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Scary Stories and Rain
Scary Stories For A Rainy Night - Ep. 183 - The Old Lady Across The Street
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Alex
Hey, welcome to Scary Stories and Rain. I really hope you enjoyed this episode. And don't forget you can subscribe to this podcast for just $2.99 a month. You can get rid of all of the irritating ads and be automatically entered to win a Nintendo Switch 2 Mario Kart bundle. Only $2.99 a month. No more ads. I have all the info you need in the description to this episode. And one last thing, thank you so much for being here. I really hope you enjoy in my late 20s, I moved from Germany to a small town in Texas with a population of 17,000. The location was almost a two hour drive to the nearest bigger city. As an avid lifelong animal lover, I got involved with the local Humane Society and animal shelter. There I learned to my horror, that all of the wildlife in need of help was being euthanized because there was nobody who would take on the rescue missions. Fast forward a year and thanks to the gracious support of the Boy and Girl Scouts, I had a fully built rescue with enclosures, cages and necessary facilities to obtain a wildlife rehabilitation permit from the state. After a thorough inspection, I also received help and donations from the local population such as blankets, animal food crates, etc. During one of those visits I met Richard. He was the typical redneck living way out in the country, relying mainly on hunting and growing his food. When in town, he would drop off any extra food that he had left for my animals. Over the next few years he often came around to lend a helping hand cutting down trees, repairing things and providing supplies. He was a good friend and we would talk for hours about personal issues. Richard was a rough guy and although he bragged and exaggerated, he was always respectful and polite to me. He never hit on me in any way. He was just a good friend whom I knew I could call when I needed him and vice versa. Richard was a single father living with his parents who helped him raise his son rich after the mother ran off chasing a drug habit. I met his son a few times and watched him grow up. When he was a teenager they often came by after attending a gun show, shouldering rifles and bragging about their weapon collection. I felt very uncomfortable during those visits. You don't see many weapons in Germany and ending up in Texas. That was a huge part of my culture shock. I still haven't gotten used to it after living in this country for more than 30 years. One day Richard came by to drop off some bones for the dogs and we got to talking. At that time we had known each other for about five years that was when the creep factor came into play. He had consumed some shrooms and was weirdly high. He proceeded to tell me how he likes to go into the city and pick up prostitutes. He got into a horrible rant that appalled me. But he was so into the zone that he just kept on talking. Describing how he had taken two of them home on two different occasions to his trailer on his parents property and put them through terrible things too terrible to repeat. He then described how he took the life of each one, burned their bodies and scattered the remains for the animals. After he left, I was stunned. After running it by my husband, we decided it was just one of his made up stories. There's no way that he really did that and we convinced ourselves of that. We did confront him about it the next day when he was sober and he laughed it off, confirming that he just made it up after watching a scary movie while on shrooms. Fast forward another five years. He met a woman and started a relationship. I met her, Tammy a few times and took to her immediately. She was warm, outgoing, sweet and caring. They got married and we lost touch for another year. I assumed they were in their honeymoon phase and were just content with each other. Then one day he messaged me telling me that Tammy was diagnosed with stage four breast cancer. My heart broke for them. So I messaged her asking how she was doing. I was not prepared for what she told me next. Shortly after they got married, Richard showed his true colors. He began hurting her, controlling her and eventually kept her confined to the trailer against her will. She didn't dare call for help and she try to flee because he promised to end her if she did. She didn't doubt it for a second. To top it all off, she said that Richard refused to pay for her chemo and literally forbade her to go through with it. She said she had decided to do it anyway and was going to go to the clinic the next day. I promised her I would talk to Richard at the time and see what the problem was. The following morning Richard messaged me stating that he had just found his wife dead in bed. The cancer must have killed her, he said. There was no autopsy. She was cremated within 48 hours and that was that. I don't think I have to describe what was going through my mind right. I didn't want to believe that he had a hand in his wife's death death, but the red flags were undeniable. Yet I didn't see that there was anything I could have done. Call him on it and risk having him turn on me, talk to the police about it after she had been cremated, contact her parents and tell them what I suspected. I didn't believe any of it would have made a difference and maybe would have made it worse. So I did nothing. All I knew was that I did not want to be around him anymore. Thankfully, he never tried to contact me after that and I certainly didn't reach out to him either. Fast forward to December 2021. A mutual friend messaged me with a link to a news article Erith County Sheriff's Office investigate death of father and son A man in his 50s, reportedly upset that his father had cut him out of his will, shot and killed his own Son on Dec. 14, then turned the weapon on himself, Erith County Sheriff Matt Coates said deputies were called to the scene at about 10:30pm after the victim's grandfather discovered the bodies inside his home and patillo Richard Calandrini Jr. Had apparently been playing video games when his father walked into the room and shot him. Coates would not give an official statement about the murder suicide, saying the case is still under investigation. He said the killing had to do with money and the grandfather's will. Autopsies on both men are pending. My jaw dropped to my knees. It felt like I was in a movie. I needed to find out more to be able to process this, so I contacted Richard's ex wife. She didn't even know it yet. We talked for hours about his abuse, his grandiose, narcissistic personality, his murder stories, how he had almost killed her and how she got out in the last minute. My entire world fell apart. How could I have been friends with such a person for over 20 years and not caught onto shook my ability to trust my fellow human being to the core. We decided that she was going to contact the sheriff and let him know about the prostitutes that he allegedly murdered and our suspicion about Tammy's passing. Richard had told her