Unnamed Child (3:46)

This was somewhere in between first and second grade. I was living in Bethesda, Maryland. I Was going to day camp at my elementary school, Bethesda Elementary. I went to day camp that day. Me and my friend went out to the playground by ourselves. There was nobody there besides me and him. And we went over to this one particular playset that we really liked that had this, like, bouncy bridge where we were goofing around. We discovered that there were all these belongings from some person in there. It was, like, clothing and personal hygiene items. It was all just tucked in this little hidey hole on this play area. We had actually gone and told the counselors this. And they told us to stay away from that area, that an unhoused person was kind of using it for storage. And then we went back in and we played, me and my friend Dee. He and I would go back out there every day for a few days, and the stuff was still there. I did something incredibly out of character for myself. And I convinced my friend Dee to help me drag all of the stuff out. And I was like, well, if we wreck it and we get rid of it, he'll go away and we can play on our favorite player again. So we did. We dragged it all out, and we got the toothpaste, and we poured it all over his clothes. And we ground it into the dirt and made it all messy. Basically got rid of it. We didn't really tell anybody that we did it, but it became very obvious because the next day when we came to camp, the counselors approached me and him and asked us to come outside onto the playground and said that somebody wanted to talk to us. Alarm bells immediately went off in my head. This is a stranger. I am not supposed to be talking to strangers. Why are the counselors having us talk to a strange person? The idea that it might be the person whose stuff we destroyed Was definitely in my mind. They walked us across this little concrete strip and onto this asphalt playfield. And he was just standing there by himself. He was a bit scruffy, but he didn't look like what we thought a homeless person looks like. As we got to him, I was growing more afraid. They were leading us to somebody we didn't know. We were separated from the rest of the kids. They introduced me to him. He is telling me, I don't have that much stuff. I don't have money. I don't have a job. You've destroyed all of the obsessions that I have in the world. I don't have anything really to replace those with. I'm feeling guilt. I've harmed a person. I've harmed somebody. Who? I don't know. He was getting angrier as he went on. His face changed, just grew angrier and angrier. And his voice grew louder and louder. By the end of it, he was screaming at us, I'm gonna fucking kill you. I'm gonna fucking find you. And he really focused in on me. And he kept getting closer and closer to my face. I'm gonna kill you. I'm gonna grab the toothpaste, pour it all over your head, rub it into your hair, and then I'm gonna kill you, and I'm gonna shave your hair. It was crazy talk. He was going to find me and kill me for what I had done. About this time, the counselors moved in between me and him. Then one of the other counselors brought us back inside. I was just so terrified and skittish at that point. I remember telling my dad what happened and him going back to the day camp the next day and yelling at the counselors. I didn't want to go back to day camp. After that, the counselors discovered that he was secretly living on our school's campus. He had a little truck that was parked behind the gym. There was this long line of trees. You could park a truck in there and no one would know. They had it towed, and then they had him ejected by police from the campus. When school started, started that year, they bring everybody together for this giant assembly. I remember our principal giving this whole talk about how we needed to be really careful. We needed not to talk to strangers, to make sure that if strangers are talking to us that we go and we get an adult. They gave us the whole speech and then told us a little girl in the area had been kidnapped and was missing. And I became even more guarded and wary of the world around me. A few months after, my dad took me to the mall. This one day we stopped at a bookstore. My dad went upstairs into the nonfiction area and I went downstairs into the kids area. I remember in the area where the kids books were. I'm looking at the table and there is a guy there, and it feels like they're looking at me. They had like a hat pulled down over their eyes, but I knew they were looking at me. After I had been looking at this table for a minute, I just moved like a couple feet over, and they moved a couple of feet over. I slowly started to make my way back towards the staircase so that I could go upstairs, and they started following me. So I cut behind this bookshelf and I just started running towards the stairs. I knew they were Immediately, right behind me. And as I got to the stairs, I ran up to my dad, grabbed onto my dad, just started saying, there's a guy. There's a guy following me. And he looked around, looked down towards the stairs. You could see him coming up the stairs. And I could actually see his face. And it was him. That was the man I saw on the playground that had threatened my life. The second my dad made eye contact with him, he went right back down the stairs and out into the mall. And it was like he had disappeared into the sea of people. I know that even if we had called the police that day, nothing would have been done. You can't arrest somebody for coming up the staircase in a bookstore. After that, I never really wandered off in stores. I didn't go to different parts of stores without my parents. If I couldn't see them when we were in a store together, I just didn't leave their side. Fast forward to 2019. I'm sitting at my desk at work. I'm sitting there listening to this podcast. And the podcast gets to this point in their episode about Haddon Clark. Haddon Clark is the product of a family of serial killers. His dad, his brother, also convicted. He is a child serial killer. He liked to do revenge killings. If somebody pissed him off, he didn't kill them, he killed their kids. They're describing how he had an incident on an elementary school in Bethesda, Maryland, and they towed his truck for trespassing and living on this campus. I realized that they were talking about the incident that I had had and my friend had had with him and how they had towed his truck and that I froze at my desk. I immediately had to look up a photo of the guy and I was instantly brought back to him standing in front of me shouting obscenities and threatening my life. To this day, it makes me just nervous. It makes me look over my shoulder. I always said to my friends, I was like, you know, I'm sure we've all had a run in with a serial killer. I actually did. I actually did have a run in with a serial killer.

