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- [00:01]
Narrator
Expedia and visit Scotland. Invite you to Come experience the beauty that awaits in Scotland. The sweep of wild coastlines, quiet lochs and untamed landscapes. Fresh cuisine that feels rooted in the land. Come experience the kind of stillness that stays with you long after you leave. Plan your Scottish escape today@expedia.com VisitScotland ready to soundtrack your summer with Red Bull Summer All Day Play? You choose a playlist that fits your summer vibe the best. Are you a festival fanatic, a deep end dj, a road dog, or a trail mixer? Just add a song to your chosen playlist and put your summer on track. Red Bull Summer All Day Play Red Bull gives you wings. Visit red bull.com brightsummer ahead to learn more. See you this summer. This episode is brought to you by Prime Obsession is in session and this summer, Prime Originals have everything you want. Steamy romances, irresistible love stories, and the book to screen favorites you've already read twice off campus Elle every year. After the Love Hypothesis, Sterling Point and more Slow Burns, second Chances chemistry you can feel through the screen. Your next obsession is waiting. Watch only on Prime.
- [01:27]
Storyteller
Hey, before this episode begins, I just want to let everyone know that my film that I've been producing for the last two years, Gale Yellow Brick Road, is now streaming on Chilling. So if you weren't able to go see it in theaters a couple months ago, no worries. Click the link in the description to this video or just search Chilling in your app store and you can watch Gale Yellow Brick Road tonight at home. I really hope you enjoy. Please leave an honest rating and review on IMDb and and rotten Tomatoes. Thanks again. Hey welcome back to the podcast. I really hope you enjoy this episode and if you'd like to hear more stories like these with a different background sound, please check the description to check out my other two podcasts and if you want to get rid of all of the ads, you can subscribe for just 2.99amonth. Last thing I really appreciate you being here and I'd really love if you would follow the podcast and come back again soon. Thank you so much. I hope you enjoy. Ever since I was little and despite occasional insomnia, I have always been a deep sleeper and difficult to rouse. This has also been accompanied by my vivid dreams. I have never been able to harness the ability to lucid dream as when I realize it is one, I become too excited and inevitably wake up completely or just enough that I am not experiencing the dream but watching it as if it is a movie. That being said, I have never truly tried to learn how to lucid dream. This is because I heard lucid dreaming can cause sleep paralysis and to me my dreams are enough of an adventure as it is, and the terrors that come from sleep paralysis are just not worth it to me. I already suffer from night terrors and anxiety dreams, so the idea of having one of those while mostly awake and aware of my surroundings sounds like, well, you guessed it, a nightmare. Occasionally, when I am drifting off to sleep, especially during naps, my body will be asleep but my mind is partially aware and awake. This allows me to perceive the sounds around me or even conversations people are having while unrelated. This is also when I am the most active with my sleep talking. If you engage me directly on the even rarer occasion, I can be having a dream and narrate to people around me what I am seeing. So I live with my husband and ever since my work schedule changed a few years ago, I have struggled to wake up earlier than 9 or 10am Occasionally, when my husband leaves for work, I'll get up and let the dogs out to pee, let them back in and go back to bed in my sleepy haze. I sometimes forget to lock the door before going back to bed. If I'm not sure if I have or not, I'll usually get back up and go check. Other times I'll be so exhausted that I have already drifted off to sleep. From time to time my husband will be sent home early so he can come back during the night shift and help out. Sometimes he comes home an hour after he started his shift. Since I have become so used to the sound of his heavy boots walking on our wooden floors, this usually doesn't rouse me from my sleep and if I am in a deep, exhausted sleep, I won't wake at all. If it does startle me, the most that happens is I am pulled into that semi aware state of mind. I'll feel him get back into bed with me and all is well. Now, mind you, we live in the middle of nowhere and we never get any visitors, but I still have this fear that someone is going to try to break in during the day while my husband is at work. I have two guard dogs, but one of them is now deaf and at the time of this story, the other one was a young puppy who wouldn't bark if something in the house frightened him. He would instead grow silent and still. Now onto what happened a few months ago. It was our typical morning. My husband got up out of bed, taking a shower and getting dressed before kissing me goodbye and heading to work. A few hours had passed. I was fading in and out of sleep, so I was partially aware that sunlight had begun to creep into the room. Not too long after I passed back out, I heard a noise that roused me from my dreamless sleep. I heard my husband's heavy footsteps calmly walking around the front of the house. Neither of our dogs made a move or a sound, and the noise level was low enough that it hadn't caused me to fully wake up either. I sat there patiently waiting for him to make his way back to our bedroom so that we could cuddle up and go back to sleep, when a horrible thought occurred to me. What if it isn't my husband? Had he forgotten to lock the door when he left? What if this is that intruder I've been worrying about? What if I can't wake up before they realize someone else is in the house? This is when I start to hear the heavy boots making their way down the hallway Study and play come together on a Windows 11 PC and for a limited time, college students get the best of both worlds. Get the unreal college deal everything you need to study and play with select Windows 11 PCs. Eligible students get a year of Microsoft 365 Premium and a year of Xbox Game Pass ultimate with a custom color Xbox wireless controller. Learn more@windows.com studentoffer while supplies last ends June 30th terms@ aka mscollegepc have you ever rearranged your furniture and discovered the carpet underneath looks brand new while the rest of it looks, well, not so new? It's time for a carpet upgrade at the Home Depot. We have stylish choices at simple prices from all the top brands. Best of all, we can install it for you starting at only 49 cents per square foot. So all you have to do is pick your perfect floor. Start your carpet project today at the Home Depot. How doers get more done Exclusions apply for licenses seehomedepot.com,
- [07:53]
Narrator
girl Winter is so last season and now spring's got you looking at pictures of tank tops with hungry eyes. Your algorithm is feeding you cutoffs. You're thirsty for the sun on your shoulders that perfect hang on the patio. Sundress those sandals you can wear all day and all night. And you've had enough of shopping from your couch.
- [08:13]
Storyteller
Done.