about three murders, one more than he told me. Unfortunately, the sheriff shrugged it all off. There was no missing person reports that would fit those alleged crimes during that time. There's nothing that can be done or proven regarding his wife's death and there's definitely not enough public interest to pursue any of this further. And that was the end of it all. And I am left with the big question of whether my friend of over 20 years was a serial killer. Overall, the new experience of fatherhood to me is packed full of positives that far outweigh any negative aspects of having children. You really do feel more exhausted than you ever have felt you really won't be able to balance everything you used to and still have time to function as a father, you become extremely aware and hypervigilant. Your dad isn't crazy. He really can tell that somebody touched the thermostat. He really does know when you walked into a room, even if you didn't touch anything. A lot of fathers with strong parental instincts tend to basically know where their kids are, what they are up to, and generally speaking, what's going on at all times, seemingly without prying into any details. Such seems to be the case with me so far. That being said, I am extremely guarded in public these days and I watch my family like a hawk. What happened next would flip on all my switches and keep me up late. Late for days. I saw my wife out the door for work and my stepson to school shortly after, down the narrow wooden stairwell with an echoing clatter of steps, silence and the loud stomps of an 11 year old boy trudging down the stairs every other step and slamming the door behind him. Silence. I had the house to myself for about an hour to drive, drink some coffee, and wake up in the warm glow of the peaceful morning sun beaming through into my still and serene apartment. Before my son was up and going after a quick bottle and a change, I had him in his activity center to watch some sensory shows. Our apartment is small. The nursery adjoins the living room and the living room adjoins the kitchen where my desk and computer area is in a nutshell. My son can watch television in his activity center in the living room, and from the other side of the apartment, sitting at my desk, I can keenly observe the movement of a bouncing static crop of fresh blond hair glowing in the warmth of the incoming sunlight like the top of a fuzzy cactus illuminated in the window. I had been sitting at my desk grinding through a piece. I was writing three or four cups of coffee, deep and still without breakfast. I was stuck in writer's block at this point and just sort of staring at the screen, trying to figure out where to go. I needed some air. I grabbed my cup of coffee and my vape pen and opened the curtain so I could easily see in through the window to watch my son. From this angle I could see him happily playing away, turning and bouncing from this way to that, occasionally stopping to glance up at the television. This balcony looks out far into a field on one side and has a thick grove of trees to the left, shadowing my backyard and the neighbors in a thick blanket of lush green and dark shade. My back deck has since become a quick escape for me and something I found grounding. It would take me a while to find that peace and my space again. When I looked over to see some recycling that didn't quite make it into the bin and I bent down to grab it, I looked up and at a quick glance through my reflection in the double pane of glass just ahead of my nose, I saw the figure of a large man standing alone in my living room between the doorway and my son, seemingly staring down at him and observing. For whatever reason, I don't even want to know. My heart began to flutter to stomp as my vision began to narrow, my mind racing. In response to this, I quickly barreled in through my kitchen door and basically leaped into the kitchen in a panic. There was no one there. The apartment was empty save for my son bouncing away and babbling away playfully. I quickly checked all the exits and the potential open windows, closets and down the old stairs to the front, to no avail. It didn't take me very long to realize that there was no possible way that in that time I got into the living room, I wouldn't have heard somebody making a quick exit down the stairs or out of a window if there were indeed an intruder in my home. Relieved that my boy was safe and everything was okay, I started to let my guard down and settle down. As in, the experience came to an apparent end, but it still left me pretty shaken up. Maybe I was just tired and stressed. I'm not sure what happened or why, but the more I sit and dwell on it, the more and more I'm confused, convinced that there may have been something more at work here that was not meant to be seen. As time goes on, I often try to forget about it. But on those restless nights when I find myself awake, I can't help but recollect as I hear the soft creaking of the stairwell now louder than ever before. Foreign this episode is brought to you by Liquid iv. In heart pumping moments, you need hydration that can keep up. That's where Liquid IV comes in. Scientifically formulated to quickly replenish electrolytes and fluids lost from your well earned sweat session. Hydrate your favorite mode of movement with Liquid iv. Made with triple the electrolytes of the leading sports drink plus eight vitamins and nutrients also available and sugar free tear Pour live more. Visit liquidiv.com to learn more. I once knew this maintenance guy who told me this gruesome story. At the time this story took place, he worked At a lower class motel that sat in the heart of his downtown area. The motel featured A historic 22 story building with individual cabins near the back of the property. For this particular story, an older gentleman requested one of the private cabins for a week while his home was being either worked on renovated. But no one really remembers exactly. Everything went normally with the guest. At first, his comings and goings were as expected. As far as normal motel guests go, he would come and go maybe once or twice a day. In fact, the guest was so normal that no one even noticed that they had not seen him in about four days or so. As per usual protocol, the motel front desk staff first attempted to check in on the guest on the day that he was set to check out. After a few attempts to speak with the guest by calling his cabin and also by knocking on his door, the front desk staff had no other choice but to call upon the maintenance guy for the master key. When the maintenance guy tried and failed to get an answer at the cabin door, he had no other choice but to use his master key to open it. But as soon as he opened the door, a horrid smell hit him like a freight train. Take into account that it was a hot summer day, and where we live does get hot, and I mean desert hot. Unfortunately, in this case, the AC in the guest's cabin was not on that day. So as you can imagine, the maintenance guy started to gag without even having entered the room. For inside the motel's cabin, laying on the bed, was what remained