Terry Carnation (14:34)

Ooh, creepy. Well, let's take a quick break for ads.

Unnamed Advertiser (14:42)

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Rainn Wilson (15:15)

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Terry Carnation (16:36)

Okay, so listen up. While you were listening to that story, I did something crazy. I opened the door. Look, it just appears to be a long endless hallway and I don't know where it goes and I can't see the end. It reminds me of those liminal spaces people keep posting about. Malachi. Malachi, don't go in there, no matter how alluring the prospect may be. Okay? Wow. I haven't felt this drawn to something since I purchased a fidget spinner in 2011. Now let's let's pop in another tape while I ogle this mesmerizing corridor. I haven't felt this drawn to something since that Gangnam Style video.

Dee (17:38)

This occurred in August of 2001. The school I went to for college had a campus in Luxembourg, which is a small country in Europe. There was going to be about 120 kids studying abroad for the semester. And so this was the beginning of my junior year prior to school starting. I went over three weeks early with a couple buddies, and we got to travel through Italy and Greece. From there, we took a train. We began the journey to Luxembourg to start school. It was a really long trip. You know, it was like a full day. You're taking trains all the way from Italy up to Luxembourg. So we get. Get there pretty tired, but we have to go straight to the chateau to meet our host family. I remember standing in the parking lot and cars would pull in. All the students were there, and our host families would come to get us. I saw this really nice Jaguar pull in the parking lot. A man with blonde hair gets out. He kind of has this swagger. And I find out that that's the host family I'm staying with. And it turns out he used to be the captain of the Luxembourg football team or soccer team. He was a bit of a celebrity in Luxembourg. He picks me up and we drive back. And he lived outside of this small village called Diffre Donge. He shows me to the room, and it's a separate door to get up to this apartment I'll be staying in. Pretty quickly, I drop my bags down, ask them where the train station is. It's a bit of a walk, so I walked there in my haste to walk to the train station originally from my host family's house, I did not write down the address. End up taking a train into Luxembourg City. All the students, we were going to congregate there at this bar named Scott's, which is where we often went just to celebrate arriving and starting to get to know each other. We're on this cusp of this, like, great experience studying abroad in Europe. So we're really excited. That night went really well. Made some new friends, got to know people, had one or two beers, closed the bar down. It was well after midnight. Some of the students were actually staying in Luxembourg City, and then some were staying in these villages outside of it, closer to the chateau, like me. We all hiked to the train station. We started the train ride back, and with each stop, some of the kids were getting off, some of the students saying goodbye, heading to their new home with their host family. Over time, probably 45 minutes or an hour, almost everyone had gotten off. And then I realized I was the last one on the train. At this point. It was well after 1am It'd been a long trip already, you know, from Italy, and then just all this excitement. I Was just really tired and ended up falling asleep. When I woke up, I was all alone on the train and realized I had obviously missed my stop. Initially, I just assumed I could get off of the next stop and catch a train going back the other way. But the train went on for quite some time before I ended up stopping. Eventually it slowed down and I got off at the next stop not knowing where I was. Later I would learn I took the train into Belgium. The train stop, it was a little stop. It wasn't huge. There's like a small outbuilding where people could wait and, you know, benches, things like that. And it was just out in the middle of nowhere. It was pitch black. There were no street lights, no sounds. There's no one I could just walk up to and politely tap on the shoulder or just say, excuse me, hey. I think I missed my stop. Like, where are we? There was no one there. I started walking into the town. I couldn't read the signs pre smartphones, so there's really no way for me to search where I was or use gps. And this place was shut down. Everyone was inside. It was middle of the night. Nothing was open, no gas stations like we know it in the US and so I walk around 45 minutes or an hour just thinking, there's got to be someone I can talk to and find out where I am. I find no one. Even if I did find someone, like, I really didn't know where to tell them to take me. I didn't write down my host family's name. I didn't have the address. I only knew how to get from that train stop to my host family's house. I knew that walk. I'd at least done it once. Hopefully I could do it in reverse. I ended up walking back to this train stop, thinking, hey, maybe eventually a train will come back. But at this point, it's two or three in the morning, maybe later, there aren't any more trains coming. So I thought, okay, I guess I could just reverse the route here and walk down the train tracks for, I don't know, hours or whatever it take until I recognize the train stop. And I probably walked 100 yards down the track, and it was just pitch black. I couldn't even