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- [00:01]
Rainn Wilson
Hey, comedy fans. The funniest comedians in the world are on tour, and you can get tickets to see them live near you. Laugh with the biggest names in comedy like Atsuko Okatsuka, Andrew Santino, Chelsea Handler, Kevin Hart, Ronnie Chang Wang, Sarah Silverman, Sebastian Maniscalco, and so many more. All kinds of shows, all kinds of venues, all kinds of funny. Head to livenation.comcomedy to get your tickets today. That's livenation.com.
- [00:36]
Terry Carnation
Hate waiting a week for the next episode of Radio Rental. Subscribe to Tenderfoot plus to get early access to episodes, ad free listening and bonus scary stories. Visit tenderfootplus.com for details.
- [00:52]
Rainn Wilson
The following podcast includes scary stories with content that could be triggering to some listeners. Listener discretion is advised.
- [01:07]
Terry Carnation
Take a break from the same old boring blockbusters and experience a new kind of movie night with Radio Rental. At Radiorental. Our videos come to life in your living room, defy all logic and reasoning, and make you question your own reality. This is not your ordinary video rental store. At Radio Rental, we carry one of a kind videos. So frightening, so mind bending, you won't be able to sleep at night. You've gone Radio Rental. I just don't know, Malachi. The selection. The selection is just not what it used to be. Too many kids in here. Little humans. I wish there was a more adult Halloween costume store. No kids allowed. 45 plus only open year round. Now that's a business I would patronize. Anyway, let's see here. I don't want to be Deadpool. Oh, that's way too much latex. And I'm allergic. Too much latex and too many multiverses. Enough with the multiverses already. Can we just see a movie set in this universe for once? Uh, let me see here. Ken? No, thank you. So, last year. Plus, I haven't been working out enough. Well, honestly, it's mostly that. It's mostly the working out thing, if I'm being real. Hmm. Oh, hello, my friend. Fancy seeing you here at the Spirit Halloween store. How did you find me here? Are you following me? If so, I am flattered. In fact, frankly, I'm a little more surprised more people haven't come up to me and asked me for an autograph for a selfie. Weird, right? You know what? I have an idea. Hello, hello, hello, hello, hello. Toasting, toasting. Hello, everyone. Terry Carnation here. Your favorite host, shopkeeper, bon vivant, man about town, legendary radio personality. I'll hold for applause. Okay, underwhelming. But you know what? I'm going to Win you all over. You all clearly love Halloween. And so how about I play you some of my exclusive collection of true horror stories, hmm? Then you'll all be chanting my name. Terry. Terry. Sir. Carnation. Excuse me? Carnation, sir. Hey. Hey. No. Hey. Sir. No, no, no. Get, get, get. Get off of me.
- [04:11]
Unknown
Sir.
- [04:11]
Excuse me, Sir.
- [04:12]
Terry Carnation
You. I don't care who your manager is now. Okay, let me see here. Aha. Good thing I travel with a few of my tapes with me at all times. Let's pop in a story. Here we go.
