Wednesday One-Shot: He Said I'd Never See My Mom Again

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to 10 p.m.

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on Saturday, November 1st for your chance to drive away in a new Ford Maverick.

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Welcome to Wednesday One Shots, the bi-weekly series where we share a bonus story with you in the middle of the week.

This time around we have a story by an author named Pilar.

I was around nine years old when this happened, and my parents had been separated for about two years.

Before I get to the main part of the story, here's some context.

My mother, dad, and I were always very poor.

At the time, my parents were trying to build a house in one of the most dangerous neighborhoods neighborhoods in our city.

It was overrun by drug trafficking.

But it was all that they could afford.

Otherwise, we'd be in the streets.

The house was never really finished.

It had half-built rooms, piles of construction material everywhere, and bare red brick walls, with mold and water damage.

It was crumbling, much like my parents' relationship and my childhood.

My father was violent, unfaithful, and never helped with anything.

And then one night out of nowhere, I woke up to my mom shaking me awake, throwing a jacket over my shoulders, and telling me we had to leave.

We moved to another city and stayed with relatives for two years before returning.

This is where the story begins.

My mom and I moved into a small place somewhere that my father didn't know about.

We later found out that he had been asking around the city trying to find where we moved.

Eventually he found out.

I was still very young and despite everything I begged my mom to let me see him.

The court ultimately granted him visitation rights every other weekend and for about a year that's what we did.

By then he had a new partner and he still lived in that old decrepit house.

So I spent weekends there.

As awful as that place was, my younger brother also lived there and we were close.

My stepmom had a child with my dad while he was still with my mom.

He was about three years younger than me.

When I stayed with them, we would play in the empty lots in the neighborhoods, using broken construction materials, rusted furniture, and bottle caps to build our imaginary theme parks.

Having company and an imagination can really save a child's life.

My father used to tell me that he was going to get my mom back, and told me not to let any man get close to her.

And at the time I secretly hoped for a happy family reunion, even though I still liked my stepmother.

The truth is, he didn't really take care of me during these weekend visits.

I spent most of my time with my brother and my dad's partner, since he was completely incapable of caring for a child.

One weekend, something strange happened.

It was nearly time for him to return me to my mom, but instead of following our usual routine, he suddenly ordered his partner and my brother to leave the house.

His partner started to protest, but he shouted at her until she left.

The house was on a steep hill, so he then took me down the hill to see a place that I had never been before.

We arrived at a woman's house.

I didn't recognize her, but he introduced us and then told me I'd be staying with her for a while.

The woman handed me a big glass of chocolate milk, my favorite.

She was really nice, and smiled warmly as she brought it to me from the kitchen, and I drank it.

I became very sleepy very quickly, and everything faded to black.

When I opened my eyes again, I was back at my father's house.

My mom was there screaming and crying.

He was standing in front of her, panicking, repeating, Don't do this, don't do this.

My mom then scooped me up and carried me outside.

It was the middle of the night and the streets were completely empty.

But she was on a mission.

She carried me all the way to the bus stop, where we waited for a while, and then left.

Years later I found out what actually happened.

My father had kidnapped me.

Instead of taking me to the agreed upon drop off location, he brought me to another woman's house, another mistress, and I was drugged.

He showed up at the meeting point alone and told my mom that she would never see me again unless she agreed to get back together with him.

Then he walked away.

My mom completely lost it.

She went straight to his house and screamed as she let herself in, but he wasn't there, so she waited until he showed up.

When he did, she threatened to have a local drug dealer kill him if he didn't take her to where I was.

And he believed her.

It was late, and she was screaming loudly enough for the whole neighborhood to hear, so he knew that she wasn't bluffing.

So he went back to his mistress's house, got me, and brought me home.

That was when I woke up and saw my mom hysterical and terrified, yet somehow still strong enough to carry me out of that hellish situation.

Dad, let's not meet ever again.

If you're new here, be sure to subscribe or follow so that you don't miss our full-length episodes released every every Monday.

If you've been around for a while, you're probably familiar with our annual live stream episodes.

And you'll want to mark your calendars for November 1st at 7 p.m.

Pacific because we'll be hosting another live stream event with guests like Kaylin Moore of Heart Starts Pounding, Scaraline, our friend from Twitch, Amanda N.

Cassidy from Drinking the Kool-Aid, Zora Narnia of Knife Point Horror, our producer Jen, and Kadra Brannon of Perplexity a Mystery Podcast.

We'll be live streaming video presentations of all of our stories at twitch.tv slash cryptic county.

So be sure to follow so that you don't miss this special event.

Again, that's November 1st at 7 p.m.

Pacific at twitch.tv slash cryptic county.

If you have a story to share, make sure you send it to let's not meetstories at gmail.com.

We'll see you all next week for a full-length episode of Let's Not Meet.

Everybody, stay safe.

Find your lucky street on Highway 29 at Twin Pine Casino and Hotel during our Destination Lucky Ford Maverick giveaway this October.

Earn entries all month in October.

Play for catch and bonus entries every Saturday, 6 p.m.

to 10 p.m.

Then join us for our grand prize giveaway at 10.30 p.m.

on Saturday, November 1st for your chance to drive away in a new Ford Maverick.

Destination Lucky, only at Twin Pine Casino and Hotel.

Get lucky.

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