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- [00:00]
Host
Hey, welcome to Scary Stories and Rain. I'm excited to let you all know that I got my hands on a Nintendo Switch 2 the Mario Kart World Bundle, and I'm giving it away to one of my podcast supporters on June 4. I stood in line for about seven hours to ensure that I got one. So I'm pretty excited to tell you that I actually did get one by the skin of my teeth. Honestly, only my podcast members are in this pool. It's a small group. You actually have a shot to win. In order to win, all you have to do is sign up for a $2.99 a month membership to support my podcast. Keep in mind that all of the.
- [00:38]
Co-Host
Ads will go away.
- [00:39]
Host
You'll be able to listen completely interruption free and you will enter automatically. By doing that, the winner will be announced September 1st. Click the link in the description to join. Now get rid of all of the ads. Enjoy the podcast with absolutely no interruptions and you might just have a Nintendo Switch 2 sent to your doorstep. And with that said, I really hope.
- [01:02]
Co-Host
You enjoy this episode.
- [01:08]
Storyteller
I grew up in a small southern town. When I was a kid back in the 70s and 80s, it was normal to ride our bikes everywhere, wade in nearby creeks, and play deep in the woods. Where we lived there were hundreds of acres. There were several spots we really enjoyed playing where odd shaped trees grew, grapevines hung over bank edges, or where clearings gave way to the joys of sunshine and wind. One of our favorite spots was relatively small with several crooked trees we could bounce on. It's hard to describe if you aren't familiar with wooded areas. This area was like a very small valley. It gets very hot in the south, so a valley with towering trees also gave us some good shelter from the hot summer sun. My sister and I have been playing quite a while and were getting hungry. She went to the house, which wasn't far away at all, to make some sandwiches for us. I watched as she walked off. As I stood thinking about clearing away some unwanted branches, I got a very odd feeling. I noticed it had gotten very quiet, which sent a chill down my spine. Then I saw something. I saw a shadow of someone that was standing on the top of the hill behind me. At first I considered that it could be the owner of the property who was a kind elderly gentleman. But he wasn't this tall, nor this slim, and he would have spoken to me. Now, as a 10 year old, I had learned that if I closed my eyes upon seeing a scary thing, it would be gone. When I opened them. Maybe this sounds odd, but when I did this, either what I saw would become explainable or simply would be gone and filled away as a figment of my large imagination. I closed and opened my eyes. The shadow remained. My heart was racing. I was frozen. Again, I closed and opened my eyes. The shadow remained. I noticed it moved its arm slightly. I continued to close and open my eyes, but this shadow was very real. I felt it stare. I have no doubt whoever it was was watching me. After what seemed like forever, I heard my sister walking back. I watched her as she made her way to me with sandwiches in hand. She was talking, but when she saw me she stopped and asked what was wrong. I looked again to the shadow, but it was gone. I was no longer frozen and told her we needed to go home. I started running. My sister was so afraid she dropped our sandwiches as we got to our yard. I told her what I had just seen. Even as a 10 year old, I was very practical and very skeptical. I decided to go back the next day at the same time and study shadows from that hill. My sister came with me, though she was afraid. I had her stand on the hill and stood where I had stood the day before. But my sister's shadow was normal. I tried several things, but I couldn't explain away the shadow. It was very tall. I estimated the person to have been at least seven feet. I have seen a lot of strange things in my life. I can find logical explanations for most of them, but I know the shadow I saw was real. I never saw it again, but I will never forget it. Back when I was very young, I lived in a town called Perrysburg in Ohio. We lived in a quaint little brick house along a relatively busy road in the center of town. It was nice. Our neighbors were nice and helpful. Our yard was small but fun to play in, and the house itself was rustic and cozy. It was also definitely haunted and I, of course, had to be the one to discover this. When I was about 4, I had a very strange experience in that old house at night. It was a very creepy and loud house where floorboards randomly creaked and all of the cozy little corners suddenly turned pitch black. I often had trouble sleeping and had to lay on the left side of my bed, almost leaning towards the nearby window in order to get a wink of sleep. Occasionally, our quiet and shy cat would jump on my bed and curl up next to me, which always helped. I would feel the mattress indent, almost as if my parents sat down next to me. One particular night. My body simply would not Let me sleep. So I crawled over towards the window and waited for the cat to jump up and sleep on my side. Luckily I didn't have to wait long as I soon felt the bed sink down next to my right leg. I closed my eyes, happy that I'd be asleep sleep soon. But then I was snapped out of my relaxed state by a sound to my left, a light footstep. I was petrified. I squeezed my eyes shut even harder and hoped that our small town and shy cat would bravely protect me from whatever intruder, ghost or demon that was about to show itself. Of course, that was just wishful thinking. There was silence now and my mind ran wild thinking about what I had seen when I opened my eyes. But when I eventually did, I just saw my cat who nervously meowed at me and stared up at the bedside. That only made me more scared as I realized that the bed was still indented near my leg. There was no way my mom or dad was sitting there this whole time and the cat was nowhere near the spot. Quickly looking up, I saw nothing. Nothing except a strange crater in the bed as if someone was in fact sitting there. That was enough for me and I scooped up the cat and ran straight for my parents room upstairs. I tried to explain what happened, but with no culprit and my limited four year old grammar, I really had nothing useful to say to them. But they still let me sleep alongside them until I calmed down. The next day they asked me what could have done that. I don't think I found out until a little later. A few months later I was spending a Saturday morning on the couch upstairs, wrapped up in a blanket and watching tv. Our second floor looked like that of a log cabin. The slanted ceiling, the floor and a majority of the furniture were all made entirely of wood. The staircase near the couch I was sitting on even had an ornate wood railing complete with decorated little poles that were spread far enough apart that our fat cat would somehow find a way to get stuck between them on a few different occasions. On this particular day I was just watching a movie when I had a random urge to look towards the staircase. There in the gap between the two poles, I saw a shadowy figure face peeking through, somehow barely lit by the light pouring in through the window by the stairs. It looked like a relatively young girl with long hair and big childish eyes. At first I didn't think it was real and stared at it for a short while to make sure I wasn't seeing things. Once I knew that what I was looking at was real, I became a bit unsettled by its unblinking stare. The real fear kicked in when I realized that there were no shadowy hands holding onto the rails because the figure was standing from where the stairs were at their lowest point. That meant that this little girl would have had to have been about 9ft tall. The only thing I can compare that thought to is that scene from Creation where the little girl Annabelle, twitches and contorts into the towering, horrifying version of herself. With my route of escape gate blocked off by this girl, her stare unbroken, I resorted to hiding underneath my thin blanket. I closed my eyes and waited in fear, hoping that I wouldn't see anything out of the ordinary when I opened them. This was all a bad idea as after I eventually looked back up, I saw through the thin sheet the same figure, but this time it was towering over me, right next to the couch. I screamed so loud that my parents