The Delivery
01:09:40 Share

Dear old work platform, it's not you, it's us. Actually, it is you. Endless onboarding? Constant IT bottlenecks? We've had enough. We need a platform that just gets us. And to be honest, we've met someone new.

They're called Monday.com, and it was love at first onboarding. They're beautiful dashboards. They're customizable workflows that is floating on a digital cloud nine. So no hard feelings, but we're moving on. Monday.com, the first work platform you'll love to use.

Whether thou art a ghost that hath come from the earth, or a phantom of night that hath come, or one that lieth dead in the desert, or a ghost unburied, or a demon, or a ghoul, whatever thou be until thou art removed, thou shalt find here no water to drink. Thou shalt not stretch forth thy hand to our own. Into our house enter thou not. Through our fence break through thou not.

We are protected, though we may be frightened. Our life you may not steal, though we may be scared to death.

Welcome to Scared to Death, Creeps, Peepers, Roberts, and Annabelles. I'm Dan. Hello, Dan. I'm Lulu. Hello, Lulu. Hello, sir. We hope 2025 has started off well for you all. Recording this episode will be the last bit of work we do podcast-wise in 2024. Yeah, literally New Year's Eve right now. Yep, New Year's Eve. So we are a bit out of time, which actually fits in with one of my stories today. Oh. You're out of touch. I'm out of touch.

Is that how the song goes? Is that right? Yeah. Sweet. Oh, God. Hall and Oates. Yeah. No announcements. Wow. So we'll just preview some stories.

What listener submitted paranormal stories do you have for us today, Lindsay Lou Who? Well, Daniel Dudu, I have two. I have my first story up is just a classic, fun haunted house story. I mean, it's never fun to live in a haunted house, but and we get that. But also like it could be worse. Okay.

Okay, so I really dig this one. And then my second story is so strange. It's so weird. And it just happened to fall into my lap. It's about the call of the void. And recently, maybe one to three episodes ago, well, by the time you guys hear this, maybe more like three to five episodes ago, I was like, what is it called when you're driving down the road? And you're like, I want to just... Oh, uh-huh. The call of the void. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And so when I was putting together stories for this year,

I was pumped when I saw this. I was like, do say more. Okay. So that's all I'm going to tell you. And I am excited to share. I'm excited about mine as well. My first of two stories, I have the anonymous claim of a man who believes he encountered something evil and

something not human, while out delivering pizzas late on a Friday night. Okay. I can see that being like a scenario that would happen. Yeah, you don't know who's living in the house that you're going to, what's going on there. Right. I hadn't really thought of that before, like the pizza delivery angle of, you know, like late night deliveries and the weird spots people find themselves in that way. Yeah, yeah. Interacting with the paranormal. Yeah.

So yeah, so did someone or something order a meal to be delivered to them? And was that meal supposed to have been the person bringing the pizza instead of the pizza? For my second story, I'll cover the infamous Mobley-Jordan incident.

Back in 1901, did two noted academics, Charlotte Ann Moberly and Eleanor Jourdain, slip over 100 years out of their own time for several minutes while on a trip to France? Oh. Did they encounter ghosts, people who died long before they were born, a mix of the two, something else entirely? Very thought-provoking, very interesting tale. Okay. Well, I think this week's episode is a thinker. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah.

So once you've completed your scared to death ritual of slipping in some cozy, spoopy socks, I'll share the first story. How funny are these socks? The undead chicken zombie. This is a story from a long time ago. Yeah. And I apologize. Uh,

To the fan that sent them in, I left the card. They sent a Christmas card with this, with their name and a photo of them. And I left it in the backseat of my car and didn't remember it until right this second. So sorry, but thank you. Loved this story about the weird chicken zombies outside her window when she was a child. We'll blame Kyler. He's been taking our cars since he's been back from college. Oh my God. And because I have the slightly nicer car, he wants to take mine all the time. Yeah.

Okay, so here we go. Thanks for listening to this. I'm not sure what good putting this story here is going to do, but I can't keep it inside any longer. The guys I work with, they all have their demons. Alcoholism, divorce, pretty much anything bad that can happen to a person in their life. But I'd be surprised if any of them are haunted by anything like what I experienced a decade ago when I was 27. I was living at home after my dad had had a stroke in order to help him. He was so young, only 51.

Luckily, he was alive, but we were looking at months of physical therapy, occupational therapy, and speech therapy. And even then, we didn't know if he'd ever be able to get back to his job as an electrician. I'd been working as a technician apprentice on an oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico, working two weeks at a time, 14 days on, 14 days off. The pay was really good, and I had a lot of career prospects down the line if I stuck with it. I got to travel and relax for two weeks out of the month, not bad, and I actually liked the work.

But suddenly I was staring down the barrel of months of doing nothing. Well, not nothing. Hanging out with my dad, helping him around the house, taking care of the yard. But compared to what I had been doing, it felt like nothing. On the rig, if something went wrong in the middle of the night, I'd have to be up at midnight or 3 a.m. in the wind or the rain right next to the other guys. And when we all found some time to finally pass out, we'd take those hours gratefully knowing that they were hard to come by. This was so different.

the easy rhythm of suburbia. Get up at 6 a.m., have dinner in the evening, watch some TV, go to bed, was completely foreign to me. I found myself laying awake in bed, falling asleep in random places, totally disorganized. Sometimes my dad joked that I was in worse shape than he was. He must have said something to my mom because a couple of months in, she agreed to come over and stay overnight, some nights, at my dad's house, even though they had been divorced for almost two decades at that point.

She wanted me to have a little time to myself. I'm sure she imagined me hanging out with friends or taking a girl or two on a date, but I wasn't really in the mood for small talk or to try and start a relationship. I missed work. And that was how I found myself applying for a delivery driver job at a local pizza joint. Open 24 hours a day, seven days a week, sometimes slow, sometimes fast, always unpredictable, just like I liked it. Or at least I thought I liked unpredictability. I'd find out I didn't like something I could have never predicted.

Time now for the tale of the delivery. It was a Friday night around midnight. That was when people started to get home from the bars and decided that they'd like to have a hot pile of cheese, bread, and sauce in their tummies to ward off the next day's hangover or just to get them to pass out faster. Unfortunately, these were also the people who tipped the least. Families eating after their kids' baseball practice on Wednesdays, good tippers. Sunday night couples curled up on the couch with their favorite shows, good tippers.

drunk, typically young people. Sometimes they accidentally handed you a 20 and didn't realize it, but not often. Didn't really matter to me, but it was still irritating. Luckily, I had enough savings from a couple years on the rig to see me through, and it wasn't like I was paying rent or even for food at my dad's place. Because I got that itchy feeling when I was home too long, I frequently volunteered to take the overnight shifts. Driving around at night didn't bother me at all, which is why I was working that Friday, taking a coworker's shift who wanted to get out of town. I listened to Margo, our cashier, take the order.

The brick oven. What can I get for you tonight? Okay, so that's two large meat lovers and an order of breadsticks. What's your address? She scribbled it down on a piece of paper, but then her voice changed from tired and routine to confused. Where is that? Oh, off the highway. Got it. Last house on the end of that road. No, I'm sure our delivery driver will be able to find it. Give us around 40 minutes. And then she took their credit card information down and got off the phone. Hmm.

40 minutes. Our pizzas didn't take longer than 10 minutes to make, and most of the places we delivered to weren't farther than 10 minutes away. And there wasn't another town nearby. For something to be 30 minutes away meant it was way out in the boonies. You cool with that, Trey? Margo asked in a regular non-customer service voice when she hung up. Sorry it's so far away, but management has been really up my ass about getting our sales up, so I figured, hey, all good. I gave her a smile to let her know she hadn't done anything wrong.

