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- [00:01]
Experian Narrator
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- [00:28]
Host
Experian Foreign.
- [00:37]
Kevin Allison
Hey, folks, this is Risk, the show where people tell true stories they never thought they'd dare to share. I'm Kevin Allison, and every Thursday we release these special episodes where we look back at content from our earlier years. This week, it's the Best of Scary Stories, Volume 1, three of our favorite stories from our Halloween specials of the past. In a little bit, we're gonna hear from Erica Steigerwald and Weber. But first, here's Thomas McKean with a story we call the Thing.
- [01:16]
Alan Weber
It happened about a dozen years ago. It was three in the morning, and I was suddenly awake, lying on my back in my bed in New York City. I know I was awake and not dreaming because I looked over at the clock and I could watch the second hand moving around. I could also hear the noises from the street that were softer, quieter, the way they get at this hour. And I wondered, why had I awoken? And then I realized it was my feet. This might sound strange, but the reason is this. The blood in my feet had changed. It was darker, thicker, blacker. It felt alien. I could sense and see it rising. It went from my feet to my ankles. I could see these dark lines rising higher and higher in my legs. Of course, I was scared. Scared by this, but scared by something else. I was paralyzed. I was entirely unable to move. I'm not even sure how I knew this. I'm not even sure that I tried to move. But I knew that I couldn't. Up. The darkness rose. I decided to conduct an experiment to I began to concentrate on this dark blood to see if I could stop its upward path. At first, nothing. I concentrated harder and I could feel it slow down. Then, after more concentration, it stopped rising. It remained at a certain height. I concentrated even harder, using all my being, all my energy, all my mind. And finally, the darkness began descending quarter inch by quarter inch. I could see it going down from my knees towards my ankles. This gave me some measure of consolation. I told myself I have some control. So I let the darkness rise up it went, and it wanted to go up. It was almost like a piece of paper floating above a heat duct, floating upward and upward. The upward motion, for it, was easy. The downward motion took my concentration and was hard. I somehow knew that its destination was my brain because it went speeding past my heart as though it barely mattered to went up both sides of my neck. And I could see it, these two black, snaky lines creeping up inside me. Once again I totally panicked. And I thought, what will happen if this reaches my brain? Will I go insane? Will I recover? Or will I have some wonderful visions? I decided to find out. Up it rose again into my brain. It started, of course, at the base of the brain, and I could see it. It looked very much like a science experiment when dye is injected into an organ and you can trace its path as it winds through the tiny blood vessels. Up it rose, and once again I panicked. This darkness in my brain was too much for me. Down I forced it into my neck. And then I thought, I have some control. Let me see what this is all about. So once again I let it rise. The second it entered my brain and was there for enough time, I was able to see it. This it I am talking about was something standing next to my bed. And I not only saw it, but I recognized, was a good 7ft tall, oblong in shape. It was both smoky and solid. It looked like darkness made palpable. It stood, though not on feet. It stood on the base of this huge rectangle and it was looking down at me. Not that I saw eyes, but I could sense the direction of its gaze. And I could tell that to it I was utterly meaningless. Its complete neutrality about my existence was what was the most frightening. I panicked and I forced the blood down. Because, as I had said, I had seen it before and I did not want to see it again. It had happened many years ago. I was 17 years old and I was on the beach at Cape Cod in Truro. I was walking down the bay beach at night with an old friend, a friend I've actually known since I was three. We'd walked a long ways and were getting a little tired, so we turned back. Every so often I would look up at the dunes. I could see the sea grass waving against the sky. A vague moon gave a little bit of light. I was looking for the shape of the dune, which meant that was where our house was located. That was when I saw it, standing