were up the stairs in about three seconds. They calmed me down and told me that there wasn't anything there. I tried to convince them that there was, but they just wouldn't believe me. We moved out of that house about a year after this event, but it wasn't for any reason related to this story. My mom later told me that my aunt Experience experienced the same strange things when she stayed the night in that house. She said that she saw and felt that same unexplained indentation in her bed and she sometimes saw a strange figure out of the corner of her eye. I also learned that the house was one of those that was frequently put back on the market. New owners would move in, get spooked, or have a streak of bad luck and move out. Our family owned it the longest and I still take the half hour drive to Perrysburg just to see it once in a while. It looks exactly the same and it still gives me a shiver down my spine every time I drive by it. About two years ago, something happened to me in the middle of the night that's still the strangest experience I've ever had. It's actually happened to me twice, making me sure that it wasn't a dream or a weird coincidence. I woke up in the early hours of the morning to use the bathroom, a usual nightly occurrence. I don't think I've ever slept the whole night undisturbed before, but then again, I'm sure many others can say the same. But on this particular night I went to use the bathroom and nothing out of the ordinary happened. I could hear my mom snoring in the room next to me, she slept in that room because my dad's snoring kept her awake. Ironically enough, her snoring kept me awake still. Once I'd finished in the bathroom, I went back to my room and checked my phone to see what time it was. I groaned as I knew I only had a few more hours until I had to be up for work. This thought always made it difficult to relax and fall back asleep. Still, I rolled over in my bed and faced the wall of my room, closing my eyes in an attempt to doze off again. It was difficult as I'm a very light sleeper and the slightest noise wakes me up. The fact that I could hear my mom snoring irritated me and I was tempted to make a noise to get her to stop. I decided against it, hoping that she would stop on her own, as she sometimes did. About 10 minutes went by and my mom had stopped snoring, but despite this, my brain just wouldn't shut down. It was buzzing with thoughts of work and plans for the day ahead. I was still in the same position in my bed, rolled up in my blanket as I had been for the last 10 minutes. I tried to focus on the blackness of my eyes and think of crickets chirping and fireflies glowing in a forest. Thoughts that often helped me to relax. But then these thoughts were instantly wiped from my mind as I felt a set of fingers tucking in the blanket that was wrapped around me. I froze. Had I fallen asleep after all and was dreaming this? Had my mom or dad come into my room to check on me for some unknown reason? No. I would have heard my door open, which is less than 2ft away from my bed, and the noise would have easily woken me up if I had been asleep. Plus, my mom had started snoring again. My eyes opened and I blinked, still feeling those fingers gently tucking me in. As if this wasn't bizarre enough, as the fingers were tucking me in, they were also tickling me. I swear that's what it felt like. I was actually being tickled by someone that wasn't my mom or dad. No one else lived in the house. Someone completely unknown was touching me. The feeling wasn't enough to make me laugh out loud, but enough to make the muscles in my face work to make me smile. The tickling stopped around 10 seconds later. I breathed deeply and my face relaxed as I moved my arms slightly. Finding that I was no longer frozen, I slowly turned over in my bed. It was dark, but there was no outline of anything in my room that I didn't recognize no figure hovering over my bed, no pair of eyes staring at me through the blackness, no threatening presence of any kind. My eyes darted all over my room and I eventually sat up and turned on the light. I even looked in my wardrobe and behind the dresser. Nothing. I then opened my bedroom door and could distinctly hear the snores of my mom and dad in their rooms. What had just happened? To say I was just tickled by a ghost sounded completely insane. I tried to rationalize what had happened. Maybe I really was in the early stages of falling asleep and my subconscious had somehow seeped into my reality. Perhaps the muscles in my sides were spasming. Maybe I would have believed any of these rational explanations if the exact same thing hadn't happened a few months later. Again I went to the bathroom in the middle of the night and I couldn't get back to sleep. I was facing the wall of my room again, willing myself to drift off, and once again, not long after, I felt myself being tucked in and tickled in exactly the same place. This time, though, I actually breathed a quiet laugh and somehow managed to turn my head. Almost instantly. Nothing. Again. I honestly don't know if these experiences were real, but the fact the exact same thing happened twice. And they say things come in threes. Even after two years, every time I roll over in bed and face the wall, I am half expecting to feel those unknown fingers tickling me again. As a goth, I truly love any spooky and have read dozens of books about the supernatural in my spare time. But despite this, I had usually considered myself a skeptic more than a believer. But what happened to me has made me consider the possibility of departed loved ones with a sense of humor watching over us. This story happened about three years ago when I was 16. I used to hang out with a couple of guys that lived in my neighborhood and also attended my high school. At the time, I definitely would not consider them friends at all, just people. I hung around after school hours and during school hours. One Friday night, one of the people from the group of friends, let's just call him Andre, was telling me about this abandoned and possibly dangerous apartment complex psychiatric hospital about 10 minutes from our town. Apparently the complex used to house extra patients from the psychiatric facility that was previously built on their grounds. Andre was mentioning that him and I, along with about two others, should go check the place out. I was at first extremely hesitant, not only for the obvious reason, but because I didn't really know who Andre and the other two people really were. I've only seen Andre about two or three times in school throughout the year and have only said what's up to him once. I found it a little weird that all of the people he could have been interested in going with he chose to text me. I ended up saying what the heck as I was extremely bored, but also curious myself to see what this abandoned area brings as it was notorious throughout our county and area. Andre himself and the two others were already at my house within five minutes of me agreeing. I bought a flashlight along with decent running shoes. It was about 11:30pm at this time. The car ride to the abandoned complex was extremely annoying. As I previously stated earlier in the story, I didn't really click with Andre and his close friends like that, and they often said and did things that were extremely inappropriate and childish, which made me feel some type of way. I just wanted to go in with them for maybe 10 minutes and go home and go to bed. All four of us boldly entered the rusty and old fence that was still barely standing outside the actual building. I'm not going to lie. At this point I was strongly regretting the stupid decision I had made tonight. As we opened the fence, I had immediately picked up on a rather strong and unpleasant smell that I cannot describe in words, but not necessarily of anything crazy like a dead body. It just smelled wasted, unlively, like this place hadn't been touched in decades. I looked up at the first building itself and got shivers down my spine. The way the moon was shining and the old rusty bricks of the place revealed almost a sinister look and vibe. I looked at Andre just to see his childish self smiling and asking who wanted to go first. I told him he should go first and he did. All three of us followed as we had to open an extremely loud door to get into the stairwell that led upstairs to a very long and narrow hallway. As I looked down down the hallway, I noticed that all the doors on each side