Scary Stories For A Rainy Night - Ep. 243 - Fresh Frights

Summary

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Scary Stories For A Rainy Night - Ep. 243 - "Fresh Frights"

Podcast: Scary Stories and Rain
Host: Being Scared
Date: September 29, 2025

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Episode Overview

In Episode 243 of “Scary Stories and Rain,” listeners are treated to a fresh collection of unnerving true accounts, each told with the podcast’s signature calm narration and a soothing rain backdrop. Stories include encounters with stalkers, childhood dangers, unexplained threats in public places, and a chilling riverbank discovery. The episode’s unifying theme is the ordinary turned ominous—everyday locations and people revealed in sudden, frightful light.

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Story Summaries & Key Moments

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1. The Creepy Restroom Encounter

Timestamp: 01:41 – 05:38

• Setting: Employee restroom at a home improvement store
• Narrator describes boredom on shift, leading to long, uneventful bathroom breaks. This time, another individual occupies the neighboring stall.
• The neighboring stall occupant stretches his hand under the divider in a disturbingly close way, remaining silent even when ignored.
• The situation escalates when the man tries peering into the narrator's stall, prompting intense discomfort:
  • Quote: "Just like a scene from a horror movie, our eyes connected. He was barely an inch away from my door, trying to peek inside." (03:00)
• The man begins whispering inappropriate things about the narrator's "unflushed toilet paper." Only with the arrival of another person does the stalker back off.
• The narrator escapes, still puzzled and unsettled, and notices the man didn't wear a work uniform, raising questions if it was a targeted act.
• Emotional note: Creeped out, the narrator spends the rest of the shift scanning for the perpetrator, made more anxious by poor facial recognition.

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2. The Malicious Nurse

Timestamp: 05:39 – 06:53

• Setting: Hospital, night, after narrator’s suicide attempt
• The narrator recalls waking up as a nurse attempts—and seemingly fails—to insert an IV, increasingly convinced the pain is intentional.
  • Quote: "He is pushing and wiggling the needles around under my skin, saying he is trying to get the vein…By the seventh or eighth needle, it registers that he is intentionally trying to hurt me." (06:00)
• When asked for an explanation, the nurse coldly responds: "It's your own fault that you're here." (06:11, nurse paraphrased)
• The next day, another nurse is horrified, revealing an oversized needle was used.
• Impact: The story underscores the terror of being vulnerable, with supposed caretakers actively wishing you harm.

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3. The Persistent Restaurant Stalker

Timestamp: 06:54 – 11:51

• Setting: Restaurant and city streets
• Narrator (aged 15 at the time) sits at a separate table with friends during a family dinner. A man in his 30s fixates on her throughout the meal.
• The unnerving behavior continues: the man leaves the restaurant but lingers outside the window, then follows the narrator’s group outside.
• Months later, shockingly, they encounter the same man downtown; he recognizes and follows them, now with a friend.
  • Quote: “We were standing on a street corner…when I felt Gabby tapping my shoulder…It was the same guy from the restaurant…he started to follow.” (09:44)
• The group manages to evade him after ducking into stores, never telling their families, but the episode lingers in their memories as an unsettling coincidence.

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4. The Ocean Fright at Prince Edward Island

Timestamp: 11:52 – 21:41

• Setting: PEI family vacation beach
• At 12, the narrator enjoys a beach holiday, reassured by parents that "the water is too cold for sharks."
• While swimming, he drifts out—unaware of riptides—before realizing his family are far away and motioning for him to come back.
• Quote: "Being a 12 year old child, I had no idea anything about undertows or riptides. I just knew I had to get back to shore like my life depended on it." (14:33)
• Panic as something immense and slippery brushes against his leg—then a dark shadow, possibly a massive sea creature, passes nearby.
  • Quote: "Something was in the water with me and it was gigantic. Soft but gigantic and terrifying at the same time." (17:20)
• Survives the experience, but is shaken. Days later, local radio announces the discovery of the largest white shark recorded off PEI, confirming his fears.
• Notable reflection: Despite parental reassurances, nature’s unpredictability proves more frightening than fiction.

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5. Night Jogging and a Figure in the Park

Timestamp: 22:09 – 28:31

• Setting: Suburban Ottawa park at night
• The narrator jogs through a childhood neighborhood, entering an unlit park.
• A man in a black sweatsuit and hospital mask is spotted raking the sandbox under a play structure at nearly 11pm.
• The jogger waves awkwardly but is unsettled when the man turns off his flashlight and footsteps indicate he’s being chased.
  • Quote: "My heart jumps into my throat…it's crazy what fear and adrenaline can do cuz I went from 0 to 100 real quick." (27:08)
• The narrator sprints to safety, unsure of the stranger’s motives.
• Later learns the park is near a homeless shelter, but remains haunted by "what ifs."

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6. The Unnerving Hotel Guest

Timestamp: 28:32 – 36:41

• Setting: Housekeeper at a top-rated hotel
• While preparing to clean a guest’s room, the narrator finds an odd number of prescription pill bottles and two chilling handwritten notes.
• Notable details from the notes include: "You don't have to forgive her, you just can't kill her... Get over having to kill her and you can safely leave." (32:55)
• A to-do list contains disturbing entries ("there will be a day of reckoning").
• Overcome with dread, the housekeeper snaps photos and refuses to re-enter the room. Management agrees, evicting the guest for staff safety.
• Quote: “I spent a few minutes in the laundry room trying to calm down…for the first time in all these years I am not comfortable being in a guest room.” (35:15)

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7. The Watchtower Creep

Timestamp: 36:42 – 46:31

• Setting: Industrial area, late 1990s, pre-cellphone era
• A nine-year-old girl visits her father’s work—or an adjacent company’s watchtower—to use the phone.
• A new guard becomes fixated on her, asking personal questions, offering tea, then escalating to attempting to block her from leaving and discussing dating.
  • Quote: “He kept on asking me his weird questions whilst I was terrified to move because I didn’t want to move my body against his, if that makes any sense. So I just froze.” (40:59)
• The girl fakes seeing a relative to escape. Later, the man shows up at her home late at night with friends, calling to her.
• Fathers confronts and threatens the man. The girl never sees him again, but the memory persists—especially after catching someone watching her at night through a window.

