6 People You’ll Be Glad You Never Met | True Scary Stories - Scary Stories from Bad Vibes

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:05):
This happened back in twenty fifteen when my ex boyfriend
and I went camping in Mendocino, California. A few sites
over was this teeny, green, one person tent, the kind
that barely fits a body. What struck me right away
was how empty the site looked. No cooler, no chair,

(00:26):
no lantern, no shoes outside, just this little tent zipped
up tight. We went to bed, and sometime after ten PM,
it started laughter. Not a group around fire, not drunk campers,
and definitely not an animal. I know what owls and
coyote sound like. This was human laughter. At first I

(00:50):
thought maybe it was a radio or a bluetooth speaker,
but it never stopped, not once all night long until sunrise.
Same tone, same rhythm, no positive for breath, too repetitive
to be a person in psychosis or on drugs. It
sounded mechanical, like a loop. That's what makes it worse,

(01:14):
because if it wasn't someone actually laughing, then it was
someone who had recorded laughter beforehand and brought it out
into the woods to sit in a teeny tent in
the dark and listen to for hours. When we woke
up around seven am, the laughter was still going. We
packed up as fast as we could and left without
seeing who or what was inside. And even now, years later,

(01:39):
I can't shake the thought that this was actually how
someone wanted to spend the night. A tent, a recording
of endless laughter and silence of the woods around them.
Let's not meet. I'm a teen few em I was

(02:01):
playing with my cousin at nine years old, and we
were forced to stay on the porch so we didn't wander.
Then a truck slows down and stops by our house.
There's a man in the truck with a kid in
the back. He tries to talk to my five year
old cousin, says that he knows her mom and even

(02:21):
gives the name of her mom. My cousin, being stupid,
is about to go up to the truck, but I
grab her arm and pulled her aside. My memory isn't
the best, but I'm pretty sure he drove away and
my aunt didn't exactly know him from what I said, So, yeah,
was this a potential kidnapping situation? For context, this was

(02:45):
very long ago and I was only nine. I was
seventeen years old, and I lived close to a buddy
of mine named John He lived three blocks away with
a circle k on the way. It was a random

(03:06):
weekend night around eleven pm, and he asked me if
I wanted to come over play zombies and smoke because
his parents were out of town. So I agreed. Of course,
my parents weren't cool with it, but I have done
it before and decided to worry about the consequences later.
I snuck through the back door and made my way
to his house. I lived in an older duplex, run

(03:30):
down suburb, but it was very homey, quiet and chill.
It was late summer early fall in West Texas, so
I didn't need a sweater. As I approached the circle k,
I spot a man on a bike across the street
and he began to pedal towards me. He was about

(03:50):
fifty years old, baggy, stretched shirt, ripped pants, and messed
up hair and teeth. He asked in Spanish if I
had a dollar. He spotted the yellow bick lighter I
had in my hand and asked for it. He asked
what I needed it for and asked if I smoked weed.

(04:11):
I said, yeah, I do. He then said he doesn't
and that he smokes ice instead. I said, cool man
and fast walked into the store. I didn't have any money,
but I knew how to get into a willa area
away from that guy. After about ten minutes, I crossed
the stoplight street and got to John's house to see

(04:33):
him waiting for me in the front yard. I told
him about it, but we didn't dwell on it. After
a couple bong rips, joints, zombie rounds, and red velvet cake,
I knew it was that time, and I knew it
couldn't stay the night. I said my goodbyes, thank John,
and made my trek home. I was still stoned and

(04:56):
mainly paranoid about the cops since I was seventeen and
had a little on me. But after I crossed the
street and passed a circle k, I felt better since
I could see my duplex. As I walked towards my home,
I heard a bike pedaling around, and because it was
three am, you could hear everything. I saw the same
bike guy from earlier, and he was eerily riding in

(05:19):
circles under the street lamp at the very end of
my block. My heart sank. I darted to my apartment,
and when I did, he spotted me and yelled, oh
I ignored him and ran the same direction he was
pedaling towards, but I made a sharp turn left and
hopped into my backyard and snuck back inside. He was

(05:41):
about two hundred feet away from me when I jumped
into my yard. I locked the doors and kept the
lights off and went to the front window, where I
could have a better view of the street. I saw
him looking through the neighbor's driveway. He eventually peddled away,
but safe to say I didn't sleep out all that night.