were closed except for one all the way at the very end on the left side that was clearly wide open and dark inside. We all suggested that it would be best for us to each go our separate ways with exploring, which sounds extremely foolish, but that's what we were at the time. I immediately wanted to walk through the hallway with my flashlight, but decided to go up one more floor. The others each went into different rooms and found nothing too exciting. Old rusty paperwork, computers that didn't work, etc. As I was making my way to the floor above us, I noticed things on the walls. Things like graffiti and writing along with Very disturbing messages. Things like sadness and sorrow and death. At this point I realized how unnerved I was, but decided to keep going as I felt I was too deep in to turn back. When I reached the top of the stairs, I realized that it was literally the same exact layout of the previous hallway below. And again all the way down on the right side, there was one single door open. I decided I was too curious of why this one door was open and the rest of the others were completely shut. The door was about 40 yards to where I was standing and I started to make my way over to that side. Each door has a reasonably sized glass window. Some were circle shaped and some were square. What I was seeing through each window was extremely disturbing. It just reminded me of a war zone, like there was some type of havoc. There were mysterious liquids smeared all over the walls and broken glass almost everywhere I stepped. At this point, I had been in the middle of the hallway on that floor for about five minutes when I decided to look once more at the open door and realized that it was now closed. I was taken back by this and was deciding what to do when I saw a silhouette of a man appear from the dark corner straight across the door. I flinched and shined my flashlight and and the man who was now about 20 yards away from where I was standing. Andre. I called. As my eyes adjusted to my flashlight, I realized that who I was shining my light at was not Andre at all. Instead it was some dirty and crazed looking older man, maybe in his 40s or 50s. He had long dark and dirty hair and seemed to be wearing nothing but flip flops. He had deep cuts on his body in his stomach area. His glare shot right through me and my flashlight. My first instinct was to say hello, but then realized that whoever this person was was not at all in the right state of mind to be in here with no clothes on. At almost midnight, I turned and sprinted back down the other end of the hallway and down the stairs. As I reached the first floor, I came to a heart wrenching realization that the three other people I had come in with were now gone and I was the only one in the entire complex along with the mysterious crazed man. I ran throughout the whole way. We had come from fearing I would see him again. Every turn, every corner thinking he would appear. When I had made it outside past the gate, I saw Andre's car about two blocks down, down from the place in a more residential area. I walked up to the car and yanked open the left side back door. Infuriated that they would do something like leave me by myself in a place like that. I had found Andre and the other two in the car, passed out drunk. I shook Andre up and what was his excuse? They got bored and exploring and forgot to call me to let me know they were leaving. I have learned something from this experience, and it is to never do risky things at all, let alone with people you aren't exactly friends with. I don't know anything about what was going on that night, why that man was in a place like this by himself with no clothes on. And I don't want to find out either. I used to be a nurse at a mental institution, which meant that I had to deal with people who keep freaking out or were just straight up delusional. I didn't have a car yet, so I either went home by taxi or walking. But I mostly stick to walking home as getting a taxi just wastes money. One night I left and started walking home. I always liked walking by myself since it's so much more peaceful than the place I work at. I was only minutes away from my home when I noticed a silhouette of a person standing over the street lamp. I stopped for a second before continuing my walk home. However, the closer I got, the more I could see the person clearly. It was an overweight woman with pale, pale skin and long straight blonde hair. She also looked a bit towering. There were two things that were completely off about her. The first thing was that she was not wearing any clothes and only wearing black rain boots. The second thing was the mask she wore. It resembled a cat and looked like it was made out of porcelain. I stopped again and looked at this weird woman. Why is she standing here? No clothes in the cold dark night. Why is she wearing a cat mask? Uncomfortable, I decided to cross the road onto the other side of the street. I don't know what I was thinking making that decision. I looked back at the woman and noticed that she was now looking in my direction, still standing under the light. I look away and start walking, but a little fast. That's when I heard speeding footsteps behind me. I looked back and to my shock, the woman was now sprinting at me with something in her right hand. It looked like some kind of knife in my sneakers. I immediately ran as fast as I could. I was so terrified that I wasn't going in the direction of my home anymore. Without looking behind me, I can hear her almost catching up to me. Despite her being very overweight. I was running for my life for about three minutes until I lost her or so I thought when I heard her footsteps coming again. I luckily found a large bush to hide in as soon as the woman stopped where I was at. Then she began sniffing. I know it sounds weird, but that's exactly what she was doing. She kept doing it for almost a second before giving up and walking away along with letting out an annoyed growl. I stayed in the bush until the coast was clear. I contacted my friend to pick me up and drive me home, but kept what just happened a secret after that. That was the first and last time I ever saw her. I would always think of theories of who she was. She could either be high on something or was just completely insane. It is something that I will never know. This happened in summer 2008. I think I was at a sleepover birthday party at my friend's house. That is going to require some explanation. I live in rural western Pennsylvania. All you need to know about that side of the state is that if you aren't living in Pittsburgh and Erie, you're probably living in an oil town that went bust decades ago. Oh, and you're probably isolated in a forest somewhere too. My family did okay in spite of the economically depressed area we lived in now. My friend had money. His family weren't Wall street investors or anything, but in a town like mine it was noticeable. He had a big house, a huge yard, a tree house, a trampoline, big screen TVs everywhere, and every video game console ever. You might think I was only friends with this kid because of the stuff he had, but honestly that isn't true. He's probably in the top five nicest people I ever met. His family was also amazing. They took me in for a while while my mom was in the hospital once. I still keep in touch with them. So rich guy, good guy, etc. He had a lot of friends. His birthday parties were pretty legendary among kids in our town. Usually they involved one of those closed canopy tents outside with movie projectors inside, along with a soft serve ice cream machine and slack plushie machine. The party in 2008 was a little more low key. There were a few less people than normal and there weren't any tents or projectors. We played video games for the first part of the night and then started to play flashlight tag when it got dark. I know that the rules to flashlight tag can vary depending on who's playing. My friends and I used to play it like group hide and seek. The hiders would go hide in the dark dark, sometimes alone and sometimes together if there was a great spot. The seekers Got the flashlights and also some cool walkie talkies. As I said before, the yard we played in was huge and there were a lot of places to hide. The first hour or so was pretty uneventful. We mostly hid around the treehouse as well as climbing some of the trees inside the yard itself. The only thing we had to worry about was when a cop car drove