I didn't mind driving 30 minutes out to the middle of nowhere. I was just curious about who lived out there and why they wanted a pizza at midnight. Hope they tip good, Margo said as she handed me the pizza and breadsticks. I gave her a thumbs up and headed to my truck in the parking lot. Would they tip well? You had to if you were going to get someone to drive 30 minutes out into the woods, right? Or maybe that was the exact kind of person who wouldn't tip well, some antisocial curmudgeon hermit type. These were my thoughts as I drove down the highway with only a few other cars coming in the opposite direction.

Soon, the four lanes went down to two. The stoplights started coming at longer and longer intervals and then ceased altogether. It was just my lone headlights pushing through the darkness, the dark spidery outline of trees making a bit of canopy overhead. There's someone walking behind you. Turn around, look at me. There is someone watching your footsteps. Turn around, look at me. I jumped, but it was only the radio that had come on.

playing some weird old 60s sounding song. It was loud though, and I never played the radio that loud. And why would it have come on halfway through my drive? I tried to turn it down, but the knob must've gotten stuck because it didn't do anything. Don't crap out on me now, old girl, I said fondly, putting one hand on the dashboard. I'd had this truck since high school, my grandpa gave it to me, and I didn't want to have to get a new one anytime soon. Besides the sentimental value, I didn't want to have to spend a good chunk of my savings when I didn't know when I'd be getting back to better paying full-time work.

"'Easy,' I said quietly, as I went up a hill and the truck started having a hard time shifting gears. I heard the engine groan in the final release as the gear finally locked in. If something was wrong with my truck, I had a whole lot more than a crappy tip to worry about. And I was already worrying about that music. There was something about the song, so unsettling. It had the cadence of a love song, but something about it had this needling energy, almost like the singer knew the person didn't want to see them. And this was the last plea before things got, I don't know, violent.'

If you know that song, you might be wondering what the hell I was thinking. I was probably just more tired than I realized. At the time, it, I don't know, it just felt especially creepy. Let's get this delivery over with, I thought. I now wanted to go home, get some sleep after finding somebody else to cover the rest of my shift. I'd taken over enough shifts that I probably racked up a decent number of favors. The song was still playing, albeit quieter. I guess the knob had finally decided to work or something after a big delay. As I turned off the highway, I was on a dirt road now, too dark to see much of anything.

I wondered if there was a turnoff. I should be taken so I wouldn't go to the wrong house, but from what I could see, there was no wrong house. There wasn't any house that I could see. Margot's words floated back to me. Last house on the end of that road. But the road was going on for so long and my headlights seemed to be getting dimmer and dimmer. I squinted as I eased around a turn and then a flood of light hit me.

There was a big house at the end of the road with every single window lit, making it hard to see all the details of the house itself in the gloom. But from the squares of yellow light, I could tell it was just two stories tall, kind of a decadent old-fashioned house. I could make out the columns and a wraparound porch as well. I could also see the front door. It was wide open.

I parked the truck and got out, scooping up the pizzas from the passenger side and hesitating before climbing the stairs to the porch that creaked under my weight. It creaked so loudly it cut through the humming of insects and the rustling of the trees. The porch was shadowy, except for the wide strips of light from the windows. I approached the front door and peered in. "'Hello?' I called out. "'Pizza delivery!' There was no answer. Maybe they were drunk? Passed out waiting for their pizza?'

I knocked on the door, which I realized was warm, almost the temperature of my hand. The whole place was warm, radiating a kind of intense heat like a body. That was when I heard the voice, something low and muffled, but I couldn't tell exactly what it was saying. It seemed to be coming from far away, but also very close at the same time. Nervous, but also curious, I stepped inside into the foyer, which wasn't the kind of foyer I'd grown up in, a little hallway with a coat rack and a place to kick off your boots, but a grand hallway instead.

A chandelier glimmered overhead, the crystal beads rattling faintly. Such a nice house, to be out all by itself at the end of a dirt road. "Pizza delivery!" I called out again. "I'm just gonna leave your pizza here!" Fucking knew it about the tip, I thought. Setting down the pizza at the base of a grand mahogany staircase? Fucking knew that some piece of shit would make me drive all the way out here and- "Bring it upstairs!"

I could hear that voice clear as day, but there was something really wrong with it. It was hoarse, breathy, like something struggling to break out. It didn't sound quite alive, or maybe like something struggling to come alive, and yet it carried all the way to the ground floor. At least I thought the person was upstairs. Sorry, but I gotta head out, I said in the best customer service voice I could manage. I got a lot more deliveries to make. Bang, bang, bang!

Bring it upstairs!

Nope. Not gonna lie, I was scared shitless. I took off, thudding down the old wooden front steps. I could still hear the banging, the chandelier rattling as I got into my car. Please turn on, please turn on, I thought as I tried to start it. But nothing happened. Come on, come on, come on, I tried again, and the car sputtered a little and then went dead. Just get me home, girl. As I turned the key again, I glanced in the rearview mirror and saw... something. Something stood in the doorway, silhouetted by the light. Something too tall, too skinny, and underdeveloped?

Weak looking, weak looking, but I knew it was anything but. I turned the key again, slammed the brake in the clutch, and the car roared to life. A second later, I was charging down the road with a spray of gravel. When I looked back in the rearview mirror, it was following me, running after me, keeping an easy pace with me. Its wide, grinning face almost to the bumper. I drove faster and faster and faster. I thought it was going to catch me. But then I made it to the highway, and it was gone. I didn't ease up on the gas, though. I was pushing 85, right into town. I was heading back to work, intent on telling Margo exactly what had happened to me.

Then I stopped. I was going through something immensely stressful. I'd left my old life behind. I was working crazy hours, even if I was used to it. So who was going to believe me? Worst case scenario, someone might try to get me involuntarily committed and there would be nobody to take care of my dad. So for his sake, I didn't go back to the brick oven. Or maybe it was for my sake. And I just used that remote possibility as an excuse, a way of not feeling like such a chicken.

Whatever the real reason, I called off the rest of the night saying something had come up with my dad's health and I just couldn't do any more deliveries. A couple months later, my dad decided to move in with my uncle and his wife a few states away, and I went back to work on the oil rigs. Oil rigs aren't known for being particularly safe places. There's always the potential for getting crushed by something, slipping and falling, a fire starting, or something else. But for some reason, I usually feel a hell of a lot safer out on a rig than I do on land.

I think about what was in that house that night often, what chased me down the road. And I wonder if it really was hungry, not for pizza, but for something else. I wonder if it got someone else to feed it. And if it did, where is it now? What could it do if it was stronger? Well, that's uncomfy. Uh-huh. I don't care for that. First of all, what do we know about Lindsay? She hates...

Right. Stories don't have a strong resolution. Thank you. I hate a lack of resolution. I hate a no ending ending. So don't care for that. Don't care for the fact that he didn't give many descriptors on this creature. Like, what was it? Doesn't sound like he stuck around long to take a good look. No. And like, he should have gone to talk to Margo. I think he should have gone back to the brick oven to speak with her.

Excuse me. Because she clearly was like, say what now? Where's this house? Uh-uh. Uh-uh. But she wouldn't have seen anything. No, but maybe there's like a rumor about that house. Maybe there's a story that goes with it. Maybe it's like a murder happened out there. Maybe there's folklore, a legend, whatever. He should have told her because she definitely was like, she was sus about the whole situation.