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8. The Riverbank Cave and the Horrific Discovery

Timestamp: 46:32 – 64:10

• Setting: July 1982, a group of boys build a “Temple of Set” cave on a riverbank.
• The kids enjoy weeks of play, eventually discovering their hideout is being used by older teens.
• One day, after a group of local bullies passes by river noodling for catfish, the narrative takes a gruesome turn.
  • Gerald, one of the teens, describes:
    • “I reached into that hole and felt what I thought was a tail and pulled on it and came up with a damn sock and shoe.” (61:04)
• Police are called; divers recover a decomposing corpse from the river, with details haunting the boys.
  • Quote: “This was the first time I had ever seen an actual dead person…bad dreams for a few weeks afterwards.” (63:09)
• The site—and the boys’ innocence—is irrevocably lost.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On dread in the mundane:
  “It’s better than standing around trying to look busy…[until] the guy in the next stall had his hand stretched to the ground.” (02:00)
• On vulnerability and trust:
  “Being alone, helpless, and knowing that the person…supposed to care for you, hated you.” (06:50)
• On odds and fate:
  “All these years later, my friends and I think back…we still think about how crazy the odds were to meet the same creep more than once in two completely different random places.” (11:40)
• Chilling discovery:
  “He told us that just as it was getting close enough to the surface…he noticed it was white instead of the dark gray color. Then he saw the sock and shoe.” (62:49)

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Timestamps for Important Sections

• 01:41 – Store Bathroom Encounter
• 05:39 – Malicious Nurse in Hospital
• 06:54 – Restaurant Stalker and Aftermath
• 11:52 – PEI Ocean Terror
• 22:09 – Night Jogging/Man in the Park
• 28:32 – The Hotel Guest’s Ominous Notes
• 36:42 – The Watchtower Creep
• 46:32 – Riverbank Clubhouse and Body Discovery

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Episode Tone and Atmosphere

As always, narration is measured and calm, with steady rain adding to a sense of late-night intimacy and tension. The stories, though varied in scope and age, all share an undercurrent of vulnerability and the fear lurking in everyday places. The host’s gentle delivery amplifies the eeriness by contrasting against the disturbing tales.

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Final Thoughts

“Fresh Frights” delivers on the promise of unsettling true tales, each leaving listeners with images that may linger long past the episode. The focus on real-life scenarios, accidental danger, and predatory figures, coupled with an ambience of rainfall, makes this an excellent selection for horror fans seeking a quiet but chilling experience.

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For more immersive stories, check out the other Scary Stories series listed in the episode description.

Transcript

[Narrator]

Welcome to Scary Stories and Rain. A couple things before we begin. I have two new podcasts that I.

[Co-narrator]

Would love for you to check out.

[Narrator]

It's the same type of stories, but one with a crackling campfire background and one with more of a dark, eerie background. Scary stories in Fire and Scary Stories in the dark.

[Co-narrator]

The links to each of them are in the description to this episode.

[Narrator]

Please check them out and give them a follow. It would really mean a lot. And if you're not following this podcast.

[Co-narrator]

Yet, please do that as well so.

[Narrator]

You get reminded when a new episode comes out every single night. Also, if you haven't subscribed yet, you can get rid of all of the ads for $2.99 a month and be automatically entered to win every single giveaway that I do every month. Just $2.99. No more ads.

[Co-narrator]

All the giveaways.

[Narrator]

I want to say thank you for being here and I really hope you enjoy this episode.

[Sponsor/Advertiser]

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[Narrator]

This incident happened just a few hours earlier and I am telling this story currently at my workplace. I work in the garden area of a home improvement store. I don't work the cash registers and my manager doesn't even let me water.

[Co-narrator]

The flowers, so a lot of the.

[Narrator]

Time I have nothing to do. This results in me taking extremely long bathroom breaks where I just scroll on my phone. I know it sounds bad, but it's better than standing around trying to look busy. Today was the same as any other with me wasting time in the bathroom. Nothing of interest happened until my work phone buzzed at the same time as the stall next to mine. This becomes important later. A few seconds later I see that the guy in the next stall had his hand stretched to the ground with his palm facing up. I had first thought he had run out of toilet paper and was asking for mine.

[Co-narrator]

He just stayed silent for a while.

[Narrator]

So I ignored him after that. Then he started moving that hand uncomfortably close to my leg, so I immediately scooted away and prepared to leave. Once the man noticed that, he hurriedly got out of his stall before I could leave Another few seconds of silence. I took a peek out from the.

[Co-narrator]

Gap of the stall door to see.

[Narrator]

What he was doing, and just like a scene from a horror movie, our eyes connected. He was barely an inch away from my door, trying to peek inside.

[Co-narrator]

My blood ran cold.

[Narrator]

If you're wondering why I didn't immediately.

[Co-narrator]

Open the door and cuss the guy.

[Narrator]

Out, I really hate confrontation. I avoid it whenever possible, and I do my best to not draw attention to myself.

[Co-narrator]

I stood sideways by the door so.

[Narrator]

He wouldn't be able to see me. That's when the whispering started. I don't know what the first thing he said was, but it sounded like moaning. The next part was a bit more audible. He said something along the lines of wanting to see more of my unflushed toilet paper.

[Co-narrator]

I was thoroughly disgusted.

[Narrator]

This guy was a complete creep and I was alone in the bathroom with him. My heart was beating faster by the second. I knew I had to stay there until another person came into the bathroom. No way was I going to confront him alone. Probably a minute later, someone finally arrives.

[Co-narrator]

And I take this as my chance.

[Narrator]

To wash my hands and get out of there. Thankfully, the presence of the other person made the man quit his creepy behavior.

[Co-narrator]

As I was about to leave, he.

[Narrator]

Blocked my path for a quick second before stepping aside. The weird thing was, I don't even think he works at the store because he wasn't wearing any vest. My store is extremely lenient about uniform, but most workers at least wear a vest or something connected to the store. He just looked like a regular customer. I am certain I heard two phone dings echo in that bathroom. The phones have a signature ring to them, so it couldn't have been a coincidence.

[Co-narrator]

Either way, he only started creeping on.

[Narrator]

Me once the phone ring made it clear that I was an employee. The situation really creeped me out and I have been totally unfocused on my work since then. I kept prowling the garden area looking for any man wearing a similar outfit to the creeper. I have an incredibly hard time distinguishing faces, so I probably wouldn't even recognize him if I did see him again. This happened to me when I was 21, after I tried to take my own life. I woke up in the hospital in the middle of the night to a nurse saying he needed to replace my iv. He jabs me two or three times but doesn't hit a vein, so I ask if he can get someone else to try. He says no and keeps going. As he is doing this, he is pushing and wiggling the needles around under my skin, saying he is trying to get the vein by the seventh or eighth needle. It registers that he is intentionally trying to hurt me. I ask him, why are you doing this? He just says back, it's your own.

[Co-narrator]

Fault that you're here. I was too weak to fight back.

[Narrator]

And it was in the middle of the night. There was no one else around I.

[Co-narrator]

Could call out to.

[Narrator]

I have no idea how many times he ended up puncturing me in the end. The next day, a different nurse was.

[Co-narrator]

Taking out my iv. She was horrified because she said it.

[Narrator]

Was the biggest needle she had ever seen using on a living patient. Not sure why you would use needles on a dead patient, but that's what she said.

[Co-narrator]

A lot of people shrug this off.

[Narrator]

When I tell them about it, but it was so terrifying being alone, helpless, and knowing that the person who was.

[Co-narrator]

Supposed to care for you, hated you.

[Narrator]

And wanted to cause you pain. This happened a few years ago when I was about 15 years old. It was a pretty common occurrence at the time for my family and the families of my two best friends to go out for dinner. During one such time, my best friends and I decided that it would be more adult and cool for us to sit away from the rest of our families and to just eat and chat.