by. Obviously we weren't doing anything illegal, but we just didn't want to explain why we were sneaking around a house at night at 11 o' clock with flashlights. My friend's yard ends in some pretty thick woods. My own house, which is a couple miles down the road, has some wooded areas around it as well, but not like this. After you leave my friend's backyard, there is about 15 to 20 miles of wilderness before the next town town. He does have neighbors on one side and all of this is going to become important in a little bit. On this particular time, I was one of the seekers. My group and I were waiting in the house for the other group to hide. We were mostly drinking slushies and messing around. We had just come out of the house and started our search when we heard a lot of yelling. Suddenly, the entire other group came rushing back to the the house. They went inside and my group, really confused at this point, followed them in. It took a few minutes for everyone to calm down and explain what was happening. Their story went like this. That round, they all decided to hide back in the woods. Since we hadn't been back there yet, they had gone a number of paces inside, but were still inside of the house. Looking farther inside the woods, they caught sight of a figure at the edge of their vision. It took them a little while to figure out what they were looking at in the dark. They thought it might be a tree or a deer or something, but they kept focusing on it. When they were sure that the shape was human, they started yelling and sprinting back to the house. When everyone was finally inside and mostly settled down, I was freaking out along with some other boys. A few of the people in my group, including my friend who was throwing the party, was skeptical. They were pretty sure that the other group was just trying to scare us. In fact, my friend was almost angry about it. He was going to march off to the woods to check the situation out himself. They stopped him and said that they should only go back to check as a group or to wake up his parents who were asleep upstairs. Most of the people who hadn't gone into the woods actually found this to be pretty Fun. In a weird way, it was like being in a thriller movie. Plus, we were in a low crime neighborhood and there were enough of us that one unarmed person shouldn't have bothered us. Even if it was a hoax, it would be a fun scare. We came up with a plan to investigate the woods. The majority of the guys decided to go back into the woods with flashlights and walkie talkies. They also planned to bring my friend's dog, but that didn't work out. The dog was a golden retriever collie mix and was the furthest thing from a guard dog unless you feared being licked to death. He also got most of his exercise by fetching tennis balls in the big yard, so he was not used to being led on a leash. I waited at the house with another scaredy cat kid with the other walkie talkie ready to wake up my friend's parents or call the cops. I wasn't taking the situation very well, but didn't really show it. I tend to seem pretty calm on the outside when I'm usually a nervous wreck on the inside. I at least attempted to calm the other scaredy cat down. After a few minutes and some excited chatter on the walkie talkie, the investigators returned in a similar state as the original first group. There were a lot of shouting and it took a few minutes to get the story story straight. This is what happened to them. They had gone to the edge of the woods like the original first group had done. It took a few minutes of searching since the figure had been spotted in a thicker brush that wasn't easy to reach. One of the kids had swung his flashlight around until he caught sight of something before yelling and running back to the house. Some of the other boys who had gotten the same glimpse inside the flashlight beam behaved similarly. They confirmed that they had seen a person. He was mostly obscured behind a small tree. The features that they could make out from the brief moment were that of a male who was on the taller side with long hair. One of the boys who had seen him thought he might be wearing some light flannel. Apparently he had made no move to approach them and had just cocked his head out a little to stare them down from behind the tree. It was at this point that my friend's mom finally came downstairs after all the commotion. We explained the situation to her afterwards. She locked all the doors and told us to stay inside and to tell her if we saw anything else. She explained that the part of the woods we were going into was probably not their land anyway. They just had the closest house to it. Needless to say, I did not sleep well that night. We were situated on air mattresses in my friend's game room. The really frightened kid actually took to sleeping underneath one. Just before sunrise. I finally drifted off for a few hours. When I came to, everyone else was awake and eating pancakes on the patio. My friend's mom was with them. She had checked the woods that morning and had not seen anything amiss. We were all a little on edge, but things were pretty normal. Besides that. When my parents came to pick me up, I was reminded of the fact that I only lived about two miles from my friend's house. It was a walk that took 10 minutes or less. Even at home, I struggled to sleep for a while. I just kept thinking of how easy it would be for the man in the woods to show up in my yard. Fast forward a couple of weeks later and I am playing video games at my friend's house. Again, I bring up the subject, but he was very dismissive of was strange, but he was really pretty short with me. It was like he wanted me to drop it. None of his behavior fits his normal personality at all. He did come with a short explanation though. Apparently one of his neighbors had a son a few years older than us. He was tall with long hair. My friend explained that he could be a jerk and was pretty weird. The way he said weird may have indicated some mental condition. My friend's explanation was that this kid had seen us playing and hid in the woods to scare us. That did make me feel a little better at first. It did seem reasonable on the surface, and there's a good chance that's actually what happened. However, there are a few things that don't sit right with me. In my experience, when someone is trying to scare you, there's a haha got ya moment at the end. Like most people want to reveal that the whole thing was good natured or they just want to show you how dumb you look over nothing. Back when we had our sleepovers in tents, one of my friends older brothers would wrestle the outside before popping in to see if he had scared scared us. This person in the woods did nothing like that. He may have just been trying to scare us and went all in on the whole thing, wherein his only pleasure was knowing that he had scarred us for life. Or if this kid really did have problems, maybe he just didn't understand how pranks typically went. His explanation also brought back an old memory of mine. I had been going to my friend's house for close to 10 years. At that point, in one of the early years, I remember playing a game with my friend and one of his neighbors who lived across the street. Both my friend and the neighbor had crabapple trees in their yards. We played a game of basically dodgeball with moldy apples thrown across the road. The game ended when the neighbor, who was a few years older, chucked a crab apple at my friend's head as hard as he could. It absolutely nailed my friend, and he was on the ground crying. I brought him inside where his parents asked me what was wrong. I told them about the game and the neighbor kid. When he had finished crying, his parents scolded him and said that they had warned him about this. They just said the neighbor kid was not nice. For the record, he did have long hair, but this was a number of years prior to the incident. Now, I don't know if this was the neighbor that my friend had pinned the blame on. Which brings me to some other disturbing things. My friend never gave me the suspect's name, even when I pressed him on it. More unsettling was the fact that my friend was not among the kids who had actually seen the guy directly. This was just his explanation for what happened. I don't think my friend was actually trying to cover anything. I think he was just worried that I wouldn't want to come to his house anymore if I didn't feel safe.
- [38:17]
Co-Host
Safe.
