Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:06):
My name is Caleb Fletcher. I'm sixteen years old and
this took place around eight to nine months ago. On
the twenty fourth of August, which was a Saturday. School
had been going on for about two weeks, so to
destress a little, I decided to see if my friends,
whoile called Griffin and Broley, wanted to hop on fortnite.
(00:29):
My mom and sister were out shopping, my dad was working,
and that was bored. It was around eight pm when
we finally got on to play because I had decided
to make pizza rolls beforehand and ended up burning the batch.
After a few rounds, I could tell my friends were
getting tired of losing, so they got off after only
(00:51):
an hour. I planned on just lying down with my
phone and going to bed. That was until I heard
my two dogs barking outside. It's not unusual for them
to bark, given how people typically walk on the side
of the road, but I still looked anyway just to
make sure I didn't see anybody. But seconds after looking
(01:16):
out the window, I heard our garage door open and shut.
That usually means my dad is home from work, but
I didn't see his van outside, and he had texted
me earlier, telling me that he would be working late tonight.
I decided to walk downstairs into the dining room and
look out the window to get a better view. From there,
(01:40):
I could see that our driveway was empty. There wasn't
a person or vehicle in sight. I wasn't the type
to go investigate, so I ran back up to my
bedroom and texted my family group chat to ask if
anybody was home. I told my mom about the garage door,
and she told me to turn off the lights, lock
(02:03):
my bedroom and stay there until she got home. So
I did just that. About fifteen minutes later, I thought
I heard our wooden floor downstairs creaking, like someone was
trying to be sneaky. I didn't have anything to use
as a weapon, so I unclipped my microphone's boom arm
(02:26):
from my desk and quietly opened the door. I walked
out onto our upstairs balcony and looked over, trying to
see if I could spot anyone hiding or anything suspicious.
I stupidly yelled is anybody there? Like they were really
going to answer. I thought everything was fine, though, until
(02:50):
I saw a large silhouette of someone standing underneath the balcony.
I panicked and ran to the closest room with the door,
which happened to be my small bathroom. The intruder must
have known I noticed them, because I heard loud and
fast footsteps running up our stairs as I locked myself
(03:11):
in the bathroom. I had stupidly left my phone in
the bedroom, which was the room right next to me.
After I built up enough courage, I bolted into my bedroom,
locking the door as soon as I got in. My
sister's room was right across from mine, and its door
was open, so I figured the intruder must have been
(03:33):
in there. After locking my bedroom door, I grabbed my
phone and typed nine one one into it. Just before
I called, I noticed that the storage room in my
wall was open just a tad. I saw a dark
brown eye peeking through the crevice, staring into my soul.
(03:57):
The pure terror I felt in that moment is something
I'll never forget. I booked it down the stairs and
out my front door, running up the hill to my
neighbor's house. He was a police officer. He alerted the
other cops while I stayed with his wife, and he
went down to investigate. I told him exactly where the
(04:19):
intruder was hiding in my bedroom. Minutes later, I ran
back down the hill to see if the intruder had
been caught. When I walked in, I saw a tall,
skinny man with a gray beard and a dirty black
coat being pushed onto the floor by my neighbor as
he was getting handcuffed. I'm not allowed to be home
(04:44):
alone anymore, and we have better security around our house now.
My family was just happy to know I wasn't hurt,
and they were thankful for my neighbor's bravery. I don't
wish an experience like this on anybody, not even my
worst enemy. This was a few months ago while driving
(05:20):
for door Dash. I only drive as a side gig,
maybe ten to fifteen hours a week. This night, I
was only doing a couple orders since it was already late,
and I had picked up a small order around one am.
It was to be delivered to a business building somewhere
across town, which was apparent by the address. This was
(05:45):
a normal thing, usually for overnight workers or whatever. When
I pulled into the parking lot, though it was empty,
no cars at all, and it didn't look like there
was a parking lot behind the building either. I parked
in a spot near the front and got out with
the food. The place was definitely an office building of
(06:09):
some kind and was smaller than most, being only two
stories and not very wide. All the lights were off
in the windows, though aside from one light behind the
front door. I walked up to the door and checked
the app, seeing it has specific drop off instructions to
(06:31):
enter the main hallway and leave the bag outside of
room two thirty two. I looked through the door in
the building, seeing this hallway with a bunch of closed
doors on either side delivering to specific rooms. I'd only
done at hotels, so this was kind of new for me.
(06:52):
I tested the door, pushing on it, and it was unlocked,
so I stepped inside. I expect to hear people working,
moving around, or talking, but instead didn't hear anything. There
wasn't a single sound in the whole building. It was
just white noise from the overhead lights buzzing above me.