[Co-narrator]

At a separate table.

[Narrator]

We were a couple of young teens having a fun time. That's when one of my friends, Jenny, whispered that the guy sitting at the table next to us seemed to be staring at me. I slightly turned my head and realized that he did seem to be looking my way, but I brushed it off. I mean, we were at a restaurant. People looking around seemed normal and innocent enough. As the time progressed, my other friend.

[Co-narrator]

Gabby also noticed the man staring at.

[Narrator]

Me and we began to get a little more concerned. He had seemed to have finished his food a long time ago, but just continued to sit there watching us. Especially me. The man seemed to be in his 30s and his expression was starting to.

[Co-narrator]

Creep the three of us out, but.

[Narrator]

We decided not to do anything in case it was just us overthinking. Eventually, the man did pay and leave and we felt relieved. But as soon as I took my first bite of food, Jenny motioned to me frantically. We were sitting by a window and as it turned out, the man had left the restaurant, but he hadn't fully left the premises. He was standing outside the window staring at me. At this point, we realized this wasn't normal behavior, but we also didn't want to alert our families and cause a scene. So we Kept eating, but also kept our attention on the window. By the time we were all done with dinner and our bill had been paid, the man was still outside. We were worried he would try something.

[Co-narrator]

So we stayed close to our dads.

[Narrator]

On the way out, he followed us as we walked to our cars from a distance, but eventually changed direction and left.

[Co-narrator]

The whole ordeal was super creepy to us, but we let it go because it was over. Or so we thought.

[Narrator]

Three months later, the three of us decided to visit the busy downtown area of our city for fun. We were standing on a street corner trying to figure out where to go next, when I felt Gabby tapping my shoulder. At first I didn't respond, but when she continued, I looked up and I.

[Co-narrator]

Felt like my heart stopped.

[Narrator]

It was the same guy from the restaurant. The restaurant had been nowhere near where we were currently standing. Yet somehow, by sheer coincidence, we had ran into him again in a city of huge population. The guy made eye contact with me and I could tell he recognized us.

[Co-narrator]

We immediately walked away as fast as.

[Narrator]

We could and he started to follow. But after a few minutes, eventually we did lose him. We tried to then continue on with our plans and did end up having a good time, all things considered. However, just when we had decided to head back home, we ran into the guy and one of his friends again. This time we were really freaked out. He spotted us again and this time him and his friend followed us. Gabby said maybe he won't come after us if we go into a makeup store. We tried that, but nope, they walked right inside after us. At this point, Jenny was ready to.

[Co-narrator]

Call the police, but we decided to.

[Narrator]

Try and lose them one last time by ducking into a toy store. We stayed in the store for a while and kept an eye out outside. They walked back and forth for a few minutes looking for us, but eventually they left the area and we decided now was the time to make our move and leave. This time we lost them for good, but the whole ordeal was beyond stressful. The three of us never told anyone else what happened. I still don't know what he wanted from me or what would have happened.

[Co-narrator]

If he had caught up to us.

[Narrator]

But I am glad I haven't seen the guy since. All these years later, my friends and I think back to this incident and still think about how crazy the odds were to meet the same creep more than once in two completely different random places.

[Co-narrator]

I was 12 years old.

[Narrator]

It was the summer between grade 6 and grade 7. My family had rented this really awesome cottage by the ocean in Prince Edward Island.

[Co-narrator]

Big cottage with a Jacuzzi.

[Narrator]

A field of fresh barley growing in.

[Co-narrator]

The backyard, which if you walk to.

[Narrator]

The end of the field, there was a little wooden path that took you into kilometers worth of our own property.

[Co-narrator]

Private beach.

[Narrator]

It was easily one of the nicest.

[Co-narrator]

Cottages I ever stayed at.

[Narrator]

Prince Edward island is a beautiful province.

[Co-narrator]

Too, by the way.

[Narrator]

Definitely go if you have the chance. I remember asking about sharks in the water to my parents and they just laughed and told me to worry more.

[Co-narrator]

About jellyfish because the water is too cold for sharks.

[Narrator]

But there are a few jellies that can get you in the shallows if you aren't careful. They aren't aggressive though. Anyway, the beach we had was really cool. So many types of crabs and jellyfish that are actually fun to play with. All just sprawled out for kilometers of beautiful red sand decorated with tide pools. When you finally walk all the way out to the ocean in low tide, you could continue walking for miles through the surf. Unfortunately, I found this out soon enough. It was a normal day at the beach with my family filming videos and exploring. My brother and I ditched our parents and decided to go for a swim. The water in this beach was about as warm as the Atlantic water gets. I swear, in the more shallow water, it felt just like a public swimming pool on a very hot day. I was wrestling my brother for a bit. I slapped him in the back, performing.

[Co-narrator]

What we called a five star.

[Narrator]

He got upset and started throwing me around the water. He then threw a jellyfish at me, stinging me in my chest and threatened to pee on me, where I then threw the jellyfish back at him and.

[Co-narrator]

A jellyfish fight erupted.

[Narrator]

My parents had reconvened to our location on the shore and motioned to my brother and I that they had brought lunches. Later, my brother said to me while making an L on his forehead and making a face. My parents called me over, but I wanted to keep swimming. This water was barely up to my waist, so I kept walking further out to get to where it became deeper. I kept walking out until the water was just up to my nipples and started doing a front crawl. I did a couple backflips underwater and bobbed up and down a bit. I then decided I was cold and turned to head back to the shore. What I thought were sea birds turned out to be my family hooting and hollering for me to come back. They looked like tiny little specks off in the distance. I could barely make out that my dad was waving his arms in the air. This instantly freaked Me out because I had no idea I traveled that far in such a short amount of time. Being a 12 year old child, I had no idea anything about undertows or riptides. I just knew I had to get back to shore like my life depended on it. Because it did, the resistance of the undertow was fierce. Having gone surfing since this incident, I now know if you are caught in a riptide to remain calm and swim parallel to the shore until you get.

[Co-narrator]

Out of the riptide.

[Narrator]

That simple. I did not know this at the time. Full panic ensued. Thank my lucky stars. In my panic, I ended up splashing myself out of the current. This was because I was a bad swimmer. If it kept taking me further, I would have definitely drowned. And the water was becoming deeper. The undertow at my feet was still very strong, although manageable enough to slowly move through, creating lots of resistance and making me work extra hard. Almost drowning is quite the workout. I knew I was slowly but surely making my way back to shore. My parents saw that I was heading back, so they continued to eat lunch. I was becoming exhausted just trying to march and swim my way back into shore. I was still very far away when something forced me to stop doing everything I was doing and listen to the sound of my pounding heartbeat. Something slippery and soft brushed up against my leg. I looked around, tried to make out the ocean floor below the waist deep water I was standing in, still fighting the waves. There was no seaweed below me. Must have been a jellyfish or some sort of fish. I tried to reassure myself as I began moving forward again. As I am thinking this and trying to make out what's underneath the waves, I thought I saw a shadow in the water. A wave obstructed whatever it was and before I could even think about anything, I felt the force of that same slippery sensation slide across my entire body. Something was in the water with me and it was gigantic. Soft but gigantic and terrifying at the same time.