(06:08):
I live in the city now, but when I was younger,
I used to regularly visit my grandmother's house with my dad.
My cousins were almost always there too, and we used
to play together. When I was little in the village
well more like a smaller town. When me and my
cousins went to play at the park, there was always

(06:29):
this abandoned club nearby. It used to be popular back
in the day, but now all the windows were broken,
the door was made of glass, and almost everything was
vandalized and graffitied everywhere. I was always curious about what
was inside, but I never had the gusts to even
ask my cousins to go in there. Even during the day,

(06:51):
the club felt so off. I don't even know why.
Maybe because it was surrounded by trees and it just
had this weird vibe. When I was thirteen or fourteen,
I don't remember exactly, I had a friend who was
in the same grade as me, but he moved to
another country. He'd visit every summer, and every time he

(07:11):
came back he'd call me up. One summer, we were
really bored and I came up with this idea that
we should finally go into the abandoned club. He was
braver than me, so we said he'll go on first,
because there's no way I had the balls to go first.
At ten pm, we arrived there on our bikes. It
was pitch dark, with maybe two or three lamp posts

(07:34):
based far apart, so the lighting was really dim. We
stood in front of the club, it felt eerie. We
spent twenty minutes just trying to gather enough courage to
go in. Finally we did. We climbed over broken glass
at the door and squeezed through. Once we were inside,

(07:55):
we turned on our phone flashlights. The place was a
complete mess, garbage bags all over the walls, some needles
on the ground, which was honestly scary to see, and
the whole interior was just weird. It was a pretty
big space with this odd architectural pass that led around
in circles for no reason. Me and my friend were

(08:18):
scared shitless. We tried to stay as quiet as possible
so we wouldn't wake up any of the junkies or
whatever else might be living in there. Then, while I
was staring at the bar counter for like five seconds,
my friend disappeared. My heart dropped. I did a full
three sixty with a flashlight and he was gone. I

(08:40):
yelled his name, and then something jumped on me from behind.
It was him laughing so hard while I was having
a heart attack. While I was mad, I was also
super relieved. But while he was laughing, I suddenly heard
another laugh that wasn't his. I actually heard it at first,

(09:00):
but I didn't fully register until it clicked that laugh
wasn't supposed to be there. I turned my flashlight towards
the sound, and there was the sky, a hobo I think, tall,
skinny with long, messy hair. I couldn't see his face properly.

(09:20):
I screamed and bolted out of there with my friend.
We jumped on our bikes and pedaled so hard back
to my grandma's house. That was seriously one of the
scariest things I've ever experienced. Later that night, when we
finally talked about it, I asked, how did we not
hear him? We were dead silent. Every step we made

(09:41):
was so loud, so how in the hell did he
get that close without a sound? And the fact that
he was laughing with us made it so much scarier.
He was probably insane or something. This is a situation

(10:02):
I found out about around eight months ago, but it
stayed in my mind ever since. For context, as a child,
I had severe speech delay. I was completely mute up
to a few weeks before kindergarten. This caused me to
have a speech impediment, which I technically still have to
this day, but to a lesser extent. I'm lucky enough

(10:25):
that the letters I have trouble with match up with
the letters I often drop in certain accents, so to
the untrained ear, I sound British or Australian, depending on
who you ask. Because of this, often just confirm the
accent assumptions because it's easier to lie about being British
than to explain the speech impediment thing and face any

(10:46):
stigma that goes with it. The only people that know
the truth are very close friends and family. Onto the story, I,
eighteen year old female was dating a girl eighteen year old.
We were at a social event when we met up
with one of her friends, nineteen year old female. I've

(11:07):
technically known this girl since grade nine as well, but
not as well. So we as a group are talking randomly,
completely unrelated to the current conversation. Friend asked me how
my mom was doing. I'm caught off guard because that's
not usually something you throw into a conversation without knowing,

(11:29):
said mom. So I asked back, why do you know her?
The friend goes on to explain, my mom used to
be her EA and had helped her work on her
behavioral issues all through elementary and middle school. Now that
was weird because although my mom did work in school

(11:49):
for a brief time, she was a lunchtime supervisor and
only ever worked in one elementary At elementary school, I
know the friend didn't go to. So I asked the
friend and is she sure it was my mom because
she wasn't in an EA. She confirms, because my mom
used to talk to her about me all the time,