see my hand. I thought, this is really stupid. I really don't know how long I'd been on the train. I mean, it could be miles. So I turned back and I walked back to this little train stop. I'm sitting there thinking. I literally don't know what to do. All the things in my head of how I can solve a problem and how I can get myself out of this were dwindling. At some point, I looked up and there was a man standing over me. He appeared to be late 40s, early 50s, pretty unremarkable features, pretty normal looking. He was dressed pretty plainly, just regular jeans and a shirt. He just looked at me and he said, what's wrong? And that's all he said. How did he sneak up on me? I was in the middle of nowhere. You could hear a pin drop. There was absolutely no sound. There weren't crickets, There weren't what we think of night sounds. It was just extremely quiet. It was impossible that someone could walk up on me and me not hear it. I'd hear his footsteps approaching. I had been fortunate to travel overseas into Europe several times. I think this was my third. And I was pretty good at picking out accents. His accent, I could tell from just those few words, was not American, wasn't British, wasn't Canadian. I couldn't even pick out the region like Eastern European. I don't understand or recognize where he's from. I felt very vulnerable. I'm in the middle of nowhere and this man is just staining over me. I answered him very honestly. I said, I'm lost and I don't know where I am. That's all I said. He just looks back at me, this very, just neutral reaction, and he says, follow me. He turns around and immediately starts walking away, Starts walking into the dark. He did not turn around to see if I was following him. I couldn't think of any other options. And I get up and I start following him. I could have said, where am I following you to? Where are we going? What's your name? How did you find me? But I didn't say anything. I'm walking behind the sky in silence. And we walk into the parking lot. There is a single car. I did not hear a car come into the parking lot. I didn't see headlights. There was absolutely no sound. Really caught off guard that there's even a car there. I did not notice one before when I originally came in. And I was scanning again, looking for any signs of life or people. And I would have noticed a car. He walks up to the driver's side door, starts getting in again. He has not made eye contact with me at all. He finally looks at me and he says, get in. And he doesn't say it in a malicious way. It's not, you better get in or something bad's gonna happen. And I thought okay. And I got in. I didn't answer him. I have not said anything else to him. He just looks straightforward. Turns the car on, we back out. He turns the headlights on and we drive out of the parking lot. I should have said, where are we going? Can I give you information on where I think I need to go? Some details to give him to help him navigate where I'm going. But I don't say anything. I just stay quiet. I think it's a lot that I'm taking in. It's very late. He's looking forward and driving. I'm sitting next to this total stranger wondering, what is going on? Where am I going? No one would recommend getting in a car with a stranger who you don't know in the middle of the night in a foreign country. But that's what I did. After a few minutes, the circumstances and it just being very late. I was so tired, I fell asleep in his car. If anyone has been under general anesthesia or has had surgery, that feeling of, okay, I'm awake one moment, and the next moment, like it's just lights out. It was like that. Eventually, I feel an arm on my shoulder gently shaking me. And I woke up and blinked a few times and got my bearings. It all rushed back to me, the situation I was in. This was not a dream. This was real and this was happening. I look over and I see the man. He kind of looks at me, and then he looks past me. He's looking through the window, and he just says, here you are. I look over. I recognize it. It's the front door of my host family house. And I kind of look back at him, and then I look back at the door and I look back at him almost in disbelief. He has driven me from Belgium to Luxembourg without knowing who I am. And he took me right to the front door. I thought, I'm going to get out of here quick. I got out of the car, look around. I walk around the side to where the door is that leads up to the apartment I'm staying in. And I go in. It was unlocked. Walk upstairs. There's my bag. There are my things that I had left. It really happened. He really took me there. Get in bed and go to sleep. The next morning, I wake up and I'm trying to process everything that happened. I realize again I'd given him absolutely no information. He knew nothing about me. We said very few words together. I kicked myself in the moment for not asking, like, how? How did you know where to take me? How did we get here? I didn't give you any information. How would you have known to take me here? But I didn't. I just got out of the car. I was just so tired. My brain was trying to process what was happening and I couldn't think of any sort of rational explanation. This man supernaturally knew where to take me and helped get me out of a very difficult spot. I don't think this man just happened to be walking around outside this train station randomly, you know, at 3:30 in the morning or just out for a stroll in his car and then randomly decided to pull into this train station. It's a series of completely unexplainable events.