[Co-narrator]

I could barely breathe. I was so shook.

[Narrator]

In some fit of hysterical panic, I started trying to swim away as fast and explosively as I could. First front crawled, but switched to a backstroke to see behind me before I pretty much had an asthma attack and.

[Co-narrator]

Was forced to stop.

[Narrator]

I could barely breathe properly and was shaking with fear. I remembered in school that sharks have a sort of ESP and can sense fear. They respond to panicking humans like they are wounded prey. I kept scanning all around me. I could barely see anything through the waves until the sun poked out. Inside a particularly big wave was a giant black, 1012 foot long sea monster. It swam diagonally in my direction so fast it was like it almost vanished into thin air. I was still far from the shore. I decided to slowly walk one foot at a time, planting my feet and fighting the undertow. I was still in waist deep water. I remembered on Shark Week that sharks can swim at 40km and most shark attacks occur in waist deep water.

[Co-narrator]

I thought a wave looked like a.

[Narrator]

Shark fin and I immediately shifted position to face my demise. Then I noticed in this level of fear, almost every wave looks like a shark fin. As I looked around frantically, the sun went behind another cloud, removing the glare and I swear about 10ft away from me was a dark shadow twice my size. I froze as it disappeared out of sight again. I did a 360 and couldn't see it anywhere. The same level of fear took over me where I decided to stop taking my time and start backstroking as fast as I could, like some sort of water strider insect. I had seen Jaws at this point in my life and every time my.

[Co-narrator]

Legs would kick together, a little V.

[Narrator]

Of wake would form on the water surface, looking almost exactly like the shark nose as it is surfacing the water and attacking people. Periodically, I would abandon swimming altogether and start screaming and kicking my legs viciously in front of me in the hopes that I'd get its nose. I wasn't even sure if it was around me anymore in hindsight, but at that very moment that shark was going to bite my balls off any second. My heel brushed something again and again. I was scraping bottom. The water level was now down to my knees. I stood up and sprinted as fast as I could to shore. I kissed the the sand. As I got out of the water. My parents began scolding me about going out that far, telling me about riptides, etc. Great, now they tell me. I thought I was shivering, shaking, utterly exhausted and so emotionally and mentally rattled. I just disassociated and said nothing as.

[Co-narrator]

They gave me crap.

[Narrator]

I did not tell my parents or my brother about any of this. My brother could be a huge jerk and I almost knew for a fact that none of them would really believe me. I could hear them already. There's no sharks in these waters. It must have been seaweed. My brother making chicken gestures at me. I saved myself the trouble. I just said nothing, ate my lunch, drank some juice and decided to go back to the cottage after sharks rarely attack humans. If they did, people wouldn't go swimming. Beaches in Florida would be a bloodbath of slaughtered surfers it's even more rare to find big sharks in Prince Edward Island. That isn't a lie. My parents reassured me repeatedly on the road trip down and after getting to the cottage that you will never find a shark in the Maritimes because the.

[Co-narrator]

Water is just too cold. Any sharks you see will be super.

[Narrator]

Small and restricted to the Gulf and very shallow bays. As we were driving to another beach.

[Co-narrator]

Days later, the radio DJ gave a.

[Narrator]

Shout out to the largest white shark ever recorded. It was a female, just over six meters long, caught in the Gulf of Sand St. Lawrence off the coast of Prince Edward Island. I decided to stay dry and catch some sun that day.

[Co-narrator]

This happened in late October of last year in Ottawa, Ontario. I was visiting my old city to see my parents, which is always a strenuous endeavor, so I generally try to be in their house as little as possible when I'm over to kill some boredom. One night I decided to go for a jog around the neighborhood I grew up in around 10.30pm I was really pushing myself as I quit drinking and was desperately trying to burn off the excess belly fat from being drunk and lazy. During lockdown. I ran basically a huge circuit around the neighborhood taking me through three parks. The third park I had to run through has no street lights. It has one right in the middle, but Ottawa has a thing where random lights shut off and this alternates across the city's power grid to save money and electricity. Nine times out of ten it isn't shining. Now this park is extremely dark, especially in a corner quiet October night with clear skies and dry ground. The road leading into it is well illuminated. This is a quaint, quiet, peaceful suburb. There has been some sketchy stuff that has happened in this little suburb though. For example, just a six minute walk from my parents house was one of the biggest drug busts our city has ever seen. Some gang with automatic illegal weapons, the whole shebang.

[Narrator]

There were also a couple of stabbings.

[Co-narrator]

In other areas, but very spaced apart and generally resolved by the law immediately. All in all it's a very quaint, safe and clean place to raise a family. If I ever have kids or retire, Kannada would be an ample place to do it. I have never once felt unsafe, especially in the neighborhood my parents lived in as it's full of some very nice houses. Through the darkness I entered the park and passed through the first part of it which is a play structure meant for little kids. Pretty much just a wooden mini house that's next to a bouncy spring. This leads to a bigger part of the park with a basketball court, jungle gym and a much larger play structure with a big green triceratops made of plastic in the sandbox. All this eventually leads to a path that runs behind my old elementary school. At the end of this path is my street. I almost finished my run running through.

[Narrator]

The dark spooky park as I have.

[Co-narrator]

Passed through hundreds of times before. Now. I got into the habit of falling asleep to creepy stories and have been watching a lot of horror movies lately. As I'm breaking into the blackness from the adjacent street leading into the park, I am on the fence about taking a break and walking, but I remember I was trying to push myself. I carry on as I think jokingly to myself, gee, I sure hope nothing spooky happens. But as I am rounding the corner to the other half of the park, I heard a distant scraping sound. I noticed a light from somebody's cell phone shining in the sandbox. As I ran closer I heard this scraping getting louder. I got even closer and I noticed through the moonlight that it is a man holding one of those hard rakes with the sharp tines grooming the sandbox. Now some internal intuition told me that I know this is super weird. Why is there some guy grooming the sandbox at almost 11pm with a flashlight? As I approach further, however, I notice it isn't just a man holding a sharp rake. It's a man wearing an all black sweatsuit with the hood up and a white hospital mask.

[Narrator]

He is standing underneath the play structure.

[Co-narrator]

Using the tines of the rake to push a pink horse with wheels on it back and forth and so on and so forth. He heard the stride of my footsteps approaching and his head jerked upright in my direction. He quickly moved out from underneath the play structure and shined the light on me right into my eyes. This is really weird, I thought to myself as I flashed him an utterly exhausted, awkward wave. I have asthma and my quads and lungs are giving out. I try super hard to up the pace because I am fairly creeped out at this point. In a flash he kills his light and I cannot see a single thing anymore. My heart jumps into my throat and I am very tuckered out at this point, ready to collapse. I heard a soft shuffling in the sand as I passed him, followed by rapid footsteps in between my strides getting closer and louder instantaneously. It clicks that this guy is charging me with the rake. It's crazy what fear and adrenaline can do cuz I went from 0 to 100 real quick sprinting faster than I.