at the crest of the dune, silhouetted against the night sky, smoky and solid, this black rectangle. It was Blacker than the sky behind it. And I could tell it was looking down at us as though we mattered not at all. We might as well have been two grains of sand on the beach for all it cared. I gasped and pointed. My friend looked up. She saw it, too. We both screamed and ran. We ran as fast and as far as you can run on sand. Then we both collapsed. Once again, we both looked up. We'd covered quite a distance, and there it was again, stone still and staring. There was no way anything human could have run that far on the top of the dunes because it's the sharp sea grass, their gullies, their bushes, even the occasional fence. Yet there it was, staring down at us as though we didn't matter. We both screamed again and ran and ran and we ran until we got to the public beach. This is where the dunes stopped, and we knew a paved road would lead us circuitously back to our house. We walked in silence, but when we reached the house, we both decided not to tell anybody. We didn't think anybody would believe us. But over the intervening years, my friend and I have sometimes discussed this being. And both of us wondered if perhaps we should have been braver, if perhaps the second time we saw it, we should have climbed the dune to approach it, to see what it had to say. So it was that now, lying on my bed, I had the chance, because there it had been. So I let the darkness rise in me, back up through my neck, back into my brain. And as it rose, I could hear this creature speaking. I didn't hear a voice, but I could hear the creature saying, higher, higher. So I acceded to its will, and I let the darkness rise. So perhaps another inch of brain was infiltrated by darkness. And then I could see why it needed more room, because a second dark creature joined it. They both needed a certain amount of area in my brain to be able to materialize. So there was the second creature. It was smaller than the first, darker. And because it was smaller, its power was concentrated into a lesser area, and this made it stronger than the first. They both stared down at me as though I mattered not at all. So I lowered the darkness again. It took tremendous effort. Down it went. First one form disappeared, then the second. Finally, when the darkness was back in my neck, I was alone again. At this point, though, I remembered various dreams I've had over the years. Dreams where something is happening behind me, and if I would only turn around, I'd see a wonderful face, see a beautiful image, hear an incredible song. But in these dreams, I had not turned around. Now I told myself I could look and see what these creatures had to say. So I let the darkness rise again. Up it went, the first form appeared. Up it rose again, I could see the second. And now they both were saying, higher. Just a little bit higher. At this point, my blood began to tingle, and I didn't know whether it was in warning or in welcome. Because soon, when it had risen just a bit higher, a third form appeared. This one was smaller than both. It was more powerful. It was darker. It was blacker. It was smokier at the same time. And I knew, without being told, that it was their master. But I said to myself, it's not my master. So, using every ounce of strength I had left, I forced the darkness down. And I could tell it did not want to go down. It fought me every inch of the way. Down it went, the first form disappeared. Down it went, the second form disappeared. Finally and last, because it was the strongest, the master form was gone. I kept forcing the darkness down, down, down, down to my feet and finally, wonderfully, out of my body. I lay there for a few moments, exhausted, and then practicality takes control, and I looked over at the clock. Over an hour had passed. I decided then to turn on the light. At first I was scared of two things. Maybe my hand wouldn't move, and if it did, maybe the light would not go on, that I would have to remain in darkness. But no, my hand moved fine. The light switched on. I was never so happy to see light. When I finally found more strength, I got out of bed. Odd to say, perhaps the first thing I did was to take some bleach and I washed the area on the floor next to my bed where the three beings had stood. I've never seen them again, and in fact, until now, I've rarely spoken about it. But thinking about it, part of me wonders if I missed a chance, if I should have spent more time with all three and learned whatever it was they had to say.