of the missing guests. The man had decomposed so much already that he was practically beyond recognition already. According to the unfortunate maintenance guy, the body was literally pooling in its own liquid on the bed. When a body rots within the four walls of a small room, Especially the moisture from the rotting body stays in the air inside the room. As a result, the body can't dry out, and that encourages more insect larvae to form faster than outdoors. That and the lack of direct sunlight as insect larva prefers shadier conditions in order to thrive, Causing decomposition to take place faster indoors. So when the coroner arrived to pick up the body, they were only able to get most of the body instead of all of it. So unfortunately, the poor maintenance guy was stuck picking up the pieces. Literally, in my opinion. And his hazmat should have been called to clean up the gruesome scene in that small motel cabin. But unfortunately, the poor maintenance guy got stuck disposing of the mattress soaked with the man's fluids. After all, the maintenance guy was only Doing what his boss told him to do. The real kicker is that the very next day after the room was cleaned, the motel staff moved a young woman right into that very same cabin. Back in 1997, when I was a senior in high school, I was part of the guitar player, skateboarder, stoner groups. My name is Peter. I had a good friend who played bass guitar in my band. His name was Reuben and he had a younger brother named Geary who was a freshman. We let him play keyboards in the band. Reuben was very charismatic and outgoing, but Gary was more quiet and reserved. One day I was hanging out at their house and La Mirada, California and we were all getting stoned and drunk. I wound up hanging out with Gary in his room and we listened to Black Sabbath, Zeppelin and Pantera. He winds up giving me a T shirt that was Black Sabbath. Please note in the background of the shirt there was a hanging noose. More about this later. Anyhow, Most people didn't realize really engage him too deeply. But we had a good conversation and he started opening up to me about life and stuff. He wound up selling me an epiphone Les Paul guitar that was black. It was a really cool guitar that he really liked. But for some reason he let it go to me for a good price. I remember several weeks later when we were all getting wasted at Zappa Pan park in Rosemead. Gary took off from the group on foot to go see a gal he really liked. He came back the following day looking dismayed. I got a call from my lady friend Alexis on April Fool's Day and she told me Gary was gone. I called bs But Alexis wasn't one to mess around like that. She had a big heart, the hippie type. She told me that he took his own life in the garage I couldn't believe was a hanging. I wasn't very close with him, but it was very tragic nonetheless. It turned out he was into some heavy stuff like crack and smack. I never knew that. Several months later I was hanging out with some character named Skyler. I met him at work where I used to scoop ice cream. We would smoke up and do other things. He was a weirdo, but then again, I'm weird too. He was okay by me. One night, me and Skylar decided to get wasted in the San Gabriel Mission cemetery. He started rolling up joints on a headstone. I told him to have some respect for the dead and use some notebook paper. At least I had some in my backpack. He did as I told him and a short time later we were smoking up. After I took a few rips I felt someone or something watching me. I turned to the left of me where the wall was and I saw someone sitting with their back to the wall cross legged and cross armed. It was Geary. He was wearing his typical skater stuff, a beanie, some old school vans, black dickies and a Cheech and Chong sweater. He was just staring off into the cemetery. I was completely freaked out and did a double take. He was still there. I did a triple take and he was still there. I was scared but more flabbergasted than fear. It was just so bizarre. Giri was like 15ft away from us. I had looked away and when I went through my thought processes he was gone. The final time I looked, I don't know why he appeared to me as no one has ever mentioned this happening to them. Maybe I was the cool older dude who bonded with him when others weren't listening. I'm not sure. I wish I kept his guitar that he sold me, but it's in good hands. I had shortly sold it to a neighbor friend who still plays it to this day 27 years later. Alex the Punker But I still do have that T shirt Gary gave me. The Black Sabbath shirt with the noose in the background. Gary, I haven't forgotten you. I know we weren't close, but I will always appreciate you visiting me that day at the cemetery. This episode is brought to you by LifeLock. Between two factor authentication, strong passwords and a VPN, you try to be in control of how your info is protected, but many other places also have it and they might not be as careful. That's why LifeLock monitors hundreds of millions of data points a second second for threats. If your identity is stolen, they'll fix it, guaranteed or your money back. Save up to 40% your first year. Visit lifelock.com podcast for 40% off terms apply this is a story about my favorite puppy, Baby, whom I will always dearly love. Baby was a present from my only brother. There's just something very special about Baby. Anybody who's ever met him will tell you Baby is quite intelligent for a dog and even seems to have a peculiar sense of humor. He's one of those pets whom is only loyal to one person. Me. Of course Baby tended not to like any of my boyfriends and is very protective. Finally though, I met this guy who I'll refer to as George that was able to make a connection with Baby. Whenever George would come over to visit, he would bring a nice treat. Slowly, over time, they finally bonded and we all got along together quite well. But Baby was always my dog first and foremost. George loved the outdoors and to go hiking. At first we would go alone, but eventually I was able to convince him to let Baby come along. Baby absolutely loved the outdoors and would often run ahead of us to explore. I never kept him on a leash, he was so well behaved. George likes to play fetch with Baby as we walked through the woods. I should mention that George would always carry a weapon whenever we went for a hike. He had served overseas in the Special Forces and said you could never, never be careful enough. George taught me how to shoot at a range for what he said was just in case. Eventually we started to do backpacking trips which culminated in a trip to a well known upstate mountain range. This would be a two day trip to reach a beautiful view at the mountaintop. The first day the trail was quite steep and slow going. We had gotten a slow start and as night began to fall we came across a small shelter on the side of the trail. We decided to make camp there as it seemed just perfect. Sometime, not too long after we finished dinner, there came the sound of another party making their way up the trail. It turned out to be a group of three teenage boys and their dad. Rain