[Narrator]

Would be able to normally.

[Co-narrator]

My whole body is burning, especially my lungs. As I cleared the park onto the well lit path, I was moving so fast and panting so loud I couldn't even tell if he was following me or not. I didn't look back. I cleared the end of the path and saw some guy getting out of his car with him as my witness. I turned around, panting myself to death and wheezing. He was gone. I walked back to my street and went into my house hacking up disgusting amounts of phlegm, absolutely drenched in sweat. I avoided telling my parents this story at first just to avoid their reaction, but everyone else in my life knew pretty quick. I don't care for police, so calling them wasn't even something that crossed my mind. Later, when I reconnected with an old friend, one who never left Ottawa, she informed me that my old elementary school converts to a homeless shelter. At night they set up cots in the gymnasium and kicked them out at 6am her reaction was to rationalize that it was probably a mentally ill homeless person who was bored and couldn't sleep. But what if he had a different intention? Was he waiting for a jogger to pass by? Was he trying to scare people just for the fun of it? Or was he really in a violent mood? I guess I will never know. I have been working for an independent hotel for just over four years now. We are the number one rated hotel in our city and proud of it. I mostly work in housekeeping but I've done some time at the front desk as well. I love my job and have always said that my bosses are great. Now being a housekeeper I have seen some things. I have seen a room where someone snuck in their dog, kitten and chicken. We don't allow pets. I once had a room that I was cleaning as a stayover that had tripods set up around the bed, professional camera equipment cases, an adult sized pacifier on site, and XL sized children's diapers. The two people that were in that room were in their early 20s. I even had a room once that we had to call the cops on for a raid because we found drugs. They found a lot of drugs and weapons in that room. Today is the first time I have ever actually felt scared to be in a guest trip room. As I'm working on a room that's already been vacated, a man in the next room over catches me at my supply cart. He is set to be staying for several days and tells me, you can go ahead and clean my room now. I'm going down for breakfast. Excellent. I love getting my stayovers done early on. It makes things easier for the people working laundry the sooner we get the dirty laundry down to them. So I pop over into his room, opening it up and propping the door open with a stopper like we always do. The first thing I notice is that he has around 20 prescription bottles lined up on one of the two beds along with insulin and needles. I'm nosy, I'll admit it, and I wanted to see what he was on. Oddly, it was only two different types of medication for all 20 bottles. About two thirds were a diabetes medication and the rest were a cholesterol medication. That's a little weird that he has so many bottles of the same meds, but whatever. I go to make the bed and see that some of the bedding has been stained and I sigh knowing now that I'll have to change all the bedding instead of just being able to turn down the sheets and blankets. So I leave the room, closing it behind me to get the linens I need and then head right back to the room. I prop the door open again and head to set the clean linens on the desk chair when I see out of the corner of my eye two notes sitting on the TV armoire. It wouldn't mean anything except I caught the word kill scrawled on it. I dropped the linens and took a closer look. What I read on the first note made my blood run cold. You don't have to forgive her, you just can't kill her. You are here to take money and alcohol away from you. Get over having to kill her and you can safely leave. My heart was pounding. My eyes went to the second note which had just looked like a to do list at first glance but in the end made my stomach churn. Spray and wash. Apply for Medicare Insubordination the soul is healed by being with children Bank Card Follow up inheritance savings kawai pop 10,500 map montana there will be a day of reckoning did you tell mom what I said? How did Bev get my address? It was too much. I quickly snapped pictures of them on my phone so I could show my boss why I would not clean his room. I left the room quickly closing it up behind me. As the door closes I turn and I see the man just 10ft away from me coming back to his room. My heart is in my throat but I manage a smile and tell him I need more supplies. I'll be back to your room in a bit. I take off straight for the elevator having noticed our maintenance man waiting for the slow transport. In a hushed tone I tell him what I found and he sees I am shaken, not a normal state for me. He rides down with me and I go straight to my boss and tell her that for the first time in all these years I am not comfortable being in a guest room. I show her the pictures and her face is still and pale. She goes to the front desk and asks our general manager for a minute of her time and brings her into the office to show her. She agreed this was not a safe situation and took our maintenance man with her to go inform the man that he had one hour to get his belongings and leave the hotel and he was not welcome back. I spent a few minutes in the laundry room trying to calm down, then my boss went back up with me to the floor until the man was officially out of the hotel. When I was about nine years old, my family used to live in a remote area on the outskirts of town. Considering the location of the suburb, that area was surrounded by warehouses and such. At the time my family did not have a phone in the house and neither did our neighbors. There were no cell phones back then or they were a luxury and not everyone could afford one. This took place in the end of the 90s so if I needed to call my mom whilst she was at work, I had to either go to my dad's work or a company next to his which was closer to make a phone call. My dad's work was a relatively short walk from our house, probably 30 minutes or less. My dad was working at a huge unloading dock for metallurgical natural resources shipments. In order to get to my dad's work I had to walk past another adjacent company just like the one where my dad was working. I will call it docs 2. My dad's work as well as docks 2 had a sort of watchtower. It is just a cabin mounted at the top of a tall platform and you need to go up a decent amount of stairs to get to the top. There was always a guard inside overseeing the whole yard from the top during the day and night to make sure no one is in danger and no break ins. The phones were located only on site watchtowers. At the time, Docks two were much closer to our house, about a ten minute walk. One day, as I have done many times before, I went to Docks two to make a call. I climbed the stairs, knocked on the door and was welcomed in by a guard I used to see quite often and knew well. However that day he wasn't alone. The new Guy, who was 28 at the time, was there. Apparently he was a new employee hired to work shifts. He was this very tanned man, always wearing military style outfits. I was just an average looking child, looking exactly my age. My hair was very blonde which made my cheeks always appear rosy red and give me even more of a childish appearance. When the new guy saw me that day, he would not take his eyes off me. As soon as I was about to finish my call with my mom, the new guy went outside to smoke. When I came out, he smiled at me and asked me what my name is and whether I came there often to make calls. I don't remember what I said, but I felt very shy because he was staring deeply into my eyes. I will call him the Creep. Fast forward a few days and I came to that tower again to make a call and there he was again. But that time he was alone. I spoke to my mom and as I was about to leave, he asked me if I want any tea, to which I refused. He then proceeded to ask how my school was going and things like that. He offered to help me with my homework. However, I told him I have got it all sorted. Harmless but strange. On a side note, I just want.

[Narrator]

To say that what gave me shivers.