- [04:32]
Unknown
This was early college years for me. My second job was a coffee shop. This coffee shop was open pretty late compared to most. Most coffee shops they close around like eight or nine at the latest. Ours was a coffee shop that was located right off of a freeway. So we were kind of known as a commuter coffee shop. We were open until 10 most nights, sometimes 11. The way our shop was set up, it was mostly just floor to ceiling glass windows, including the door. And it kind of stretched out in like a circle or a sphere because we were on a corner of the street. I'd been there about a year. There was one night I was working with two of my other coworkers. One of them was a key holder is what they call them. Just the person who had the key that would lock and unlock the door before and after the shop closed. 9, 50, we were kind of wrapping things up, you know, telling people, thanks for coming in, but we're going to close in about 10 minutes. And the way it worked is that when we closed at 10 o'clock, we were actually there till about 11 because we would close, lock the door and then start cleaning. So we get set up for the next day, started cleaning, did all of our normal processes and everything like that. A little bit before 11, we got done a little bit earlier than usual. When we got up to the door to leave, my key holder puts the key in and I had this weird feeling there was a little bit of like a blockage where you couldn't quite see what was happening. Slightly to your right or to your left of the door, there was like these pillars that was probably the only thing obstructing view from anybody. I grabbed her arm and I was like, hey, hold on a second. We kind of looked out and I looked out the front door and I noticed there was a person standing directly to the right hand side of the door. It looked like their back was to us. They weren't standing staring at us, they were just kind of looking out into our little parking lot. That was attached to our coffee shop. And this person was very tall, very large, very broad shoulders. Really took up an entire door frame. I was 61 at the time. This person was much bigger than I was. Is this my coworker's boyfriend? Is this my key holder's husband? They would come sometimes and pick them up from work or visit them. So I've met them before and I'm like, no, those people are way shorter than I am. Wouldn't be here this late at night. I don't think any of these people that are related to my coworkers, like, are taller than me or anything. I thought about regulars that came into our coffee shop. None of them really fit that description. I just kind of realized, I don't think we know this person. Hold on a second. I grabbed my key holder's arm and I said, hey, do you know that person? She kind of stopped for a second. She looked, and then I could see that she realized, oh, I didn't even know there was a person standing there. They had on a black trench coat, a black shirt with black pants, fully decked out to not be able to be seen. And then she said, I have no idea who that is. My other coworker, same thing. Don't know who that is. My key holder pulls the key back out, and similar to when she put it in, it makes a very loud sound. This person, once the key comes out, turns, walked right up to the door. They grab both handles of the door and just start really pulling on them, really trying to get inside. Something is not right. This is not a good situation. The person isn't just looking for help. They were trying to get in. Not just to use the bathroom, not to ask us a question, not ask us directions, but to get inside. My key holder grabs both of us and says, let's go in the back. I'm going to call the police. We go in the very back. This is not a big store. Wherever you are in the store, you can really hear what's happening. My key holder started calling the police. We could hear that the person was really aggressively trying to get inside. He's grabbing the door handles and he's really just rocking back and forth with them. We gotta do something. We gotta be ready in case this person gets in. If he really worked at it, it was gonna open because it was held together by a nothing lock. At this point, I was behind the bar. I was trying to think of anything we could do to be ready in case he got in. Cause the doors were really starting to Give. So I'm pulling out knives. I'm telling my other coworker, grab this, grab that. Get the bagel knife out. I even started, like, steaming water, just in case, like, we needed to throw that on the person. The whole while, he's pulling at the door, throwing his whole weight into it as much as he can, and then that just suddenly stops. I kind of peeked my head around the corner to see what was going on. And that's when I noticed that he has now stepped from the front door to the first set of windows that encircle our shop. He gets to that first window, and still staring in at us, he raises up his arm, and he goes, bang, bang. And then he drops his arm, and then he sidesteps to the next window, keeping his gaze on us, picks up his arm. Bang, bang. He does this in a very controlled, repetitive pattern. He goes from that first window to all of our windows across the entire store. It was this very calculated, calm bang on each window that felt like someone who was in control. My heart was racing. I don't really want to be here. I want to go home. This is a standoff between our group and him. He's playing with us. We were like fish inside of a tank, just sort of tapping on it to mess with us. My coworker, at this point had stopped pulling out knives, and she's just watching him, not sure what to do. We were just staring. We just kind of stopped. We were just kind of mesmerized. We were just watching what this person was