Speaker 1: I do deliveries for my local Papa John's. I'm in college,
so this is just one of the few jobs I
could choose from. A few of my friends work here too,
but we're all delivery drivers, so even when we have
the same shifts, we don't really see each other anyway.
This happened to me last December while I was picking
up some extra shifts before Christmas. This night, it was
snowing a good amount, making deliveries take longer than usual,
while also getting more deliveries than usual. I was never
too stressed about work, though having to go NonStop for
hours on end was definitely not as enjoyable. At nine
point thirty, I grabbed my next set of orders to
deliver and got in my car to get the directions up.
I had two orders and the houses were just five
minutes from each other, but they were both pretty far
from the shop. They were fit fifteen minutes away, which
was more like twenty five minutes in this weather. The
first part of the drive was normal, but then it
began taking me toward the less visited part of town.
The houses here were older and most of the shops
in the area had closed. Nobody ever came around here
unless they lived here because it was so old and
just wasn't up to today's standards. After twenty minutes of driving,
I pulled into one of the neighborhoods and drove down
the road toward the first house. The road was very bare,
no cars parked on the side, and most of the
houses kind of looked empty. Once I got to the
first address, I parked on the road and walked up
to the front door. A kind old man answered the
door and paid for the pizza. Then I went back
and set the directions for the next house. It was
in the same neighborhood, but I realized as I drove
that it was taking me deeper into the neighborhood, to
the point where there were less houses and more space
between them. By the time I got to the address,
I couldn't see any other houses around. It was just
trees surrounding the area. Again, I parked on the street
and walked up to the front door. I knocked and
waited patiently on the porch. It was pretty cold out though,
and the snow making my clothes soaked wasn't helping. Finally,
after a minute, the door opened. It was a middle
aged woman who looked like she'd just woken up. Her
hair was messy, and she had tired and motionless eyes.
I have your order here for two pizzas, I said,
holding out the boxes and giving her the total to pay.
She took the boxes and placed them on the table
next to her, then told me to wait a moment
for her to get cash. Another minute went by before
they opened the door again. She started sifting through some cash,
counting it slowly and trying to add it all up.
There was definitely something weird about her. It's hard to
pinpoint what it was exactly, but everything she was doing
was just very odd. Then, as if she wasn't struggling
enough on counting the cash, she started up small talk
with me, normal stuff like how my day was and
all that. I responded politely, but it was just really weird,
like she was stalling. At some point while she was talking,
I looked back at my car, just to distance myself
from the uncomfortable situation for a moment, But I was
quick to see a man standing right next to it.
He was looking in the windows and doing something to
the door. But when I looked back at the woman,
her face had shifted into anger. I figured it all
out too late, though, as she reached out and then
started yelling to the man by my car. He turned
around and started sprinting towards us. As the woman tried
to pull me into the house, I pushed her away
and broke free. Then my instincts took hold of me
and I sprinted into the trees. I could hear the
man's heavy footsteps crunching in the snow behind me all
the way through the forest, until finally they started to
fade away. After two minutes of sprinting, I stopped to
catch my breath. Luckily, the moon was lighting up the
forest enough for me to navigate through it and back
to one of the streets in the neighborhood. I called
nine one one once I got service, and after ten
minutes of waiting in the cold, an officer arrived. Another
patrol car went to the house, finding the man outside
in the act of trying to break into my car.
To keep things from dragging on. Basically, the motive was
likely due to the couple running out of money and
resorting to robbing my vehicle. The whole distraction was so
that the man could rob my car without me ever knowing,
but since I saw what he was doing. It's not
really clear what they would have done. Maybe they would
have just let me go, but it's obvious I would
have reported them, so I don't think it's likely they
would have. I'm just thankful for getting away unharmed, and
for being the first victim they tried it on before
getting arrested and never having the chance to do anything
to anyone else. This was just last winter. In early February,
I was driving to my next door dash order. I
was a bit tired, as I'd been driving for the
last four hours and it was almost twelve am. After this,
I was definitely calling it a night and heading home,
as I was worried about getting sleepy on the road,
especially with all the ice and snow. I was driving
down a fairly empty road though it was a side
road that connected two of the main towns in our city,
but there was a five mile stretch that had nothing,
no buildings or houses or anywhere to stop. As I
was driving down this section. I don't really know what happened,
but I just got hit with a wave of tiredness
that made me lose focus on the road for just
a few seconds. But that was all it took, I
guess I hit a patch of ice and slid towards
the side, and although I fully woke back up, at
this point it was too far gone. I tried to
steer back onto the road, but my car just slid
straight off and into the small ditch between the road
and the woods. It wasn't a bad crash at all,
since the snow lightened the impact, but it still made
me a little shaky, and I knew right away that
it was going to be impossible to get out of this.
My car was stuck on the incline of the ditch
and in thick snow. I didn't even bother getting out
to try and see how bad it was, though I
did test my luck at trying to maneuver the car
to get some traction, but if anything, I just made
it worse. In the middle of trying to figure everything out,
I noticed a car's headlights down the road. At first,
I thought it was just a car passing by, but
after a few seconds it was clear that they weren't moving.