Do you want to see some pictures? Okay, I'll see something. No pics were attached to the posts. But here's a pic from a website called StableDiffusionWeb.com. It's an AI-generated monster in the doorway. Yeah. Stable Diffusion. And then I found two more just on the same website. Just AI-generated monster in the doorway. What's going on with his wiener bits? He doesn't have a wiener. But he has something.

He has something. I know. His genital area is disturbing. He's naked and doesn't have human stuff down there. Genitals. Stuff. You know, stuff. And then here's another creepy little guy in the doorway.

That guy's face, this little AI guy, his face is altogether too realistic looking. No shanker. Yeah. You should be that for Halloween. Yeah, that's creepy. That's a creepy... We'll start with cutting off your genitals. Whoa! Well, like just repositioning them a bit to match that. That's creepy. Get rid of that. I don't want to watch that. I don't want that. Thank you. Yeah, it is creepy. Ugh. No shank you. Has there...

Okay, in all of your Time Suck true crime episodes, has there ever been a serial killer who gets into people's houses by being a delivery driver? Ooh. I don't... Like, posing as one? Mm-hmm. Because if you really were one, that wouldn't look good. I mean, I think you get caught pretty quick. Mm-hmm. Because...

Well, maybe a long time ago would take you a little bit. Yeah. But I would think like pretty fast, like, oh, okay, there's been somebody delivering pizzas to all these, you know, victims of these murders. Yeah. Because like I imagine they would just like show up with pizza and just be like, oh, I'm so sorry. This is for your neighbor. My bad. And boom, you're in murdering. I'm surprised actually that I can't think of somebody because that sounds like. I've just given somebody the idea of a lifetime.

Well, the... Could you imagine? Oh, my God. The one that is popping up in my head is not pizza, but BTK, that Dennis Rader. Yeah. He would pose as a security installer because he was... Oh, yeah, that's right. Well, he worked for ADT. Now I'm thinking, sorry, it's been so long. He did work for a security installation company. And I'm trying to remember if he actually...

posed as one no no no you know what he would do he would go to a house case it out and if there was a lady there uh that he liked he would come back later and he would know how to disable her security system so yeah yeah okay well that was that was a question i was thinking of i was like how you doing over there i'm good how are you good

You ready to move on from this story? Yeah. Okay. Excited to take you to France in the early 20th century. I see London. I see France. I see Danny's underpants. Or maybe we'll go to the late 18th century or maybe both. Before we move on to a strange exploration of time, we first need to take a quick in-between story sponsor break. If you don't want to hear these ads, please sign up to be a Robert or Annabelle on Patreon to get all these episodes ad-free, additional bonus episodes, and more.

Did you get everything you wanted this holiday season? Did your family and friends knock it out of the park with what they thought you might like? If you're feeling like you're not quite satisfied

satisfied with your holiday haul, then pop on over to Quince and treat yourself to a little something. All of Quince's items are priced 50 to 80% less than similar brands because they partner directly with top factories and cut the cost of the middleman passing along those savings to you, Cleaves and Peepers. While I'm not totally bummed out about my holiday gifts, I was left a little disappointed. I'd

I'd been eyeballing the double-faced merino wool scarf coat, and since no one else bought it for me, I bought it for myself. Every time I wear it, the compliments come pouring in. Y'all better hurry up and get one to match mine because the way I've been showing it off, it's bound to sell out if you don't get it right away.

Treat yourself this winter without the luxury price tag. Go to quince.com slash scared for 365 day returns plus free shipping on your order. That's Q-U-I-N-C-E dot com slash scared to get free shipping and 365 day returns. quince.com slash scared.

New year, new you. That's what everyone says this time of year, right? Well, if one of the ways you plan to reinvent yourself this year is to be more financially responsible, then let Mint Mobile help you out. Mint Mobile can support you in maximizing your financial goals this year by offering you cell phone plans starting at just $15 a month. That's right. Just like you.

Just $15 a month when you purchase a three-month plan. And that includes high-speed data and unlimited talk and text on the largest 5G network. Saving money this year is definitely a goal of ours. After the holiday spending and the kids' birthdays, we always feel a bit out of control. Making the switch to Mint Mobile, like we did, can help you start your new year resolution on the right foot. To get this new customer offer and your new three-month unlimited wireless plan for just $15 a month,

Go to mintmobile.com slash scared. That's mintmobile.com slash scared. Cut your wireless bill to $15 a month at mintmobile.com slash scared. $45 upfront payment required equivalent to $15 per month. New customers on first three-month plan only. Speed slower above 40 gigabytes on unlimited plan. Additional taxes, fees, and restrictions apply. See Mint Mobile for details.

Dear old work platform, it's not you, it's us. Actually, it is you. Endless onboarding? Constant IT bottlenecks? We've had enough. We need a platform that just gets us. And to be honest, we've met someone new. They're

They're called Monday.com, and it was love at first onboarding. They're beautiful dashboards. They're customizable workflows that is floating on a digital cloud nine. So no hard feelings, but we're moving on. Monday.com, the first work platform you'll love to use. Thanks for listening to our sponsor deals, creeps and peepers. And now time to talk about time. The second story, such an interesting one.

For over five years now, Scared to Death has sought out the most wretched, ominous, spine-chilling, blood-curdling reports of supernatural horror. Every week, these allegedly true tales deliver us to some of the strangest, most disturbing corners of reality, to places inhabited by the demonic and the divine, by the ungodly and the uncanny, the spectral and the surreal, by the living and by the dead. And for a few minutes while we read these tales, and while you listen to them, we reside there as well.

But what really is it that makes a place haunted? It seems that it's not always a them. Sometimes there is no poltergeist, no demon, no ghost, no ghoul, no vengeful spirit out for revenge or blood-sucking fiend reaching up from the bowels of hell. Sometimes a place is haunted by nothing and no one at all, yet feels haunted all the same. Sometimes a place just feels wrong.

To be clear, I don't necessarily mean wrong as in morally corrupt or even wrong as in incorrect. When I say a place feels wrong in this instance, what I mean is that even though it might appear completely ordinary and mundane, it feels like anything but. When you step inside, it feels like you've crossed a boundary you didn't know was even there, like you're somewhere you shouldn't be.

It feels grotesquely, perilously incompatible with the very fiber of your being. As if every cell in your body is screaming in protest against you being there. As if the place itself is some sort of rebellion against the foundations of existence itself. It just feels wrong. But why?

Well, it could be because that specific place, be it the ancient ruins of some medieval temple, a corporate condo in a gentrified city, or a random street corner in your own hometown, happens to be a place where the veil between worlds is thinnest. If that is the case, then the reason reality feels warped there is likely because it is straining against a reality of an entirely different kind. Or, perhaps a place unoccupied by any paranormal entity may still feel haunted because of time.

If time is a road, linear, undeviating, stretching perpetually into the horizon, then maybe these places are like cracks or holes in the pavement that no one's bothered to fill in and smooth over yet. Places where time has been dented and broken somehow. Maybe they're different in a way than the potholes on a busy street that flood with muddy water in the rain. When you drive over one, your wheel sinks just a bit, just enough to fill you with unease. You're not going to fall completely into it, but you can feel it. You can sense it.

And maybe on August 10th, 1901, Charlotte Ann Moberly and Eleanor Jourdain passed through one of these spaces of fractured time. And unwittingly, it brought them face to face with things no living being should ever face. Not forever, not completely, but long enough to change the course of their lives and leave them with questions they would never be able to answer with absolute certainty. Time now for the tale of This is the Wrong Place.