was just starting to fall and the father asked us if we could share the shelter with them. They looked like locals ill equipped for the trip and were lugging a huge cooler amongst them. George pointed out the shelter was too small to hold everyone. The father replied that they had no intent to turn back or go on. We would just have to make do. At this point, George empathetically said no, they were not welcome. Baby was laying beside me and started to grow growl again. The father argued stating the shelter was public and they had just as much a right to it. George just shook his head. Alright, fine. The father finally said with a frown. The rain was coming down steady now. They went over to the other side of the trail and set up a tarp to shelter under. It turns out they had brought a small grill and charcoal to cook their greasy steak stakes. Baby intently watched their every move. I should mention the boys were quite big like their dad. I could see them staring at us over the firelight as they chewed their meal in the rain. Eventually I had to go, if you know what I mean. George told me to go behind the shelter and be quick about it. I got out of my sleeping bag and put my boots back on. Baby followed beside me as I made my way around the shelter and squatted. I heard a twig snap and looked out into the forest. Even though it was dark, I could make out the shape of one of the teenage boys watching me. Baby immediately let out a loud bark and shot out into the darkness. As I pulled up my pants, I could hear the father talking again. He must have come back over to the shelter and was arguing with George. I heard Baby barking as he chased after the teenager. Baby. I called out, but he didn't return. There came the sound of a scuffle inside the shelter. I came back around the shelter to see the father was grappling with George. One of the other boys had come across as well and menacingly flashed a knife at me. He had this creepy smile which revealed a few missing teeth. Then there came a stark scream from behind the shelter. Baby must have got a hold of the creep that had been watching me. The boy holding the knife yelled tom. And ran off into the woods. The other teenage boy had come across the trail now and was holding a big stick. He dove into the shelter and immediately started hitting George. One of the other boys had come back and started towards me and I sprayed him in the face with bear mace. Immediately he dropped to his knees screaming bloody murder. I heard barking again as Baby crashed through the foliage, leaping into the shelter. I should mention Baby is a Rottweiler and was full grown. His jaws clamped down on that teenager's arm holding the stick. I could literally hear bones snapping, snapping as he screamed and Baby twisted back and forth. By now George had gotten on top of the father and drew his weapon. For the love of Jesus, call off your dog. He cried. George got up, watching him. Baby, let go, I said. The boy was sobbing like a baby as he cradled his ruined arm. Get out of here now. Said George. Baby growled again, again baring his teeth. The other boy had returned, standing silently beside the shelter. Baby started barking again as the four of them ran away, heading back down the mountainside as fast as they could go. We're going to have to leave, george told me. I don't want those rednecks messing with the suv. Quickly, we packed up and started our way along the trail. Time passed quickly, quickly as we hiked in the darkness, Baby leading the way. By the time we reached the trailhead, we could hear a vehicle revving as it peeled out of the parking lot. George drove us to a motel where we spent the rest of the evening. Baby laid out at the foot of the bed, sleeping like a child. It would be some time before we went hiking again, but we never returned to the that particular mountain. This story took place during my sophomore year of high school. To preface, I'm 20 years old now, so this was about four or so years ago in late 2019. Homecoming season was rolling around and sophomore year of high school was when us kids really started turning to teens and throwing real parties. The big thought on just about everyone's mind was who was gonna take one for the team and have the homecoming after party. As the night of the dance was quickly approaching and there had still been no word about who was having a party, my friends and I figured we would all just hang out after with our dates at one of our houses and get drunk and whatnot until the Friday at school, the day of homecoming. I got invited to the party by one of my classmates who said his parents were going out of town for the weekend last minute and that he had the whole house to himself until Sunday. I was excited and asked him if my friends, who all called Jack and Chris for the sake of the story, could also come. He said yes, and I remember immediately spamming the group chat with the thrilling news that we had an actual plan for an after homecoming that seemed to be what the majority of our grade was also doing. The night came and the dance was fun. I don't remember most of it because as soon as we got there, the three of us, along with our dates, had snuck away from the multipurpose room where the dance was being held into one of the nearby classrooms rooms and got drunk from the shooters that we snuck in using the inside pockets of our jackets. We left as soon as we were allowed to catching a ride from one of our parents. I can't remember who. The ride to this kid's house was a pretty far distance away from the high school. I had never been to this kid's house before and it was located in the section of the area that we lived that I never frequently visited as our school district was a huge regional one that covered a very large area. The house was nice, but it sat on a main road in a very sketchy area, so just keep that in mind. The party was great. I won't bore you with the details of it, but I had a good time up until a group of us were getting ready to walk to a nearby park to smoke. Now this was way before I had hooked habitually started smoking, so I had a very low tolerance. We walked about two minutes to this nearby elementary school that had a playground. The playground was extremely dark and I remember just feeling on edge even though I didn't really have a Reason to. I could just sense that walking to this dark school late at night in an unfamiliar area was just not the smartest idea. Idea. There was probably about five or six of us there. I wasn't really that close with many of the people besides Jack. Chris had gone off with his date somewhere and we hadn't seen them for a bit. Now the group of us smoking were sitting in one of those big slide climbing structures. The ones that kids can like run around in and slide down different slides. I don't know if that makes sense, but the poor. The point I'm trying to make is that from where we were sitting we were out of view from anyone in the parking lot and we had big structural walls surrounding us from both sides. As we were smoking, a car pulled up in the parking lot. Weird, but not immediately. A red flag. As time