You're It
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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. Oh, I'm Lindsay. You're Lindsay. You're Lulu Marie. Lulu Marie, my new nickname. I've gained a second name, you guys. Being in the South for a couple weeks, Dan just decided like Lulu Marie was more fitting than just Lulu. Yeah, yeah. It feels right. And how about no announcements today? What if we just jump into the stories? Okay. All right. I love that idea. Okay.

How many fan-submitted stories do you have to share this week? Well, my good friend, I have two, which is classic of me. My first one is a different kind of hat man tale. Very hard to explain what is different about it without giving a bunch away, so I will just wait, and y'all will hear about that very soon.

And then in my second story, I have an attachment tale where the attachment begins with one person in the family and then moves on to someone else, which I think is rather unique. Yeah, that is. I just can't recall that happening. So I'm excited to share both stories this week with y'all. All righty. All righty. For my first of two stories, I will only say that a man in his 40s has shared his recollection of a very strange incident from his childhood.

For my second, we'll visit a poltergeist case from Columbus, Ohio. OH. That made national headlines back in 1984. I-O. It is the story of Tina Rush and the so-called Columbus poltergeist. Well, you know I love any story from Ohio. Exactly. Because Ohio is underrated and y'all don't know what you're missing out on.

Once you've revealed your spoopy socks for this week, I'll begin. These socks are so great. These are super fun. Christopher Walken socks. Big thanks to a fan who brought them through the line in Nashville, Tennessee at your last stand-up show. Yep. They're very fun. Yeah.

Okay, so here we go. So our first story today posted online by a self-identified middle-aged man who referred to himself simply as Johnny. Okay, Johnny. Here's Johnny. Time now for the tale of You're It. Last week was the saddest and greatest week of my life. On Monday, my older brother Stan died. He was only 39. Two years older than me, he was my best friend and always has been. He died of cancer. And I think that's all I'll say about that.

On Wednesday, our first child was born. Though my wife, my beautiful, incredibly kind wife, had her heart set on the name Noah, as soon as the nurse put our little guy in her arms, the first thing she said was, we're going to name you Stanley. Such a bittersweet moment. Saturday was my brother Stanley's funeral. The following Wednesday was my son Stanley's first checkup. I'm getting whiplash from all the joy and the grief, and I've been getting lost in memories.

Everything reminds me of my brother. The horribly strong coffee my wife makes every morning that he hated so much. My elderly aunt's selfies she posts on Facebook that he always commented lovingly on. The car sitting in the driveway that I bought from him in 2015. The poster from the movie Willow hanging in our hallway. It's signed by Val Kilmer, my childhood hero. Stanley gave it to me for Christmas this year.

My son even reminds me so much of my brother. I don't know why. He's just a baby, but he does. When I hold him, I have to hold back tears. He's so beautiful, so perfect. Stanley would have loved him.

I've been thinking so much about mine in Stanley's childhood, listening to shitty 90s punk while carpooling to baseball practice, skipping school to go to Rockies games in Denver, road tripping to California to move him into the dorms, fighting over girls, fighting over clothes, fighting over who gets to drive the car. I would give anything to fight with him now. I've been remembering other things too, more obscure things, things I don't remember forgetting, things that are so far gone they don't feel real anymore. This is one of those things.

And this is why I'm leaving this story here. Stanley was seven and I was five. It was summertime. My mom had brought us to the park that bordered a public swimming pool so we could play around while she swam laps with the other boys' moms and tried to get tan. It was a great park for a kid. And it had all the playground structures you hoped for as a kid and more. Swings and slides and climbing ropes and tunnels, plus a metal rocket ship you could climb to the top of. I loved it there. Me and Stan both did.

One of the best things about my brother is he never excluded me. I knew people whose older siblings booted them out of the playground or refused to let them play video games in the basement with them and their buddies, but Stanley never did. He always made sure I was included. And that day, Stanley and I met up with four other boys at the park that were closer to Stanley's age than they were to mine. I still remember who they were because Stanley stayed in contact with them right up until the end. Their names are Eddie, Richard, Rick, and Greg.