doing, in shock. This person went from aggressive, erratic, just trying so hard to get inside, to just this very calculated, very controlled movement that felt like they were going to get in. And this is it for you guys. I'm checking in with my key holder. At this point, she had hung up with the police. They were on their way, but they had not said when that would be. They just said, stay in the back. Eventually, this person goes back to the front door, and they're really pulling at it. And I could hear snapping. The lock was ready to snap completely off. Eventually, the person just stops and then just booked it down one of our streets. We weren't really sure why. And then about 10, 15 seconds later, one of the police cars came pulling up to our parking lot. Car pulls up. So we go out. The officer just asks, is everything okay? And we said, you know, not really. The person was trying to break in. We have no idea what was going on. They went running down that street. The officer said, you know, okay, we'll Go home. Go directly home. Don't go anywhere else. Just be safe. Three or four other cop cars come peeling around the corner. Go straight down the street where this person went running. So we feel like, okay, someone's got tipped off. They know where this person's going to go. They're headed that direction. Best of luck. I went home. Thought about it, of course, a lot. I didn't work again for a few more days. I hadn't talked to anybody, so I didn't really think much of it. I went in for my shift, talked to my manager. He explained, I heard what happened. You know, how are you doing? You know, very nice. Obviously he had heard about the whole situation from my key holder, from talking to the police. We're just sort of connecting over the whole thing. He asked how I was doing. I was very curious, and he's just kind of asking, like, did you hear anything? Like, do you know anything that was going on? And it felt like he was not wanting to share too much of what he had heard. I just kind of pushed him and I said, you know, listen, I would rather know than not know if there's something you do know. And so he eventually told me that they did apprehend the person. It was not anybody we knew, was not a person that had come to our shop before that we know of. When they did catch this person, he had tons of stuff on him. Several different sized knives, large ones up to, like, the size of a butcher knife. He had a duffel bag that had rope and a syringe with tranquilizer inside of it, something that would knock a person out and was potentially planning to use those on us. I kind of went home after the initial incident thinking this person was just trying to break in or was just kind of messing with us, like, was just trying to break in, maybe to steal money because we were open late, but after hearing that they had all of this stuff ready to go, it started to feel like, oh, this was going to be something a lot more nefarious than I originally thought. I think that person would have easily overpowered us just because of how big this person was. Probably thrown us back inside the shop and used whatever they had in that bag and in their jacket, all those knives, the tranquilizer, the rope. And I don't think that we would have survived or if we did, it would have drastically changed our lives. It definitely is the scariest thing that's ever happened to me, for sure.
- [15:33]
Terry Carnation
Whoa. Holy moly. Talk about a close call. Hash slinging, slasher vibes. For sure. I am so relieved to hear that those young people are all okay. That definitely got pretty dodgy there for a minute. But what if and hear me out. What if that man just really needed a cup of coffee really badly? I'll admit I've gone a little bit insane. A little cuckoo bananas, if you will, when my caffeine was withheld no, no, no no no. They did the right thing. Kids, don't ever let anyone into your store after closing hours, no matter how desperate for caffeine they may be. Unless that person is me. I am the exception. Now it's time for ads. There's no exceptions for ads. Except for 10 when you get ad free listening. You could subscribe to that. All the cool kids are doing it Peer Pressure.
- [16:34]
Unknown
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- [17:42]
Ones this holiday season, consider how learning a new language can enhance your connections and enrich your experiences. What are your goals for the upcoming holiday season? Whether it's traveling internationally or connecting with family and friends, a new language can open doors to meaningful conversations and cultural appreciation. With that in mind, there's no better tool than Rosetta Stone, the most trusted language learning program available on desktop and mobile. Rosetta Stone immerses you in the language so you truly learn to think, speak, and understand it naturally. With Rosetta Stone's intuitive approach. There are no English translations, you're fully immersed, and the built in True Accent feature acts like a personal accent coach, giving you real time feedback to make sure you sound just right. Don't Put off learning that language. There's no better time than right now to get started. For a short time, listeners can get Rosetta Stone's Lifetime membership Holiday special. This offer will not last long. Visit rosettastone.com/10 that's unlimited access to 25 language courses for the rest of your life. Redeem your Holiday offer@RosettaStone.com Rs10 today for yourself or as a gift that keeps giving.
- [18:55]
Terry Carnation
Hey, shut your mouth, you little twerp. I'll shut it for you. Hey, don't make me come down there. What are you going to be for Halloween, you little asshole? A literal asshole, probably. Very funny. Okay, fine, be that way. See if I care. Next take.