prolonged and we were passing the smoke around the circle left and right, I began to really get get messed up. I completely forgot that the car was even there until another car had pulled up. Now I was starting to get a bit more sketched out, but I was still too messed up to walk back to the house and was not sure if making our presence known was safe. So I remained where I was. I remember whispering to Jack, making a comment about it being peculiar as to why two cars were hanging out in the an elementary school parking lot at about 2am on a Friday night. He made a comment back to me how whatever it was was going on. It was probably not good. We chuckled, but in the back of my crossed mind I knew it was probably best if we left. The second car had probably been there for about five minutes or so and Jack and I figured it was probably time that we started to head back to the house to find Chris and figure out whose house we were going to sleep at. We began to say our goodbyes to the others when all of a sudden we all went silent. When we began to hear an argument going on in the direction of the two cars. We couldn't really hear the dialogue as the doors to both cars were closed so it was muffled arguing. Then I heard a sound, sound that I hadn't before. A gunshot. And then another one. And then silence. I didn't know what to do. None of us did. We all just sat still on that playground, looking at each other in awe. About 30 seconds later, one of the car's backside passenger doors opened and a person could be seen sprinting to the other car, getting in and speeding away so fast out of that parking lot. The screeching of those tires probably could have been heard a mile away. I know it wasn't the morally right situation, but we ran, all of us did. We ran back to the party, which at that point had gotten a significant amount more empty as we didn't realize how much time had gone by and how late into the night it was was we found Chris, his date and the rest of ours, and we got one of our dates, older brothers, to give us all a ride back to Chris's house. The sound of those shots played in my head all night. The event obviously made the news and it turned out to be a drug deal gone wrong. Apparently a guy owed way too much money to his dealer and the dealer just had had enough. Enough. It's sad, but what's even sadder is that type of stuff was like night and day in my area as we lived just outside a major city which did have a lot of crime. I do feel guilty for running, but in the end it's not like there was anything we could have done. For all I know, if the guy with the weapon had been aware had six witnesses to his murder, he probably would have shot all of us too. As time goes on, I think about this story less. But I want the biggest piece of advice to be taken from this story, which is said in about a million other scary stories online. Stay aware of your surroundings. If you have a feeling of uneasiness, even with how impaired I was that night, that feeling is your gut instinct, instinct signaling danger, and do not hesitate to listen to it. At Capella University, learning online doesn't mean learning alone. You'll get support from people who care about your success, like your enrollment specialist who gets to know you and the goals you'd like to achieve. You'll also get a designated academic coach who's with you throughout your entire program. Plus career coaches are available to help you navigate your professional goals. A different future is closer than you think with Capella University. Learn more@capella.edu. an acquaintance of mine who happened to have been a cop once told me this little tale he experienced several years ago. Back then he was a deputy and still new to the patrol scene. Since he was new to it, he got called often to more simple tasks, tasks that made the more experienced deputies jobs easier. One night, the deputy got a request on someone that took their own life. The victim was still inside the home and they needed the deputy to sit and guard the main entry to the home until the coroner got there to take the body. They didn't want any relatives or anyone Else to enter the scene and mess up evidence. That was a standard procedure. So the deputy got to the home of the victim and confirmed with the cops already on the scene that he was there to wait for the coroner. It was the middle of the night, so the deputy grabbed his flip phone out of his patrol car and settled on the front porch to play some snake on his phone. All was totally quiet around him after everyone else left. All the deputy could hear was the occasional sounds of distant barking dogs and the faint sounds of the sparse highway traffic. The silence did indeed make him a little nervous, especially considering what lie only a few feet away and invisible to him only because of a wall. So it was only natural that his instincts had his ears on high alert. So he was startled when he suddenly thought he heard a rustling sound, seemingly coming from inside the house behind him. All he could do was sit there and wait and listen intently. A few minutes went by though, and he didn't hear anything else, so he just figured he probably heard the house settling or something. Over half an hour went by and the deputy was starting to get a little drowsy staring at snake on his small flip phone. So he flipped it shut and sat back for a few minutes to relax. But then suddenly there was that sound again, which seemed louder that time. A strange rustling sound, like maybe rustling papers, he thought to himself, puzzled, as he sat there and listened hard. He heard it again, and that time he was sure it was coming from inside the house behind him, where the victim was. At that point, the deputy admits he was pretty scared. He didn't want to call for backup until he was sure there was someone in the house. But he also didn't want to go inside the dark, creepy death scene by himself to investigate either. So he stood up and waited once again for any noise while resting his hand on his weapon on his belt. Then the deputy drew his weapon as a loud sound from behind him caused him to spin around and face a large window by the front door, covered by vertical hanging blinds. As he turned around to face the window, an explosion of movements disturbed the blinds. The deputy did admit to me in telling of this story that he did in fact jump instead scream as almost anyone would. The deputy's vision quickly cleared and he stared at the face on the other side of the window, definitely not expecting to see what particular face stared back at him. The deputy screamed and went wide eyed. The face stared back at him and it made a startled sound with wide eyes as well. Then, for a quiet moment, the man and cat eyed each other before both turning away, feeling stupid, I guess. The victim had a pet cat which ended up most likely going to a relative. The deputy admitted to me after telling me this story that he felt that that was one of the most scariest things that's ever happened in his entire career. I'm from a small town in northwest Wisconsin and to give you an idea of how small this town was, we had a gas station