For those of you who have never been to Washington... There's Seattle/Tacoma. And then there's everywhere else. And everywhere else is filled with some pretty strange people, especially when you get into the really rural area's.
I was visiting my Girlfriend, who at the time was a Grad Student at Eastern in the small College town of Cheney, WA. We were driving someplace, can't remember where... Trying to link up with I90 using backroads. And we were about ten miles into the Woods when my car tire goes completely flat... It had happened earlier and I planned on fixing it a Les Schwab on the way out, but had put a Fixaflat on in the meantime just to get around. Brilliant move, right? Anyway, here we are, broken down in the middle of Winter, 10 miles outside of a town in what was essentially the middle of nowhere in the woods. And it's getting dark. Neither of our phones are getting reception. I have a spare tire, but no Tire Iron to put it on thanks to taking it out of the trunk to make room for a camping trip two months earlier. Another brilliant move. We were fucked. So I make the decision to just run all the way back to town or to a place my phone worked, while she stayed in the car, since the car was still running/was able to lock, had music.
I start running and get about two miles down the road when a big truck pulls up alongside me... The creepiest, hillbilly guy I've ever seen gets out and asks me what the problem is. I told him what happpened and he tells me he'll help me... and that he has one in his truck. So I thank him, hop in and we head back to the car. We pull over and my girlfriend is obviously freaked out about this guy and giving me the 'Are you serious?' look. Anyways, he's looking around the storage thing he has in the back of his truck and tells me he couldn't find it and that it's at his house a little ways down the road and requests I go with him. I'm now automatically suspicious of whats happening... Not just because of the circumstances, but because this guy was really off, seemed really aggressive, zero social skills, odd behavior, etc. So I decided to go with him and just keep a close eye on the situation. My Girlfriend, scared that someone else like him might come by opted to come with us... My gun was in the compartment between the Driver and Passenget seat, but I couldn't think of a good excuse to grab it, and it wasn't yet to a point I thought anything was truly amiss, so I just rolled with the situation.
We start driving and take a turn onto a dirt road right through the forrest and drive for quite a while. It definitely was not 'just down the road...' We finally get to his house, which was just a small doublewide in the middle of the wilderness that had a shed almost as big as it right next to it... I'm talking real horror movie shit. He's like hey, do you mind coming to help me look for it real fast, I think it's in the shed. Now, I'm definitely suspicious and I could tell my girlfriend was really freaking out. I agree and ask Samantha to wait in the car. I'm someone who's definitely capable of taking care of myself in a bad situation, but who is also smart enough to know that not being in a bad situation is the best way to go. So I'm keeping a close eye on every move this guy makes... We start walking towards the shed, just me and him. We get in there and it's just a huge pile of garbage, tools, etc. We start looking around and I've now convinced myself something bad to go down. Realistically, I didn't really think it might, but at this point and in that scenario, I'm expecting anything. After about 5 minutes of looking, he finally finds it and I'm very relieved. We get back in the truck head out back to the car where I put the tire on the car. We both thank him and offer him all the money in my wallet, about 80 dollars for his help...
And he tells us "No, no... Keep your money, just happy to help. But, I do have to insist you come for dinner... My wife is making dinner right now" At this point, I'm like fuck, could this get any worse? But me and my girl are nice people, and he's very pushy and awkward when we initially decline... So, I thought well... he's got a wife and that if anything were to go down it already would have... We'll just go there, eat some food then excuse outselves immediatly after and leave the money anyways. After all the guy did take like 40 minutes out of his day to help a complete Stranger. So, we relented and agreed to follow him back to the house.
But this time, I wasn't about to take any chances. I put my gun into the side of my Northface and I'm like... If anything... anything weird goes down, you just run right out to the car and drive away, and let me figure out the details. But you get out of there... She agrees. And we go inside. What we found inside was so much worse than what we expected... They were borderline hoarders and everything in the place was old school. 80's style decorations, box set TV, etc. The most disturbing thing though, wasn't the surroundings... It was his wife. His wife looked absolutely terrified. She almost never spoke, had shifty eye contact, and would immediatly showed physical signs of submission whenever he spoke to her or even looked her general direction. Me and Samantha made small talk with him while she was making dinner, which was deer, btw. Fucking Deer. The whole scenario made me sick to my stoumach. I could tell my girlfriend, who's really OCD and hates anything even slightly awkward or uncomfortable was about to lose her shit. We were both just kind of like, at what point is it acceptable to just say thanks for everything, but we gotta go... And just leave immediatly. But that point just didn't come.
We eat dinner and it was like the scene right out of House of 1000 Corpses. Me and Samantha, just kind of sitting there not talking, his wife completely quiet... and him, going on and on, laughing at his own jokes. Talking about hunting... He asks me if I can help him string up his Bow before I leave and I agree... Thinking i'll just do that and get the fuck out of there finally. We go into a room and it's filled with guns and hunting equipment. I help him with the bow and tell him thanks again, but we had to be on our way. Then something strangge happened. He started getting really agressive and kind of confrontational out of nowhere. Joking that I didn't know shit about guns or hunting, I was a City guy, etc. Did I mention he'd been drinking heavily this whole time? Yeah... So, I just tried to keep it casual and kept my hand as close to my pocket as possible. At that point, I really thought... Ok, this may actually go down. But it didn't. I realized now was that time to get hard and bolt. So I drop the ex-military card and tell him I do enjoy guns, and even have a concealed carry permit. And thanked him for having us over, but we really had to go because we were meeting up with our friends later that night. So of course on our way out, this guy... having zero boundaries, insists that we all keep in touch. Yeah, ok Buddy. So one the piece of paper he hands me, I write the wrong last name, fake phone number and fake address. I hand it to my girlfriend, who I was sure would see what I did and follow suit. When she handed it back to me, I noticed she put all the correct info about herself. And she lived no less than 15 miles away from this creep. Facepalm.
Now, you'd think this is where the story would end. But it didn't... We get back to her place and we're both like God DAMN that was creepy... But just thankful to be out of there. I knew that guy having her personal info was probably a legitimate threat so I just tried to make light out of it that night to calm her down, then planned on leaving my gun with her when I left back for Seattle. Anyways, we spent the rest of the night inside watching movies in her living room. As it got later, I began to notice small noises outside on her deck, which was connected to the flight of stairs leading up to the three bedroom apartment converted from the top of a house. I didn't say anything, but kept listening. Sure enough, more slight noises came and when the last one came she started to turn around but I stopped her and said let's go back into your room. I turned the lights off and we went back to the room. Grabbed the nine, walked down the hall and crept up to the window, which had the blinds drawn. Reached out and slightly pulled down. There, standing right outside the window was a man staring into the window. It startled both of us so much that we both jumped back. It was dark and I couldn't make out features, but I was sure it was him. I paused for a second and figured he was probably armed as well... So I turned on the porch light and heard him running down the steps. I went out and could hear gravel kicking up along the side of the house. Then a flood light came on... I didn't move from the porch. But I called him by name and told him that I was calling the cops on him and if he came back again, next time I'd shoot him myself. He didn't come back, but Girlfriend literally moved the next month anyways.