My mom said hello to the other boys, handed Stanley a big bag of snacks, then walked around the corner to the entrance of the swimming pool. Even though it was summer, nobody was at the park but me, Stanley, and the other boys. I remember it had either just stopped raining or it was going to rain that afternoon, so nobody was out except for us. While Stanley was always nice about me tagging along, his friends were not. I remember when we were approaching them on the swing set, they groaned about how Stan had brought the baby along. Funny how much of a difference just two years made back then.

I probably said something boyish back like, "I'm not a baby." And they probably laughed. I don't remember. I do remember that after initially saying "absolutely not," they eventually relented to Stan's request that both he and I join their game of Groundies. Groundies was a favorite game of Stan and I's. The premise is simple: my nieces and nephews still play it today. Basically, you play like this: everyone gathers on a play structure, and one person is chosen to be "it."

If you're It, your goal is to tag one of the other players, but you can only have your eyes open if you're on the ground. If you climb onto one of the play structures, you have to close your eyes. And if you hear someone running on the ground while you're on the play structure, you can shout, Groundies! And whoever is on the ground becomes It instead. As the youngest, I was automatically chosen to be It. So while the five of them dispersed onto the play structure, I stood by the rocket with my hands covering my eyes and counted to 30.

When I was done, I opened my eyes and ran over to the jungle gym. They were all gathered at the very top of the structure, balancing on various poles and ropes. They were too high up for me to reach from the ground, so I closed my eyes and blindly climbed the stairs, feeling for the part where the metal floor gave way to a wobbly rubber bridge. "'Groundies!' I soon shouted. "'Nope!' One of the boys responded."

I listened closely, trying to figure out where they were. Then I heard it. The distinct sound of someone running in the gravel behind me. "'Groundies!' I yelled again. "'Still no!' One of them yelled back. Confused, I opened my eyes and turned around. There was no one there. I looked back up at the boys. They were all still crawling along at the top of the play structure. "'Cheating! Cheating!' they all shouted. "'You can't open your eyes! You have to start over!'

Sorry, sorry, I thought I heard somebody, I explained while climbing back down to the ground. I remember how strange and isolated I felt in that moment. I was sure I had heard someone. I was so, so sure. Their footsteps were so loud, but there was no one, absolutely nobody around. I sighed and got back into position. My back to the play structure, my forehead against the rocket ship, my hands over my eyes. I began to count in my head, but someone else was counting too.

Their voice was so quiet, barely a whisper, but I heard it. It was a little boy. He was speaking into my ear. Six, seven, eight, nine. I shrieked and jumped back. Johnny, what's wrong? Stanley shouted from the top of the slide. I turned around to face them. Someone was whispering to me. Someone else is here. I cried out. No one else is here, my brother yelled down. You must have heard something else. Just start counting again. I, okay. I responded completely defeated.

I wanted to believe my brother, that I had heard something else, but that didn't feel right. I walked back over to the rocket and passed my head against the metal. I pretended to cover my eyes while I counted, frantically scanning the gravel around me, expecting to see another little boy's feet appear beside mine at any moment.

Ready or not, here I come!

When I turned around, the other boys were in the exact same positions they'd been in the entire time. As I examined them, trying to figure out who was going to be the easiest to get to when my eyes were closed, something else caught my eye. There! There! He's right there! I screamed. It was the little boy, clear as day. He was crouched on the ground under one of the raised platforms in a little area that had a small table and a spinning tic-tac-toe game on the wall. He was peering at me from behind that wall.

All I could see was a bit of his forehead, some dark black hair, and his left eye. I remembered so clearly that little boy's eye, the way it bulged out of his socket, how round and large and white it was, how it didn't blink, and the way it made me feel. Stanley jumped down onto the topmost platform, then catapulted himself down the climbing rope, yelling back at me, Where? Who? All I could do was point with a trembling hand and whimper.

But as soon as Stanley's feet touched the ground, the boy disappeared back behind the wall. Stanley looked at the spot under the playset I was still pointing at and ran over to it. Then he too disappeared behind the wall. I think I screamed something like, "Stan, no!" and erupted into sobs. A few seconds later, Stanley was standing in front of me with his hands on my shoulders. "Johnny, Johnny, there's no one there. Johnny, it's okay. Nobody, nobody is under there. Johnny, look at me. It's okay, buddy." I don't know how long it took me to stop crying, but eventually I did.