[Co-narrator]

When I was near him is whenever he looked at me, he looked drunk, which was very unsettling. Mind you, he he wasn't actually drunk, but his eyes would get so hazy and his face flush red. Sometime later I saw him again. That time I was walking to my dad's work with my friend and he was doing some digging in docks too. When he saw me through the metal fence that was separating us, he just leaned against his shovel and stared at me. He didn't say hi or anything. After those encounters, for quite some time I took alternative routes to see my dad or play with puppies at my dad's work, or make calls to my mom because he really creeped me out. However, one day I had to call my mom urgently. My dad's work phone didn't work so I had to go to Doc's 2 tower hoping I wouldn't see him. The creep was there and oh boy was he so happy I came. He was complaining how I don't come anymore to see him. As I was making a call, he grabbed another chair and sat right next to me, very close. It took a while for my mom to get on the phone because she was busy with something and someone went to get her. Whilst I was on the line. It felt like hours waiting and the creep was just seated next to me, looking at me and smiling. When my mom finally got to the phone, he got up and went to make me tea and brought some biscuits. When I was done talking, he insisted I have some tea with him, which I didn't and he just kept on trying to strike a conversation. But this time the tone of conversation was different. He asked me how old exactly I was and I told him 12. I have no idea why I lied. He told me his age and although I knew he was much older, I felt really weirded out that he wanted to talk to me so badly or had any interest in me. My alarms did go off every time I was around him, but I guess I didn't feel overly in danger. He then proceeded to tell me that I was beautiful and asked me whether I had a boyfriend. He asked me if I have already dated boys and what type of boys I liked. I was so uncomfortable and so eager to leave at that point, but he would just keep dragging me into these weird conversations. I could tell he was drinking that day. When I began moving towards the door, he followed me. Eventually we both were outside. However, in order to get down from.

[Narrator]

The tower, you need to walk this.

[Co-narrator]

Narrow path towards the stairs. He stood blocking it so I couldn't leave. He got very close to me and I was freaking out. The only escape tactic I could come up with as a child was to pretend that I'm seeing someone from the top of the tower. So I began waving my hand at the road down at the bottom and towards houses in the distance, pretending I see someone I know and saying, oh look, that's my uncle, he's waving. The creep looked in that direction but either didn't care or could tell that I was lying. I kept on telling him that the uncle who waved back is a very big angry man and if I don't come down this instance and go home, we both are going to be in trouble. The creep didn't budge. He got even closer and eventually pressed me against the railing. He kept on asking me his weird questions whilst I was terrified to move because I didn't want to move my body against his, if that makes any sense. So I just froze. He asked me if I would go on a date with him and that he is looking for a girlfriend. And at that particular moment someone was coming up the stairs to the tower. So he let me go but asked me to come back. I have not told anyone about this encounter at that stage because I was afraid that my Parents would get angry. I also felt very embarrassed and thought that people would judge me for what's happened. Sometime later I was home and it was around 9pm I know what time it was because it was my bedtime. Suddenly a car pulled into our driveway. I came to see who it was through the front room window and I could see it was the Creep. But this time with other guys blasting music in his car and shouting my name. I have no idea how he knew where I lived. He must have followed me one day. My dad was outraged. He asked me who these people were, but before I could even answer, he rushed outside. Apparently the Creep wanted me to go out with him and his friends. My dad obviously refused, saying that I am a child and too young to hang out with them or go out at this time of night and that if he sees any one of them ever again, he will beat the living heck out of them. So they drove away. I was so upset with my dad that he called me a child in front of them. I think because we lived so far away from everything. I was really keen to make friends as there were no kids around as such. For a while after that I had not seen the Creep again or heard of him. A significant time later I was walking to my dad's work again and I have completely forgotten about this creep. He was working in docks too with his friends. Maybe those that came with him that night in the car.

[Narrator]

Or maybe these were just his co workers.

[Co-narrator]

I got scared when I saw him and even though he shouted hi to me, I pretended to not hear it. He said something to his friends and I remember so clearly how one of his friends exclaimed loudly her. I guess he told them about me or his interest in me. But no one expected me to be a child. I looked at the guy that exclaimed. He was staring at me in utter disbelief. He must have been 20 to 25 or so I think. And the Creep was saying something to him. His friend screamed at him, have you lost your mind? Clearly the Creep didn't see me as a child like everyone else did. Fast forward again maybe half a year later. One day I was home alone in the evening waiting for my parents to come back from work. We lived in a very safe community so sometimes I'd be home by myself for a little bit after school until my parents got home. I was playing a game whereby I was a singer. I had this stage created in the living room and I was performing in front of the chairs, pretending chairs were my live audience. It was pitch black outside. At some point during my performance, I see someone staring at me through the living room window. That person must have been crouching down as only the top of their face could be seen from the bottom. As soon as that person realized I saw them, they ran. I was so embarrassed that someone saw me performing, scared and shocked at the same time that I was glued to the floor. I don't know if that was him. Our dog didn't react at all, maybe because the music was playing very loud. I was scared to go outside the house and check, but I peered through the window and no one was there. That person had to climb over a wooden fence to get to our living room window. I told my parents about it. I have also asked my friend whether it was him who came around, but he said it wasn't. I don't know if my friend felt shy to admit he was watching me or whether it was the creep. In closing One day I went to Docks two with my dad as my dad needed something from there for work. I saw the old guard that I knew well and asked about the creep and was told that he doesn't work there anymore. I don't know whatever became of him.

[Narrator]

When this particular experience occurred. It was July of 1982 and I had just turned 13. As part of my birthday celebration, my parents took me and several of my friends to see Conan the Barbarian at the new Walk in Theater in Liberty. This was quite a change from watching a movie from the bed of a truck at the drive in. Instead of fighting mosquitoes big enough to completely exsanguinate us and trying to be still enough so the big aluminum speaker.

[Co-narrator]

Didn'T fall off the side rail of the truck bed, we were able to sit in air conditioning no less, and enjoy our popcorn and sodas without welts and blood spatters.

[Narrator]

For several weeks after that, we all made swords out of anything we could find and beat slashed, hacked and stabbed the crap out of anything we thought.

[Co-narrator]

Was worthy of being a foe. Mostly this resulted in a bunch of.

[Narrator]

Decapitated weeds and flowers and a few slaughtered spiders. One of my friends got his father's machete and we spent a happy afternoon.

[Co-narrator]

Seeing which of us could chop a.

[Narrator]

Sapling tree down in a single hack.

[Co-narrator]

We we almost had a fist fight.

[Narrator]

Over who got to use it to kill a little snake we found.

[Co-narrator]

It disappeared before we had a chance. Conan was the hero of the day.

[Narrator]

For that summer, right up until we.

[Co-narrator]

Saw First Blood just after Halloween.

[Narrator]

One day we decided that we needed.

[Co-narrator]

To build our own temple of set.

[Narrator]

Which was Thulsa Dum's cavernous fortress from the Conan movie. We didn't have a Princess Valeria to.

[Co-narrator]

Rescue, but we thought it would be cool to at least have a cave to stealthily invade.

[Narrator]

We had visions of tunnels and caverns and underground rooms filled with treasure to steal.

[Co-narrator]

After much arguing and discussion, we finally decided that the best location for our imaginary massacre would be at the bottom of one of the steep banks of.

[Narrator]

The river by a sandbar.

[Co-narrator]

The following weekend, we all went to.

[Narrator]

The riverbank with our various instruments of destruction.