- [13:50]
Host
We'll be right back. Unplanned pregnancy. Learn how people are getting abortion pills by mail for a safe abortion at home, no matter what state they live in. At plan C pills.org that's plan C pills.org we're back. I grew up in a family with a plethora of psychiatric and mental health issues. Anything from depression, bipolar, anxiety and hoarding disorder to paranoid schizophrenia and substance abuse. All that chaos and all those imbalances and illnesses were normal to me in particular, my uncle stands out to me. He had paranoid Schizophrenia. I remember him calling our house when I was in fourth grade and leaving this voicemail. And he was so angry and he's like, you fucking pussies, I'm gonna kill all of you. He was saying that because God told him to. You know, this is a guy that at Christmas time was like, I love you, you all so great. And it was just like a different person. I remember my dad sleeping downstairs with a baseball bat because, you know, they called the police and they weren't willing to help and we just didn't know what else to do. But I wasn't scared. Like there was this deep intuition inside me that was like, he's just sick and he just needs help sometimes, you know, it was uncomfortable. I remember one time being in middle school and my best friend Ana and I were walking down the sidewalk and I see him and I grabbed her and I said, stop, we get behind this bush. And I didn't want him to see me. I remember him walking and talking to somebody in full fledged conversation, his arms flailing. He had full eye contact with this person. The problem was there was nobody there. And I also remember another time reading the paper. He had burnt down a church because God told him to. I always felt so bad for my family members who could never fully get help. But when they did get help and when they did get better, it was through psychiatric intervention. So I saw that as the answer. So when I got into college and became a nurse, I was immediately drawn to psychiatric nursing. I remember walking into my first psych hospital in college and I walked in with my friends and it's this gray square, sterile box of a room with fluorescent lighting. There's nothing anywhere anybody can hurt themselves with. And I see these people walking around with their faces down, mumbling to themselves. I see some people who are so depressed, they're just staring off into the wall. They can't even talk to anybody. And my friends look scared shitless. And I just remember standing there being like, cool. And I remember thinking to myself, I think this is what I'm gonna do. When I finally did graduate and got my first job, I remember going to work feeling confident. I felt comfortable. There was a familiarity to it that I could handle and it didn't scare me. I remember seeing patients in their worst and getting better because of psychiatric intervention. For example, one time I had this 70 year old man and he was somebody's father, he's somebody's grandfather, and he is out of his mind. And he was known from going from 0 to 100 like that. And one day he's like, hey, miss. And I said, yeah. And he's like, come over here. I got something to show you. I'm like, all right. And the thing was, I felt comfortable with it because he had this bright look in his eyes. He was relaxed. He had, like this bright smile on his face. So I felt like, okay, this is safe. He's like, I wanna show you my treasures. I wanna show you my treasures. And I'm like, ooh, okay. He's got treasures. Like, you're only allowed so many things in a psych hospital. So I can't even imagine, like, what this could possibly be. I'm like, all right, Thomas, you show me your treasures. So he's like, all right, all right, all right. So he unfolds this Kleenex, and in it are five of the rustiest, biggest nails you've ever seen. And I'm like, oh, shit. Because that might not sound like a big deal to you, but when you're in a double locked psychiatric hospital, that's a big fucking deal. Somebody could get seriously hurt. So I asked him, I said, thomas, can I please have those because they're not allowed on the unit and I just need to have them. His eyes turned from ecstatic to erratic. His smile turns to gritting teeth. And he grabs both my wrists as hard as he can. And he's like, bitch, if you fucking take my nails, I will cut your hands off. He is grabbing my hands so tight that they're turning white. I stay calm. I don't look him directly in the eye, but I say, thomas, can you please let go of my hands? I need to go and I'll leave you alone. He let me go and he's like, you fucking ass, white cunt. So he unfortunately, against his will, received a shot in his buttocks of a strong antipsychotic within 30 minutes. He was calm and I was no longer the white cunt. I had another patient who this is a woman with two master's degrees. I walked into her room to do her morning check. And when I walked into her room, I immediately, immediately get stopped like a Mack truck hit me. The smell in the room was so pungent that my eyes started to water. She had finger painted her entire wall. And the paint she had used was the menses from her period. And she looks at me with this bright smile. She's so pleasantly psychotic. And she's like, isn't it beautiful? And I said, oh, honey, it's something. Why don't you come with me? She comes with me covered in her own menses. We get her cleaned up, we get the room cleaned up and I give her some crayons and a piece of paper and I said, for the love of God, please use the crayons. And she did. And we were good for the rest of the week. But what was amazing is that with her taking her medications and going to therapy, in two weeks she was able to have a conversation again with somebody, elusive one. Then she was able to be discharged and live her life. And that was thanks to psychiatric intervention. So to me, whenever anybody was out of their mind to me, there was always a solution. I grew up in the church, but I grew up in a very progressive, liberal, love Jesus and your neighbor and be kind to everybody kind of church. The person who brought us to this church was my mother. She was this petite, spiritual, spunky woman, but she's also very grounded, very skeptical of things and always told us growing up, always think for yourself and question everything. And so my mom one day sits me down, you know, I want to talk to you about something and I just want you to know, never ever play with a Ouija board. And I kind of like roll my eyes and I'm like, mom, it's a board game, please. She's like, please just don't do it. And of course I still did it with my friends. And nothing like remarkable happened that I could think of. But it always stuck with me that my mom, who was a skeptic, would sit me down to specifically warn me, don't play with a Ouija board. And the church we grew up in never really talked about the devil or sinning or exorcisms. We didn't grow up Catholic. We grew up in this progressive church. So that was never part of my mentality growing up. My mom introducing don't play with a Ouija board was probably the only exposure that I had. I kind of had this mentality of all of that was born essentially. And I remember being 16 and watching the Exorcist for the first time in my friend's basement after a basketball game. So we were sweaty eating pizza, you know, being 16 year old girls, joking around. And I went into watching this movie with the notion that this is a horror movie. Somebody made it up. And I didn't realize that there was any true story basis to this at the time.
