to say we instead of you when addressing things like this with the hopes that it would come off as less accusatory.

She promised to think about it, but nothing changed.

Around this time, I started dating a guy and I was head over heels for him.

He was also in a roommate situation, so we had a tough time getting any time alone.

I asked Marcella if there was any way that we could get a night to ourselves every now and then, and I even offered alone time to her now and then, in exchange, which was considerate of me, as I was working eight to ten hours five days a week.

So she was already getting a lot of time to herself.

She didn't like the idea and claimed that she had nowhere to go.

Now, I wasn't asking her to leave a whole 24 hours or anything, I was just requesting a few hours so that he and I could have some quality time together.

One of our old co-workers realized that I never got any time for myself and that it was tearing at me, which was true.

I was feeling suffocated.

So, she offered to have Marcella stay the night at her place to give me some space.

When this was pitched to Marcella, she said she didn't want to be a bother, but we assured her that she wouldn't be.

After all, they were friends

cat's water bowl was completely dried out.

There was no spill on the floor.

It looked like it had been wiped with a towel.

I thought that it was strange.

I had filled it to the brim the night before.

I asked Marcella, how is this possible?

She said that the cats must have drank it all, or it tipped over.

But as I said, there was no moisture or anything on the floor.

My cats are overly social and usually cuddle up with strangers within minutes of meeting them, but I noticed that the cats withdrew from her more and more over time.

It got to the point where they would never leave my bedroom unless they needed to eat or use the litter box.

It seemed like they feared her, which I didn't understand since her demeanor overall was timid.

I had this old saucepan from the sixties.

It meant a lot to me.

It was my grandmother's, and it was the only thing that I had that belonged to her.

My mother used it to cook for me when I was little, so it had a strong nostalgic value to me.

Marcella scorched it one day, but made no attempt to clean it.

She just left it in the stove and went out to smoke.

When I found out that it was ruined, I couldn't help but cry.

She didn't even say sorry.

Needless to say, this added to my frustration with her.

After two months of living with me, she was still waking me up at night and binge eating my food.

She also never cleaned, never left the house, scared my cats, and kept ruining my things.

And it was around that time I realized she had stolen my prescription sleeping pills, lots of them.

I'm only prescribed to take one per night.

No more, no less.

As I've established, I need them due to my insomnia.

I left twenty of them on my nightstand one day when I went to work, and when I came home they were gone.

She denied taking them, which was pretty hilarious since no one else was there.

No one else could have done it.

Then, out of nowhere, my old elementary school classmate messaged me on Facebook asking me how I knew Marcella.

He had seen that I mentioned she and I were roommates on Facebook.

I explained that she and I were former co-workers and she needed a place to stay.

He asked, Do you know why she was evicted?

Yeah, she told me about how she accidentally went into her neighbor's apartment, I replied.

That's not the full story, he said.

She broke in and snuck up to their sleeping baby with a knife in her hand.

Luckily, the father woke up and wrestled her down, then managed to save the baby.

I felt sick to my stomach.

Was this true?

It certainly seemed like a more valid reason for an eviction, but at the same time, it sounded far too horrible of a thing for such a timid girl to be capable of.

I had so many questions, but my friend had the full police report, since the couple whose apartment Marcella had broken into belonged to his ex-girlfriend and her family.

It seemed that she was in psychosis during the break-in, but those details were not public.

I was glad that some light was shed on what happened, however, it was then clear to me that she had been lying to me.

This made me paranoid.

I really wanted her to move out.

But before she moved in, we did sign a contract stating that she could receive a thirty-day notice if I needed her to move out.

I knew that if I handled this harshly, it would mean thirty days of chaos until she was out, so I wanted to handle this as tactfully as I could.

I started looking for cheap hostels to suggest to her so that she wouldn't be on the streets.

I sat down with her and I told her I loved living with her, but I missed my alone time.

And I explained that the apartment was too small for two people.

I said that it wasn't personal and I wished that it would have worked out.

She looked crushed, but said that she was going to try and move out.

However, not until the full 30 days had passed.

And I agreed to that.

The first night of our talk, she got up and made herself some coffee at 2.30 in the morning, which nearly launched me into a mental breakdown.

I needed to get up at 6 and I couldn't go back to sleep after that.

When I got up, I asked her for probably the tenth time not to make coffee until I was up, but she didn't even answer me.

She just sat on the sofa and stared out the window.

I called out to her, Marcella, but she just kept staring.

This freaked me out, but I went ahead and went to work after trying to talk to her.

After that, she kept being weird, waking me up, making messes, and eating my food, and all that I could think about was the incident with her, the baby, and the knife.

Eventually, I got so pissed off about being woken up by the coffee maker that I unplugged it and stored it in my attic,

which she had no access to.

This might have been childish, but I had had enough.

I was sleep-deprived.

I was starting to feel like Edward Norton in the beginning of Fight Club.

Well, the next night, I woke up at 4 a.m.

since she was making coffee on this stove.