- [38:18]
Storyteller
That was the last time I had a sleepover at my friend's house. That wasn't really because of the incident, but because we were entering high school and overnight parties started meaning something else entirely. My friend's explanation does seem plausible, and that makes a pretty creepy story on its own. The alternatives are even more frightening. I don't even want to think about what kind of guys go stalk teenagers in the woods in the middle of the night. I have experienced a handful of paranormal experiences, but only this one sticks out as truly chilling and one that I still have no explanation for other than the belief that it was something demonic or an evil spirit. At the very least. It was at a friend of my brother's house where my brother had left some of his things and asked if I could pick them up for him since he currently was out of state. Being the loyal brother, I went to get them, but decided to bring a few of my friends with me since I had already made plans with them and figured this would only take a second. While we were there, Roy, my brother's friend, kept telling us that there were demons in his house, and I chalked it up to him just being a little nuts in combination with him trying to scare us. But the first strange occurrence happened when I picked up my brother's things. Among my brother's things was his old Bible. Curious as to what notes he may have written in it, I opened it up but quickly discovered that every other page in the 1000 page Bible was stuck together with what looked like pieces of double sided tape. Although it startled me, I still did not believe it was something supernatural and rationalized that Roy went to this extreme measure to convince us of his story. But what happened next confirmed it. One of my friends, Mike, had to take a call from his then fiance, now wife. During this time I saw him come back inside, walk across the room and into the hall without looking at us. Since this was a house he was not familiar with, I thought it extremely odd that he didn't say anything or ask where the bathroom was, for example. So I called out to him. No response. I walked out into the hall where he went into and it was just darkness. I called out to him again. No response. At this point it felt like the temperature in my blood dropped 10 degrees and I could have sworn the classic cliche of the door closing behind you was starting to happen. I propped the door with my hand before it closed and promptly went outside to find Mike still on the phone. I asked him if he had just come inside to use the bathroom or something and he said no, I've been on the phone, I don't even know where the bathroom is. As he saw the look on my face, he asked what's wrong and I simply just told him that we needed to leave. I later explained everything to him on the car ride, at which point he clearly denied that he ever did such a thing and felt very uncomfortable knowing the story. We both agreed to now never visit that house again. Before I start this story, a little background on me. I am a female who just finished my associate's degree and starting to work on my bachelor's degree. It was the spring of 2010 and I chose a university that was an hour and a half away from where I lived. It had the major and minor I was looking for. On certain days I went to school, while the other two days I worked. This semester for some reason I decided to include classes on my workdays. One day I decided to stay the night in town instead of going home and returning the next morning. I would later regret this choice to stay in this one hotel. I drove to this roadside place and checked in. I left to go have dinner at the school and then off to Walmart that was right across the street to pick up a set of fresh clothes for tomorrow. I then returned to my room so I could start to study for a test that I had the next day. A quick layout of my hotel room. When you enter, the door to your left is the bathroom glass. Sliding doors are straight ahead of you. The TV was on the wall to the right with the bed and table in the chairs right next to the bed. Small lamps near the bed are attached to the wall. I put my stuff down, got out my books to start studying for the test. I went to go sit down at the table when I noticed that the floor underneath had a soggy feeling. I thought, that's strange. Did they have a water leak or something? I put it out of my mind for a little bit while. While I was looking over my notes and watching a little tv, I had looked at my watch, saw that it was getting late and decided to stop so I could take a shower and go to bed. The floor underneath me still had that same feeling. I looked at the bottom of my foot to see what it could be. Nothing was there and my foot wasn't even wet. So I tried to put it out of my mind again, went to take my shower and then came back to get in bed. I turned off the TV and the lights and tried to go to sleep. I don't know if it was just a few minutes or an hour, but I heard voices that sounded like they were right on top of me. A man and a woman. I sat straight up in bed, looking around to see who was in there. No one. I turned the light on next to me and turned the TV back on. Within a few minutes, my eyes were getting so heavy that I turned off the TV but kept the light on and went to bed. When my alarm went off in the morning, I went to turn off my alarm and looked down on the side of the bed and I saw blood going down right where my head had been. I jumped up out of bed so fast and was checking the side of my head for anything. There was nothing. Nothing was wrong. The floor under the table felt even more soggy than the night before. I checked my feet again, thinking this time I might find blood or something. Still nothing. I got all of my stuff together and got out of there quickly. My classmates told me that I looked like hell and asked how much sleep did I get. I told them not much and explained to them what had happened that night. Of course they didn't believe me and said that I must have still been dreaming. I know I wasn't dreaming, dreaming or half awake. It happened. I don't know what happened, but it did. I have never been back to that place and I left that school shortly after that. I am a high school teacher in an urbanized province in the Southeast Asian country. I say urbanized because while this city is as modern as can be, you know, cars, televisions, computers, WI fi, all of the comforts that we associate with the modern world, it was still considered a province in that it is not in a metropolitan area. The school itself is quite urbanized in that there are CCTV cameras in all classrooms installed for the safety of students, teachers and all staff. The classrooms are also fully air conditioned, which is a plus in my country because we live near the equator. But this quite technologically advanced building is surrounded by trees, long rolling farms, a creek, things that one might associate with the province. Like I said, it was quite an urbanized city. I enjoyed teaching there because while everything is quite modern, the students still retain the quaint politeness and courtesy that develops in kids who are raised in the province. But I am not telling this story because of how I enjoyed every day of my stay there. Way back in 2014. I have two periods with the 8th grade class in room 314. The first one was at 12:20, the second at 2:40. I was rushing to room 314 where I will be teaching my 12:20pm class, which is after lunch. The stairwell is situated between 3:05 and 3:04, so you can imagine the long hallway that I have to rush through to get to my class. I was already five minutes late, so the hallways are pretty empty save for a few students rushing to their rooms. Room 314 is the last classroom in the hallway and beyond that is a set of stairs used only as an emergency exit. Since students tend to be late for classes after lunch, I have a rule that if I enter the room before them, they will be considered tardy. I reached room 314, entered the room and started my class. We were having a debate that day and it was the first time that I I get to sit down during this class. I sat down at the back and listened as my students performed. A few minutes later the door opened and my student, let's call him Kyle, entered the room and smiled bashfully. I jokingly scowled at him and tapped my watch, letting him know that he's already late. Of course, I am not really going to give him a tardy deduction. It's his first watch warning. Anyway, the session went on without incident and when the time is up I reminded them of our skit later on for our 2:40 class. In my country, the students stay in their classrooms with the same classmates or what we call sections, and the teachers are the ones transferring room per room. Come 2:40 I was back in room 314 giving my final reminders before we start this it when we were about to begin, one of my students, let's call her Erica, told me that their group cannot perform because the lead actor is absent. I didn't notice any vacant chairs. I said, who's absent? Erica replied, it's Kyle. I was mildly surprised since I just saw Kyle earlier, but I just asked Erica, did he need to leave early? Was he sick? Erica answered, no, he's been absent the whole day. I didn't push the issue, told them they can present next time, but I was so sure I saw Kyle earlier. So after class I went to the admin office to ask the security desk if I can watch the CCTV footage from room 314. 