The other boys, who I thought were going to be mad at me for ruining their game, were actually really nice. I remember they all sat with me while I drank a juice pouch and told me that no one was there. And if there was someone there, they would send Greg to kick their ass. I was still embarrassed and shook up, but that made me feel a bit better. What really helped make me feel better was Stanley sitting next to me on the park bench with his arm around my shoulder. He was my big brother and such a good brother. I always felt like nothing could hurt me when my big brother was around.

After a while, Greg said he wanted to play some more groundies. Before I could say anything, he added, I'll be it this time. While Greg continued by the rocket, Stanley helped me climb to the top of the play structure. I was still freaked out, but with Stanley by my side and Greg on the ground cracking jokes and making us all laugh, I didn't feel too scared anymore.

Eventually, Greg closed his eyes and began climbing up the stairs of the jungle gym. I was so distracted by how fast he was able to navigate the structure while blind, I didn't even notice that Stan and the other boys had silently begun to climb down from the top. Afraid to be the only one left and even more afraid of getting tagged, I jumped down onto the platform below to try to catch up. The sound alerted Greg to my position, and with his eyes still closed, he started making a beeline across the rubber bridge. Run, Johnny, run! Stanley yelled from somewhere below me.

With no other choice, I crawled into the slide. It was the enclosed kind, a twisting tube that spat you onto the gravel at a speed that is definitely unsafe for small children. As soon as I got inside that dark tunnel, I heard Greg triumphantly yell, His scream was followed by the sound of one of the other boys shouting, I started laughing too. I was so relieved. I wasn't the next kid to be it. And I began to slide down.

I had never been on that slide before. It was faster than I'd expected. It was too high up. There were too many turns. I was starting to get scared again. I wanted to scream for my brother, but I held it in because I wanted him to be proud of me. But when I came around the last bend of the slide, I saw him again. He was peeking into the tunnel, waiting for me on the ground.

Stanley, help! I screamed and squeezed my eyes shut. When I opened them again, the boy was gone, and my brother was at the end of the tunnel, ready to catch me, ready to help, just like he always is, just like he always used to be. I miss you, Stanley. I hope if we have other kids, like we want to, that he can be the big brother that you always were. I still see that kid from the playground in my dreams, watching me, waiting for me. I wonder who he was and why he chose to only let me see him that day.

I never thought about a playground ghost. Mm-hmm. You know, we had – this story reminds me of one we had a while back that was set at like a – oh, like a gymnastics center. Oh, yeah. And there was like kids tumbling. Uh-huh. And one of the kids tumbling supposedly saw like a kid –

some other, some ghost kid like on one of the apparatuses. Okay. That feels somewhat familiar. Yeah. I felt like he was like up, up high somewhere watching them. Oh, I know what it was. It was, uh, like at a gym and there was the kids area while the parents worked out and they were doing like the, um, the balance beam and they looked up and they did, they saw him in the rafters. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Good memory. Yep. Yeah. Or like, uh, those like ceiling panels that pop out. It was like that. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. That's what I was thinking of. Good memory.

But yeah, so creepy. And like little kids crying at a playground is now going to carry a different weight with me. Yeah, yeah, exactly. I mean, I'm not really hanging out at playgrounds anymore, but in case I am or in case somebody tells me a story about taking their kid to the playground and their kid wouldn't stop crying, be like, well, maybe they had something to really cry about. Yeah, maybe.

No pics attached to that story. Yeah, no worries. I was going to add a few pics of some cool playground equipment, like the kind the kids in the store were playing on, playing that Groundies game on. Yeah. And then I ran across websites. I never thought about this before, where you can buy commercial-grade playground equipment, like the exact same kind of stuff that you would find at a park or a school. Sure, okay, yeah. Yeah, that makes sense. Yeah. You have to get it from somewhere. Right, they have to get it from somewhere. And I wasn't thinking about it. Well, of course, there's going to be companies that cater to schools, parks, schools.

Just any kind of business that has like a private daycare kind of center outside. And I was just curious about how much they cost. Yes, tell me. That was going to be my next question. So this first one, I don't know if you want to guess how much it costs, but it weighs over 7,000 pounds. 59 kids can play on it at the same time.