[Co-narrator]

We had a regular shovel, two sharpshooter shovels, a hatchet and a pickaxe. The area that we chose was at a bend in the river that was about a 10 minute walk from the road. The level of the river was low and it left a great expanse of sandy shoreline in the bend where the sediment had built up into a sandbar that was high and dry when the river level was low. Over the years, the river had cut, cut into the earth, leaving high banks at this particular bend that were maybe 12 or 15ft above us. It was already undercut to an extent and we had to clean out the trash and beer cans from previous visitors before we could start working. We spent the following week digging into the side of the bank. We dug a hole about 10ft deep and then began making our cavern. It was more work than we anticipated, so it was a lot slower than we wanted. We usually worked in 10 or 15 minute bursts and then we would work.

[Narrator]

On a squared off berm with the.

[Co-narrator]

Dirt we had excavated to hide the entrance. Before we finally got bored with the whole idea of multiple tunnels and caverns, we had dug a tunnel about 3ft in diameter and 10ft deep into the bank of the river. At the end of the tunnel, we had dug out an area that was more of a small room than it was a cave. We made the floor as level as we could in an area that was about 10ft on each side. The top of the ceiling was probably eight feet from the floor. We finally stopped at that height because we ran into roots from the trees on the top of the bank and we were tired of trying to expand it because we kept getting dirt and grit into our eyes and mouths. We thought the end result was awesome.

[Narrator]

We dug little alcoves into the walls.

[Co-narrator]

And put candles in them to provide lighting.

[Narrator]

It went from our own version of.

[Co-narrator]

The Temple of Set to a little clubhouse. It was really cool inside there when the weather was hot outside. It was even better when the candles lit up the area in a horror movie type of light, and you looked up, you could see the roots hanging down. We were all pretty proud of our accomplishment. We built the berm at the tunnel entrance up to about 6ft high and made the outside look like it followed the natural slope of the sandbar. The end result was that if you were to walk along the shoreline and.

[Narrator]

Weren'T actually looking for it, you would.

[Co-narrator]

More than likely have walked past it without even noticing. This became our home away from home and provided us with hour upon hour of fun and entertainment. We even camped out there a few times that summer. One weekend, we found that our little hidey hole had been used by someone else. When we crawled into our cave, we found several beer cans and a blanket and a pair of socks. Evidently, some of the older teens in the area were using it too. We spent that day discussing booby traps and other means of discouraging the invaders from using our cave. But we finally decided that if we did anything to protect our cave, it would probably result in someone destroying it. Over the next few weeks, we found more beer cans, cigarette butts, a crushed pack of Camels that was empty, a Styrofoam cooler without the lid, a Frisbee, and a keychain with three or four keys on it. We put the Styrofoam cooler upside down in the middle of the cave and left the keys sitting on it. The next time we returned, the keys had been replaced with a Budweiser that we all took turns sampling and a new box of candles. We had a lot of adventures in the cave that summer. We were Conan in the temple, we were Rambo in the mines, and it was the Castle of the Crystal from the Dark Crystal. Then one day we all met at the cave to find that part of the ceiling had collapsed. An area about the size of a big tractor tire had fallen, leaving even more roots showing. We got an old galvanized tub that was about the size of a turkey pan and tied a piece of clothesline we had liberated to each handle. One leading inside the cave and one to the outside. Me and Jerry would pull the tub out and empty it after Terry and Bobby filled it inside the cave. After it was empty, they. They would pull it back inside and fill it again. We were about halfway finished when we heard the laughter.

[Narrator]

At first we thought it was whoever.

[Co-narrator]

Was using our cave. When we weren't, we were a little excited to see who it was. But then we heard the voices that went with the laughter. It was Bubba Hain and his brother Henry and a couple of their Friends. They were the bullies of our area. They were notorious for being the local toughs. They all walked around with their elbows cocked back and their chests puffed out. They all smoked and talked with language that would have caused me to get beaten half to death and my mouth washed out with dish detergent if I had ever been caught using it myself. Bubba was 19 or 20 and had been in jail several times. He was mean and quick to fight and it didn't matter if you were half his size. He terrified all of us younger kids. We debated crawling into the cave and keeping quiet until they passed us by. But if they knew about the cave, then we'd only be caught without anywhere to run. So we took off running in the.

[Narrator]

Opposite direction of the voices.

[Co-narrator]

We climbed up the bank, around the bend and circled back to watch from the top of the bank where we were safe and able to run if necessary. As we watched from our elevated vantage point, they came around the bend. Bubba and Henry were pulling a small aluminum boat through the water with a rope tied to the loop in the front. The boat had an ice chest and several flathead catfish laying in it among empty beer cans. And they were talking about finding more fish. Evidently they were planning to have a big fish fry. Walking along in front of them were Gerald and Ricky, also known for being less than friendly. They were both walking in the water about chest deep along the far side of the riverbank. They were all wearing cut off shorts and drinking beer. Ricky would stop occasionally and feel the wall of the bank under the water. As we watched, he disappeared under the sandy water for several seconds and then surfaced again and said nothing and they continued walking. They were talking about which girls would be at the event and who they hoped would come and who they'd like to hook up with. They were noodling for fish. Noodling is one of those activities that can be both exciting and dangerous. The way it works is you look for where a catfish, catfish or natural erosion has made a hole in the bottom of the riverbed, usually on one side or the other as the current isn't as strong there. The person doing the noodling will stick his hand into the hole and feel around for a fish. If a catfish is there, it will think the hand is a smaller fish and therefore food, and try to eat it. When the catfish has your hand in its mouth, you. You grab it by the lower jaw or through the gills and pull it out. Obviously, any catfish with a mouth big enough to engulf your hand is a good sized fish. Ranging in size from 20 to 60 pounds on average. The problem with doing this is that occasionally you can get a fish that is actually too big to easily extract and doesn't want to let its lunch get away. It is then a fight to retrieve your hand and get your head back above the water before you drown. While they don't actually have teeth, catfish have millions of tiny little spikes on their lips that can scratch you up pretty good. Another danger is that you encounter something other than a catfish like a snapping turtle. If this happens, it is entirely possible to lose a finger. I am not too proud to admit that I am too chicken to go noodling. As we watched, Ricky went under the water again. After what seemed like two or three minutes, his hands suddenly shot up from the water and waved back and forth. Gerald immediately went under to help him and they came back up a minute later, sputtering and gasping for air. They had caught a big one, about 4ft long. Henry and Bubba pulled the boat over to them and they all wrestled the fish into the boat with the others. They congratulated each other and toasted their fortune with a fresh beer. After a few swigs, they continued on their way. Eventually they were out of sight, heading toward the more populated areas of the bottom where they lived. We didn't think they would be coming back, so we jumped back down and continued our work. Bobby realized that they had walked right by our cave and didn't even notice. That was just fine with the rest of us. About five minutes after we had started working on the fallen dirt again, we heard screams and shouts from the direction where Bubba and his friends had gone. They were sounds of fright. We forgot about getting pounded on and ran around the sandbar to the direction of the screens. When we saw Bubba and his friends, they were on the opposite side of the river than before and the boat was floating downstream toward us. Terry caught the line as it passed, but he wasn't strong enough to stop it, so Jerry and I grabbed on too, while Bobby waded into the water and pushed it from behind. We all figured that our helping gesture would make us immune from any bullying for at least a little while. As we walked the boat back to them, Gerald was actually getting sick in the sand and Ricky was retching. Bubba and Henry were both white as a bed sheet and were walking back and forth, hugging their arms in tight against their chests as if they were freezing. They saw us coming to them and immediately went into the tough guy mode with their chest puffed out and elbows talked for a minute I thought we had made a mistake in thinking they'd appreciate our assistance. Henry was the first to realize what we were doing and shouted an enthusiastic thanks and jogged in our direction. He helped drag the boat up to Bubba and the others. We were all apprehensive and ready to take off running, but no one seemed interested in being a bully.

