Let's Not Meet~ Reddit Horror Stories

Followed Home By A Real Bad Guy

I had just moved into a new flat with some friends for university. At this point we didn't know the area well, and we're still getting our feet on the ground.

We had a large chain supermarket a few blocks from us, and none of us had a car so that's normally where we'd go for shopping, because it was in walking distance. The supermarket had a foyer with some benches, so normally whoever finished shopping first would wait for the others there.

On this day, my flatmate Kate finished shopping before the rest of us, so she went to wait out the front. It was late evening and the store was winding up, so she was basically alone in the foyer. She'd buried herself in her phone when a man sat down next to her on the bench, much closer than was comfortable.

Now we live in a small city in a small country where there isn't a lot of racial diversity, so it's worth mentioning this guy was black. She later told me it was the first time she'd ever met an African person. There really just aren't many of them in our country, let alone our city.

He was wearing a completely black suit that didn't fit him, and he smelled overpoweringly of cologne and cigarettes. Kate told me he smelled like he hadn't washed in a while too.

According to her there was a fairly long pause after he sat down, and the conversation went something like this.

Guy: Hello. Kate: Uhhhhh, hi? Guy: You have beautiful hair. Kate: Thanks? Guy: What is your name? Kate: Um, Louise, yours? Guy: I am from Somalia. Brief pause... Guy: Where do you live?

It was at this point I had finished and came out to meet her. I could immediately tell how tense and uncomfortable she was. As soon as she saw me she jumped up. I can still remember his face. While he was talking to her he had this kind of creepy fixed grin, all teeth, and roaming eyes that were all over her. As soon as he saw me the smile was gone, replaced by a completely blank expression. He got off the bench almost before she did and turned and walked toward the store entrance, as if he was trying to pretend I couldn't see him that way.

On the way home she told me how creeped out she was, and how she'd probably take her motor scooter to a different store in the future. I thought she was overreacting, but she should do whatever makes her feel safest. She was only 18 and pretty sheltered, this kind of thing had never happened to her before.

A few hours after we get home, I'm just about to go to bed. While I'm brushing my teeth I hear someone knock at the door. We hadn't been living there long and we'd literally never had someone come to the door like that, let alone near midnight. I was immediately on edge. As I opened the door just a crack, I put my full weight against the frame to stop it getting forced open.

There on the doorstep was the guy from the supermarket. He had his creepy fixed smile on again.

Guy: Can Louise come out?

At first I couldn't really understand his accent, but I worked him out after a few seconds.

Me: Nobody with that name lives here.

I didn't know Kate had been smart enough to give him a false name, but it didn't matter. When I said that he dropped the smile, but didn't walk away. Instead...

Guy: Can I have your phone? Me: No. Guy: Can I borrow your cigarettes? Me: No. Goodbye.

At this point I closed the door. I watched through our kitchen window as he wandered slowly down our driveway and onto the dark street. He didn't look back, but instead he pulled out his own cellphone and started making a call.

He must have followed us home; there was no other way he could have known where we lived. The fact he knew I smoked at the time meant he'd watched me come out of the house at some point during the evening. I hadn't had a smoke on the walk home, and I'd cooked dinner as soon as I got back. I only went out for a smoke after I'd eaten, which was probably an hour and a half after we got back. Had he been out there somewhere in the bushes, watching that whole time? And if he had his own phone, why the hell did he need mine?

I told Kate, and made sure to keep all our doors and windows locked. I was shaken up enough I didn't sleep much at all that night. But by the next day I'd calmed down and put it out of my mind.

A few days later in the early afternoon while I was biking to work, I saw him walking near our house. He was wearing the exact same clothes as before, on the phone and smoking a cigarette. Almost as soon as I got to work I got a call from one of my other flatmates: the guy had knocked on the door again. Once again asking for Louise. I told him the story quickly before I clocked in for my shift, and he promised to keep an eye on things during the evening. That was the last I heard of our odd visitor for months.

Eventually I learned our neighbours over the road were refugees from Somalia, and one afternoon I introduced myself to them and started chatting about neighbourly stuff. They were a house of four middle aged single mothers, all with young kids and absent fathers who had either been killed in conflict or had been denied refugee status. Somalia really doesn't sound like a great place to live, put it that way. It turns out my town has a very small but close-knit community of Somalians, only about 150 people, almost all of them refugees.

In case you don't know, their culture values sharing as a community value. If you need something you can ask for it, and your neighbour will usually give it to you. Something like sharing a cellphone around the community is pretty normal. Obviously that doesn't work here, but that's where he had come from. The more I talked and learned, the more it kind of made sense why this guy was acting the way he did. He was a fish out of water, didn't understand his behaviour was a bit creepy in his new home country and was just trying to be friendly. I honestly started to feel really bad about judging him so harshly, even if he did make my friend uncomfortable.

One of the times I was talking to the neighbour ladies I asked if they knew who he was. At first they were confused and weren't sure who I was talking about, but as I started describing him they went from my friendly, laughing neighbours to deadly serious. They started asking questions about him. When was he here? What did he want? Who was he on the phone with? Suddenly I was the one getting grilled.

Eventually they started explaining what they knew. They knew of him, but didn't know him personally. According to them, they thought he had been involved in human trafficking back in Somalia, in fact the exact word they used was 'slavery'. They didn't explain much, but I understood from what they said that the trafficking generally involves young, beautiful girls, a lot like my flatmate Kate. They wouldn't tell me his name, and they didn't know what he did for a living now that he was here.

They told me since he had been in our country he'd been in constant trouble with the police for following young women, even though he was apparently married to someone back in Somalia. They found that the most dishonourable thing about him, even though he'd also been arrested a few times for theft. They really didn't like him, because they felt people like him gave their community a bad name.

A year or two went by after this, and by total chance I saw a short article in the newspaper. The headline was something like, "Refugee Convicted of Sexual Assault". His name was suppressed, but the article revealed he was Somalian.

A couple of months after I'd last seen him, he'd forced his way into another student flat by following some girls home from class. He waited a few hours until only one of them was at home, then barged through the door when she answered it, and assaulted her. He'd also stolen her cellphone and laptop afterwards. That kind of thing almost never happens in our city, and the similarities between what happened there and what happened to us made me certain it was the same guy. I never found out what happened to him after that, but I hope he's still in prison.

I really don't think less of the local Somalian community because of him though. The ladies I was friends with were some of the nicest and friendliest people I've ever met. The hardships they've gone through aren't something anyone should have to experience, and for them to come out smiling and positive takes a strength I don't think I could ever possess. But the creepy tall skinny dude who followed me and my friend home that night? Yeah, let's not meet.