- [08:13]
Narrator
Hoping it looks anything like the picture when you tear open that envelope. It's time for a little in person spring treat. It's time for a trip to Ross.
- [08:21]
Storyteller
Work your magic towards our bedroom. At this point, I think my eyes are Open, I can see our bedroom and I'm watching the door to the hallway, anxiously awaiting to see my husband round the corner to our room. This is when I start to realize these boots don't sound like my husband's and the terror sets in. I have this horrible sense of impending doom. There's a strange large man in my house. My dogs are unaware or defenseless, and I am too out of it to get up and defend myself. As the steps reach the doorway, I shut my eyes tight, praying the man will think I am asleep and try to sneak out without being caught. I hear the footsteps pause in the doorway and I can feel this evil presence flood the room. I suddenly realize he's here for me. The heavy boots slowly make their way over to my side of the bed and I can feel my weight being pressed down as he leans over me as if to whisper in my ear. I know now that I do not want to know what he is about to tell me. I need to do everything I can to not hear what he is about to tell me. So I did the only thing I could. I strained my ears and caused my eardrums to tremble, causing a deep rumbling sound in my ears. I feel the lightest sensation of his breath on my ear and jawbone as I continue straining that little muscle. He stands back up and exits the room and I am released from my sleep. I jump out of bed and grab the nearest weapon we have and comb through the house. As you may have guessed, there was nobody there. The front door was locked, our dogs were undisturbed, but my heart was pounding in my chest, I was drenched in sweat and the fear had me trembling. I placed the weapon back where it belonged and messaged my husband about what had happened and I later told my sister, sister in law about it. My sister in law has had a few run ins with these beings and has done some research on her own. While she didn't share with me what she knew, she said, it's a really good thing that you didn't let it put things in your head. Her comments made the whole experience that much creepier. What would have happened if I had listened to what it had said? What could it have told me that would have been so devastating to change my life in the worst way possible? Was it going to tell me something or was it going to command me to do something that I inevitably would be unable to resist? A part of me wishes I knew, but I am very glad that I don't. I have had three sleep paralysis instances in total that I can remember the first time was in 2018 when I had just moved back to Australia from America and I was on a really uncomfortable inflatable mattress. All I can remember was waking up, only barely being able to move and really struggling to sit up as this was happening. My vision in front of me was mostly blacked out, but I could still somewhat see around me. I quickly broke from it and was terrified as I had heard of sleep paralysis before and knew about the horrors people have faced as a result of it. Safe to say I considered myself lucky. The second time was in 2020. I had woken up in the morning and could not move at all, not even slightly. The instance was a lot more severe and terrifying for me as all I could think about while locked out of my body was there better not be a shadow with this. I attempted to yell and scream but all that came out my mouth were groans. Thankfully I eventually snapped out of it before the sleep paralysis could escalate further or my worst fear of seeing a shadow person or apparition came true. That brings us to the third and most traumatizing and terrifying encounter I had with sleep paralysis. It was during 2021 and in the midst of a stressful time for me due to university exams. This may have been something that contributed towards it, but then again, who knows? This time was very different from the previous two. I vividly remember dreaming of being in an unfamiliar house that when describing it to people I usually connect it to having a very similar appearance to the house from the Amazing World of Gumball. I know weird connection to make, but that was my first thought when thinking over the appearance of the house. I remember in the dream approaching some photos on a wall in some living room space. They were photos of my family, group photos and individual photos all scattered the walls. I was looking through them until I saw an unfamiliar face. It was a standalone photo of a woman who appeared to be in her 30s, wearing a white Victorian old style dress all on her own, staring into my soul. Upon seeing this I was especially creeped out, so I turned my head to the left and stopped right in my tracks. There she was, the exact same woman from the photo, just standing in the living room of this house facing away from me. In my dream I let out some sort of loud reaction and all of a sudden her face snapped sideways where her eyes were meeting mine, at which point I awoke instantly. However, to my horror I quickly discovered I was experiencing sleep paralysis yet again. This time however, I looked slightly to my side to see the woman yet again, but actually standing on the other side of my room. Words cannot describe the level of pure fear and terror I experienced at that moment. As I began to try and scream and yell, the only noise that came came out of my mouth yet again was some weird groan not loud enough for anyone to hear. Things only escalated when the woman began to slowly approach my bed while slightly kneeling down to meet her face with mine, all while she had a finger over her mouth, smiling at the same time as if to hush me. For my desperate attempts at screaming out for help as well as mocking me for doing so. The terror of this was almost unbearable for me. I remember looking towards the roof of my room and seeing multiple white glowing apparitions moving in and out of my ceiling, all while this woman is constantly saying sh. Next thing I know it was all gone. I could finally move again and I had never been more grateful to free fully wake up in my entire life. I don't know if anything from what I experienced had any deeper meaning. I seriously doubt it too. Since all this, I have never been able to identify the woman with anyone I know or anyone from my family that I never met but still have photos of. I hope I never need to give an update with a fourth experience of this horrible phenomenon. The following took place when I was in grade 10 attending high school in Ontario, just under an hour east from Toronto. I am 30 years old now and I've only mentioned this a handful of people. It isn't the scariest story ever, but it definitely gave me and my friends at the time the creeps. Let's begin during lunch hour. I never liked eating in the cafeteria. Too crowded and I didn't like people watching me eat. I'm not too sure why now, but my friends felt the same way. So we either would go to one of our houses for lunch or we'd discover someplace outside side near our school where we could sit, eat lunch, throw a baseball around after, etc. We stumbled upon this creek behind some backyards with a few big rocks that could be used as a makeshift seating area. It was secluded enough that we thought it would be a cool place to eat our lunch and hang out for an hour. FYI, we were not trespassing in anyone's backyards. They were all fenced off and