and a bar. The population was about 112 people I think at the time. And it was mainly older folks. I lived on the outskirts of this town with my grandma and my two sisters. We lived in a parsonage and if you don't know what that is, it's basically a house that's close to a church. That way the pastor could live there and stay close to it. But this house was rented out by the church and my grandma was the one paying. Was a very nice house. It was across the road from the church and when looking at it from the road, we had a graveyard on the right side of the property. It had four bedrooms, one bathroom, a two car garage and everything was on one level besides the basement. Now surrounding the left and back side of the house was thick woods. It was a mix of pine trees, oak woods and very tall grass. During the summer it was a very beautiful spot. And me and my sisters would play in the forest all summer long. Now on to why I'm telling this story. The other day I had a conversation with my grandma. She's getting up there in age and has started telling old stories from when me and my sisters were kids. And this one had me remember that I had this friend that would play in the forest with us. They were tall and dark and they never came out from behind the trees. I remember him being tall, like really tall. Like seven feet up the tree is where his head would poke out from. The only part I remember seeing was the deer skull that it wore on its face that would poke out every once in a while. I don't feel fear when thinking about this creature. I'm just gonna call it that because it definitely was not human. I feel protected when I think of it. Me and my sisters always played hide and seek with it. And this creature actually made noise when we found it while playing or talking to sounded almost like a low cooing sound. This creature was so much fun to be around and made the forest light up. It seemed like it did stink though, man. My youngest sister, who would have been six at the time, called it stinky because of this. I remember seeing this creature climb the trees like no other. It almost seemed like a shadow with how silent it traveled through the woods. One day after school, my sisters and I got home and went to the woods and we saw a small fort built out of sticks and whatnot. And we assumed it was built from the creature and we played in it and made mud pies and whatnot. But then we heard my grandmother screaming for us to come inside. And in a panic since grandma never did this, we all quickly ran inside and once we asked her what was wrong, she locked the door behind us and told us to duck down while she tried calling the police. And then she whispered, there was a man lying flat in the grass. How did you not see him? I was in shock and was wondering what the man wanted. My younger sisters were crying at this point and me and my grandma tried to calm them down, but nothing was working. About 10 minutes later, the local cop shows up and my grandma explained what she saw. The cop went around the property to see if the guy was still around, but he didn't find anything. Then he informed my grandma that if he shows up again, call them asap. And then he left. My grandma didn't let us play outside for a few months and it really sucked because I was just coming into my preteens, so I was giving my grandma a hard time, which is something I still feel really bad about. Later on that night, once everyone was asleep, I took a flashlight and headed to the forest as quickly as I could. I know it was dumb of me to go out by myself and not tell anyone, but 9 year old me wanted to go check on my friend. Once I got to the edge of the forest, I pans the flashlight around trying to look for anything moving, and once I thought I was in the clear, I entered the woods and started walking towards the stick horse. Then I heard some grass move to my back, right, which was deeper into the woods. I stopped in my tracks and listened. I thought it was a man from the way it was breathing heavy. And I was right. I'm assuming it was the man my grandma saw a few months back. I turned my flashlight in that direction and yelled, who's there? And next thing I know, this man man jumps on me and starts choking me. Last thing I remember was waking up to a crunching noise and I could see a blurred black mass with my flashlight just barely lighting the edges of it. I passed out again and woke up an hour or so later and I assumed that due to it still being pitch blackout, once the adrenaline came back, I Started frantically patting all over my body, checking myself for injuries and whatnot. But all I could feel was slight discomfort in my throat. I stood up slowly and looked around to see if anything was around me. I could see the porch light on the house peering through the trees. And without a second thought, I ran right for it. When I got to the door, I opened it and slammed it shut and locked it. My grandma woke up and ran down the hall with the weapon. I said, grandma, it's just me. She came around the corner and started asking me all these questions. And I told her what had just happened. We called my aunt, who lived not too far up the road, to come and watch my sisters as we went to the ER that was about 35 minutes away. Once there, the doctors took a look over me and said that I had bruises on my neck that I could not have inflicted myself. So they reported it to the police. The next few days were a blur. I wasn't able to sleep very much due to the trauma. From what my grandma told me the other day, the police came out to the house and started a search in the woods. They had two dogs on the scene as well. This is where it gets graphic. The dogs found a bloody trail. They saw where the struggle between me and this man was in the tall grass. And there was blood about 20ft to the north of where this struggle was. I wouldn't say a pool of blood. But they said that the blood trail went on for about one and a half miles into the woods. They called for more officers before heading in further. But once they got to the end of it, apparently they found the man. He was ripped to pieces. His limbs were hanging up on the branches in the nearby trees. His eyes were missing. My grandma kind of got sidetracked with the story. But at the end of it all, me and both of my sisters went to different aunts. And we stayed with them for about three months before we could go back. Apparently, my grandma went to stay with her sister while our house got put under investigation. We heard no news about it. Nothing was said about the man who was spread around all over the trees. The cops say it was a bear. But the more I think on had to have been my forest friend. I never treated the woods or nighttime the same. I have become obsessed with the Wendigo due to it having similar features of the creature that I remember. I got a tattoo of one not too long ago. But the trauma is a lot. I can't handle being in the dark. I definitely can't go camping or anything. Like that. This whole experience made me into the homebody I still am today. We moved out of the house when I was 14 due to the new pastor wanting to move in, and I