- [22:14]
Erica Steigerwald
Keep away the source Mine.
- [22:18]
Host
And I'm watching this, it was scary. Like this girl is like head spinning, she's pissing green shit and vomiting. And I'm like, God damn, that's She's a hot mess. And, you know, thinking it's kind of ridiculous. So when it was over, like, it was scary, but still, like, that's a ridiculous horror movie.
- [22:38]
Erica Steigerwald
The power of Christ compels you. The power of Christ compels you. The power of Christ compels you. The power of Christ compels you.
- [22:55]
Host
After watching the Exorcist, I didn't really talk to too many people about possible exorcisms and demons and things like that until I was a nurse and I was working in my psychiatric hospital in the Southwest. And my friend Bobby liked to talk to me about weird supernatural stuff. And he knew I didn't buy it. He really liked to push my buttons. And so one day he's like, yo, yo, Erica. I got this, like, YouTube video. It's a coast to coast episode of Father Malachi Martin, and you should totally listen to it. He, like, did some exorcisms and shit, and I'm like, I'll listen to it, but whatever, you know. It was like 10pm toward the end of my shift. All my patients were medicated and asleep, so I had another, like, two hours to kill. And I'm like, you know what? Maybe I'll listen to that YouTube video that Bobbi recommended. So I'm in, like, this dark corner of this psych hospital, just me and my computer. I turn it on, I find the YouTube video, and it's a coast to coast episode with this Dr. Martin. So the guy's interviewing him, and at first I'm kind of like, yeah, yeah, yeah, like devils and exorcisms, whatever. But then, like, he starts talking about the process, and he talks about how the first thing that they do when somebody recommends this person go to see the priest is they have to be ruled out for medical conditions. And all of a sudden, I can feel myself, like, getting closer to the computer. Like, my interest is piqued. Because I'm like, that sounds very legitimate and reasonable that you would do that, like, very professional. So I'm listening him talk about this process. Then he goes on to say that most of his referrals came from psychiatrists. And that's when my throat dropped into my stomach. Psychiatrists, to me, always had the answer if somebody was out of their mind. So the fact that these psychiatrists are coming to the. This priest means they don't have an answer.
- [24:53]
Erica Steigerwald
You must first of all satisfy yourself. There's nothing physical. No physical basis. Then one or two expert psychiatrists. Usually people don't believe in God, by the way. Because they're, they're skeptical. Must tackle you and find out. Are you just playing loony or is there something they don't understand? They come back with a report saying, well, the pattern is normal, we can't explain it. Then the church authorities generally say, okay, let's try exorcism. And in the first 20 minutes, believe you me, everybody at an exorcism knows whether it's genuine or not. It's quite clear.
- [25:32]
Host
I am starting to get goosebumps. This is unfamiliar to me. And these are medically trained professionals just like me, who are so desperate, so certain they can't help them, that they are seeking a priest of all things. My face is in front of the computer like I am completely enthralled in this interview. And he gets to the part where he talks about what an actual exorcism is like.
- [25:57]
Erica Steigerwald
Now the temperature of the room may change, there may be a horrible smell, there may not be a horrible smell. All those are incidental things. But at a certain moment, if it's really an exorcism and if we are in the presence of a possessing spirit demon, everybody in the room, they know there's something in the room that wants you dead, but dead, dead, dead. And it's a horrible feeling knowing that unless something happens, you are going to die.