the creek was extremely accessible to anyone walking by, including myself. There were four of us. We ate lunch, joked around and started playing catch with a baseball in the mitts that we brought with us. I stood further into the creek, so near a bunch of tall trees that I think turned into a forest if you keep going. My friend threw the baseball, I missed catching it and it rolled to the base of a tree a few feet feet behind me. I walked over to retrieve the ball and sitting upright on the other side of the tree was what I think was a female with long straight black hair facing the opposite direction, not moving at all whatsoever. I noticed her right before I picked up the ball and my stomach dropped. I knew to play it cool so she wouldn't react and scare me even more than I already was. So I picked up the ball and speed walked out of there and said to my friends, guys, let's go, we're going to be late. They were all saying how we had time and that we were going to be early, etc. But I looked at them with my eyes wide open as if trying to communicate with my eyes and again I said let's go. Confused, my friends followed me out of there and as we were walking away I periodically looked behind us to see if we were being followed. When we were at a distance far enough, I felt it was safe. I told them what I saw. They all believed me because they knew I wouldn't just randomly make up that to ruin our lunch break and not to mention how much I hated going back to school early after lunch being curious dumb teenage boys. However, we did return to that creepy creek a few days later and the person sitting behind the tree was not there. In my 30s, I have never had anything as unsettling as this happen to me before and I still remember it as if it happened yesterday. Like I said, I have only told this story a handful of times and it still gives me the chills to this day. I have thought about this event at least once a day and even though it's been a few years and some details are fuzzy, it still gives me the chills. A group of us were sitting around chilling one January night when one of us thought it would be fun to have a bonfire using the brown and dried out Christmas tree as the kindling. We were bored, so we all jumped at the chance of doing something, even if it was potentially illegal. Another of my friends made the comment, it's only illegal if we get caught. And with that logic, we set out to find a location to bid the Christmas season goodbye. My friend, who we'll call Sheila, knew of a place we could head to and would likely not get caught by any police interference. The only stipulation was that we had to wait for the COVID of nightfall. What she failed to mention was that this area was a swamp with wooden walking paths weaving through the trees and water for patrons during the day. Driving up and not seeing any lights, this didn't look like a place that would be open during the night. Yet here we are. Once we arrived and had set up our tree to be burned, another of our friends thought it would be fun to walk the darkened trails. No flashlights, just the small amount of moonlights that we had. We all looked into the forest, uneasy, but agreed to the adventure. Using the headlights of our cars, we saw two entrances leading into the forest. Naturally, we thought we would enter in one side and come out the other. Making our way towards the part. Sheila and I hung back so we could conspire to pull a prank. There was one guy in our group who she had a crush on, and the two would often flirt and banter with one another. And she learned that he was quite the scaredy cat. The prank was for me to slink off towards the exit to the path, meet them halfway and jump out and scare the wits out of him. Of course, this was too good of a chance to pass up. So as they headed down through the entrance of the path, I snuck off, going through the exit. The swamp was alive with the sound of toads croaking, insects buzzing, creatures chattering and scurrying. And a couple of times I heard the splash of water as a toad plopped into the water as I had gotten near. The blackness of the night didn't bother me as I was much too excited about scaring the crap out of Sheila's crush. The look on his face, the squeals of his screaming. It was going to be awesome. Eventually I kept walking and walking, but wasn't finding the group. Surely they should have met them by now. But where are they? I stopped for a moment, straining my ears to see if I could hear them coming towards me. But all I was met with were the sounds of the swamp and then silence. I stopped. Was it possible that they were quiet so they could scare me? Sure. But all of them being that quiet. Do you know the sound someone makes when they're swimming, swimming slowly through the water? A sort of light sloshing noise. That was the sound I was hearing coming from in front of me. I froze, straining my ears towards the sloshing, noticing that it didn't sound like a frog or a fish, but what it sounded like, I had no idea. There was a thud against the wooden path, rocking it slightly, then slowly slapping noises that sounded like wet flippers hitting the ground. I would be curious Afterwards, but with my heart hammering in my chest and my knees about to give out from underneath me, I turned around and took off as fast as I was able out of the swamp and away from whatever it was that was back there. When I emerged from the forest, my group of friends were out there waiting for me. Apparently, after not seeing me for a while, they grew concerned. So concerned that Sheila had given away the prank about to be pulled, and they hurried back, not knowing what had become of me. They were about to walk the path I had taken to find me when I suddenly appeared. It wasn't until later that we discovered that the two paths that we had seen led in two different directions. Something that would have been nice to see know beforehand. As for what was in that swamp, I have no idea. And none of my friends believed me, thinking that it was just a frog or something. Over the years, I tend to think that maybe they were right and I just imagined it. But that didn't remove the fact that this was one of the most terrifying experiences of my life. This happened when I was 15 years old. It was about five years ago and I was living at home. It was just me and my mom and we lived in a small apartment in a medium sized city. And my mom was always working and never home, so there was not much adult supervision at home. And I would spend most of my nights on Facebook. So one night I was settling in for another dinner of Mac and cheese and watching YouTube when my phone buzzed. I didn't have many friends at the time and the only person who really messaged me was my mom, but she was at work so I knew it would not be her. I paused my YouTube video and put put down my Mac and cheese and picked up the phone. I looked at my phone and saw that I had a Facebook message. I clicked on it to read it and I did not recognize the person sending it. All it said was hi Amy. I didn't think anything of it and I was in the middle of my dinner, so I just put my phone back down. Another couple minutes later I heard my phone vibrate again. It was from the same person and this time it said, how are you doing Amy? This time I replied and said I'm fine. Who is this? There was no response. So I finished eating my dinner and watched a few more videos and went to bed. The next night was pretty much the same routine and I was home