Someone must have just been parked down the road with
their headlights on, which I found to be a little
unnerving at the coincidence of it. Being on this long
empty road. They weren't close enough to have stopped to
try and help me, but they weren't far enough either
to not see my headlights. I pulled out my phone
and called my dad, knowing he'd still be awake and
hoping he'd be able to help me. I'd never been
in a situation like this, so I really didn't know
what to do. He said he would call roadside assistance
and then drive down to wait with me. I thanked
him and felt relief, knowing he would be down here
in just a few minutes. I looked back out on
the road, looking for the headlights from the car i'd
just seen, but now they were gone. It was too
dark to see anything that far without lut so I
didn't know if they'd driven away or were still there
and had just turned off their lights. It started to
creep me out the more I thought about it. I
kept my eyes down the road, not looking away for
more than a few seconds, as I began getting paranoid.
It was something about the silence as well that made
it more uneasy, only hearing the wind outside my car
and nothing else. Then, after three minutes of waiting, I
saw a figure walking toward my car. He was down
the road, coming from the direction where the headlights had been.
I watched him as he slowly made his way through
the snow, getting to just about fifteen feet from the
front of my car. Then he stopped. He stood there
in the snow, facing me, but not moving. I couldn't
see much of him, as he had a hoodie covering
his face, but the way he just stood there my
headlights started to terrify me. After a moment, I honked
my horn softly a few times, just to let them
know that I was in the car and that I
could see them. They still didn't move or acknowledge me.
But just as I was pulling out my phone to
call my dad again, the man turned around and walked away,
disappearing down the road. I still called my dad to
let him know about this really strange person that was
out here, and he said he was just a minute away.
I stayed on the phone with him this time, and
only thirty seconds later I saw headlights turn on down
the road and begin moving toward my car. Once they
were right across the road, they parked and turned off
their lights. I couldn't see over the ditch, but I
heard a door open as I yelled through the phone
what was going on, But then my dad's car pulled
right in front of my view and screeched to a stop.
I heard him yell at someone as they got back
in their car and sped away. They didn't come back,
but my dad said the guy was holding something in
his hands that looked like he was going to break
into my car with Everything went okay after that, though,
and the car ended up not even having much damage
to it. I'm not sure what was about to happen
that night, but I know I'm really lucky to have
not found out. I do uber eats on the weekends
and sometimes on days when school is out. This happened
just a couple weeks before school's holiday break. It was
a Friday night and I didn't have any plans at all,
so I figured why not make a few bucks instead
of being bored and laying around the house all day.
I started driving and set up the app to start
getting orders. It wasn't snowing out, but it was really
cold and windy, and there was still a thin layer
of snow on the roads from earlier in the day.
I think it was six pm when I started, and
I did a few orders before I got one to
pick up from a nearby burger king. Once I got
the food, I checked on the app where I was going.
It was clear at first that it wasn't a house address,
but when I zoomed in, I was a little more
confused to see it was at the corner of two streets,
looking like maybe a gas station. Although finding it to
be unusual, I clicked begin route and started driving over.
I didn't think it was anything bad. I just thought
it was going to be an awkward interaction, since I'd
probably have to find the person in the parking lot
and give it to them directly. Usually I never see
the customers and just do a quick drop off. As
I got closer and drove up to the intersection it
was at, I saw that it was a gas station
that was right in the spot the directions were taking me.
The gas station itself looked normal, but no cars were
in the parking lot. I pulled in and parked in
one of the spots at the back, then stayed in
my car and tried to look around for anyone. The
app should have let them know that I'd arrived, so
I was expecting someone to be out here waiting for me,
but even after a couple minutes, nobody was here. I
sent a text through the app, just letting them know
that I was in the parking lot waiting for them.
Then I got out of my car to see if
I could get a better look around. The whole intersection
was empty, No cars were passing by, and all the
stores across the street seemed to be closed for the night.
The longer I stood out there, the more unsettled I got.
I checked my phone, still seeing no response from the customer.
I was just about to get back into my car
before a truck pulled into the gas station. They passed
the pumps and drove right up to me, parking just
a couple spots away. It was an older, dark red
pickup with tinted windows. The first thought to come through
my head was why would they order for delivery if
they were just going to end up driving here anyway.
I'd thought before that maybe they were a worker at
the gas station or were just hanging out here for
some reason, but now this was far more suspicious than
it already was. The driver door opened and a man
stepped out of the truck. From one look at him.
He had a very disheveled appearance, like something you'd expect
from someone living on the road. Even his clothes looked dirty,
stained and torn. As he got out, I held up
the bag with a slight smile, but the man didn't
even look at it. He kept his eyes locked on
me as he approached, and something struck me, giving me
the feeling to get out of there immediately. I set
the bag on the ground, and almost right away, the
man started walking faster, as if he knew I was
going to leave. I got in my car and started
backing out just as the man got up to my door,
but then he ran right back to his truck, leaving
the food on the ground. As I left the gas station,
I saw him back out quickly and start speeding toward
the exit I was leaving from. I floored it, going
through a red light and just speeding down the road
until I got to where more cars were. The truck
tried to follow me for a minute, but then turned away.
Once I was safe, I called the police, but really
nothing came of it. In the heat of the moment,
I never even thought to check the man's license plate,
though thinking back, I'm not sure if he even had one.
I don't know what he was doing or what would
have happened if I didn't leave when I did, but
knowing that I was so close to finding out is
still horrifying.