(12:09):
and when my friend was deciding which high school to go,
my mom recommended my high school because that was the
school her daughter went to. Now, within my high school,
there were a few people with the same name as me.
My name is as basic white bitch as they come.
So I asked the friend, are you sure it was
me who she was talking about and not one of

(12:31):
the other people with my name. She once again confirms
it was definitely me, because my mom would tell her
details about my life and told her about my time
going to speech therapy. Now, hold up, As I said earlier,
I'm very secretive about the fact that I have a
speech impediment. This friend is clearly someone I've never told,

(12:53):
although I'll admit it's not impossible to guess, and the
girl I was dating at the time could have told her.
But I have never, and I mean never told anyone
about going to speech therapy. That's just never a detail
I share when telling my life story. It's clear that
someone who knows me like family is telling her this stuff.

(13:14):
There's no way this friend could have accurately guessed so
many details about my life. So just to confirm that
somehow my real mother doesn't have a double life. I
asked my friend what my mother looks like. She responds
that she's somewhat short with curly brown hair. This is
not my mother. My mother's tall and blonde. This, though,

(13:38):
is exactly what my first speech therapist look like. She
was hired through the school district and I saw her
for about two years before she switched to another school.
She also works with a variety of special needs, meaning
it's very likely she went on to become my friend's EA.
But all this to say, somewhere out there, this speech

(14:01):
therapist is for some reason pretending to be my mother
and to some extent, stalking me, as she would have
had to do research on me to find out what
high school I went to. Additional bonus story that I
remembered while writing this post. When I was a child,
but after I had switched speech impediment therapist, I was

(14:21):
in the store with my mother and there was this
shiny blue guitar. Me being a child and liking shiny
blue things, I really wanted this guitar. My mom clearly
said no, as it was expensive and I've shown little
interest in playing a guitar besides watching my dad play bass.
I was disappointed but understood. Out of the blue, my

(14:45):
first speech therapist shows up and buys a guitar for me.
My mom told her that she didn't have to, but
my speech therapist insisted. At the time, this just seemed
like a nice thing that she did be it overly generous.
But now knowing she's pandering around pretending to be my
real mom, it definitely paints the situation in a different light.

(15:10):
I don't know how to feel about that gift. Now.
There's not much I can do about the situation, as
I don't even remember what the speech therapist's name was,
So let's just hope we don't meet again. I was

(15:30):
eleven the first time I saw him. I'd just gotten
out of school, and I remember being hot and tired,
but still excited because I had tore money in my
backpack eight bucks and some change crumpled into my bag
next to my mechanical pencil I found on the floor.
That's high quality shit. That was enough for a happy meal, nuggets, fries,

(15:53):
a little toy I would pretend I didn't care about,
and a sprite heaven. The McDonald's was only a few
blocks from school and up the hill from my apartment.
My mom wasn't crazy about me walking around alone, but
she also worked two jobs and couldn't pick me up
most days. If I got home before five and didn't

(16:14):
talk to strangers, she didn't ask too many questions. I
kept my phone on fifty percent brightness to say to
the battery, pretended like I was grown, and slid my
earbuds in like I had somewhere important to be. That
McDonald's became my little kingdom boothed by the window. She
was kicked off under the table, watching YouTube fine compilations

(16:37):
on a crack phone while I slipped on Sprite like
it was Champagne. I had just discovered Tumblr that year.
I was reposting Melanie Martinez fan edits and thinking I
understood what the word aesthetic meant. I was eleven going
on twenty, or at least I thought I was. That's
probably why I didn't think it was weird when he

(16:58):
sat near me. He didn't work there, I knew that much.
He was too old to be hanging around during school hours,
and he didn't have a uniform. But the first time
I assumed he was just waiting for someone. He had
a navy hoodie sleeves, pushed up a raggedy backpack next
to him, like he was also geated out of school.

(17:20):
He looked maybe seventeen eighteen at the oldest, with a
face like he just started growing into it. Tall white boy,
deep voice. He looked like one of those SoundCloud emo
rapper dudes. You draw, he asked, nodding at my sketchbook.
I shrugged, trying to act and bothered kinda. I said,

(17:41):
not like for real, real, you got talent, he said.
I felt my chest puff up a little. Nobody ever
says stuff like that to me, especially not older boys
at school. Most of the guys my age were busy
with whatever the popular trend was this one. He looked

(18:02):
me in the eye when he talked, made me feel seen.
The next time, he was already there, same booth, same backpack,
same easy smile. When I walked in, you again, he said,
you're following me or something. I laughed a little too loud.