by myself eating dinner and watching YouTube. I got a message on Facebook and this time it said, are you enjoying your macaroni and cheese? This time I was caught off guard and was starting to get upset. I answered back, who is this? Almost instantly another message came in that said, I'm watching you and I know you're alone. Now I was getting scared, but in the back of my mind I was thinking it could have been one of my friends playing a joke on me. They knew that I ate Mac and cheese almost every night for dinner, so it could have just been somebody guessing and it was just a coincidence that I was eating Mac and cheese again. It didn't help that this was late fall, so it got dark very early and being home alone was already a little unsettling to begin with. My mom had warned me to be careful online ever since I started using Facebook about a year earlier. She had told me about how people could get catfished or how your identity could get stolen. I had not had any bad experiences online up to this point, so I figured she was just being an overprotective parent. I'm watching you and I'll be watching you when you go to sleep tonight was the next message I read. I turned off my phone and finished my nightly routine and went to bed, but not before I blocked that person from my account. I got up early the next day and I could hardly keep my eyes open from not getting very much sleep. I walked to my high school which was about a 20 minute walk from my apartment. Everything went fine at school. It was a normal usual usual day at school, but I struggled to get through it because of how tired I was, but I dragged along the day the best I could. After school I stopped at a fast food place for about a half an hour before walking the rest of the way home. While I was walking home I thought I noticed this same car drive past about four or five times. It was already getting dark so I wasn't sure if it was the same car. Car. When I was just getting to the parking lot in my apartment complex, a car drove by and someone yelled out the window, enjoy your Mac and cheese Amy. When I turned to look, the car was turning at the corner and all I could see were the brake lights and no description of it. I could only think of one person who would want to mess with me. I had broken up with my boyfriend a month earlier earlier and he lived in a town about 45 minutes away. It was a really bad breakup because I had caught him cheating but he swore it was a mistake and he only wanted to be with me. I didn't take him back and all of his friends told me he was not over it. I can only guess that it was him stalking me on Facebook and in the car. I ended up deleting my Facebook for almost a year and I never noticed any more cars following me. I want to start this story off by saying that for the sake of confidentiality, all real names will be replaced with fake ones. Me and my friends had a phase when we were around 18 years old where we were fascinated with the idea of exploring abandoned locations, usually disregarding how dangerous or risky the area is. Since I live in one of the more suburban and unpopular areas of Australia, oftentimes it would be difficult to find new and exciting places to investigate. So you can imagine when we caught wind of an abandoned apartment apartment complex in the city, we immediately jumped on the idea of paying the place a visit. We decided to go on the same night we planned on visiting a club. So by the time we arrived at the place, me and my friends were mostly buzzed or intoxicated. Looking back on that, it was a really dumb idea. But we were dumb new adults. This would be a good time to introduce my friends. We have Don, a well built guy who was the leader of most of our expeditions, Connor, who like myself loved exploring and usually followed what Don would say. And then we have Beth, Kate, Jill and Brooke, who only really came for the club but still decided to tag along for the ride. Upon arrival, we were met with a large fence surrounding the perimeter. It was a at this point where Kate volunteered to be on lookout for security from the outside since this place did still seem to be decently monitored. With some struggle, the rest of us managed to hop the fence and we were greeted with a large U shaped building standing at around 20 stories tall. As per usual, Don took the lead and fearlessly opened the door to one of the stairwells. Myself and Connor felt following eagerly behind with the girls hesitantly close behind us. Throughout most of our exploration, we would open doors and look through the rooms. Most of the time we would find many plates and other objects left by previous owners on the stained rugged floors or broken kitchen tops. As we began traversing further up the complex, we discovered the stairways were weirdly blocked off, so we would have to call constantly move between stairwells in order to get to higher floors. As we were on roughly the 15th floor, I began to get bored from the repetitiveness of the similarity of the rooms. So while in a somewhat drunken state, I thought it would be a good idea to randomly try and kick in one of the sliding glass doors. I know in hindsight this was a really dumb idea, but you don't exactly consider the consequences in the state and mindset that I was in. Either way, my pathetic attempt at this kick failed and I was promptly scalded by the others for the noise it made. In the middle of laughing it off, I noticed Jill's face go pale before she began hushing us while pointing upwards. Did any of you hear that noise? I think there's someone above us. She quietly exclaimed. This was enough to set both Beth and Brook off, wanting to leave immediately. Dawn, however, had a different idea. Then let's go. Hurry. He said while brushing past us to the door. Don has always been like this, disregarding safety before exploration. We didn't even have time to say no. However, we all had to follow him as we all didn't want want him to possibly get hurt, or for us five to be left alone without dawn to guide us. Reluctantly, we all quietly chased after dawn, who by this point began peeking through the doors and windows to each room on the floor above. We were about halfway through the hallway when we saw security flashlights on the bottom floor along with Kate's message alerting what we were seeing. Crap. The sound of the King kick must have been too loud and now the bottom level is on high alert. Simultaneously as this is happening, we hear a large thud in one of the rooms right next to where we are standing. Don froze. I guess he must have initially thought that Jill was joking and tried to play it off as such to freak out the rest of us. Yet I had never seen him so reluctant on an exploration before. We all heard it this time. As we approached the door, we continued to hear slight shuffling from the room. This was enough to send Jill, Beth and Brooke to the other end of the walkway, begging us to leave. But myself, Don and Connor all knew that for the sake of conclusions we all needed to see what was behind that door. Don began to approach the door, turned to knob and pushed the door wide open. I then used my phone to illuminate the room. What we saw next is permanently ingrained in my mind. We saw an older looking man, gray beard with minimal hair cuts all along his right arm, holding a reflective object resembling a shard of glass or a knife. With the most crooked and twisted smile on his face. The crimson red liquid was splattered all over the