Charlotte Ann Moberly and Eleanor Jourdain were respectively the president and vice president of St. Hugh's College for Women at Oxford University. Both were highly esteemed academics and had fought tooth and nail their entire lives to be taken seriously in their field. They were, by all accounts, women of unflinching integrity and honor and were two of the sharpest minds of their time, which makes them such unlikely candidates to claim what they would claim.

On a fateful summer's day in 1901, August 10th, Charlotte and Eleanor were on a holiday trip to France and had decided to visit the Palace of Versailles. Prior to the French Revolution in 1789, the Palace of Versailles served for many years as the primary royal residence of the country's monarchy. Literally dripping with opulent gold and shimmering marble, it's a staggering piece of Baroque architecture, and it continues to draw tourists to this day.

Lots of tourists. On average, over 15 million people visit the Palace of Versailles each year. When Charlotte and Eleanor visited the property over a century ago, the first thing they did was take a self-guided tour around the palace itself, though the crowds might actually have seen anything a bit difficult.

After a while, they decided to give up on the main structure and journey around the rest of the estate. Specifically, both women were interested in seeing the Petit Triano, a small neoclassical villa or villa located in the park of a mansion-esque chateau called the Grand Triano. Together, they made their way to the palace gardens, taking in the sights and avoiding bumping into other tourists as best they could. Unfortunately, when they arrived at the Grand Triano, they were told that both the chateau and its park were closed for the day.

Disappointed, Charlotte and Eleanor headed back for the palace and quickly realized something had gone very wrong. They had taken a fairly simple route to get from the palace to the Grand Triano, yet immediately when they turned around to walk somewhere else, they found themselves almost at a complete loss. It was hard to describe what they were now seeing. Everything looked the same, yet entirely different. It was as if they were looking at someone's memory of the place or at a poorly rendered copy of the place instead of the place itself.

Everything suddenly looked unnatural, therefore unpleasant, Charlotte later recalled Even the trees seemed to become flat and lifeless, like wood worked in tapestry There were no effects of light and shade, and no wind stirred the trees More confused than scared, the women decided to consult the guidebook they'd brought with them But it made no sense From where they were standing, they should be able to find the main avenue easily But it was nowhere to be found

Vexed and increasingly agitated, they gave up on finding the avenue they had taken from the gardens and instead just made their way down an unmarked lane. As they walked together in silence, a realization struck them both like a blow to the gut. They were completely, utterly alone. All day, as they had been navigating their way around slow-walking groups of tourists, there wasn't a single piece of land that didn't seem occupied by some bored family on holiday or a class of schoolchildren running away from their chaperone.

Yet since they had turned away from the Grand Triano, they had seen no one. That was until finally they came upon what looked like a decaying farmhouse with an old plow out front and a lone woman shaking out a cloth outside one of the open windows. So relieved to see another person amidst all the strangers of their surroundings, neither women noted in that moment how odd it was that the house was not mentioned in their guidebook nor on any map they had ever seen.

They did note, however, how strange it was that the woman did not seem to hear them when they called out to her. The image of the farmhouse and the plow and the woman, Eleanor later wrote, was like a tableau vivant, a living picture, like Madame Tussauds' waxworks. And the longer she looked at the uncanny scene, the more she felt a suffocating, oppressive sense that they weren't truly where they thought they were. It was a feeling she couldn't comprehend, a feeling she couldn't describe, so she said nothing of her growing fears to Charlotte."

Unable to get the girl in the window's attention, Eleanor and Charlotte continued walking, and the atmosphere seemed to undulate around them, as if they were wading through thick, oily paint. Eleanor began to suspect that she must have fainted near the Grand Triano, and that all of this was a strange fever dream. But as much as she would have liked that to be true, in the back of her mind, she knew it wasn't. They had somehow entered a place that was both real and unreal, accessible but impenetrable.

They'd never left Versailles, but they were no longer there either, or at least no longer in the correct version of Versailles. Suddenly, the two women found themselves inexplicably standing at the edge of the gardens, directly in front of the Grand Triano. Charlotte exclaimed that this was impossible, as they had been walking in a straight line directly towards the palace, away from the Grand Triano. And they had never taken even the slightest turn to the left nor to the right, let alone gone in a loop completely. But somehow, they had ended up exactly where they had started –

They needed to find someone to help them sort out what was happening, but there was nobody in sight. Finally, they decided to try taking the unmarked lane once again. They began walking in silence back down the narrow passage through the gardens, glancing around them for fear of... what exactly? They weren't quite sure, but both knew they were right to feel afraid. Suddenly, about 15 or 20 meters ahead of them, a man appeared in the middle of the lane, standing perfectly still with his head hung low.

At first, Charlotte and Eleanor were relieved to see another living person in the mysterious maze, but as they drew closer to him, that feeling quickly faded. The stranger was wearing a dark, heavy cloak and large brimmed hat, like the kind one might see in museums or illustrated in history books at the time. When they were close enough to him, they could hear his raspy breath like a death rattle and see his shoulders heave with each inhale he took.

Eleanor was the first to say something. She approached him and began asking if he knew his way back to the palace. The stranger slowly lifted his head as she spoke, and when the entirety of his rotten face was revealed, and he locked his strange gaze onto hers, Eleanor's voice trailed off into a whimper. The man's blistering lips were stretched in an impossibly wide grin. His gums were diseased and receding so severely she could almost see the black roots of his rotten teeth.

The stench that exuded from his open mouth made Eleanor nauseous. She wrote, His face was most repulsive, his expression odious. The man slowly turned up his face, which was marked by unnatural disease. His complexion was very dark. The expression was evil and yet unseen, and though I did not feel that he was looking particularly at us, I felt he wanted to. The stranger said nothing. All he did was step to the side and gesture towards the direction which they had already been walking.

They mumbled thank yous and hurried past him, anxious to move out of his reach. A few moments later, when they glanced over their shoulders, he was gone. On and on the women walked, waiting to see the farmhouse and the plow or any discernible landmark, but they saw nothing. They'd already walked the length of this very lane once before, yet it now felt totally unfamiliar.

Though it looked in essence just as it did when they initially traveled down it, and though it still felt like an impalpable imitation of the real world, just as it had the first time, the pathway now possessed an almost imperceptible quality of closing in on itself, as if collapsing in slow motion.

Eventually, Charlotte and Eleanor came upon a bridge that led from the edge of the gardens to the outskirts of the palace. The bridge, like the farmhouse, was not marked on their map, but they didn't care. They practically ran across it, slowing only for a moment to observe a remarkably odd-looking woman perched on the bridge's edge. Eleanor would write, She was sitting. I supposed her to be sketching. She turned and looked full at us. Her dress was old-fashioned and rather unusual.

They finally reached the palace and inside, they were met with a bustling crowd of countless tourists. Eleanor was so tremendously relieved to see them that she began to cry. The world around her and Charlotte had returned to its normal condition or perhaps they had returned to it.

When the women were safely back at their hotel, they discussed in a very academic fashion their anomalous experience and potential causes of it. Both women made logs of what they'd eaten that day and the day prior to their visit to Versailles to see if perhaps they had been lost in a fever together caused by some stomach illness. But that explanation was quickly ruled out as neither woman actually felt sick.

They also considered that perhaps the anxieties of being in a new country and the excitement of seeing Versailles had overstimulated their nervous systems and disrupted their constitutions, leaving them disoriented. This explanation, too, was ruled out almost immediately as both women visited France regularly and the Palace of Versailles, they had found, was not as thrilling as they had expected it to be. Also, both women prided themselves on their resoluteness and intelligence and neither were prone to having ever been overcome with emotion in such a way.