- [26:27]
Host
Now at this point I am freaked the fuck out. So I flip the light switch on next to me and am like, okay, I think I've heard enough and turn it off. And at this point there has been a screw that has been drilled into my psyche that maybe what you believed isn't the whole thing. Sometime later, I'm working as a day shift nurse in this psychiatric hospital. I come in for my morning shift at 7am and so the night shift nurse, he's given me report on the patients that, that I have that day. But then he gets to the new admission we got the day before and he's like, this is pretty disgusting. This girl killed her dog. She was home alone. Their 14 year old little shih Tzu named Bella was also at home with her. And she just went into this fit of rage and grabbed the dog by the hind legs and started smashing this dog into their wall. And there was blood scattered all over the place. And she finally hit us so hard the dog's neck snapped. The dad came home to find the limp dog's corpse on the floor and saw her sitting there crying next to the blood spatters all over the wall. And he's like, oh my God, what happened? And she's screaming, crying. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know what happened. So he immediately picked up his daughter, who, 24. I mean, he brings her to our hospital, not knowing what else to do. She has no other psychiatric history, which is very strange. She also had no history of drugs or substance abuse, and her urine drug screen was clean. So I've had several patients before who have killed animals, and there were a handful of scenarios. One, they were either in a full psychotic episode. Two, they were coming down off a serious drug trip, or three, they were a complete sociopath. The thing that this night nurse was telling me was it's really strange because she's really with it. She's not hearing voices. She's completely engaged in conversation, completely normal. Which is very strange because patients who have been in a psychotic fit, who have killed their animals are still in a psychotic fit when they come into the hospital. And it takes at least a few days to a couple weeks for them to get out of it. The other thing was that she's very remorseful. She's been crying about this a lot, which if you're a sociopath, you are not regretful for what happened. So I'm looking at this chart, and then it dawns on me, and I have this feeling that I'm going into something unfamiliar. So I am nervous, and I assess my other patients first because I know what to do with them. But going into her room, I'm really nervous, and I can feel my breath kind of shortening and my palms kind of sweaty because I don't know what to do with her. I walk into the room, she's completely lucid and crying. And I said, well, what happened? She said, I just got this huge wave of rage and felt out of control, and I don't remember the rest. And I just remember sitting there next to my dead dog, and I felt this intuition that I needed to ask or something that's not in any hospital protocol. And I asked her, were you messing with something spiritually, something dark that you shouldn't have been? And she pauses, and her eyes just bug out of her head. And then she looks down, and she said, yes. She said, I'm from West Texas. Voodoo and black magic are huge out there. And I got involved with a group of friends that were very much into witchcraft and spells. And that was a few years ago, but ever since I've moved, I feel like something's been following me. And I feel like yesterday it finally got me. And I said, okay, I'm a medical professional and I want you to do everything your doctors are going to tell you to do. But I'm about to tell you something that I've never told you any other patient. And I'm going to ask that you don't tell anybody that I told you this. But I highly recommend you see a spiritual advisor or get a spiritual healer because I don't think this is something medication is going to help with. And she's like, funny you mentioned that because my parents have already called a priest. They know me and they know I'm not a killer and they know that I did the black magic. I said, okay, well, we're all on the same page and I wish you the best of luck. Months later, I'm now working as an evening shift nurse. So I'm working 3pm to 11:30pm and I'm going in for my shift and the day shift nurse is giving me a report. She's talking about how this woman is about 50 years old, she's Mexican, Spanish speaking only this is her 10th admission this year to a psychiatric hospital. She's a frequent flyer, as we call them in the hospitals where she's just constantly in and out and in and out of psychiatric hospitals. She has been acting very erratically since she got in there. She's already peed all over a couple of the chairs. She's not really engaging in conversation, but how erratic she's behaving is making me a little uncomfortable. There's just something different about her and I'm a little scared. But I go into her room and she had a single room and as soon as I walk around the corner, I stop dead in my tracks. Her appearance is just terrifying. She has this long jet black hair that goes down to her hips, slouched over, looking up at me. Her hair is over her face, but there's a part where I can see one eye and it's staring right through me. Her eyes are what I can only describe as hollow and sunken in with these deep, deep dark circles. Her face is pretty much lifeless. There