(07:17):
As I passed the first few doors, though they were
all numbers in the one hundreds, like one hundred two
and one oh six. The room the instruction said to
leave it at was in the two hundreds, so I
assumed that meant it was on the second floor. In
the middle of the hallway was the doorway leading to
the staircase. It was held open with a wedge door
(07:41):
stopper on the floor, but the lights weren't on. I
stepped in and up to the bottom of the staircase,
then looked up. The whole stairwell was pitch black. Not
even any light was coming from above where the room
was supposed to be for me to drop it off
(08:01):
at Again, I started to notice the eerie silence, and
it sent a chill through me. I was always one
to do whatever the instructions say so I'd get good reviews,
but this was the first time I told myself that
this was too sketchy. I stepped out of the stairwell
(08:24):
and back into the hallway, and just as I did,
the door right across from me opened. The lights in
that room were off, but a man emerged from behind
the door and stepped into the hallway. He was wearing
street clothes and just didn't look like an office worker
(08:44):
at all. But he stood in front of me and
pointed past me at the stairwell two thirty two up there.
I nodded but didn't move, and neither did he. He
just looked me in the eyes with a look like
he was suppressing his anger. After an intense few seconds,
(09:08):
I dropped the bag on the ground and started quickly
walking to the exit. The man didn't follow me, but
I heard his footsteps go into the stairwell and up
the stairs as I left the building, I got in
my car and left. I didn't know what that was
or if I was maybe overreacting about it, so I
(09:31):
didn't call the police. The following day, though the police
actually called me. Apparently the office reported a break in,
and in the CCTV footage they saw my car and
license plate, tracking it back to me. They also had
footage of the break in, and so they called me
(09:53):
in to question me about any information I might have.
I didn't have much to give, but it turned out
there were actually three people that broke inside. One was
downstairs who I saw, but the other two were shown
on the cameras to be hiding at the top of
the stairs, seemingly waiting for me to go up. Disturbingly,
(10:19):
several other delivery orders were made to that same office
that night. All of the other drivers were smarter than
I was, though, leaving the orders outside by the front door.
What would have taken place in that office had any
of us gone up to the second floor is unknown,
(10:40):
but hopefully police can find the three men before anyone
falls victim to it. I'm a manager at a middle
(11:00):
sized grocery store. I do ten hour shifts and work
mostly overnights. At the time, our store was having some
staff issues that made pretty much every department understaffed and overworked,
and overnight stocking was no exception. I had one guy
(11:20):
that would help me five nights a week, but that
was it other than me. This was on his day off,
so it was only me working. I got in at
ten and was alone by ten point fifteen. After running
some numbers in the office, I started pulling out loads
of boxes to the aisles to start unpacking and stocking.
(11:46):
Even though I had no help this night, I still
had to get everything done, so I was working hard
and as quickly as I could. I didn't even stop
for a break or anything. But suddenly a tap sound
echoed through the store. I stopped and listened, hearing it
(12:06):
happen again, and it sounded just like someone tapping on
a window at the front of the store. I looked
at my watch for the first time since I started working,
and it was two a m. Time had flown by,
but there was no reason anyone should be here. I
(12:27):
walked down the aisle and to the front, where I
quickly saw someone outside the store. He was leaning against
the window and trying to look inside. He spotted me
as I walked up and stared at me. When I
was just on the other side, I asked what he wanted.
(12:48):
The man, looking like he was homeless, told me to
open the door. He had a straight face, no smile
or anything. I said we were closed and he couldn't
be here, then turned to walk away, but the man
immediately banged on the window, not tapping like he was before.
(13:11):
This was now harsh banging. I looked back at him
and he was clearly enraged, with his fist against the glass.
Thinking the sky was crazy, I told him I'd call
the cops if he doesn't leave, then started pulling my
phone out to show how a serious and only then
(13:33):
did he step away from the window. He still had
that angry look as he walked away and into the
parking lot. Seeing him leave, I put my phone away
and got back to work. We get a lot of
crazy customers around here, so I didn't think on it
too much, and again I had to focus on getting
(13:56):
my work done. I was only able to get a
small cart of boxes stocked, so it was maybe fifteen
minutes later when a sudden sound echoed through the store.
It sounded like something metal snapping or scraping. I quickly
dropped what I was doing and ran up to the front.
(14:21):
Nobody was at the windows, so I went up to
the entrance door. It was one of those revolving glass doors,
which uses a bolt lock on the top to keep
it from opening when we closed the store for the night.
Right away I saw that that bolt was missing, like,
not even just unlocked, the entire bolt was gone. I
(14:46):
pressed my hand on the door and it glided around
completely allowing anyone to get in. I could feel my
face turned white as I realized what this meant, and
I knew I need to call the police immediately. I
turned around to go to the front office, but was
(15:07):
instantly looking into the face of that guy from before.
He was only a few feet from me, still having
that enraged stare. I didn't hesitate to run out the
revolving door, hearing the guy follow close behind me As
I ran out into the parking lot. An old van
(15:29):
came speeding up to the front. It nearly hit me,
but I just kept running until I got to my car.
When I rushed in, I noticed the guy wasn't chasing
me anymore, and the van was now speeding out of
the parking lot. I called the cops and spent the
next couple hours explaining what happened. It wasn't until the
(15:53):
next day that we got security footage of the man
breaking inside, but it wasn't the best image quality. We
can say almost for sure that they were trying to
get me into their van, but we have no way
to know why. I'm sure if I'd not been as quick, though,
I probably wouldn't have ever been seen again.