carpet and next thing I know, Don and Connor have already begun fleeing the scene. I too followed closely after them. It was hard to tell if he was chasing us, but assuming the worst, we nearly fell down the flight of stairs desperately trying to get away. Once exiting through the first floor, we were quite quickly detained by the security staff, clearly seeing the distress on each of our faces as we tried to communicate the situation we had just witnessed. Long story short, the cops were called to investigate the building and find the man and roughly half an hour later they came out with the man in cuffs. He looked filthy and evil as he gave us one last grin before entering the police car. One cop who had been up there told us that it was a good thing we got away from there as his intentions were very clearly awful. Safe to say that we didn't go to any more clubs that night. The next morning I woke up and checked my phone to be introduced with a flood of messages on our group chat. I scrolled up to the beginning to see that Connor had sent a news article published this morning stating that a homeless man had been murdered and his body was discovered within the apartment complex that night. This sent chills down my spine as I recalled that image of him and the amount of blood pooled on the ground and down his arm and worst of all, that insane crooked smile since this event two years ago, none of us have been exploring abandoned places and in all honesty, I think it's going to stay that way for a really, really long time. I just want to start by saying that I live in northern Ontario near a very small village that I'll leave the name out of for privacy reasons. My friend and I, both 14 at the time, who I'll call Steph wanted to hang out once school was out. At some point during summer break she messaged my mom through her mom's cell since we both didn't have phones at the time asking if I wanted to hang out. I thought it would be fun and agreed to meet up with her. She lived a little ways out of town, but we made plans to walk the 20 minutes to get to town and hang out there. I arrive at around 2 and we begin our trek. Most people are always saying how small and innocent their area is and how nothing happens, but this town is quite the opposite. It's actually a hot spot for trafficking, drugs, drug busts, assault, you name it. Regardless, our tiny 14 year old old brains thought since we had never actually witnessed any of that, we should be safe to walk around town by ourselves, right? Wrong. We were so wrong and you will soon find out why. We finally reached our destination and found a convenience store where we could buy some candy and sit on the curb. You know, regular kid stuff. Another friend of mine lived in town Town and Steph decided it would be a perfect opportunity to show me where he lived. We are weaving our way through the back roads when we get to this really sketchy rundown street. We pass an auto shop with the garage door wide open and see a man working on a vehicle. I nod politely and we continue on our way down the street, passing by all of the seemingly empty houses because it's the 21st century tree and no one goes outside anymore. We come across a house with an old disheveled looking man in the yard. He looks to be around 50 or 60, with completely white hair, a very long and equally white beard. We only noticed him because of how odd he was sitting, like he was sitting normally in a lawn chair, but the back of the chair was on the ground and his legs straight in the air. Just then he spotted us and called towards us, can you come help me? In a loud, demanding tone. We stopped and looked at each other and I moved to go over to him when Steph put an arm in front of me. I look at her and say, I think he fell over, we should help him. And she tells me there's no way at our size we could lift him up. The man starts scrambling, screaming at us to get over there and it no longer sounds like he wants help. My heart starts racing and I look around frantically because I want to help him, but my gut feeling says this situation is very off. Why can't he just roll over onto the grass and get up? There's no wheelchair or walking stick in sight, so I'm doubting he's paralyzed. He's continuing to scream at us, saying get over here. Now I suddenly remember the man in the garage just a few meters down the street and I tell Steph if he really needs help, we should go get that man. She agrees and we tell the old man that we're getting help and we'll be back in a minute. We race down the street as fast as we can and stumble into the garage, huffing painfully and trying to get out the words. There is a man down the street, he might be hurt. It looks like he fell without question. The man in the shop follows us to the property. We halt in front of the house, confused, and he looks at us with question on his face. The yard is empty, the chair is gone and the old man is nowhere in sight. We were gone for not eating even a minute. Even if he did get help in that time, they wouldn't have had time to disappear so quickly. We told the mechanic guy that he was just here screaming at us to help him. He explains that maybe the guy got up himself and just walked inside and though I doubted that theory, I nodded my head in agreement. He later gave us some water bottles and we thanked him and went on our way. I still think about it to this day and every time I just become extremely perplexed with the whole situation. Where did he go? I still live near that town seven years later and I go to town at least three times a week, yet I have never once seen him. Maybe he really did just get up himself, but the tone in his voice. This is what put me off. And why would someone happen to have a lawn chair directly in the center of their yard facing their house? It makes no sense, but nonetheless, I hope I never see him again. I have had four separate encounters with deadly venomous snakes. It's like I attract them or something. My first encounter was when I was a little girl. I lived on a farm and was sent out to collect fresh eggs for breakfast. So I get my egg basket and walk out to the chicken coop. Little did I know there was a deadly predator in the coop I was entering. I picked up the first hen, got her eggs, patted her head and went to the next box. When I stepped up to the next sitting hen, it you thought this was your run club era? Turns out it was more of a thinking about Run club era. The good news? Someone's marathon training is about to start. Sell your workout gear on Depop. Just snap a few photos and we'll take care of the rest. They get their race day fit and you get a payout for trying. Someone on Depop wants what you've got. Start selling now, Depop Where Taste recognizes taste.
- [43:29]
Narrator
This episode is brought to you by State Farm. You know those friends who support your preference for podcasts over music on road trips? That's the energy State Farm brings to insurance. With over 19,000 local agents, they help you find find the coverage that fits your needs so you can spend less time worrying about insurance and more time enjoying the ride. Download the State Farm app or go online@statefarm.com like a good neighbor, State Farm is there. Spring just slid into your DMs. Grab that boho. Look for that rooftop dinner, those sandals that can keep up with you, and hang some string lights to give your patio a glow up. Spring's calling.
- [44:06]
Storyteller
Ross.
- [44:07]
Narrator
Work your magic.