have never been back inside. I did go and drive by it the other day when my grandma told me the story. And so much has changed. A lot of the trees were cut down in the yard. The little garden fence we had was gone. But the woods and the tall grass, of course, are still there. I only wonder if he's still hiding in there. Before diving into this story, I would like to say that we are sensitive to the supernatural personally. This so called ability has been passed down to me from my mother, who has, or used to have stronger abilities of her own. But that's a different story altogether. So both of us have our own experiences with the supernatural from childhood until adulthood. While we believe in the supernatural, we are logical people. When we have strange encounters, we always break them down and consider all logical possibilities. However, there are strange, eerie moments where reason simply does not exist, where previously ordinary surroundings are stripped of their everydayness and only intuition makes sense. Almost as if you could say the veil is thinning and an entrance to a hole is opened. The story that I will share is one of those experiences. During the height of the pandemic, my husband and I built our home in a sleepy seaside town. The land itself has a history, and it was formerly used as a farmland and mango plantation many decades ago. The land had been in my husband's family for a while, and even though the lot is huge, not one family member has decided to use it until we came along long. The story goes that my husband's grandfather paid a hefty price for such land. His relationship with his siblings. Apparently they fought over ownership of the land. And while my husband's grandfather successfully inherited it before he passed away, it came with a lot of heartache, tears and lost relationships along the way. His purpose has always been to pass down the land lot to his children and grandchildren for future use. Due to this, my husband's relatives refused to sell their respective lots for profit, believing that their grandfather's soul would not be at rest knowing the land has been lost from the family. While some relatives have decided to sell their shares today, this was not the case only a few years back. The entire lot is quite sizable at about 4,000 square meters. Our lot itself is not as grand at about 400 square meters. On top of it, we built a modest duplex with a porch. To build this house, we had to have a few Trees cut down to make way for the foundation and the walls. In the Philippines, we believe that creatures dwell in the trees like the Caper, Agta and Dundee. Although we do not necessarily believe in the existence of these beings, we still respect these superstitious beliefs as part of Philippine culture and tradition. Before cutting trees, Filipinos have their rituals to ensure we do not unknowingly cut down a tree where a supernatural being is living. Before cutting down a tree, a person strikes the trunk trunk with an axe. It is believed that if the axe sticks to the trunk, you are allowed to cut down the tree as no creature dwells in it. However, if the axe falls to the ground or does not stick to the trunk, a creature may be living inside it. When it's the latter, we bring offerings of food to the tree to respectfully ask permission from the creature to let us cut its home down. We hired an experienced contractor to do the job, and he usually performs this on all construction projects that he manages. This ritual is almost an unspoken rule among Filipinos and is a commonly accepted practice in rural and modern areas. People just go along with it as something that's part of the way that we do things here. And regardless if you believe in it or not, what's the harm in complying, right? Some of this is driven by fear, as there are instances when trees are cut down and construction crew members die unexpectedly, or a business's bad luck is attributed to the place being cursed or haunted from angering a spirit or entity. Anyway, we had a couple of trees cut down, some believed to be as as old old as my husband's grandfather. The construction of the house was completed and we moved in only a few months after. The house is situated near the center of the lot, which means to get there you need to drive up a few meters on a makeshift gravel path connected to a back road. This makeshift path is surrounded by dense bushes, grass and trees. You make a sharp turn where your vision is clouded by tall trees, trees and bushes, and suddenly see a house in the distance. We had the electricity company make a connection for us as our area is quite remote and there are no light posts as its private property. So when night falls, it's eerily dark and quiet. When people asked us where we lived, we used to joke that to find our house, you have to pass the gateway to Narnia. When we had packages delivered, delivery people usually got lost or simply refused to enter the path when it was nighttime. A few months into living in the house, we had a few strange occurrences here and there which is to be expected when you're living in a rural area surrounded by more trees and wildlife than people. Living near the sea in a tropical country means sweltering hot temperatures and high humidity levels. Levels. It was one of those long dry spells where you're constantly drenched in sweat when this happens. In the late afternoon, my husband and I are in the living room with the windows open. It was quickly approaching dusk as we went through our yoga practice. Our two cats were lounging on the furniture, lazily watching us. We were watching a YouTube video to guide us in our practice. When the video ended, I vividly recall saying I wanted to do another yoga video, to which my husband reluctantly agreed. He reasoned it was getting dark and we had to prepare supper. Plus, the weather seemed unusually cool today, which meant it got dark much quicker. I realized that was true after another sweltering hot day. The wind still seemed to pick up in the late afternoon. As I looked for another yoga video, however, the wind seemed to die down, like how it goes quiet before the first drops of rain. As we were sitting down on our yoga mats at dusk, we saw a neat lightning bolt strike the sky. The lightning was clear against the dark sky and was so bright it made me squint. Only a few seconds seconds later, we heard a loud crashing sound. The thunder was so deafening that the house shook. Our window panes certainly shook, and it felt like the thunder and lightning hit alarmingly close to the house, specifically near the big tree by the window, where we can sometimes feel a presence there watching us at night. This was so sudden and so ear piercing in our quiet home in the middle of nowhere that we simply froze in place. It really didn't help that when the thunder struck, the power suddenly went out. We were enveloped in darkness. My skin broke in goosebumps. For a moment, I was gripped in fear, unable to move or think of what to do next. I could hear our two cats scrambling, looking for hiding places in the dark. My heart beat fast in my chest as I blindly looked around the