(18:23):
He always knew what to say to make me feel grown.
He asked about school, about my drawings, about music. Then
he started asking about other stuff, like what my background
was and what guys I liked. He said, I didn't
talk like the other black girls. He knew whatever that meant.

(18:44):
I didn't even know how to respond to that one,
but still I came back week after week, sometimes twice
a week if I had extra change, and he was
always there, like it was planned. The first few weeks,
the conversation felt like a secret game. He'd show up
to McDonald's like clockwork, sometimes early afternoon, sometimes after school,

(19:05):
and we would talk about everything. I liked that he
made me feel special, like I was this rare thing,
not just a kid with a happy meal in a sketchbook,
but someone worth paying attention to. When he asked me
for my number, I thought, this is it. I'm officially grown.

(19:27):
I still remember the moment I handed him my phone,
watching him punch in the digits. It felt thrilling, like
I was stepping into a world I wasn't supposed to
know yet. My fingers brush the screen hesitated for a second,
then I pressed scent on the first text I ever
wrote him, Hey, it's me. His reply came almost immediately,

(19:48):
You're cute. You always gonna be my favorite artist. That
first text stayed with me for days. I showed it
to my best friend like it was a badge. Of honor.
He thinks I'm cool. I told her my voice a
little higher than usual. He really listens. She shrugged, told
me to be careful, but I didn't want to hear it.

(20:11):
Middle school kids always try to act like they're grown anyway,
everyone's pretending. I was just pretending better. Sometimes he would
ask me stuff that fell off, but he always said
it like it was a joke, so I played along
like out of nowhere. He'd be like, do you say
the N word? Be real? Or what would you do

(20:32):
if someone called you that at school? And then one
day he asked, so can I get an nword? Pass?
You know I'm cool like that right? I remember laughing,
but not because it was funny, more like I didn't
know what else to do. Then he hit me with
I trade you five bucks in a sprite if you'd
be my personal slave for the day. And when I

(20:54):
froze a little, he was like, chill, I'm just joking. Damn,
you're sensitive. He'd sometimes tried to talk hood around me,
saying stuff like on gang or yo, you're trying to
wild out in this fake deep voice that didn't even
sound like him. At the time, I didn't know what
the hell he was on, but looking back now he

(21:17):
was testing me. The text started innocent, what's you're drawing now?
Did you finish your homework? You watching any new stranger things?
He even sent me links to music playlist. He said
it reminded him of me. But over time things got
a little different, a little heavier. He'd asked me stuff

(21:41):
that made me pause, Questions about my body, if I
started changing yet, who I liked, if anyone had kissed me.
I felt weird, but also proud to answer, like I
was a grown woman sharing secrets with a friend. Sometimes
I get texts when I was supposed to be a bet.

(22:01):
You look at in your pjs, you staying up late
thinking about me? I told myself it was a joke,
that he was just being funny. It was part of
the game. I learned the rules. I wanted to be
in on it. After all, kids at school were trading
stories about boys and crushes like it was some kind
of competition. I didn't want to be the only one

(22:23):
who had never been talked to like that. But even then,
there were moments when my stomach flipped when he asked
if I started growing hair yet, or sent me a
picture of him gripping his pillow. I didn't know what
to say, so I didn't say anything. I didn't want
to lose him. And besides, I thought I was grown

(22:44):
enough to handle it. I thought I knew what I
was doing. Still, I kept going to McDonald's, even on
days I didn't have much funny. Sometimes I sit farther away,
pretending not to notice him watching me. I told myself
I was just being cautious. I told myself I was
in control. But the truth was, it was getting harder

(23:05):
to breathe when he was around, like the air was thicker, heavier,
and I didn't know how to make it stop. It
wasn't like I told my mom about any of it.
I knew she wanted to understand. She was busy with work,
bills and trying to keep everything together. I was supposed
to be a kid, not dealing with this stuff. So

(23:26):
I kept it all inside, tucked away under layers of
laughs and texts and drawings. Looking back now, I can
see the signs I missed, the way his smiles sometimes
didn't reach his eyes, the ways questions stopped being about
me and started being about control. But back then I
was eleven, and I thought I was grown, and that