- [44:10]
Storyteller
Felt like someone had hit me in the back of the leg with a baseball bat. I screamed and went to turn around and that's when I saw this snake slithering off. My granddad came Running out to see what was wrong. I told him there was a snake and that it had bitten me. He got a shovel and took care of it. Turns out it was a rabbit. Rather cranky and large. Western diamondback rattlesnake. I spent several weeks in the hospital. Almost died a couple of times. But here I still am. So fast forward several years later. I am probably 9 or 10 years old and sitting with my uncle and brother in a fishing boat trying to catch something for a fish fry. We were out on a friend of my uncle's property. A big, huge, huge pond full of fish. I wasn't really super excited sharing a boat with my brother, so I was a little sullen. I brought my portable walkman to drown out the boys and sat down on the bottom of the boat to get comfy and wait till this all was over. I was jamming to my tunes and must have drifted off. The next thing I know, over the music, I can hear my uncle screaming at me. Me. So I turn the tunes down, look up at my uncle and he has this look on his face like I have never seen before. It was pure unadulterated horror. So I'm sitting here too terrified to move because I have no idea what has gotten him so upset. And that's when I feel something touch my hair. Just a small little flicker, but I still don't move. My uncle then proceeds to grab his weapon and a boat oar. He's pointing his weapon right over my left shoulder. And that's when I turn ever so slightly to see a black snake head crawling up the boat right beside me. I lost it. I screamed and jumped at the same time my uncle fired. Turns out it was a water moccasin or a cotton mouth. Fast forward another several years. I'm a teenager now and working alongside my father and his buddy, laying carpet in some old rundown trailers. You know, for side teenager money. It was summertime and hot. We were working on this particular nasty old trailer, trying to get it livable again, which I couldn't see, but whatever. So my dad's friend gave me my tools and carpet and told me to go in and do one of the bedroom closets in what would be the kids room. It was a rather large walk in type closet, but I was having trouble seeing anything because of the lack of light. So I go in this closet and go to the far corner and start working on pulling this nasty old carpet out. So I'm pulling and yanking and cussing when I hear a sound. Sound that sends shivers down my Spine. It's the sound of a rattlesnake. I didn't try to move because I wasn't sure where he was. It was dark and I wasn't trying to get bit again. So I go screaming for my dad, which he's a lot of help because he's terrified of snakes too. He walks into the room, hears that sound and runs out. Luckily, my dad's friend wasn't quite so afraid. He walked outside and got a bucket, used a stick to pick up this snake and got it back outside where it belonged. Now here's my last snake experience. I'm dating this guy who has a wood burning fireplace in his house. So one morning we are out on a friend's property cutting some wood for firewood. Yes, I have been out there with them cutting these trees. We had been out in the woods since the sun came up, working our butts off. It was around lunchtime and I was about done for the day. So I grabbed my drink and scouted the nicest place to sit and take a break for a bit. There was a nice little break in the trees and turned into a nice rocky area with some rather nice and large rocks for me to sit down on. The sun was shining, it was starting to warm up. Just an all around beautiful Ozarks day. So I pick out the flattest rock I could find to rest on. So I sit down to take my rest. I am sitting on this rock for maybe 10 to 15 minutes, just taking it easy, enjoying the day. And the guy I was with walks up to me, looks down and then jumps back away from me like three or four feet. I looked at him like he was nuts. He said, enjoying yourself? And I said, yes I am. It's a beautiful day. He looks at me and says, you do realize that you are sitting right beside the biggest copperhead snake I have ever seen, right? My whole body went cold. I started to sweat. If I move, he's gonna bite me. I know it. I looked down ever so slowly and this snake is literally snuggled up next to my right thigh. I have no clue what I'm going to do. I can't move. And this very large, very venomous snake is content to just sit right here and snuggle with me all day in the sun. I am dying inside at this moment. This stupid situation. Situation couldn't get any worse. Except it could. I drank my whole bottle of water and now I have to go to the bathroom. I'm not going to be able to sit here all day and I'm freaking out. So my boyfriend and his buddy decide to try and distract the snake so I could make a mad dash away. They tried sticks, they tried rocks, anything and everything they could could. My situation was getting on the urgent level with my bladder, so I told my boyfriend to go and get my jacket out of his truck. I was gonna have to do this myself apparently. When he came back with my jacket, I told him my plan. He's gonna drop the jacket on top of the snake and as soon as he did, I'm gonna bolt. Timing had to be precise. As soon as that jacket, it got within an inch or two of touching that snake, I jumped sideways off that rock and rolled away as far and as fast as I could. And no, I never got my jacket back either. That snuggly snake could have it. So now you've heard my stories. If I ever die suddenly, at least you folks will know how and. Around the age of four when I was living in Sunrise, Florida, it was known within my family that my aunt's house was haunted. I spent quite a bit of time there as a kid as she would babysit for me. I always had a good time with her and have fond memories of being at her house. I was spoiled by my aunts and uncles since I was the first baby. She always got me the best toys, had the best snacks, and I loved hanging out with the kids who lived next door to her, the oldest, Luba, and her little sister, Happy. Now that I'm an adult, I understand how strange those names are but never really occurred to me as a kid. They always seemed to be there when I was there. I have vivid memories of all of us, all sitting in my Little Mermaid tent laughing and playing house. My aunt had two dogs that would just sit there while we brushed their hair with Barbie combs and put bows in their hair. We called it Dog Makeover. We often did typical kid things. Luba and Happy were such pranksters sometimes. Sometimes they would move the dog's food bowls across the kitchen or turn on a toy so it made noises, hide it and run away just to laugh at my aunt going nuts looking for it. She always seemed confused by the silly pranks and as kids that just made us laugh. One time we were hanging out in the tent while my aunt had been vacuuming the living room. We turned off the vacuum and walked away to do something in another room. We had convinced ourselves that if we turned it on and it stayed in one spot that it would suck all the way through the other side of the earth. So Luba ran over to the vacuum, turned it on and ran back to the tent. We peered out the plastic window of the tent and laughed while my aunt threw up her arms and yelled my name out in frustration. I always remember thinking it was always me who was catching all the blame, but figuring that my aunt just didn't want to yell at the neighbor kids. Over time, Luba and Happy showed up less and less. I thought they were either at school or busy and weren't able to come over as often. After all, we were all getting older and I also was not at my uncle's house as often. After so long of not seeing them, I chalked it up to the fact that that they had moved away eventually. My aunt had her own kids and raised them in that house until they were around four or five years old before they moved out of state. Life had gone on as it does and Luba and Happy were just a fond memory that I would often think back on and wonder how they were doing or where they were at in life. Fast forward to 10 years later. I am about 14 or 15 years