12:20pm the security officer gave me a strange look and clarified if I wanted to see room 314. The reason I'm asking, said the security officer, is that we thought it was very strange. Every single feed from all 40 plus rooms in the building is working except for room 314 and around the time that you mentioned, that's when I started to feel that maybe something paranormal just happened. I live in a small rural community in the eastern us. It's a nice little town. Because of my work in the medical field, I have met some interesting folks. I am also familiar with law enforcement and emergency personnel. Small town life is not as dull and uneventful as people think, especially since everybody knows somebody who knows somebody. I have a lot of stories to share, but since this one just happened, I'll start here. Because it's still very recent and the investigation is ongoing, I have to be vague with some details, but I needed to tell someone I'm single and live alone due to a stalker. I have moved twice, but that's another story for another time. However, it is relevant for this story for multiple reasons. The first reason being that I have a dog for the sake of protection as well as have motion sensors and outdoor security cameras. The second reason being the location of my home which is literally down the street from the fire department. I can see it from my living room window and a couple of blocks from the police station. However, next to the fire department is the road department which is basically A parking lot where they park their road equipment and empty garbage trucks at night and on weekends. Oddly, it doesn't have a security camera. Small town life, I suppose. My house sits on a hill with a good view of that side of the street street due to the incline, the large trees in the front yard, and the half cornfield on the property next to me, most people on the street below wouldn't notice me in the backyard unless they were actively looking. However, I can see the street clearly. This incident happened Saturday evening. The county was holding the annual Independence Day spiel with a community barbecue, music, fireworks, etc. I did not attend because it's just not my thing. Plus I have a dog and the sound of fireworks could be traumatizing. Before the big show, I took the dog out to relieve herself in the backyard. There was still at least an hour of daylight, but the entire neighborhood was pretty quiet because most everyone was at the fairgrounds or various other holiday events. So when an unfamiliar large white pickup truck drove slowly down the street, I noticed it must have turned around at the end of the street because I saw it again moving in the opposite direction only about 20 seconds later. This time it turned into the parking lot of the road department. Now, people have been known to toss things into the empty garbage trucks, usually at night to avoid getting caught because they don't to want to or are unable to make the trip to the landfill themselves. Usually it's things like furniture or broken equipment, but I didn't see any of those things in the back of this truck. The driver was a somewhat stocky guy of average height. He took three large black trash bags from the bed of his truck and tossed them one by one into the hopper of the garbage truck. Then he left. Now, I swear I am not one of those meddling rear window types who always thinks activity is suspicious and that their neighbors are up to no good. But something about this didn't sit right with me. Normally when I see people tossing their garbage into the trucks and leaving, I don't bother reporting it because it's relatively harmless. But this time I had a gut feeling. So I called the police. If anything, they could get the guy for illegally dumping trash from a barbecue or whatever. While I am on the phone with dispatch, I put my dog inside to cut down on distractions while the officers investigate. A few minutes later an officer arrived and I crossed the street to meet him, gave him a description of the events, and pointed out which of the trucks the man had tossed the bags. He found the bags. He took photos he put on gloves and told me to stay back. The bags were tied in a knot at the top and it took him a minute to untie one because of the gloves and how tight the knot was. But eventually he got it open, looked inside for a few seconds, then twisted it closed and took a few steps back. Crap, he hissed under his breath. What? I asked. It's a body. I felt sick. I could tell he felt sick too. I saw him grow pale. His hand was trembling when he held the radio. Even his voice was shaking as he gave the code to dispatch. The dispatcher sounded confused when she asked him to repeat it. Within 10 minutes, the county sheriff was on the scene. Even he looked sick at the contents of the bag. The Coroner arrived about 10 minutes after that, and the first officer walked me back to the house along with another one who arrived at the same time as the coroner. Though I showed the first cop via the app on my phone when I described the events initially, I now showed them the video on a larger screen. The camera caught footage of the truck as it drove by both times, as well as pulling into the parking lot, though unfortunately not a clear view of the license plate or of the man tossing the bags out the frame. We watched the footage over and over, pausing frames, the officers taking notes. Ultimately, they requested this footage, as well as a copy of the files from the past week to see if the truck had been in the area before. I have also been saving footage until the road department installs their own camera this week. Because this is still fresh. I don't know many more details. I know the body was in pieces, but I don't know the age of the victim, the gender, the cause of death. Any of that information hasn't been released to the public. I don't know if the coroner has even been able to identify the body yet. A police cruiser has been parked at the fire department next door for constant surveillance in case the guy comes back. The guy who dumped the body was likely a local. How else would he know he could dump there? He probably thought that it would get buried in other people's illegal trash accumulated over the holiday weekend and the sanitation crew wouldn't have bothered to investigate. When I think about how this guy lives in my community, it makes me feel physically ill to think that he had clearly scouted the area for a dump site, that it may not have been the first time this had happened, that this could happen again if I hadn't called in, if I hadn't been in the backyard at that exact moment, or if I had ignored that gut feeling, the victim would have never been found, may never find potential justice. Their loved ones may never have closure. In fact, there's a possibility that it just might happen again to another poor soul. I hope it's not me. Oh please, please don't let it be me. I think it's time I moved again. Third time's a charm. In my late 20s, I got hired on as an overnight security guard at a defunct beef plant slaughterhouse that had been shut down the year before. There were always two guards on duty. There was a lot of equipment, vehicles and supplies left that made it a metal scrapper's dream. So the guards would make the rounds of the property to keep an eye on things. One goes west and around the property, the other goes east. Then we would switch. We would occasionally meet up near or at the back gate to chat for a few minutes, relay pertinent information and have a quick cigarette. A lot of things would happen that couldn't be readily explained, like rocks being thrown from the empty catwalks and in the cattle pen, bangs, taps and scraping sounds from buildings that we had already checked, cleared and made sure were locked. We usually just blamed it on old metal contorting with temperature changes. But one night terrified me and the other guard on duty. I had just started my shift around 11pm I radioed the other guard who was already on a round to let him know that I was headed headed out down the east side. He confirmed his location to be on the west side of the plant. Now a full walk of the perimeter of the plant, not including stops to check locked doors and such, takes about 45 minutes. So I know that it will be at least 30 minutes until we pass each other near the back gate. As I am walking the east side, I have a clear view of the back gate. I stopped to check the locks on the doors I passed. I am about 10 minutes to the back gate and I can see the other guard standing there, his back to me, smoking a cigarette. I thought, dang, he's booking it tonight. So I check one more door before heading to meet him. But when I turned around there was no one there. I was a little disappointed that he hadn't waited for me as was usual. It was just kind of a routine for all the grand guards. So I radioed him and asked if he was alright or if I had irritated him or something and why he didn't wait for me at the gate. There was silence for a few seconds before he comes back with what are you talking about? I'm in the cattle pens. I won't be at the gate for another 15 minutes. He had apparently been chatting with a police officer, parked in the staging lot doing some paperwork. So he was late on his round. No, no. I saw him at the back gate. Saw his guard hat, signature, security jacket and slacks, cigarette in hand, standing, looking at the back gate. I look over at the cattle pens just to make sure he wasn't screwing with me. Being the only female guard at that location, it wasn't unheard of for the guys to razz me from time to time. He's on the radio asking me what is going on. I see him pop up. As he climbs up one of the cattle fences to check my location, he flashes his light. He is right in the middle of the pens, a good 10 minutes from the gate. If he were to run it. I had seen him at the gate, then looked away for maybe a minute and a half. No way he could get that far that quick. So I radio him that there's someone in the property inside the fence. We go into lockdown mode, checking every inch of the property for the next two hours. We find no one. All gates are locked, all doors are secure. We are both shaken and unnerved. You hear things, feel things, maybe see a fleeting shadow around the plant. But this was the first time anyone had seen a a full solid figure. Or at least it was the first time anyone had admitted it.