(23:49):
was my mistake. I thought blocking his number would end it,
but my mom found the text. She didn't scream or
curse like I thought she would. She just dared at me, emotionless.
Then she said, real quiet. He blocked that boy, don't answer,
don't go back there. Understand me. I nodded. She didn't

(24:12):
say anything else, just walked down the room and left
me sitting there with my heart pounding and my phone
locked in her hand. I told her i'd stopped going
to McDonald's, and for a while I did. I stayed
home after school, watched anime reruns on my tablet, sketched
it in silence. My bestie kept texting me to hang out,

(24:35):
but I kept saying, you know, I wanted to be good.
I really did. But something about the quiet made me
feel itchy. I missed the way he made me feel seen,
like I wasn't just some awkward kid in fl crew sneakers.
I missed the attention, even if the words were weird, sometimes,
even if the questions made my stomach twist. So one Friday,

(24:58):
when my mom had a double shit, I walked back
to McDonald's. I told myself, I wasn't gonna talk to him.
I just sit, eat, leave. That was it. I had
ten bucks from babysitting my cousin the weekend before I
ordered a happy meal. Even though I told myself I
wasn't a little kid anymore, it just felt safe, familiar.

(25:21):
He was already inside, same hoodie, same old backpack, same smile.
But he didn't look soft this time. It looked sharp.
He watched me sit down at the booth by the
window like he had been waiting. I thought he maybe
give me a nod from across the room. Instead, he
walked straight over and slid it next to me, not

(25:43):
across next to me, right there on the same side,
his body pressed against mine. I stiffened, staring at the
tray in front of me, my hands shaking a little
bit as I opened the teen of milk jug. You've
been avoiding me, he said, low and flat. I tried
to laugh now, I've just been busy homework and stuff.

(26:07):
He didn't laugh back. Instead, his leg pressed harder against me,
and I could feel how much taller, how much bigger
he was. He was taking up all the space. I
suddenly felt how small my arms were, how my hoodie
sleeves are bunched up at the wrist because I hadn't
hit my grocerburg yet. I wasn't grown. I wasn't even close.

(26:30):
He leaned in, his hot ass breath hitting my face.
I thought you were different. I thought you could handle
grown up things. But you're just like the rest of
the little girls. Scared. My whole body went still. Then,
without warning, he put his hand on my thigh hard.
He gripped it tight, his fingers digging in like he

(26:52):
was trying to leave a mark. I winced, but I
didn't say anything. My whole brain just shut off. He
wasn't he been looking at me anymore, just staring straight ahead,
his fingers still pressing into the soft part above my knee.
I thought you were actually mature, he said, almost like
he was sad. I guess I was wrong. I don't

(27:16):
even remember standing up. I just remember the sound of
the tray clattering to the floor, my fry spilling under
the table, the little toy bouncing out of the box
and rolling near his foot. I didn't stop to grab it.
I didn't look back. I walked out the front door
like I had somewhere to be. Then I ran the
second my feet hit the sidewalk. I didn't cry until

(27:37):
I got home. I didn't tell my mom, I didn't
tell my friend. I just went straight to my room,
curled up under a blanket and felt my thigh throbbing
where his fingers had been. After that, I didn't go
anywhere but school on home. Even walking past McDonald's made
my stomach twist. That Friday was the last Friday I

(27:58):
tried to have grown. It was the last time I
let myself believe that I was in control. Looking back now,
he saw me alone. He saw how eager I was
to be taken seriously, how easy it was to plant
compliments like seeds and wash them grow into something he
could use. And I gave him room. I let him

(28:19):
sit next to me. I left when he said creepy things.
I answered texts. I didn't even know how to read write,
but I was eleven. I just knew I wanted to
feel special, and he knew exactly how to use that.
I think about that grip on my thigh more than
I want to admit, not because it hurt, but because

(28:40):
it changed something to me. That moment snapped the fantasy
clean in half. I wasn't grown I was a little
girl in a hoodie too big and a heart too
soft to carry the weight he put on it. I
remember how fast the fear came rushing in, how fake
all the flirting fell after that, I remember islends afterwards

(29:02):
that kind of sticks with you. To the high school
boy who saw a little girl and thought she was
something to play with. Let's not ever meet again.

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