- [19:29]
Unknown
I'm from a small town in the Smokies, East Tennessee. So is my best friend. We're both wildlife and landscape photographers. It was the night of the new moon in July of 2018. First Night of the new moon. Best for night sky photography. We decided to go that night to take pictures of the Milky Way over Ridge Mountain. There's a rental cabin up the hill from my house and we went up there because there was less light from a close by campground. You don't want light when you're taking Milky Way pictures. So we went up there maybe 100 yards from my house. It was after midnight. We put my gear in her car. We pulled parallel with the cabin, so we were also parallel with the road. We got our stuff out, walked around to the backside of the rental cabin, set up our tripods, put our cameras on. We had each only taken about one shot each. And I said to her, I think I hear somebody down at the river. I could hear somebody move their tires on gravel, not with a motor, but like somebody was sitting in a vehicle and had just turned their steering wheel with the motor off. And I could hear the gravel grind. I said to her, did you lock the car? And she said, no, and my windows are down. My friend has thousands and thousands of dollars worth of camera gear and it's sitting around the front of the cabin where we can't see her vehicle. We unhook our cameras, we walked around to the front. She popped her hatch, put her stuff in there. I just sat my camera down in the front seat. My window was down. The truck had their high beams on. We both leaned with our backs up against the car, side by side and we were facing the road, facing this truck that was coming up the road. Old truck, clearly a truck that didn't run well. It was going really, really slow. It was already going maybe Five miles an hour. But it slowed down even slower than five miles an hour. And right as it got in front of the rental cabin and in front of us, almost stopped. It pulled two tires into my driveway and then it backed across the street. And then it just stopped. They just sat there with their motor on and their lights were shining straight in our eyes. I said, what the hell are they doing? And she said, I don't know. Do you know the truck? And I said, I don't know who that is, but they're starting to piss me off because they know that they're blinding us with their lights. So I reached down the seat where I'd left my flashlight. It's a little Maglite and it has a high beam and a low beam. I turned to high beam because I was pissed. I shined it back at him. I held it on him for maybe 10 to 15 seconds when it dawned on me. What if I'm pissing him off? Who is this person? Are they getting ready to break into a rental cabin? Are they getting ready to come down to the house and try to break into my house? Did we stop them by being here? There's nothing between us except for the 52ft from where we were standing to where that truck was parked. When I turned off the flashlight, I noticed that the truck was like so old and in such bad shape. A dark colored Chevy S10, probably made in the 80s. At the edge of the driveway, there is a street light. It was shining straight down on that truck. So it was like more light even because it was shimmering off of the truck, making like a little strobe lighty kind of thing. And then all of a sudden, he turned his headlights off. His truck is still running. It's in full view of us. It's sitting under a streetlight. And then it just wasn't there anymore. It didn't turn off like a light. It didn't fade away even for the sound to disappear. The sound didn't fade off. It just wasn't there anymore. I can't tell you how it disappeared. It was literally. I blinked my eyes and it wasn't there anymore. Trucks don't disappear. Trucks can't be ghosts. It took us both a minute to realize it did disappear in front of our eyes. My first instinct was to cry. It scared me so bad that my legs were just like jello. I could feel my pulse through my whole body. I could hear my heartbeat in my ears. I know my chest was red because it felt hot. It made me flush. Actual, true, honest To God. Fear, my friend, saying over and over again, what the fuck did I just see? What the fuck just happened? What the fuck did I just see? We both took off running at the same time towards it. Oh, dear God, it's not there anymore. I was more afraid than anything. I'm fumbling for my phone because my first thought is, call my husband, wake him up, get him up here. Called him. I didn't give him any kind of explanation. I said, I need you up the hill right now. He was up the hill in two minutes. We told him, like a fast version of what had just happened. He goes across the street in the car, pulls up the little hill, disappeared out of our view. He was gone for maybe five minutes. And he came back across the street into the driveway. He said, there's nobody over there. And I said, well, I know there's nobody over there because it just disappeared. And he's like, well, it couldn't disappear. And I was like, I understand that it can't disappear because it's a truck and trucks don't disappear. But I'm telling you, it just wasn't there anymore. Just to be sure, he goes back across the street. He gets out, looked around like the bobcats this time and made sure that there was no bigger piles of trees from the national park that somebody could be behind. And he came back and he was like, there's nobody over there. He goes back down to the house, and me and my friend stood in her car and talked for a minute. We had the conversation of I don't understand, and she didn't understand. We go back down to my house because we definitely were not getting out of the car again. We sat in her car down at my driveway. It was probably 1:30 in the morning at this point, she told me. She said, listen, don't go in there and tried to argue with him or convince him of what we saw, because nobody's ever gonna believe what we saw. You saw it, I saw it. We know what we saw. And that's just what it's always gonna be. It's weird because we'll talk about it now. And it's impossible. Even if for some reason your eyes failed you and you went temporarily blind and just couldn't see the truck anymore, you're still going to hear the tires. In the middle of the night in East Tennessee in this tiny town in the Smokies with no sounds but crickets, you're going to hear the tires on the road. Like it snuck past our own consciousness like a little piece of my life that I can't explain is stuck in there, disturbing to think about. But I still saw it, even though I don't even believe in it myself. Most of the stories I hear about supernatural things, I just think people are telling stories. And I know my story sounds like a story, and I know it makes me sound like I'm crazy, but it makes me feel like I'm crazy too. Because it's hard to know that you saw something that you don't believe in. But I did see it. And she did see it. If I had been alone, I would have never told anybody. I would have just kept it to myself because it just makes me sound like a lunatic.