old. Our family had all lived in different states at this point, so when we would gather around the holidays, we always had catching up to do and walks to take down memory lane. A conversation came up about childhood friends between my mom and aunt and all the memories of Luba and Happy came flooding back to me. I was thinking to myself, I wonder if my aunt might know where they're at now. So I chimed in and asked her if she remembered Luba and Happy. She contemplated it for a moment. You could see her trying to think about it. She asked me with a very confused look on her face. Luba Happy? I have never known any kids with such strange names. I went over everything I knew about them. You know, the neighbors by your house and in Florida, the ones always messing with you. And you would blame me. My mom snapped her fingers and said, oh, at the haunted house. I was very confused when she said this as I had no knowledge of her house being haunted. My aunt, still looking confused, responded, that house was definitely creepy. I don't remember any kids ever being there other than you and your cousins. You had imaginary friends. I was absolutely certain that these friends were not imaginary. After all, I knew as a kid that other kids often had imaginary friends and I would wonder how is that even possible to create an image of a whole person in your head? I insisted that they were actually there. I knew they were there, but she seemed very set on the fact that they were not. Her and my mom started to go back and forth. Remember the dog bowls would just slide across the kitchen floor or the toys in the other room turning on at the very bottom of the toy box. I literally just sat there and could not believe what they were saying. I thought for sure they had lost their minds due to old age. Those kids were there. They moved the dog bowl and played all the pranks. I saw it with my own eyes. My aunt told me there was definitely a lot of creepy things that happened in that house. At first I thought you had been behind all the things turning on and off or moving around because I had to rationalize it. I realized after some time that something weird was going on, but decided to ignore it since I don't really believe in that kind of stuff. Stuff anyways. My jaw was on the floor. Folks. I was so creeped out. I was so confused. I had imaginary friends. What? My family was all in agreement about the ghosts in the house. Nodding and reassuring each other. I finally said out loud, so I had imaginary friends named Luba and Happy. I need to be in therapy about this time. My cousin had rounded the corner to the dining room we were all sitting in and in the giddiest voice said, luba and Happy. They were my friends. We all kind of looked at her in silence and then looked at each other before someone blurted out, wait. You saw Luba and Happy too? Without missing a beat and not realizing what the big deal was, my cousin confirmed to us. Of course, they were always at my house and always in my playroom. They used to play pranks on Mom. Everyone sat in shock. Nothing made sense. All the kids in my family who had set foot in that house over the years knew Luba and Happy. I don't think the odds are that great of having the same imaginary friends your cousin did. Years apart, we filled my cousin in on the haunting of the house. She was equally as creeped out and you could see a little shiver of fear go down her spine right before she said, I always wondered how they could go in and out through the walls of the playroom. This will be the first time that I'm sharing my story. I have never told anyone about this before because I'm scared of the way people will react, but here we go. This event happened back in 2016 when I was 26. Me and my best friend, I'll call him Tanner, were out drinking at your typical local Irish pub. Tanner was there with his girlfriend, who I've also been friends with for a few years. I'll call her Sarah. Me And Tanner started drinking early and Sarah got there later around 9pm I remember Sarah being mad at me for letting Tanner get as drunk as he was. Sarah chilled out after I ordered a few rounds of tequila for us and we resumed having a good time laughing about all of the funny times that we have had together. Me and Tanner originally went to the pub to watch a live band that we have seen a bunch of times perform. But for some reason they never ended up showing up. So we just continued to drink beer after beer and shot after shot. I admit I was really drunk, but I can say for a fact drinking alcohol had nothing to do with whatever was about to happen to me. Tanner and Sarah started arguing about something. I can't remember what it was, but it was probably something stupid because those two were always getting mad at each other over nothing. Tanner ended up saying something like, fine, we'll just go home right now then. And I remember feeling bummed out that my best friend was gonna leave when we were having such a good time. I convinced them to stay for one more shot on me. I told the barmaid to bring another round to the table. Tanner and Sarah asked for their bills and I got up to go to the bathroom. When I was taking a leak at the urinal, I felt kind of dizzy for a second and thought I might have to throw up. I thought to myself, maybe it was a mistake ordering another shot. As I was walking out of the bathroom, I saw Tanner and Sarah looking at me, already holding their shot glasses in the air, saying, come on, come on. Tanner handed me my shot. We banged the glasses together and said, cheers. Tanner and Sarah got up. I gave them both a hug and we said our goodbyes. I asked, how are you guys getting home? Tanner said he was just gonna drive. I said, just get a cab. You don't want to get pulled over or crash your new car. He argued with me, saying it was only a five minute drive and it wasn't worth leaving his car at the pub to take a cab. I told him again that I thought it was a bad idea, but he kept saying it would be fine. So I gave up trying to get through to him. He said he would text me when they got home and I said something like, okay, I'll be waiting for it, waving my phone at him. After around 30 minutes, I still had not received a text, but to be honest, I kind of forgot about it as I was mingling with other people at the pub. That's when I felt my phone vibrate. It was Sarah calling me. I answered her call and was about to say something like, took you guys long enough. But before I could say anything, she was yelling into phone, crying, saying something I couldn't make out. I said, calm down. What's going on? She said, they got into an accident. She was crying so much I could barely make out what she was saying. I kept asking questions like, how bad is it? Is Tanner hurt? Are the police there? Then she started hysterically saying over and over, he's not waking up. I think he's dead. Then she said that she saw the police cars coming and hung up on me. My heart sank to my stomach. I tried to call her back probably 10 times, but no answer. I didn't know how to react as I was in pure shock and felt like I was going to throw up. I ran to the bathroom and threw up into the sink. I was looking at myself in the mirror and all I could feel was anger. I started punching the walls of the bathroom and screaming. I sat on the ground by the sink and thought about how it was all my fault. If only I would have taken his keys. If maybe I didn't ask him to hang out that night, this all could have been avoided. I picked myself up and wiped the tears out of my eyes. I didn't want to be here anymore. People were looking at me, laughing. I just wanted to pay my tab and leave. When I left the bathroom, I came around the corner to where my table was and I couldn't believe my eyes. I saw Tanner and Sarah holding their shot glasses, saying, come on, come on, hurry up. I froze. I didn't know what was happening. I didn't know if this was even real. Tanner said something like, you don't look too good. I grabbed him and started saying a bunch of jumbled nonsense, trying to explain what just happened. He then laughingly said something like, maybe you don't need another one of these. I let out the biggest sigh of relief and teared