After ruling out all bodily scientific explanations, Charlotte finally suggested that perhaps the Grand Triano was haunted and the figures they had encountered were ghosts of the damned. This was not an uncommon way of thinking during this period, as both Victorian spiritualism and psychical research, which is the scholarly study of psychic and paranormal phenomena, was both popular or were both popular at the time in England. However, Eleanor was not convinced. Their experience was haunting, yes, but she didn't feel that attributing the horrors they endured to a meddling spirit was accurate.

At a loss, the women decided to return to Versailles the next day to retrace their steps. And to their terror, they found it was impossible to do so. The layout of the gardens was now entirely different. The lane they had walked on the day before had disappeared entirely and had been replaced by unfamiliar footpaths, each one bearing clear signs for tourists, indicating where the reader was standing in relation to the whole of the property. The facade of the Grand Triano too had changed. It looked as if it had undergone a hundred years of renovations overnight.

And when they asked the staff about the farmhouse and the plow, no one had the slightest idea what they were talking about. Most baffling of all, the bridge that had delivered them from their uncanny nightmare back to reality had simply vanished. Eleanor and Charlotte asked the staff and a few other tourists about this as well. And everyone told them such a bridge did not exist. Everyone except for one.

an especially knowledgeable docent, informed them that the bridge between the gardens and the palace did in fact exist at one point, but it had been destroyed over a century earlier during the French Revolution. For the next six months, Eleanor and Charlotte spent much, if not most of their free time researching the history of Versailles and comparing their notes on the landscape to maps from various centuries.

After countless hours of diligent research, they concluded that when they turned away from the Grand Triano on August 10th, 1901, the Versailles they found themselves in was not the same one they had entered that morning. It was instead the Versailles of August 10th, 1792, six weeks before the abolition of the French monarchy.

Just under a decade after their strange trip to France, and perhaps through time as well, in 1911, Charlotte Moberly and Eleanor Jourdain decided to publish their experience and research in an allegedly non-fiction book called An Adventure. To protect their identities and careers, the book was published under the pseudonyms of Elizabeth Morrison and Frances Lamont. This following excerpt comes from the preface to the first edition. It is a great venture to speak openly of a personal experience, and we only do so for the following reasons.

First, we prefer that our story, which is known in part to some, should be wholly known as told by ourselves. Secondly, we have collected so much evidence on the subject that it is possible now to consider it as a whole. Thirdly, conditions are changing at Versailles, and in short time, facts which were unknown and circumstances which were unusual may soon become commonplace, and we'll lose their force as evidence that some curious psychological conditions must have been present either in ourselves or in the place."

Under the preface, there is a short notice from the publishers. The ladies whose adventures described in these pages have, for various reasons, preferred not to disclose their real names.

But the signatures appended to the preface are the only fictitious words in this book. The publishers guarantee that the authors have put down what happened to them as faithfully and accurately as is in their power. So what do you believe? Is Versailles haunted by the spirits of the long-forgotten dead? Have apparitions and phantasms of untold nature taken up residence in its gardens and grand chateaus? Do they creep along its pathways and lurk amongst its patrons?

And on the afternoon of August 10th, 1901, did the esteemed president and vice president of Oxford University's Women's College somehow witness with their own eyes these paranormal entities? Entities who also somehow changed the physical description of the grounds. Or on the other hand, was it not a haunted house that the women stumbled upon, but a rift in time they slipped into? Did they enter some strange combination of life in a different time and spirits?

Is Versailles perhaps a place where the ever-flinching, excuse me, where the ever-unflinching time in its steady march towards the future has somehow stumbled? Did a crack in time's pavement once exist there, a pothole in time's road? And if so, has it been filled in or does it yet remain? That is so bizarre. In putting this together, did you by chance look to see if other people had had a similar experience at Versailles?

Uh, not that I'm aware of. Okay. I think this was, uh, unique to them. Yeah. I mean, if it happened a couple more times, some corroboration, that would feel good. I'm sure for, I mean, they're not obviously not alive anymore, but like that would, that would have felt good to be like, okay, it's not just us. And then I'd want to work with those people to be like, what little trap door did we go through? Cause that's what it feels like, you know? Yeah. A little Alice in Wonderland. That's what I thought of Alice in Wonderland. Yeah. Yeah.

So creepy. Yep. Such a weird little story. And then like the like hat man kind of guy. Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Yeah. Just the fact that they encountered other people that were not of that era, uh,

As they were trying to get back. Like, I don't know. There's so many pieces that I too would be thinking like, boy, I must've really had some bad food. I must be really sick right now. I must be in a hospital. Like there's no way I'm believing that this is happening. And so grateful though, that it was happening with my friend as well for some sense of, uh,

Corroboration. Right. I know my mind thought of like LSD, like they're on an acid trip, but acid hadn't been developed yet. Like it hadn't been synthesized yet chemically. Of course you know that. Yeah.

Yeah, no. Yeah, that would come decades later. Yeah. So I have some pictures. All right. This first one, a stereograph titled Petite Trianon in the Gardens of Versailles. Do you mean Trianon? That's what you were saying before. Oh, yeah, Trianon. Yeah. I didn't have my pronunciation guide up.

French is so tricky for me. It's still like I've covered so many French subjects. Yeah. And it's still not like native, like Spanish. Since I studied before, I'm like, okay, even if it's a word I haven't encountered, I'm like, I think I can pronounce it pretty correctly. Uh-huh. All bets are off still with French. It is a difficult language for me. Oui, oui. Yeah.

But yeah, that's a... You can say things like, bon appetit. You could just say that instead of like the actual... Totally. Like you wouldn't say like, you know, the Palace of Versailles. You would just say, bon appetit. The Palace of Bon Appetit. Uh-huh. Uh-huh.

So that's roughly where they were, that first picture. And then this is just a cool picture from within it. And it's so random. I literally just covered the palace or an incident that happened at the Palace of Versailles for TimeSuck 100% coincidentally. Yeah. And just recorded it yesterday. It is such a massive place. I want to go to it now. Okay, let's go. I want to say it's over 70,000 square feet of living space. Oh my gosh.

One of my dearest friends is a dual citizen and she is rescinding her American citizenship and moving back to France. Oh, yeah. Having some health problems and not liking the health care system and getting back and getting treated for free. Yeah. Yeah. So there's that. We'll stay with her and then she can be our personal wee-wee guide. Our wee-wee guide. Yeah, you get it. This drawing looks like a gun. Yeah, it does. Just the shape of it. That's just a map of Versailles included in that book, An Adventure.

And then this is just AI that Molly made with Canva, this program she uses. Just a creepy guy with rotting skin. Like, what kind of, what did that guy look like that they encountered? Yeah, I know. That was so upsetting. Uh-huh.

And then this is just cracks me up. She did. She put in evil Frenchman in the Canva. And this is this is what I decided was an evil Frenchman. OK, that is creepy. It's creepy, but French it is not. I mean, but it is kind of like old timey, like aristocracy, like French Revolution days. That if you just showed me that photo out of context, I would be like, ha ha, French Frenchman.

I think if you show me this picture out of context and you have to guess what country this guy is supposed to be from, I think I would guess France. Well, you can't say that now because you're already shaded by seeing it and having the story in your head. So, no. So, no. I don't know what I would say. I don't know that I would get to French. To France. I might say, I don't know.

English? Just like, he just looks stuffy. Yeah, uh-huh. Stuffy, stuffy guy. Fair. Okay. Are you ready to sit back, relax, and enjoy some stories from this side of the show? Oh, I am. Oh, okay. Now, do you have your Layla? I do. I'm going this week with a yellow one. Okay. Hello, Layla. Let's go. Okay. Okay.

