Ever since Snapchat implemented that new Snap Map feature, it basically lets you stalk any of your friends' locations—well, any of your friends who choose to have it enabled. For some reason, I used to have it enabled, I guess just because I liked my friends to see that I was busy a lot or something dumb. I'm in 11th grade, a junior in high school; Snapchat is obviously a huge thing these days in high school.
You don't have one, and your friends will likely question why not. Even the weird kids have Snapchat—like the really, really weird kids—like the ones who sit in the corner of the lunchroom alone. Maybe I sound specific in saying that because I am being specific.
There was a kid named Zack, who'd been a socially awkward reject since elementary school. No one really knew if he actually had any issues or not, and everyone could agree that there was always something that seemed a bit off-putting and unpleasant about him. Apparently, the kid was on Snapchat and was somehow getting people's Snapchat usernames.
My username was one of them apparently because one cold December day, I got "Zach Meister added you as a friend" from Snapchat. I already knew it was him, so I added him back. I don't know why; I guess because I'm just too friendly of a person.
Minutes after adding me, he sent me a picture and then a video. I didn't want to open it because I knew it would be weird, but I was also curious to see what it was. I waited a few hours to show as much disinterest as possible.
I opened it when I was in my bed, and what it was was weirder than I thought it would be. There was a picture of me sitting in the lunchroom at school, but then the video was when the bell rang, and everyone in the lunchroom got up, including me, obviously. He zoomed in on me and recorded me as I left the lunchroom.
The worst part was the caption at the bottom, which said, "acute lol. " I ignored it. I was so close to removing him, but for some reason, I didn't have it in me to do that.
That night, lying in my bed, watching TV and Snapchatting friends, Zack (a. k. a.
Zack Meister) messaged me on Snapchat. Unfortunately, I accidentally clicked the notification right away, which took me to his message, which said, "You live on Mason Street? " I answered back, "Yes.
" He answered back immediately. I planned on not opening his chat this time though—not for a long time—but the longer I waited, the more he messaged me. I was so close to blocking him; it was not even funny.
He started sending me pictures now—pictures I was not planning on opening. I knew that the longer I took to respond, the less interested he would be, so I put my phone down on the desk, turned off the TV, and went to sleep. The next morning when I woke up, my window was wide open as well as my closet door.
I literally mumbled to myself, "What the [ __ ]? " I didn't remember opening either of them, but my room was absolutely freezing. I saw a bunch of new notifications from Zach on my phone.
Then it sank in—what if this was him? I opened Snapchat in a hurry and opened the snaps from Zach. It started with pictures of a sidewalk, then a picture of my house, then a picture of my bedroom window, then a picture of me taken through the window, and a picture of Zack standing inside of my room, then a picture of me in my bed taken from my closet.
That was the last picture. Then I saw his messages. There were so many messages, a lot of them starting with, "Answer!
Why do you take so long to answer? " Then later on, he said, "I'm gonna come visit you lol. You have your Snap Map on too.
" Then he said, "I like watching people sleep. " Then he said, "I found you with your Snap Map. I hope you don't mind; I think you're cute.
" Though I need to mention I'm a guy in case you were wondering. The rest of the messages said things like, "Are you up yet? What are you doing?
" I didn't care anymore though; I screenshotted the chat. Unfortunately, I did not take the screenshots of the pictures in time before it was too late. I blocked Zack's Snapchat account, and when my parents were in utter disbelief, my dad mostly handled trying to contact the police, which turned into a big thing.
The police had to do investigating, which got the school involved as well. Apparently, Zack lived (or lived) with his single alcoholic father, which kind of explained a lot. The screenshots of Zack admitting he found me via Snap Maps served as proof—enough proof to get Zack charged with juvenile breaking and entering.
No one ever saw Zack at school again after that; it was assumed he and his father moved far away. I've been using Snapchat for a little over a year just as a way to share cool or funny things that are going on in my life. You know that in high school, there is always that one weird kid who acts like a psycho—the one who would "prank" someone by putting a dead rat in their locker.
That kid at my school was named Alex. Alex had done a lot of questionable things, and he's been suspended multiple times. He had brown hair that was always a bowl cut and had really pale skin—the vampire bill.