I'm going to say $150,000. It's $86,795, actually. It's actually not that bad because here's what I think about. I think about a school and how many hundreds of kids go to a school and how much they oftentimes have morning recess, afternoon recess. It would be a very worthwhile investment for a school. Yeah. And an easy fundraiser thing, like help us get a new thing. So it has to be somewhat attainable. Totally. $86,000. Now, there is more expensive ones. Okay. So this next one with so many different slides.

Okay, let's see. Yeah, the last one had one, two, three, four, five slides, I think. Maybe six. Okay. This one looks like it has seven. Three, four, five, six, seven, eight. And there might be one on the backside. Might be ninth back there. This one's real cute. Turquoise and blue. It looks so fun and inviting. It's lighter for some reason. Less metal and more plastic, I guess. 4,500 pounds. 86 kids can play on it. How much do you think?

Well, I guessed 150 on the last one, so I'm just going to stay right there. Okay, now this one's more. It's 199. Okay, okay. Now we're up to the 200,000 mark. Okay. And I'll do one more. Holy crap. This one is an indoor set. Okay, okay. So this is like... Like a Savage Land pizza that we used to take the kids to. Kind of like a Chuck E. Cheese almost set up. Yeah, yeah. I was thinking sometimes you'll see things like this also at those indoor trampoline parks. Yeah, yeah. There'll be a secondary area that's like a...

Ball pits and all. Okay. So this is just an indoor structure, but it looks like. Got all kinds of stuff going on. Like we have a trail system. Super fun. Honestly, I want to like do a lot of drugs and go play on this. Oh my gosh. That's 19 feet high, 48 feet wide, 68 feet long. And any guess on how much it costs? It looks really safe. 500,000. 300,000. So, I mean, yeah. Okay.

So if you really want to be like the coolest grandparent of all time. Oh, my God. You can build a big warehouse on your property and put this thing inside it. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

That wouldn't be creepy at all. Well, yeah. I mean, you know, it'd be for your grandkids. Uh-huh. But then word's going to get out in the neighborhood. I know. Now you're going to have to like either turn kids away or you're going to be the person that has like other people's kids hanging out in your warehouse all the time. Which kids in a warehouse just doesn't sound great. Just doesn't. Doesn't. Not at all. Okay. Okay. You ready to leave behind playgrounds and head to your home state? Ohio! Ohio!

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Do allow me to welcome you to the Horror Hill, a little getaway I know about. Join me each week to get all of the ghastly, gory, and grotesque stories that I've handpicked from the works of previously published and indie authors by subscribing to Horror Hill on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you prefer to get your horror fix. Thanks for listening to our sponsor deals, Creeps and Peepers.

In the spring of 1984, something strange began to unfold in a modest beige ranch style house in Columbus, Ohio. Sort of place you might pass a hundred times and never notice. Nestled in a quiet working class neighborhood, the home belonged to Joan and John Rush, a deeply religious couple who had adopted dozens of foster kids over the years, including one girl who would soon be at the center of one of the most controversial paranormal cases in American history, Tina Rush. Tina was 14 years old.

Blonde, quiet, and troubled. She had initially been adopted at just 10 months old after being abandoned by her birth parents. Like many kids who lived in or passed through the Rush household, Tina had bounced between different caretakers, different rules, and different traumas. But no one, not even Tina, could have imagined the horror that was about to erupt inside her new home. Time now for the tale of the Columbus Poltergeist. It started small, as these things often do.

One afternoon, Joan Rush was in the kitchen when she overheard a loud bang coming from the living room. She rushed in to find a lamp lying shattered on the floor. No one else was home except Tina, who swore she hadn't touched it. And she wasn't near where the lamp had fallen. It didn't seem as if she could have done it. A few days later, the telephone flew off the hook and slammed into the wall. Again, no one was nearby, not Tina nor anyone else. Next, chairs began to rock and slide around on their own.

No one was touching them when they were witnessed moving, but they also seemed to move only when Tina was home. If Tina was out of the house, the house was calm. When Tina was home, the house felt different. The air felt charged. The light more dim. Lights were caught flickering violently while Tina was in the room. Sometimes bulbs burst overhead.

And then one night, Joan was jolted awake by the sound of something pounding on Tina's bedroom door. Not knocking, pounding, like someone was trying to break it down. She ran to her daughter's room and found Tina huddled in a corner, eyes wide with terror. The pounding had stopped. No one was there. But Tina was convinced that something in the house was after her. Something dark and terrible. Within days, all these disturbances escalated. Joan and John tried to keep things quiet, thinking it would all blow over.