- [29:52]
Terry Carnation
Listen, I believe her. I believe her 100%. And I'll tell you why. Colon Aliens. Firstly, aliens are real. They are. And if you know me, you'll already know my stance on that. Anyway, I think that trucks are exactly what aliens would be driving around in while trying to blend in in America. Think about all these UAP sightings. They're always in New Mexico, Nevada, up high in the mountains, the Midwest. Basically places where there are lots and lots of trucks. I'm completely serious. I'm being completely serious. This makes a lot of sense when you distill it. Aliens drive trucks. The perfect disguise. So there you have it. Carnation out. Now let's play some ads. Maybe there'll be an ad about a truck. I don't know. I don't control these things.
- [30:52]
Rainn Wilson
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- [32:09]
Unknown
Why get all your holiday decorations delivered through Instacart? Because maybe you only bought two wreaths, but you have 12 windows. Or maybe your toddler got very eager with the Advent calendar. Or maybe the inflatable snowman didn't make it through the snowstorm. Or maybe the twinkle lights aren't twinkling. Whatever the reason, this season Instacart's here for hosts and their whole holiday haul. Get decorations from the Home Depot SE and more through Instacart and enjoy free delivery on your first three orders. Service fees and terms apply. This message comes from Greenlight. Ready to start talking to your kids about financial literacy? Meet Greenlight, the debit card and money app that teaches kids and teens how to earn, save, spend wisely and invest. With your guardrails in place with Greenlight, you can send money to kids instantly. Set up chores automate allowance and keep an eye on your kids spending with real time notifications. Join millions of parents and kids building healthy financial habits together on Greenlight. Sign up for Greenlight today@Greenlight.com Odyssey.
- [33:11]
What.
- [33:11]
Terry Carnation
Did you think, everybody? What did you think? Spirit Halloween Store. What did you think, my little consumers? Sir, don't unplug that. Damn it. Excuse me, sir. Hey. Hey, what do you do? Get your hands off me. Spirit employee. What does your name tag say? Josh. Okay, Josh. There's always a Josh, isn't there? Everywhere you go, there's a Josh. Oh, look, it's.
- [33:40]
Unknown
It's Josh.
- [33:41]
Terry Carnation
What's your name? Josh. Okay, Where. Hey, where are you taking me? Fine, kick me out. See if I care. Your store isn't even real. It'll be gone next week. You just show up in an abandoned Staples once a year and you disappear in November like a. Like a budget Narnia or something. Let's go, Malachi. We'll take our business elsewhere. To Party City or Sam's Club Mattress Firm. Try out the mattresses. Fuck you, Josh.
- [34:24]
Rainn Wilson
Radio Rental is created by Payne Lindsay and brought to you by Tenderfoot tv. Lead 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 Stedman. 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 Steadman Sound design by Cooper Skinner with additional sound design by Stephen 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 J. 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 Marketing and the team at Odyssey. If you have a radio rental 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.