Hello, Dan and Lindsay. I'm Holly from Arizona. We lost our home in April of 2019, so we had to stay with my brother-in-law for a week until we could get a new place. Everything was okay at our rental home until September of that year when there was a fire in the middle of the night in our attic. We thankfully made it out safely with little damage to any of our property, but we had to pack all of our stuff in two days with no air conditioning and very little help.

Three teenagers, my mother-in-law, myself, and my husband. Very chaotic, to say the least, as we clearly have way too much shit. We moved into the only rental home that was available in our kids' school district. No questions asked, sight unseen.

As we're moving in, our neighbor, who we now call Uncle Ed, came over. Uncle Ed told my husband he was surprised someone was moving in as quickly as we were since the last tenants left so fast. Apparently, it was four college-aged women, and they had moved out in the middle of the night just one week earlier.

We'd actually had a neighbor about 10 years earlier move out in the middle of the night as there was some weird neighborhood controversy that we weren't privy to. So it just didn't seem that weird to us at the time that these women had left in that manner. But also, the ladies never forwarded their mail either, so red flags much? We were very whatever about it. We're tired. Who gives a shit what college girls are doing? We need this place so our kids can get to school.

The first few days were fine, and then one night we heard running in the attic. Attics in Arizona are not like Midwest attics. You can't really store anything up there. It's basically just for insulation and air conditioning components because obviously it's hot as hell for 10 months out of the year here. So we knew nothing nor no one should be in the attic.

To be sure, though, we busted out the ladder and popped our heads up there to double check. Nothing. Okay, the house must be settling, right?

The running continued off and on throughout the day and night, which wasn't a huge deal. It was just kind of annoying. Then the light in our dining room started turning on and off by itself. It's a ceiling fan with a light that's controlled by a remote, but the remote is always in its little dock on the wall because we never turn that light on or change the fan settings.

I thought maybe the batteries were low and the system was freaking out. I changed the batteries, but it continued to happen every couple of days. Again, not that big of a deal, just kind of annoying.

My husband lovingly named our ghost Kevin. Kevin was pretty cool, until he wasn't. Or rather, whoever was with him wasn't. I got up one night at about 3 a.m., of course, and a small blonde child in a white dress chased me into the bathroom. She was standing in front of our TV, which is about eight feet from the end of our bed. She was standing in front of our TV, which is about eight feet from the end of our bed.

The bathroom is maybe like four feet from my side of the bed. As I groggily got up and went to enter the bathroom and turned to close the door, I noticed her and she came up at me so fast. I slammed the door so hard, fam. I woke up my husband, who sleeps like the dead, and probably the neighbors as well. My husband was like, what are you doing, you psycho? I told him about the little girl, but...

He was half skeptical and half asleep, so I let it go for the night and tried unsuccessfully to get myself back to sleep. In the morning, I decided to sage because what the fuck was that?

I picked up some sage from a local business and proceeded. Except I didn't open any windows as I was doing it. Rookie mistake. So now I've made it worse. Kevin's fucking running around the attic constantly. My teenage daughter thinks he's in her room at night. And it is suddenly very strangely dark in her room. Like, can't see your hand in front of your face dark. I mean, we live in a prehistoric

Worth noting, the entrance to the attic was right above her bedroom door.

After some quick internet research, I actually saged for real with every goddamn window open. The whole, you don't have to go home, but you can't stay here thing. Peace be with you and all that. It was pretty calm following the correct saging of the house.

Fast forward about a year. Kevin is still around, but a lot calmer. So we were cool with that. Until like a month ago. My husband and I were up kind of late in our room watching TV with our bedroom door open as it usually is until the cat comes to bed. I mean, we're basically Hank's servants. And we were like, what's going on?

It was about 2 a.m. and we saw our son's girlfriend leave his bedroom, which is right down the hall from ours. We thought it was strange because he always walks her out to her car, especially at night. But he never came out of his room.

I waited to hear the front door open, but it didn't. I waited a bit longer, and then I went to check on them. The door was still locked, and her car was still parked outside. I was super confused. I'd had some drinks, but not enough to be hallucinating. I opened my son's bedroom door and asked if he was okay. He was basically comatose right next to his girlfriend. He mumbled something like, close the door.

So I went back to our room to ask my husband about it and this motherfucker says, that's the third time I've seen that girl. Are you fucking kidding me? This guy. Needless to say, that day, even though it was hot as hell out, every window was opened and we saged the shit out of this place.

Kevin is still here, but again, a lot calmer. He only runs around every once in a while. And we haven't seen my son's girlfriend's doppelganger or the little girl in white. And my daughter feels a little bit better about sleeping in her room again. So here's hoping whoever they are, they moved on. Keep your crystals close forever. A 50-50 peeper creeper. Yours truly, Holly.

Thanks, Holly. Holly's all cavalier about this. I'm like, Holly, you got to get the fuck out. Yeah, I like that like mix in that story of, you know, a ghost Kevin who seems fine. And then this, you know, teen or young 20s or something like that, you know, like her son's girlfriend, that ghost. Yeah.

I don't know. I guess they don't know what's going on with that one. They just like have seen it around a few times. Sure. And then the creepy little girl who like moves too fast. That little incident. Like staccato, like that. Uh-huh. Yeah, it reminds me of this like what I mentioned earlier about some places where the veil is supposedly thinner. And so like spirits can like cross over, you know, more often. I do think about that little theory oftentimes like haunted houses. Yeah. You know, makes sense to me like –

Because there's, you know, obviously like atrocities that happen in some houses, really terrible atrocities. Sure. And then no one later reports anything being haunted. And then there's houses where you don't know that anything bad ever happened, but it seems like there's a lot of like malevolent entities floating around. Yeah. Or non-malevolent like this one. It's just like, yeah, I guess there's just some places. It would make sense to me that there's some places that they can just access easier. Sure, sure, sure, sure. Holly's funny too. I know, Holly is funny. And to be clear...

If I get up in the middle of the night and I say something like, oh, no. If I say something or, like, I get up to, like, check on, like, one of the kids, significant others, spending the night or whatever, and I come back and I'm, like, saying this is what I saw. And if you say, oh, her, I've seen her three times, I will punch you. Yeah, just from, like... I will punch you. From not mentioning that? Not mentioning it and then B, just acting like, ah, whatever. Like, motherfucker is the correct response, Holly. No, I would...

I wouldn't love telling you about something like that, but I would just because I'd be worried that you would get so freaked out. But if I saw something, because I've had like moments in the house where I'm like, ooh, it feels weird. I feel like I'm not alone. You know, like tricks of light out of the corner of my eyes, that kind of thing. The weird little footsteps, you know, that we found the wet footsteps out in front of the slider. Like little things like that. That's different than I see somebody who's not you, not Kyler, or not Monroe walking through the house. I'm going to freak out.

Uh, freak out. Yeah. As you should. Yeah. As you should. Okay. Daniel. Oh,

Oh, sorry. I also thought it was really funny how Holly said that they're basically servants to their cat, Hank. Oh, yeah. I was like, oh, tell me about it. Penny is so pushy right now. Pushy pee. Pushy pee. Pushy pee. Right now, she brings us a ball and just kind of throws it at our feet. Like, come on. Come play. Yeah, I like when she throws it at our feet and she stares at it and looks upstairs at us and then looks back at it like, hello. Come on. And then sometimes she'll pick it up and she loves to play in the basement. Like, wow.