living room, waiting for my eyes to adjust and my heart to steady itself. I remember instinctively scrambling near me, trying to feel for my phone so I could turn on the flashlight. Just as my vision started to adjust and sharpen, I noticed a black silhouette sitting right in front of me. Of me. My husband had his yoga mat beside mine so that when we were facing each other, sitting down before the power went out, in a shaky voice, I said into the darkness, love. He didn't answer. The wind howled. It continued to howl, passing through our Open windows and causing the air to permeate the space. I could hear the rustling of trees and bushes outside. I tried again with love. Love. Ah ya pag benoangba, which means love, Love. Don't joke like this. When my husband did not answer me, I reached out to him with my right hand just as another flash of lightning struck near the window, causing a temporary bright streak of light to flash through the living room. In a split second, the room was illuminated by an eerie glow, and as my eyes adjusted again, I saw in complete disbelief that there was no one in front of me. At this very moment, my hands gripped nothing but air. The light came and went, and again we were shrouded in darkness. I took back my outstretched hand and was struck with paralyzing fear as another loud thunder shook the house. At that moment, I felt myself shrink, like somehow the four corners of the house seemed impossibly huge and I was just a tiny thing on the ground. My heart sunk into my stomach, and I felt something else. Another presence in the house. But it was different this time, not the usual feeling of I had when I sensed another presence in the woods or by that mysterious tree near the window. I felt like something had shifted when the energy from the thunder and lightning struck our home, Like a door had been opened. And there were these things, these things I could not put a name to entered the space, their magnitude and presence so profound that I was an insignificant living thing that was simple simply taking up their space. I was hit with a type of primal fear that causes you to shut down where all logic just leaves your body. I had never in my life felt that kind of fear. This was different somehow, like my insides were screaming at me to run, but my body refused to get in sync. I was running on intuition, and my intuition told me to look for light, any light source. I forced my legs to move and was in the middle of standing up when a small beam of light hit the yoga mats. It was my husband, standing near our bedroom door, holding a flashlight in his hand. We immediately ran to each other and then found our way to the electrical box to turn off the electricity to prevent damaging surges. At this point, the first few drops of rain started to pour down before gaining traction. We calmed ourselves and took out the emergency candles and lights that we had stored. We found our two cats, both of them with their hairs on end, shrinking into a corner. Just two chonky poofballs with wide, terrified eyes. The power eventually returned during the night, and we never spoke of that event without verbally Agreeing, we each always made sure to keep a light in each room on at night and stored backup candles and emergency batteries in case of a sudden storm and power outage shook our home again. The first time we let our thoughts from that experience manifest themselves into our reality was when we took a trip to the bustling city a few months later. While we didn't plan on talking about, just felt safe to do so away from the house. Like speaking about what happened, where it happened, would somehow welcome whatever mysterious entity or power was in play that day into our reality from sheer belief alone. Understand that we weren't dying to talk about just never came up and we never thought to bring up the topic. We were just sitting at a coffee shop somewhere calmly sipping our beverages when one of us, I'm not sure who, went hey, remember that weird thing with the freak power outage and storm at home? It was only then that I got my husband's side of the story from his point of view. After the first thunder and the power went out, he had stood up blindly in the darkness. When he stood up and started to dash to the shelf by the bedroom door where we kept an emergency flashlight, he felt that some invisible force was stopping him. He stopped in his tracks and felt something cold in his path, something he could not see or reach out to. He was paralyzed. Paralyzed with fear, with the overwhelming looming feeling of anxiety and dreadful that stemmed from the unexplainable. He felt the hairs at the back of his neck stand up like cold air was suffocating the once humid room surrounding him. With the wind howling outside and flying through the rustling trees and bushes, he could not hear me call out to him. After the second thunder and the temporary light from the lightning, he saw in front of him the shelf and roughly where the flashlight stood. As the room was again enveloped in darkness, he dashed forward roughly where the shelf was and felt for the flashlight. That's when he hurriedly turned it on with shaky hands and instinctively turned around and shone the flashlight on the ground where I was. The moment that the light made its way through the thick darkness, we felt this immense relief wash over us. It was such a powerful emotion that I simply could not fully put it into words. This happened on February 8, 2021. Since we moved to the city in November 2023, I have buried the experience in my memory. Try as I might to forget it, a part of me is non plussed and amazed all the same. Amazed that I had experienced something new, something so foreign to me, a powerful, primal fear that I never thought I had inside me had awakened, and nothing in my past experiences and experiences after that event had ever awoken that ancient feeling inside me. The memory may just be a looming fog at the back of my mind, but what I felt is something that brims to the surface now and then when my intuition tells me that something is not right. It might surface when my intuition is trying to convey something, but never quite as overwhelming as it was that day last week. I woke up in the morning and settled in front of my desk to get a head start on work when my husband, whose desk is beside mine, said out of nowhere, today is the anniversary. I responded, the anniversary of the what? Feeling confused as I racked my brain for the answer. Had I forgotten an anniversary of something? A birthday perhaps? And my husband, who is normally forgetful and bad with dates, simply said of the power outage back home. All the emotions I felt from that experience hit me with a powerful force and I swallowed the feeling of anxiety that was wanted to resurface from my stomach to my throat and out from my mouth in the form of words. I said, that's not something to make an annual event out of. Love on WhatsApp, no one can see or hear your personal messages. Whether it's a voice call message or sending a password to WhatsApp, it's all just this. 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