was no emotion to her face whatsoever and I really have never seen anything like it. I just let her know. Hi, Maria, my name's Erica and I'm going to be your nurse today. She doesn't respond, she doesn't even move. I can't pinpoint it, but something is different about her. Every time. Over the next two weeks, I go to give her her meds. The hair on the back of my neck stands up when I'm about to enter her room. She'll put her hand out to take the medication. She puts it in her mouth and swallows. It won't say anything. And that's all I can report. But one night, something different happened. When I go to her room this time, there's a temperature change. This room is cold compared to the rest of the hospital. And this is a chill I haven't felt any other day. I'm scared because something is off. I feel that adrenaline explosion coming from my back, going down my arms and my legs, down to my fingertips and toes. And I'm like, this is not normal. I've never felt like this around anybody. I just see her in the dark corner of the room. All I can see is her silhouette with the window behind her. She's rocking back and forth, and you can just hear the creaking of the chair she's in. Everything else is silent. She doesn't look at me. It's like I'm not even there. She just keeps rocking back and forth, back and forth, back and forth. I keep going into the room and it keeps getting colder and colder and colder. I have the translator phones because she can only speak Spanish. I talk into one end of the phone. There's a translator on the other line. She'll talk into the phone if she ever decides to speak, and they will translate what she says. And I hand her this phone and she quickly grabs it. And I'm shaking a little bit as I put the translator phone up to my ear. And she just keeps rocking back and forth, back and forth. So I say, hey, Maria, it's time for your nine o' clock meds. And all the time she looks at me like super quick, dead cold stare into my eyes. Her pupils are dilated and the dark circles are darker than they have been any other day. My stomach just drops and I just feel these butterflies. It's like a way nobody's ever looked at me before. And it's like just searing right through me. I am paralyzed by this look she's giving me, and I can't look away from her. And then she says something. And I have never heard her voice. And I can't relate to you what it was, she said, but it had this creaky, dark man voice that was not appropriate for this petite Mexican woman. It didn't match up. So I finally break out of what I feel is like a spell. And the translator doesn't repeat what she said. So I asked the translator, wait, what did she say? And he's like, well, she says she wants your health and your soul. She then turns her head to the right and vomits. Without thinking, it just comes out from my throat. May the power of Christ compel you. And I turn around and sprint out of that room. And in front of the nurses station, I stop and I do this little dance. It makes no sense. I feel like I'm almost possessed myself. And I am just, like, flailing my arms and legs. And then I go, oh. And I'm sure the nurses in the nurses station were looking at me like, what the fuck? But I was terrified. And I had just experienced something dark. I don't remember the rest of that evening. I don't remember how she got her medications, and I don't remember who cleaned up the vomit, but it wasn't me. But I just remember she never got better, and medications didn't help her. But I knew in my gut that psychiatry wasn't going to help her. I don't know what I believe now, but I do know my mom was right. I will never touch a Ouija board ever again. And I no longer think the movie the Exorcist is ridiculous.
- [38:03]
Alan Weber's Brother
I had to be about 6, and I was playing outside in my front yard. We had a little white picket fence around our house. I started hearing yelling from inside. You know, I couldn't quite make out what was going on, but I can tell it was frantic. It was loud, and it was definitely coming from my brother. When I approached the front steps, I started hearing my parents yelling and screaming as well. When I finally turned the doorknob and I entered, I saw my mother on the phone and she was frantically dialing, you know, a number completely in tears. And my father was leaning over the kitchen sink grabbing paper towels off the roll. He rushed into the living room and I followed right behind. That's when I saw my brother. He was, at the time, only about 7 years old, and he was looking right at me. His face was red. There was tears streaming down his cheek. But that wasn't the most shocking thing. The most shocking thing was there was a big pen sticking out of his chest. There was blood that was pooled around it. My father. My father grabbed the paper towels and he was stabbing the wound. My heart was pounding. I had no idea what was going on through my brother's head, what happened, you know, if my parents stabbed him, if he did this to himself. I soon realized that he had done this to himself. And I don't know where it came from. That was the first time that I've ever seen my brother in this state. But it definitely wasn't the last time. Andrew and I were very close. We played together all the time. It was always sort of like I was the younger brother that kind of tagged along. There was three bedrooms in the house and we shared a room because we. We were that close. Like, we