up again. I was so confused, but also so relieved. It was the same feeling you get when you awake from a terrible nightmare and realize you're safe in your own bed. I sat there speechless for a second. Tanner and Sarah took their shots and then Tanner grabbed his keys. I said, tanner, wait. How are you getting home? He said he was just going to drive. As they lived only five minutes away, I started to freak out. I felt the whole event I had just witnessed was happening again. I yelled, no, give me your keys. I'm paying for your cab home. He was saying something like, what's your deal? It's all good. I said no, trust me, it's not a good idea. I pulled cash out of my wallet and said, here, take it. I also said that I would drive him back to the pub in the morning to get his car. He said, all right, thanks man, and that is probably for the best. I remember watching them leave feeling so confused as to what was going on. I yelled across the bar, message me when you get home, waving my phone in the air. Sarah waved goodbye and Tanner just smiled as they walked out the door. I sat at my table with my head in my hands for about 10 minutes, then felt a buzz from my phone. It was Tanner. He said, thanks for the cab, I'm home and that he was worried about how hungover he was going to be in the morning. I could feel an intense weight being lifted off my chest and I finally called my own cab home. For the next few days everything felt weird to me. I didn't know what to think of this thing that happened. I didn't know if I should go see a psychiatrist or talk to my friends and family about it. I decided to keep it to myself because I have always been scared of what people would think of me after telling them this insane story. I have been thinking about this almost every day for the past few years. It brings me closure to finally share my story, even if it's anonymously. I feel like for some reason something gave me another chance to save my friend. I don't know what this is or why it happened. I just pray something like this never happens again. I live with my mom and dad here in Escambia county here in Florida. One evening me and my mom are just sitting around watching TV when we hear some shouting coming from the street outside. At first my mom just shakes her head and makes some comment about the neighbors being noisy again and we just carry on walking watching the show. But as this shouting gets louder and we start to hear this revving engine sound, she turns down the TV a little and we start to listen in to what it was. It sounded like the shouting was coming from right outside our house by that point. So I got up to take a peek around the TV room curtains to see what it was. In the street outside is a kid in his underwear who's just facing down a truck. He's shouting at the driver who is shouting back and from what I could make out the argument is over the truck driver wanting the kid to do something and the kid refusing. I could tell from the way that the kid was addressing the driver that it was Some kind of family argument. A gut feeling that was confirmed when the kid eventually called the driver dad at one point. The argument peaks in intensity at one point and the two people are just screaming at each other with the driver kind of leaning out of the driver side window when all of a sudden the driver leans in, revs the truck engine and legit tries to run the kid over in the middle of the street. Luckily, the kid reacted just in time, dodging the truck and running into one of our neighbor's front yards as it sped past him. My mom, who was also watching by that point, gasps and says oh my gosh. And we watch as the truck does a U turn in the street, preparing to make another pass on the kid. But the kid isn't about to let that happen and runs across some yards in the direction of our house, banging on the front door and screaming for help. We just reacted, running to the front door and letting the kid inside as the the truck screamed past again, the driver shouting out the window as it came to a stop. We slammed the door closed and my mom runs to call the cops as I try to comfort the kid even though he's basically in his underwear and I am in no mood to be hugging a half naked teenager no matter how panicked he is. The kid's dad starts banging on our front door now, shouting about how he knew his son was in there and for him to to come out so that he could face the music or whatever, trying to ignore all the commotion. I remember asking what had happened to cause such an intense family argument. And you will seriously not believe what the kid said next. He tells me straight up, basically no matter how much his dad wants him to, he will not take a bath ranting about how he's a grown up and he can do what he wants and he won't just do what people tell him to do, how he's perfectly capable of looking after himself and he doesn't need anyone to be keeping tabs on his personal hygiene. It's only then that I start to notice just how bad this kid smells, how his breath smelled awful and his skin was greasy looking. He obviously hadn't bathed in quite a while. And although there's obviously no excuses for trying to run someone over for something like that, I started to understand why his dad had gotten so frustrated. Now this whole time the dad is banging on the door saying he's not going to leave until his son comes out. But my mom had come back to tell us that the cops were on their way and that everything was going to be okay. But as she's talking to the kid, she had pretty much the same reaction as me. And there's a moment where she stops talking for a second and her nostrils flare from where she started to get an idea of how bad the kid smelled. And again, with the same air of indignation, the kid tells my mom that no one is going to be the one to tell him to take a bath, how he's a grown man, he wasn't, and how he can make his own decisions. My mom's face when he was telling her this was just a picture like me. She could literally not believe what she was hearing. Nor could she believe the kind of situation that we had gotten ourselves involved with. Eventually, the cops showed up and tried to talk to the dad as he was screaming profanities at our front door. We watch from the window as he gets into a seriously heated argument with them to the point that they wrestle him to the ground before they detained him. This gave an opportunity to talk to the cops ourselves. And as crazy as the whole situation was, we had to tell them the truth of the matter, that the dad had actually tried to run his kid over, which was basically attempted murder. Naturally, the cops agreed and they arrested the guy, but not before asking him if he had in fact tried to run his kid over. The guy responded, he's my son, my son. I'll raise him how I want. If he doesn't do what I tell him, I'mma whip him. Basically confirming that he had tried to hit him with his truck. He was slurring his words the whole time, and it hit me at one point that the guy was pretty drunk from the way he was shouting and slurring at the cops. Definitely not a wise move on his part. That was all the cops needed, apparently. So they put him in the back of their patrol car and took him to jail. That was most definitely one of the craziest things that's ever happened to me. And I suppose it doesn't help the whole Florida man thing that a guy might try to run over his kid for not taking a bath. I suppose given the behavior of his kid, that this might be more like a Florida men story or like a Florida family story. But I promise not everyone here is totally crazy. No matter how much the media makes it out that we're all just nuts. But saying that since I moved out of state for college, it's definitely something that I've noticed about living further up the east coast. Sure, there's crazy people everywhere, but the concentration of crazies in Florida is definitely higher than most other places. I'm just glad the situation that night got resolved. And as weird as it was, the outcome was considerably more preferable to just watching a half naked kid get murdered by his own father. I would much rather just smell some body odor than watch someone die, that's for certain.