Terry Carnation (31:50)

Let's break for some ads kids. Let's break for some ads, kiddies.

Unnamed Advertiser (31:59)

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Unnamed Advertiser (33:07)

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Unnamed Advertiser (34:15)

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Terry Carnation (35:22)

So I hope you enjoyed today's stories. Now, I have an announcement. I think I'm. I'm going to go down this hallway. It's just calling to me and I feel very strongly about this. And I think I have the feeling I'm going to be down wherever this leads for a while. I don't know why I think that, but I just do. Anyway, dear Guest, I am going into this endless hallway. I've decided, and that is final. And I may not see you again for many months. But rest assured, I've loved having you in my store every week for the last couple of months. And I know that I will see you again eventually, someday, whenever. In fact, I know it so. Oh, this concludes this installment of Radio Rental. Farewell, my friends, and wish me luck. Come on, Malachi. Let us inextricably walk down this endless poltergeisty hallway together, feet by paw. Here we go. How it's clean in here. How do they keep it so clean? There's no dust. And who's paying for this fluorescent light bill?

Dee (37:05)

Oh, God.

Terry Carnation (37:06)

Maybe this was a bad idea. Is it too late to change my mind. I should have brought a sandwich. I should have brought a sandwich and a juice box. Better be food down here. Hello? Hello? It's me. Terry. Anyone down there? Oh, God.

Rainn Wilson (37:44)

Radio Rental is created by Payne Lindsay and brought to you by Tenderfoot tv. Lead producer producer is Eric Quintana. Executive producers are Payne Lindsay and Donald Albright. Hosted by Rainn Wilson as his character Terry Carnation. Written and produced by Meredith Steadman. Additional writing by Mark Laughlin. Supervising producer is Tracy Kaplan. Associate producer is Jaja Muhammad. Editing by Eric Quintana, Mike Rooney, Steven Perez and Meredith Stedman. Sound design by Cooper Skinner with additional sound design by Steven Perez and April Ruha. Mix and master by Cooper Skinner with additional mixing by Steven Perez and Devin Johnson. Original score by Makeup and Vanity. Set with additional score by Jay Ragsdale. Video editing by Dylan Harrington. Cover artwork by Trevor Eyler and Rob Sheridan. Special thanks to Oren Rosenbaum and The team at UTA, the Nord Group, Station 16 Beck Media and Market and the team at Odyssey. If you have a radiorental story that you'd like to share, please email us at yourscarystorymail.com or contact us via the form on our website radiorentalusa.com follow us on Instagram and Twitter adiorental. You can also follow the illustrious Terry Carnation on social media. Just search ericarnation on behalf of the Radio Rental Store. We'd love it if you'd subscribe, rate and review. Thanks for listening.

Unnamed Advertiser (39:21)

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