She really loves it. It's pretty funny. Like, she's eight years old, and just in the last year, she figured out, you know what? I don't like playing out in the yard. I much prefer the basement. She used to love to play catch in the yard. And now she has no interest, for the most part, in catching the yard, but the most interest in just running her little butt off in the basement, like, and she likes to catch, like, acrobatic catches off the wall and stuff. I know. And we don't have, like, a big basement or anything, so it's not like it's this huge space or anything. It's actually, like...

not that big of a space. But she's always trying to lead us down there. Uh-huh. That's cute. Come on, come on, come on. Come on, guys. All right. Well, let's explore something else that's trying to get our attention. Let's explore the call of the void. Hey, Dan and Lindsay. Hello. My name is Caitlin, but y'all can call me Kate.

I've been binging your entire series for a couple months now. Thank you. One of my coworkers, shout out to Cynthia, told me that this was right up my creepy alley. Thank you, Cynthia. She was not wrong. My story is probably very different than a lot of the ones you guys have read, and this isn't to sound special, or maybe it is.

Have you ever heard of the call of the void? Essentially, the call of the void is where you're driving past a cliff and all of a sudden you feel that need to just jerk the wheel. You're not suicidal. You're not even depressed. You just want to see what would happen. Or maybe you just feel the need to go down.

I've experienced something very similar most of my life. As far back as I can remember, when I would go swimming, it was hard for me to stop. When I say it was hard for me to stop, I don't mean that I had continuous endurance. I'm saying that if I was swimming at the beach, nothing stopped me from going further and further out.

I come from a very long line of strong swimmers. Oftentimes, when I would swim this far out, my father would follow. Neither of us have ever been scared of the water. Not really even scared of what was in it, either. I would swim so far that if I looked down, I saw nothing but deep blue and black. I was beyond the drop-off, and I felt no fear. If anything, I felt the need to keep going.

And worse than that, sometimes I felt the need to dive and not stop swimming down. The only thing that ever seemed to stop me was my father. We would get to a point where we would both turn over to float and stare at the sky. Sometimes my dad would sing a Jimmy Buffett song. Sometimes we would sing Uncle Cracker together. And with the song, Follow Me, playing in my head, I would follow my dad back to shore.

And every time I came back to shore, I would be consumed by a feeling of loss. I could physically feel the ache in my body, and some little voice in my head would say, one day, but not today. A scarier version of this, and the one I really struggle with now, is the call of the mountains. I live in the Appalachian Mountains, and what you've heard is true. There are many things and creatures and spirits that have been here long before people.

They call my name often and insistently. I stay for my children. But when the moon is full and I stand under its light, I feel the urge to run. My heart thumps faster, faster. Cold sweat beads at the base of my neck. My legs ache and my lungs fully expand. My body and mind battle it out. I will not go. Not yet.

The area I live in has many places for people to disappear into. Mountains go on and on, and I want to go with them. Just to see. Just to feel. This is a different void, calling to me. But all the same, it is still a void.

My family is Cherokee and Irish. And when I say I'm Cherokee and Irish, I don't mean somewhere several hundred years ago. I mean, my grandfather is full-blooded Cherokee and my grandmother is full-blooded Irish. We were old school Irish with my grandmother whispering to me about the fairies. My grandfather, the few times I saw him, would tell me stories of our ancestors in the woods. He would tell me how we used to fish and hunt and how we used to be strong swimmers.

When I was a child, not much older than a toddler, I used to scare my family. I had a best friend at my great-uncle's house whom I called Angel Baby. If a toy was taken away from me, I would tell Angel Baby I wanted it back, and without fail, I would get the toy back. The toy would float down from high places or from the locked cabinet. It would suddenly open up. If I was left by myself, even just a few minutes,

My dad swears he could hear two children giggling, not one. To put this in perspective as to how fucking terrifying this is, I was the only child in that house. I later found out this was an old plantation home and many slaves had died there. Three guesses as to who my uncle thought Angel Baby might be.

Things like this happened everywhere I went. I only saw Angel Baby at my great uncle's house, but I had other friends. I vaguely remember seeing relatives come to tell me goodbye, which I always thought was odd, but I never really questioned it. Why would I question something that had been happening my entire life?

I distinctly remember when I realized that they were dead, and I remember the first time it scared me. I must have been in second or third grade when my great-grandmother, on my mom's side, became very ill. She had had multiple strokes and could no longer talk. I remember going to the house they lived in as she sat still as death in her chair. I remember her white curls looked flat and her face was slacked.

I remember her eyes were blank, and yet she was still technically alive. It couldn't have been a week after we'd gotten back home when I suddenly awoke in the middle of the night. I'm not sure what woke me, only that I sat up in bed and I saw my grandmother sitting in the rocking chair in the corner of my room. I didn't understand what she was doing there. She smiled at me, and her curls seemed to sway like they were being blown in the wind. Her curls were suddenly bright, her skin luminous.

She was glowing, and for some reason, that terrified me. I remembered the distinct feeling of her love, and while I couldn't hear it, I felt her say goodbye. This all happened while I hid under the covers and held the thick quilt over my head. Eventually, I fell back asleep.

The next morning, I woke up and went to the kitchen. The first thing I did was hug my mother. Mama, great-grandma Brightman was in my room last night. She wanted to say goodbye and that she loved you. I remember my mother going stiff, telling me that I had only had a dream. No, Mama, she's gone, I said insistently. My mother pushed me away and told me it was just a dream.

A few minutes later, the house phone rang. It was my grandpa, and he was calling to let us know that his mother had passed away in her sleep last night. I'll never forget the way my mother looked at me. I told her everything I could remember about that night.

Shortly after I finished telling her, my stepfather removed the rocking chair from my room. It was like she thought that was the reason for what I saw. It was the oddest thing as I grew up, always knowing when someone had died. It wasn't just loved ones either. It was like family pets too. I tell you this so that you understand what I mean when I say I have always been close to death. I don't remember ever fearing death. I only remember consciously staying here for my family.

I've always known when spirits were near, even if I couldn't see them. I could walk into a house and describe the spirit who lived there. And I was always spot on. When I was grown and finally ready to start doing something with my life, I became a CNA. I loved my residents like they were family. Somehow, that became an anchor for me. I wasn't just staying for my family anymore. I was staying for my patients.

Eventually, I went to nursing school where I discovered I was pregnant with my son. I briefly left the program before re-entering after my son was just over a year old. And then shortly after re-entering the program, I found out I was pregnant again with my daughter. After having children, I have two of the biggest reasons to stay and their names are Lenny and Emma.

But even still, if I go swimming in the ocean, I have to fight to come back. It's so strong in me. I can feel the pull in my bones. I can hear the void calling, but that little voice still says, not yet. For now, I stay because I love my children more than anything. But when they are grown and secure, I'm not sure I will fight this fight anymore. Or perhaps I will find new reasons to stay.

All I know for sure is those I love who died always come to tell me goodbye, and I often wonder if I swim far enough or walk just far enough into the woods if I'll see them, or maybe join them, or maybe I just become one with the void. Who can say? Not me. Not yet. Kate. Kate.

I like that story. I know. There's something very unsettling and yet also very comforting about it. Yeah, and very relatable somehow. Yeah, it's so bizarre. This story has been under my skin for weeks now, and I don't know how to explain it. Yeah, I like that phrase she had of becoming one with the void. Uh-huh.

Yeah, there is something weirdly comforting about that. I've thought about that sometimes. Mm-hmm. About how, like, you know, like, when you pass on, yeah, do you pass on and retain your consciousness or do you just become truly, like, one with the universe? You just get reabsorbed. Well, you know that's what I think. Mm-hmm. You know, I don't think that there's a heaven or a hell and I don't think that there's some moment where you meet some guy at pearly gates. I think you just... And you don't think our consciousness carries on either. Right.