[Narrator]

I looked to see who got hurt.

[Co-narrator]

But everyone seemed to have all their fingers and toes and there wasn't any blood anywhere. So I asked what happened. Bubba glanced out across the river to the other side, about 60ft away, but didn't say anything. Henry finally said that they thought they saw a dead body. Gerald turned around, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand and spit. They ain't no thinking to it. I had my hand around its damn ankle, he said. I reached into that hole and felt what I thought was a tail and pulled on it and came up with a damn sock and shoe. We all looked at the opposite bank of the river, searching intently for any signs of blood and gore, but couldn't see anything. When we asked where it was, Ricky told us that it was about five feet down at the bottom of the big catfish hole. We. We gotta call the police, Gerald stammered. He kept wiping his hand on his pants. He stooped and gathered a handful of sand and washed his hands with it. Bubba told him to call the police if he wanted, but that he didn't want any part of it. Then he looked at us and told us to forget he was there. He told us not to mention his name at all. Then he and Henry turned around and began walking upstream toward where everyone lived. Gerald and Ricky looked back and forth at each other. Nobody knew what to do. Finally Ricky told Gerald to wait and he'd go call the sheriff and ran off. We all stood there for a minute, half afraid to talk. We knew about Bubba and acted accordingly. But Gerald wasn't as well known to us. We all know who he was and had heard stories, but none of us had ever had any direct contact with him before this. Finally, Terry asked him how it happened and who had screamed. Gerald looked at him with big bulging eyes, still wiping his hands up and down his pants. I don't think he realized what he was doing. He stared for a minute like he was waiting to see if we were going to make fun of him. But we were all half scared of him and wouldn't have dared to poke fun at him anyway. After a minute he told us they were going to have a big fish fry later. They had been out noodling to get more fish so they'd be sure to have enough. They were planning to get just one more before they stopped. He looked at us and held his hands at shoulder level, palms facing inward, and shook them vigorously. Just one more, he said, shaking his hands so hard that water sprinkled on us from his wet hair. He told us that he had been walking along, feeling for holes in the riverbed with his feet. When he found the hole, he had gone under and felt around with his hand. When he felt what he thought was a tail, he said that he grabbed it really hard, ready for the fish to try and swim away. When he felt something oozing between his fingers, he told us that he braced his feet and pulled and it just came up. As he told the story, he mimed all of his actions. He told us that just as it was getting close enough to the surface.

[Narrator]

Of the water for him to see how big it was, that he noticed.

[Co-narrator]

It was white instead of the dark gray color. Then he saw the sock and shoe. That was when Ricky saw it and yelled. Ricky's sudden yell startled Gerald, who thought the leg was alive. They both ran to the boat and told Bubba and Henry what they had seen. Bubba didn't believe him, so he and Henry waded over to the hole and found the body. In their rush to get away from it, they lost the boat. After a minute, we came around the bend, bringing the boat with us. Ricky came back in a few minutes and announced that the sheriff was on his way. They hurriedly removed the ice chest and empty cans from the boat, and Ricky took everything away. After another few minutes, he came walking back with two uniformed men. The sheriff listened as the story was told again. He took everyone's name and address and phone number. He went back to his car while the deputy was asking Gerald and Ricky more questions. Was the body a male or female? Was the body white or black? Was it an adult or a child? Are you sure it was human and not animal? After what seemed like 10 hours to us kids, but was probably less than an hour, the sheriff appeared again. He was walking with four other men who were all wearing wetsuits and had scuba gear. Two of the men started taking a bunch of photos and plotted the area on a map and took more photos from the bank above the hole and from where we were standing and from the opposite bank on our side of the river. As the two men took the photos, the other two went underwater and confirmed that it was indeed a human body. Two of the men went back to wherever they had parked and returned with a table and another camera. As they returned, the sheriff told us that we should probably leave the area and stared at us until we took the hint and left. We ran back toward our cave and climbed the bank again, this time circling the opposite direction and sneaking to the edge of the bank overlooking the scene of the excitement. Excitement. The scuba divers used the second camera to take more photos underwater. They couldn't have been very good photos because the water was only neck deep and they completely disappeared in the murky water. After they finished taking photos, they brought the table out to the edge of the water. The table was actually a large float that two of the men held in place while the other two went underwater again. I don't know exactly what I was expecting to see, but this thing they brought up out of the river actually gave me bad dreams for a few weeks afterwards. It was evidently a man. His face was swollen and his eyes and ears were gone. His belly was huge. He was wearing blue shorts and only had one sock and shoe. The thing that got me the most was his constant color. Gerald had said he was white, but he was actually a dull gray color with darker gray and green mottled spots. And he looked slimy. Two of his fingers were just bone. His mouth was open, and as they rolled him over onto the float, a bunch of nasty water flowed out. As I watched them walk the float back over to our side of the river, I noticed more and more details. The skin covering his elbows and knees was gone. The part that I thought was sock was actually skin. Evidently when Gerald grabbed the leg and pulled on it, he had separated the skin and it just slid down the ankle. The part that I remembered most, the part that made me have bad dreams, was his head. No eyes, no ears. His mouth opened and full of who knows what. His facial skin was swollen to an almost comical size. But the skin around the tip of his chin was gone, showing bone from watching television and reading books. I had expected the body to be locked stiff with rigor mortis, but it wasn't. His arms and legs actually flopped around as though the bones had turned to rubber. The last thing I remember about the man's body was the sight I saw as they carried him off toward the houses. The bottom of the foot without a shoe wasn't wrinkled and it was snow white. This was the first time I had ever seen an actual dead person. Of course, I had seen countless dead people on television and in the movies, but never in real life. I don't know if that was the reason for the bad dreams, or if it was because of the condition of the body. It was probably a combination of the two. I never knew who he was or how he died. I asked my mother a few days later, and after yelling at me for being down at the river, she said that she had only heard about the police finding a body. We went to the little cave a week or so later to see if there was anything new left in it, but it had completely collapsed, leaving a huge divot on the top. One of the trees on top was still standing, but at a drunken angle. It had rained, and that was evidently enough to collapse the cave in on itself. None of us cared, though. The gruesome discovery had killed the magic of the place for us. The following summer, that whole side of the bank was gone, including the tree.