I tried talking to her again, but she just stared and didn't reply.

I then put all of the pots and pans into the attic as well.

I know, I know.

I was going a bit crazy, but I just wanted her to stop these nightly coffee routines and take the hint.

The next night, the guy I was dating was sleeping over since I was getting paranoid about her weird behavior.

He woke me up from a very light snooze with a poke and whispered, Look.

And there, in the doorway, Marcella was standing silently, staring at us.

She looked like she was straight out of a scene from a horror movie, with her long black hair draped over her face.

I didn't say anything at first.

However, I quickly realized she wasn't doing anything, just staring at us.

It reminded me of the ending of paranormal activity when Katie just stares at Micah in the final scene.

So I sat up and asked, What are you and before I could finish, she slammed the door and I heard the sound of something metallic falling to the floor as she ran into the living room.

I began crying hysterically and yelled, You need to leave, because this place was turning into a fucking nightmare.

Of course, I didn't go back to sleep, and I was very happy that I had company that night.

I just kept asking myself, had she done this before?

Had she been staring at me while I was sleeping?

The next day I got out of bed and I opened the door that she slammed shut.

And I found a knife on the floor, which explained the metallic sound I heard when she ran off.

So, all of my knives went into the attic as well.

I then asked a friend of mine to come to my house to be there when I told Marcella that she had to move out immediately, and I couldn't wait the remaining 27 days.

During the conversation, I tried to remain calm.

I knew that Marcella had a mental illness, and even though I was so frustrated, I couldn't hate her.

I was mostly just tired and scared.

Marcella, however, didn't respond to anything I was saying.

She just kept gazing out the window.

After my friend left, Marcella sent me a text saying that I was disrespectful for bringing a friend over to her place.

When nighttime came, I thought this would be a quiet night, finally, as I was storing so much in the attic.

But at 3 a.m., I woke up to her burning dry coffee powder on the stove.

At that moment, I was terrified of her.

When I looked at her face, it was expressionless, and her eyes were black.

I suspected that she had gone into psychosis, so I stopped the fire, and she ran back into the living room in silence.

I knew she had an appointment with her psychiatrist the next day, and while she was away, I packed up all of her things.

I then sent her a text telling her she needed to pick her stuff up and give me the keys.

I said that I would pay for a hostel for her for the next 26 days.

She didn't reply.

The guy I was seeing came to keep me company in case she tried to fight about it, but she didn't.

She surrendered my keys, took her stuff, and left without looking at either one of us.

The two co-workers who were mutual friends of ours both told me that she moved in with a guy that she was dating, and she stayed with him for a few weeks until she somehow, amazingly, got an apartment of her own.

I then heard that she started working again, and I was genuinely happy to hear this.

She even seemed to be doing well.

But then, in January of this year, one of our old coworkers told me that Marcella called and said all kinds of delusional stuff about how everything must burn and that she has a baby that she needs to save.

My old coworker then called the emergency line, but they didn't take it seriously.

Marcella then proceeded to burn her entire apartment down because the voices in her head were telling her that she had to to save her friends and family.

Her neighbors tried to rescue her from the fire, but she fought them off, ran back inside, and poured liquor on the fire to make it burn even more.

She was arrested and sentenced for aggravated arson.

She'll serve time in a mental institution and prison for a long time, possibly forever.

What's ironic is that she will probably be in the facility where I used to work with her.

My old co-worker was a witness at the trial, where it was revealed that Marcella had stopped taking her medication, a bilify, because she thought that it would make her feel numb.

She thought she was stable enough to function without it.

She had also stopped taking the rest of her medication during the last few weeks that she stayed at my house.

So when she stared blankly into space, she was going into psychosis, just as I had thought.

The same goes for when she stared at me with the knife in her hand and when she burned the coffee powder on the stove the very last night.

It's disturbing to think about what would have happened to me and my cats if I let Marcella stay.

Thanks for listening and stick around after the music for your extended ad-free 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 and bonus content with stories you won't hear anywhere else.

That's patreon.com forward slash let's not meet podcast.

This week you have heard most terrifying night of my life by Working Peace 1494.

She insisted I was holding a child hostage by Boosh Carew.

Dark Street Disappearing Act by The Shiny Lim Popo.

Rural Night Walk by Suicidal Panda 764.

My first boyfriend became a stalker by Ink Sage.

My dad's stalker brought us presents by Wolfer889.

And finally, I dodged being murdered by my roommate just by a hair by Dangerous Party Party7554.

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 Let's Not MeetStories at gmail.com.

Let's Not Meet a True Horror Podcast is not associated with Reddit or any other message boards online.

Finally, don't forget to check out the new episodes of my other podcasts like Odd Trails, Cryptic Encounters, and the Old Time Radio Cast, all at crypticcountypodcasts.com.

I'll see all of my Salt Lake City listeners on Wednesday at the Metro Music Hall for the live Let's Not Meet show and then Portland the following week for the next show.

Everyone, stay safe.

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