just wanted. Like, I could have had my own room and spread my wings and it would have been fine. But me and him, we shared a room, and it was every day, all day. We always kind of knew where each other were. You know, I really looked up to him when I was. When I was younger, you know, I kind of wanted to be like him in many aspects, but as I got older, that completely changed, and I wanted to be just the complete opposite. But that all kind of came from the events of one night. I feel like his changes in his behavior and his mood and his temper all changed after one night that we shared together. You know, a couple months prior to seeing him with the pen in his chest. It was a night that still haunts me today. Our bedroom was rather small. We kept all of our toys in the other bedroom, so we had a little bit more room. We shared a bunk bed. I was on the top bunk. He slept on the bottom. There was only one window which faced the street. I was always facing. My feet was sort of facing the window so I could kind of look outside of it. I remember watching the cars as they drive down the street slowly, you know, going to their houses, and their headlights would shine through the window and sort of light the room just for a couple of seconds as they passed. That activity of just watching the cars was what got me to sleep most nights. I found it somewhat soothing. You know, it was a night like any other. I was watching the cars and, you know, I drifted to sleep. It was the middle of the summer, but it wasn't quite hot, you know, it was sort of a breezy night. It was nice, you know, we didn't have to have the AC on or any fans. We just had the window open. I just remember waking up to this unnatural cold temperature in the room. It was this ice cold, freezing temperature. It chilled you to the bone. It was. It was for the middle of the summer. It just. It was unreal, you know, it was kind of strange in the room. There was this different air about it. It was still almost as well. There was no breeze coming through the window anymore. And I was lying on my back facing out towards the rest of the room. I was looking straight at the dresser in the window. And that's where I Saw this sort of shadow form start to develop. I started to make out something. It was almost like shaping. The very top was just above my mirror on my dresser. So it had to be at least 6ft tall. And it appeared to be the figure of a man standing in my room. His head seems to be in a cylinder shape. It appeared to be a hat. There was the hat brim. And then I noticed the man's head underneath. It was relatively featureless. I couldn't make out where its ears were, his nose was. But I could see his eyes. I could see the white of him, you know, around where your pupil is. And he was staring directly at me. At this point I was completely frozen. I couldn't move. I do remember just that feeling of someone staring, looking through you. That's when his men mouth started to form. He parted his lips and I saw his teeth. They were white compared to the rest of his bodies. I mean, they weren't pure white. But because he was so dark, it seemed that way. And he was staring at me for what felt like minutes. And then he blinked. And as soon as his eyes opened back up, his eyes seemed to turn red. And he started growling like a dog. It was similar to when you pet a new dog and they kind of growl at you because they're uneasy. They don't know who you are yet. You know, you got to get comfortable.
- [44:08]
Alan Weber
That's.
- [44:09]
Alan Weber's Brother
That's what it sounded like. Although I was terrified, my heart was racing. I was still frozen with fear. I could not yell. I couldn't say anything. I couldn't even move. I just stared. I started. Started having these racing thoughts. I was, you know, thinking, you know, am I still asleep? Is this a nightmare? Am I really seeing this? But from the bottom bunk, I started to hear my brother. He was crying. And his cry gradually started to turn into a yell. And it was at that moment when he started making that noise that I felt like I could move. You know, my mind was still racing. I was like, is this real? Like, are we both seeing this? You know, that was the question that I, that I sort of asked. I remember peering over the top bunk and I saw him laying on the bed and he was almost hiding his face with the pillow. He was terrified as well. This was real. This was happening. There was someone standing in my room. So I shot back to the wall. At this point, I was looking at the man who was still growling. He seemed to be growling louder to sort of match our cries. Yelling for my father. The man, he wasn't moving. He stood in the exact same spot. He was looking at me, and then he was looking at my brother. And I couldn't tell what he wanted, what he was gonna do. And that's when I heard the sound of footsteps running down the hall. You know, it was my father rushing to a room. And he opened the door, and as he did, the light painted a line across the room. And as if the man didn't want to touch the light, didn't want to be in the light, he ran. It was almost sort of like he flew, you know, and he jumped out the window. Our window had a screen. It was on the second floor. There was no roof underneath, so it would have been a straight drop. It was almost like he went through the screen. But it was still there. The screen was still there. As my dad entered the room, he flicked on our bedroom