- [62:02]
Co-Host
Anybody who has ever camped up in the Adirondack area of upstate New York knows just how breathtaking and beautiful it can be any time of the year. Last year I stayed with my family in a cabin that rested in the mountains. I had recently split up for my longtime girlfriend and it seemed like a wonderful place to go to clear my head. At first my theory was correct. It was therapeutic and beautiful being out in nature. And it was nice spending some time with my family. One of the really nice things about this cabin was that it was truly separated from any other residence. The closest cabin or campsite was probably at least a mile or more away. This meant we had total and complete privacy. Or so we thought. One late afternoon, probably around 5pm we heard some shuffling coming from the front of the cabin. We were sitting on the back porch and heard some movement that sounded like footsteps. A little on edge. My brother and I got up and got ready just in case we needed to leap into action. All of a sudden two middle aged men walked into the back where we were sitting. I asked in a very abrasive and annoyed voice, hey, what are you doing? Could I help you with something? The men just looked and laughed and said in a cheery voice, why hello there young man. My name is Louis and this is Tito. We just really wanted to check the view out at this place. We have heard so many wonderful stories. The man seemed sincere, but something just didn't seem right to me. I still looked at them with an uneasy feeling in my stomach, but my mother, who is a very friendly person, made small talk with the man. Perhaps the most unsettling thing of this entire interaction was the friend Tito, who was just standing around looking at the house with seemingly no facial movements or anything. Louis was charismatic, smiled a lot and made lots of eye contact where Tito was almost the opposite. After several minutes of small talk, they vanished back out into the woods. I was not a fan of this at all and quickly let my family know about it. Where were these guys coming from? I thought. As I stated previously, the closest place was about a mile or so away and the place belonged to the guy who owned the cabin we were staying in. So Louis and Tito must have been hiking for a little while to get to our cabin, which is not unlikely up in the Adirondacks. But something was off about that entire interaction. It bothered me all night. Around 11pm, my family went to bed and I sat around a fire with my brother and his fiance. Every little noise I heard caused me to jump. My brother told me not to worry about it and I was just worrying too much over nothing. I pretended everything was okay, but really I was still uneasy about our unwelcomed visitors. Shortly after midnight, it was just my brother and I around the fire. We decided to let the last few logs burn out before we went inside. This is when Louis decided to pay us another visit, but this time he was not so friendly. My brother and I jumped out of our chairs and were now facing Louis and Tito, who were coming out of the woods. They looked crazy. Lewis did not have that same charming personality as before. His eyes were bulging from his head and he flashed his pearly white teeth in an almost sadistic way. Tito, who was almost a statue earlier in the day, stood next to Lewis, also smiling and slowly approaching me and my brother. Lewis started to slowly approach us and said, this cabin really is lovely. I think we will be staying here now. He reached into his bag as if to pull something out. Tito, who was slightly behind him, was already wielding some sort of bushwhacking sword. Not trying to take any chances as to what Louis was pulling out of the bag. My brother decided to Tackle him. He went down with relative ease. As Tito approached my brother with the sword, I ran over and pushed him. Strictly only using adrenaline as my motivator. Both men got up and backed away. Lewis, now standing about 10ft away, kept saying, you have no idea who I am and who you are messing with. I built this house. This is my land. After repeating this a couple of times times, Tito finally spoke up as well and said in an almost robotic voice, we shall have our land back. We must wait for the right time. Tito grabbed the shoulder of Louis and they both ran into the woods. Remember, this is after midnight in the woods, so it was pitch black other than a soft orange light from the dying fire. We put the fire out rather quickly and went inside the cabin and made sure all the doors and windows were locked. My brother and I stayed up all night and basically watched the property to make sure they did not return. I have never been so happy to see the sun in my entire life. The next day we went to see the property owner and told him about the entire night. He said he had never heard the two names before and assured me that no Lewis ever built the house. The owner who we were renting the cabin from, told us that he had built the cabin 10 years ago. So who were these two that claimed they had built the cabin? The owner was kind enough to refund us the rest of the nights we were supposed to stay at the cabin. I know this could have ended much worse for us, but all things considered, I am very lucky that I left with no more than some minor psychological damage. Be safe everybody and always lock your doors. You never know who could be creeping around. In 2007, when I myself was seven years old, my single mom began dating a man who lived in a campground and she, my older brother and I soon moved in with him. While most campgrounds are seasonal and not intended for residential use, this particular campground had a large area up front dedicated to campers and a row of trailers in the background that people lived in full time. Most of the trailers were occupied by elderly folks who wanted a cheap place to live that was close to close to nature. And there was only one other family there with kids my age. It was lonely during the off seasons when no families came to the camp, but during the summer numerous families would stay there, giving me the opportunity to make new friends and in some cases reunite with the families that would visit on a yearly basis. Summers in the campground were lots of fun for a kid my age. There was a large pool in the center of the campground A pavilion that would host parties practically every night, and plenty of new people coming in and out as the summer progressed. However, this influx of strangers made my mom weary and she always stressed to me that not all grown ups were nice, especially given how many were intoxicated during their vacation. Thankfully, I never really encountered anyone truly malicious in the seven years I lived there. A few oddballs and more drunks than I could count, of course, but most people were either nice or simply kept to themselves. However, one summer a rumor had begun to spread amongst the kids in the campground. I was told that there was an elderly couple visiting that summer that had been caught a number of times staring into people's windows, following them at night, and even supposedly intentionally walking in on people as they use the public showers. I didn't take this warning very seriously since scary stories told between kids were the norm in a place like that and I personally hadn't encountered any creepy old people. I suppose word of this got to my mom because she reminded me to always close my blinds at night just in case, since she began to take it seriously. So did I until the nights became unbearably hot and I began keeping my window and blinds open at night in order to let cooler air into my room. I had gone days without any strange encounters, so I figured the rumors were simply rumors and continued to leave my windows open at night. One night I was in bed playing my DS and watching old Disney Channel sitcoms at around one in the morning or so when I started to hear rustling outside. This wasn't particularly unusual since we had outside cats who liked to play in the leaves, and it wasn't uncommon for deer, raccoons, coyotes, and other wild animals to pass through our yard, entering and exiting the woods behind the line of trailers. When you live in the country, the nights can be