I don't think that I think that. I might change my mind. You know, I think all of this, as I'm getting older, I've never, ever feared death. Never. I've never once been afraid to die. I've known, as we all know, that we're all marching to the same end. I get

devastatingly sad if I think about what the days will look like if I outlive you or you know if something tragic happens like I could burst into tears right now like a full on sobbing if I really thought about the pain that I would feel in losing you or if something horrible happened to one of our children I

I don't get too upset about the future loss of my parents. I know they're going to die and I know I'll be sad, but I don't like, I think some people like panic and start to really hold things tightly. I don't feel that way about it. And I don't feel that way about myself. But as I'm getting older, my family,

I wish that I believed more in something because I think that I would feel less afraid as I'm starting to just like inch into that space of like, okay, I'm 41. I'm by no means old. But, you know, some people only live to 80, you know, and when people live to 80, they're like, oh, they weren't old, but they weren't young. Like, that's a good life. I'm like, oh, fuck, I'm halfway there. Yeah.

And that thought makes me feel a little clammy where I'm like, oh, am I so comfortable with death? Or was I only comfortable with death because I was so young? Felt so far away. Totally. And now is it inches closer? I have...

I still don't think that there's something out there, but I start to wonder a bit more. And with that curiosity, I begin to think, huh, when I'm 60, will I believe or want to believe even more that there's something else out there? But currently, I think you just kind of evaporate. But where does your energy go? And I do...

believe that maybe we leave some resounding energy somewhere. Yeah. Yeah. No, I think there's something mystical out there. I mean, for me, it was that I found comfort in that toad venom experience, that 5-MeO-DMT, you know, or sometimes it's called like the god molecule. But it was such a unique experience. It was for me, it was for a lot of people I've, you know, read about their experiences or watched them talk about it on YouTube or whatever. Yeah. And I don't know, it gave me...

I was surprised by the comfort I felt thinking that I would be reabsorbed in some fashion. Because I thought like the death of my ego would be terrifying. Would like be like, yeah, but that's me. That's my essence. I needed to keep going or I wanted to keep going. And I didn't feel that way. And I felt like...

I don't feel like that in general. Yeah, but it was like a very loving feeling. I mean, who knows? It could have just been like a weird hallucinogenic experience. But it did. I mean, it's been years now since I did it, and that comfort has remained. I love that. And I love that for you. Yeah, I don't have any...

I don't, I already believe that like, so what? When I die, that's it. It's over. And I know you and I have kind of like gone, you know, back and forth on this, but I'm like, I don't need some legacy. And it's like, you know, they say like, you know, you only stop existing when the last living person says your name for the last time. Yeah. You know, there's, it's like, I don't even need that. But,

But I also was somebody who, like, I didn't need to have children. And I often think about, like, people's desire to have children, I think, is incredibly selfish and is incredibly... Yeah, some people's, yeah. Yeah, motivated by legacy. And I don't think there's anything wrong with that. I'm not even... I'm not saying, like, oh, you're egotistical and selfish for doing that. I'm saying...

If not for that reason, why else would you do it? Yeah. So I say that with no judgment. And I'm obviously, while I haven't birthed children, I do have two children, you know, and my legacy will live with them. You've influenced them greatly. Of course. So it's like, it's not like I am devoid of a feeling of how great that feels. I just never had that strong desire inside of me that like I needed something.

To go on. Yeah. Yeah. I don't think that either. I don't, I don't, in that sense, I don't think about like, oh, when I'm dead, what are people here going to be thinking about me? Yeah. I actually don't think about that at all. That's great. I think about like, will my consciousness change?

transform somehow and will my journey in the universe continue? And, you know, I would like it to because I'm a curious person. Yeah. And I just think like it would be fun to explore new things. Yeah. It'd be cool if that happened and you knew it was happening. Yeah. I very often feel like this is not the first nor the last life I've ever lived. I definitely think that there's the possibility that

that I have lived many lives? Because that feeling that you get of like, how could I possibly know this? Or what is this feeling that I have right now that like I've been here before or that I'm meant to go somewhere else? Is that just a feeling that people have when they're exploring new ideas and concepts and versions of their life? Is it because it's the end of

the year and I feel like many of us more reflective yeah I feel especially contemplative mapping out 2025 is it because I've talked about writing a book for so many years like like what is that yeah but sometimes when I sit with those thoughts I'm like no but I've been here before not

In this house, in this body, but just in this space, just in my brain, in my emotional connectedness with the universe, I think, oh, I have felt this before. And sometimes it has taken me further and I've done other things with my life and other times I've done less. So I don't know. Yeah. It's very interesting. So many mysteries. But it all...

I don't know. I never equated that with the call of the void, like what Kate's saying. But I'm like, oh, that's a different angle to think about instead of just like, what would it feel like to drive my car off this cliff? Because I have felt that and thought that so many times. Like a lot of times I'm like, well, what happened if I opened this car door while we were driving? You know, like those kinds of thoughts. But now I kind of think about it a little bit differently. Mm-hmm.

Good stuff. Good stuff. You want to thank some Annabelles? I do. I would like to thank the following Annabelles for, well, this year, you guys, you know, the goal is to cap out our $1 million worth of donations. And so it's only possible because of what the Roberts and Annabelles give to us every month. So thank you. Thank you, Thomas, Greg Ryan, Morgan Thornburg, Kayla Brunson,

Super Grams. Okay, whoever you are, I love you. Jessica Harrigan. Shelby Elswick. Huh. Are you related to a Haley Elswick? Dakota Harbert. Chelsea Piney. And Christopher Lyons. Nice. Nice. I would like to thank the following Annabelles. Zarina Kolakovic. Crankenstein. That's pretty funny. That's pretty great. Rachel Bell. Carol Waddell. Matthew Conrad, Megan's brother.

germaphobe with a J so like Jeremy but like maybe germaphobe Jeremy germaphobe Sarah Evitz Katie Wallace April and Debbie J Kerr from Liverpool fun I only have one spoopy shout out sometimes this happens when we're recording ahead we just don't get as many but it is real funny

To Ebony, from your parents, happy 13th birthday to our skibbity emo princess. Slay girl. Can't believe we are now parents of a teen. What the Sigma? Which, wish us luck. I love all the like... Inside lingo? Well, no, this is like teen lingo. This is how our kids talk to each other. Oh, even the Sigma thing? Oh, yeah.

Oh, bro, where you been? That is our show. Thank you for continuing to send in your personal tales of terror to mystoryatscaredtodeathpodcast.com. You can email us for everything else at info at scaredtodeathpodcast.com. Thanks to Logan Keith for scoring today's show. Thanks to Heather Rylander organizing the My Story emails and to book editor Drew Atana polishing and preparing listener stories for book number six.

Thank you to Sophie Evans for finding the first story I shared this week and to Molly Box for finding the second. We're on Facebook and Instagram where we post pics that accompany episodes and more at Scared to Death Podcasts. We also have a private Facebook group, Creeps and Peepers, full of fellow horror lovers. Big thanks to the All Seen Eyes, the Creeps and Peepers moderators. Thanks for making our online community such a fun and welcoming place week after week. Enjoy your nightmares, Creeps and Peepers. Hope you were scared to death. Bye. Bye.

Add Magic Productions.

I will punch you.

They're called Monday.com, and it was love at first onboarding. They're beautiful dashboards. They're customizable workflows that is floating on a digital cloud nine. So no hard feelings, but we're moving on. Monday.com, the first work platform you'll love to use.