One day, I got a notification on my phone while I was playing some video game. It was from Alex. I didn't remember adding him, but then I thought he must have seen.
. . My snap code from my Instagram page or something.
It was weird, though. I could see a score, which means I did add him back at one point; I just don't remember when. I put my phone down until I died in the video game I was playing.
I unlocked my phone and opened Alex's snap—it was an extremely zoomed-in picture of a door handle, more specifically a locking mechanism. It was captioned, "Hello. " I actually got a screenshot of the picture.
I was kind of creeped out because I knew this kid was the kind of person who would come to your house and do something really messed up. I texted him back asking why he sent me that picture. He responded with another picture; it was a blurry picture through a window looking into a house.
My heart sank when I realized it was a picture of our kitchen. I also screenshotted this picture. I ran straight to our kitchen and looked out the window.
I saw him on my deck, laughing. I ran around to the side of our dining room and threw open the door. He was still standing there, but he was holding his hand behind his back.
I told him to get off our deck, but he slowly removed his hand from behind his back. He was holding a knife. I slammed the door shut and locked it.
I yelled through the door that if he didn't leave, I would call 9-1-1. He smiled at me and slowly walked off our deck. I ran to make sure all the exterior doors were shut and locked.
I don't know what he would have done if I hadn't slammed the door shut, but I hope I never have to find out. This is a short story, but it started just two days ago, and it has me scared shitless. I tend to get a lot of random people adding me on Snapchat because I have my Snapchat in my Instagram bio.
Not to toot my own horn, but I live a kind of lavish lifestyle and show it through my Instagram pictures. One rainy night, when I was chilling with my friend, two random girls added me on the app—one named KC Welsh and the other Bree Owens. I added both of them back.
They both had really low snap scores, though; one had a snap score of 200 and the other had a snap score of a couple thousand. I figured, okay, that was that. I’d wait to see if they sent me anything.
Sure enough, the one named KC snapped me a black screen with the caption "You're cute. " I ignored the message; it seemed like someone was messing with me. I checked the snap map and saw that both of the girls shared their locations.
In fact, the two of them were apparently together in a car not too far away from me. Anyway, I had to go home; the weather outside was getting worse, and it was getting late. I jumped in my car and got on the highway, but drove slow given how bad the rain was getting.
There weren't many, if any, cars on the road at this point, so one car finally caught up behind me. It stayed behind me for a while. I got off the highway to my town's exit, as did the car behind me—not really weird.
I took the left turn off the main road down the street towards our house. So did the car behind me, though. Now it was slightly questionable.
I pulled up into our house's driveway and turned off the car. The car that was behind me slowed down once it passed our driveway, then came to a halt. My heart started pumping to the point where I could feel it in my chest.
I took my phone, opened Snapchat, and checked the map; those two girls said they were right next to me on the map, right on top of my house. I shut my phone screen and felt like I was about to throw up. My dad was home, so if I could make it to the door and ring the bell a million times, maybe I’d be good.
But no, it was too risky. Instead, I called the house phone. Thankfully, my dad picked up right away.
I yelled into the phone, begging him to come outside. I saw the car in the street reversing to come closer to the driveway. At the same time, the front door opened, and my dad came outside, looking at the car in the street.
The car drove off, and only then did I run through the rain to the house. My dad hugged me and asked me who those men were. I broke away from the hug as he said this.
"Men? " I asked. "How do you know, and how many?
" He replied, saying he saw at least three large men sitting in that car as it drove off. Last night, I woke up to noises outside my window—like leaves crunching, garbage cans being moved around. People were outside my window.
I just knew it; I knew the blinds were open. I didn't want to look. I was too horrified to look at that window.
Then I heard, "I know you're up; don't move a muscle. " There at the window—it was my dad. It was the scariest moment of my life.
It sounded like my dad was hiding behind my bed. I heard footsteps outside move away, and my dad finally said it was safe. He watched as the car parked outside—the same one from the previous night—drove off.
My dad and I are horrified to even go to sleep tonight. My dad said he's ready to call the cops at the slightest sign of something happening outside. If anything happens, I'll send an update.