just as lively as the days due to wildlife. However, the rustling seemed to be much louder than I was accustomed to. Whatever was making the noise wasn't nearly as light of foot as a typical animal. My bed was directly in front of my window, so I would have to turn my body completely around to look outside and I was simply too tired to do so, even if it meant catching a glimpse of an elusive coyote. After a while, the noises stopped, so they completely faded from my mind as I continued to play my game. About 15 minutes later or so, I heard an incredibly strange noise. However, it sounded like a fingernail scratching against the mesh screen in my window. I immediately started to feel anxious. The cats couldn't reach my window and no wild animal would care to come that close to a bright window. Instinctively, I turned around to see what made the noise. Right outside my window was an elderly man, wide eyes and a big toothless grin face practically pressed against my window. His expression wasn't at all what I would have expected. He looked so genuinely happy to see me, as if he had been waiting all that time for me to turn around and notice him. Instead of screaming for my mom or my brother, I froze up just staring at this face in my window for what felt like minutes, but was probably more like seconds before I grabbed the blinds rod and rapidly twisted it, closing my blinds and throwing my blankets over my head. I remember trying to take shallow breaths as though I were afraid he would hear me despite already having seen me. I tried to convince myself it was just a hallucination, or maybe even my own reflection distorted, but I knew that what I saw was real. It was inches away from me, separated only by a thin mesh screen. At some point I must have fallen asleep, because as soon as I woke up, I rushed to tell my mom what had happened. She immediately called the campground's owners, pretty close friends of ours, and they informed us that the old man, along with his wife, had already been kicked out. Apparently, after I closed my blinds and shut him out, the old man went to another trailer with an open window, one belonging to one of my neighbors who was also still awake. She called the campground owners, who immediately called the cops, and they evicted him along with his wife, who was apparently making her rounds peering into the windows of the campers up front. They had been doing this for over a week and finally had been caught. To this day, I am not really sure what their motives were. It could have been a source of perverse play pleasure to them, or it could have simply been an exciting hobby of theirs, seeing how long they could stare at people before they noticed. Regardless, this event shook me quite a bit, and it was a long time before I was comfortable even having my blinds open whatsoever. I was more than willing to suffocate in the summer heat if it meant not risking being spied on again. I lived in that campground for seven years, and my childhood was certainly interesting due to it. I mean, what kid doesn't want to live in a place that's a 24. 7 vacation? But the voyeuristic couple who came to visit in the summer of 2008 definitely changed my perspective. My wife and I traveled back to her hometown in Brisbane, Australia, for the New Year holidays to spend some time relaxing in the sun with the extended family and friends. Unfortunately, it was ruined by an encounter with a creep who insisted with a very vicious persistence that I wear the party hat that came out of a bon bon I shared with him. For those who don't know, a bon bon is the like a party cracker that two people pull from each end and break open. They contain a small trinket, like a whistle, balloon, party hat, etc. I knew hardly anyone at the party except for my wife's immediate family, which totaled four people. There were about 20 people gathered after dinner. Dessert was served and along with it some festively decorated bon bons. I was seated next to a man of about 30. He looked relatively normal, except he hadn't touched a drop of alcohol the whole night and as far as I could tell, he was nursing the same ginger beer I saw him with when I first walked in. Apart from exchanging a friendly nod when I sat next to him, we had not said a word to each other. Then the bon bons came out and I suddenly found myself being presented with one end of it by him. Other guests were already pulling the theirs apart, so I obliged and pulled my end. A small folded square of paper flew out and into my lap. It was a party hat, purple, shaped like a crown and made from what looked like tissue paper. I laughed and offered it to him. He stared pointedly at me, really cold, hard eyes. Put it on, mate, he said. It sounded more like an order. I instantly felt awkward and didn't know whether to laugh at his reaction or not. I excused myself and told him I'd give it to one of the kids as it was clearly far too small to fit on my head. He did not like this answer. Hey, come on, it's a party. Just have some fun and put the hat on. He was visibly angry when he said it. My awkwardness peaked to an intolerable level and I told him I'd go find one of the kids to give it to. I found my wife and asked who the guy was. She said she didn't know him, but knew his name was Jono and took the hat from me. I saw he wasn't seated at the table anymore, but was mingling about the room, talking to other guests. But as he was talking to them, he would look over at me and even point me out and say something to the person. They looked confused, confused and a little creeped out themselves by the way he was making a gesture like putting a hat on too. Then he would screw up his face when looking at me. A little later I was having a Small talk with my wife's brother in law. When Jono came out of nowhere and said to him, you see this guy here? He looked disgustedly at me. He wouldn't even put the hat on. It's New Year's Eve and he wouldn't even have any fun. Her brother in law looked really confused and sort of just steered the conversation back to ourselves while trying to ignore him. As Jono left our chat, he said to me, coming in close to my ear, you'll wear that hat even if I have to put it on your dead head myself. Well, when someone says something like that, what do you do? The whole rest of the evening was spent in nervous anticipation of another run in with Jono. He was still there, of course, watching me from one side of the room or the other. Sometimes he would grin and make a weapon with his finger and go bang, bang, bang silently from across the room. I did however, come face to face with him again that night as I went to the toilet. It was occupied and I stood waiting by the door. I heard the toilet toilet flush and then the door opened. It was Jono. He looked me up and down, then put his arm across the door frame. Sorry, only for people who wear party hats. He looked defiant, psychotic and very dangerous. Then he laughed and removed his arm. A few moments after I had entered the toilet, there was a massive bashing sound on the door. The door shook on its hinges once, twice, then one final time, which knocked the door handle off completely. Then Jono screaming at me from outside in the hall, wear the hat, it's a party.
- [79:43]
Storyteller
Wear it.
- [79:45]
Co-Host
Then there was a weird silence. The only sound was the muffled music coming from the living room. Everyone was silent. It stayed like that for a few minutes, maybe more. Then I exited. Everyone seemed to be acting normally and what's more, there was no Johnno to be found. One guest, I didn't know their name, asked me if I had heard the guy banging his head against the toilet door and I wasn't going to stick around to see if he was still there. I grabbed my wife and made an excuse to leave and we got out of there. But it didn't end there. The next day, around 3am, there were three or four sharp knocks on my front door. They definitely weren't from somebody's hand. Sounded more like a hammer or something heavy. I opened the door very slowly and found no one there. Then I noticed it nailed to my front door with a tenpenny nail. Through it was the purple party hat that I had pulled from the bonbon we cut our holiday short and flew home the next day.