light. He went over to the window, and he looked out, and there was nothing out there. You know, we were at this point, completely in tears, my brother and I. And when my dad was done looking out the window, he turned to us and, you know, he was asking us what was going on, you know, why we were crying, why we were screaming. And my brother just started. He explained exactly, you know, what he had seen. He said, I saw a man standing in the room. He had red eyes, and he was tall. You know, it looked like he had a top hat on. His mouth was open, and I could see his teeth. He was growling at me. He was really loud, and he was growling, too. And that's kind of when I realized, like, we saw the same thing. You know, he didn't just happen to wake up from a nightmare, you know, like I had initially thought was happening to me. We saw this man standing in our room. That night was the last night that I've ever saw the man. But he kept haunting my brother in his dreams. When I saw the pen sticking out of my brother's chest, the only thing I could do is stare. And that was kind of like the first time that I noticed, you know, his personality was changing. We no longer were playing together and doing the things that we used to love to do together. You know, there was always this tension being built up. My mother told me, you know, this was the dream that my brother would have over and over. He would be standing in our living room, and the house would be completely empty. There was a piano on the one side of our room. In that piano was sort of an empty corner, but that's where the man would just appear. And he would start walking towards him slowly at first, giving my brother just enough time to react, he would turn and run. And he had no control over which direction he could go. I mean, he told my mom that he always wanted to run outside. You know, that was his instinct. That's where he wanted to go. But it was almost like he was drawn to the upstairs. So he would run towards the steps and start running up. And as he ran, the man would then run. He would gain on him so fast, and he would reach the top, you know, and at this point, he would hope that there was someone up there, someone that could help him. And then he would just feel the hand on his leg, and he would just get pulled down to the bottom. And that's when he wakes up. He. He doesn't see anything. Nothing happens. He just wakes up. When I heard about this dream, I realized that, you know, my brother was still being haunted by this man. So about five years passed. You know, at this point, I was going into sixth grade. It was summer again, and my grandfather wasn't doing very well. He was in the hospital. We were on our way to visit him, and my dad insisted that we stop at a church that he saw. It was this Catholic church. You know, we hadn't been to a service in a long time. At this point. It was the middle of the week. It was in the evening as well. But the doors were still open. There is these beautiful stained glass windows on all sides. The center of the church had this very large marble altar. My father insisted that we go to a pew and we say quick prayer before we go. When I looked around, I noticed there was nobody there. So my mother, my father, and I go to, like, the first pew that we see. It's the very back, and we all kneel to pray. My brother refused to come stand with us. So he stood at the back, right at the doors, and he just. He had no desire to come in to say any sort of prayer. He didn't want to be there. He wanted to go. As I knelt down and I closed my eyes, I began to formulate a prayer in my head as best I could. And it was at that moment that my brother started yelling. He just started yelling, mom. Mom. Help. Help. And I looked up and I saw him. It looked like he was being ushered forward. And my first thought was, he's messing around. He wants to go. He's trying to get our attention to go. But when I turned around, I saw this little look of fear on his face. It was as if he had no idea what was going on. He was terrified. He was reaching towards us and his body was moving forward, and he was fighting with all of his might to go back. He was unable to turn around. You know, at first it was slow, but then, you know, it was almost as if he stopped resisting and he. He was being pushed forward at a faster pace until he reached the very front of the church, right in front of the altar. And then it was like that invisible force just vanished. He had control over his body again. And it was that moment that my dad just prayed loud and he was just saying the Lord's Prayer. And I kind of had this thought that that invisible force was something that was trying to tell us that there was something going on with my brother, something that medication and therapy and things of that nature couldn't. This is risk.
- [52:23]
Kevin Allison
This is Paul Whiteman and his orchestra. And that is all. For the Best of Scary Stories, Volume one, we just heard from Alan Weber and before that, from Erica Steigerweb. By the way, Alan has long wanted to record a sequel to his story the man in the Top Hat, because that Edgar Allan Poe sort of ending does indeed make people crazy with curiosity to hear more. Now, if you want to switch gears to hear some funny stories, some sex stories, or some happy stories, go to rich-show.com specialseries. For all of those series folks, today's the day. Take a risk.
- [53:27]
Erica Steigerwald
Sam.