That the unsettling phenomena would pass as inexplicably as it had begun. That it would shift from terror to memory. Something strange to someday tell stories about. But it didn't. The activity grew more intense, more violent. Doors slammed with such force they cracked the drywall around the frame. Religious items flew off of shelves. A framed picture of Jesus was torn from the wall and shattered on the floor. And all of this still centered on Tina. She continued to be the epicenter of it all.

No matter where she went in the house, the chaos followed. And now Joan and John could no longer just ignore it. They were worried. No, not just worried. They were afraid. Scared for the safety of Tina and the other adopted or foster children in their home. And scared for themselves. How long until a person, not an object, was thrown across the room? How long until one of the doors slammed violently into a small child? Or an object was smashed into a child?

They could be badly hurt. Or worse, they could be killed. The family started calling in friends, neighbors, and even their pastor to come observe and offer any and all suggestions of what to do to make it all stop. These visitors now began to witness what the Rush family had been experiencing. A close family friend watched as a porcelain figurine lifted off a table on its own and then hurled itself across the room, narrowly missing her head.

A neighbor came over one evening and watched, slack-jawed, as a kitchen chair dragged itself across the floor towards him without anyone touching it. Not knowing what else to do after their pastor tried to cleanse their house through prayer and the activity not only did not cease but seemed more malevolent than ever, the rushes finally called the police. Two responding officers entered their home, took a few notes, and were about to leave when the landline phone suddenly launched itself off the counter and crashed at their feet.

One of the officers reportedly muttered, what the hell was that? Before both quickly exited the house looking shook up. Shortly following word of even police officers witnessing paranormal activity, the arrival of a local journalist, James, aka Jim Messiah, of the Columbus Dispatch, turned the events of the Rush Home into a story that would go national. The Columbus Poltergeist.

Messiah had come expecting to expose a hoax or at least find a troubled teenager acting out. What he did instead was take one of the most iconic photos in paranormal history. He set up in the living room, camera ready, when the landline phone again lodged itself from the cradle and flew towards Tina just as she shrieked and ducked. Messiah snapped a photo mid-flight. The image showing Tina recoiling from the airborne phone ran in newspapers nationwide and ignited a media firestorm.

Reporters from both far and near swarmed the rush home. Paranormal investigators flew in from across the country. Television crews camped outside, hoping to catch something on tape. Everyone wanted to witness the Columbus poltergeist. And for a time, they did. One cameraman claimed the wires on his equipment were yanked out while his hands were off the camera. A producer from a local station said he watched an entire bookshelf collapse without a soul near it.

A noted parapsychologist, Dr. William Roll, believed that the case was genuine after spending a few days in the home. He said it bore all the hallmarks of a classic poltergeist haunting, focused energy primarily centered around a pubescent girl going through emotional turmoil. Tina, he said, could be projecting psychokinetic energy without even knowing it. In short, her fear, her pain, her anger were manifesting physically, but others weren't so sure.

Some thought that the activity was being produced by Tina, or not by Tina, excuse me, but rather that it was focused on her, that something else was tormenting Tina. What was it? An angry ghost? Something demonic? And what did it want? Her soul? Her sanity? Still others thought it was all a hoax. The more attention Tina got, the more skeptics started digging into the claims and looking for proof that all of the witnessed activity was somehow being fabricated.

What they found would cast a long shadow over the haunting. Tina had a documented history of serious behavioral problems. She was known to lie, to act out, to seek attention in destructive ways. And then during one particularly damning moment, a cameraman caught her tugging a lamp cord and causing it to fall while pretending it happened on its own. That clip aired on the local news and suddenly public sympathy soured. Fear and wonder were replaced with disappointment and doubt.

Reporters who had once praised the family began to suggest they had all been taken for a ride, that Tina had orchestrated the entire haunting to gain attention, sympathy, maybe even fame. Tina herself claimed that yes, she did fake that incident, that one incident, but only so the reporters and investigators would get out of her family's home and leave her alone. All of the attention had brought no help, no solutions. If she was going to be tormented, at least she could be tormented in private.

The Rush family, exhausted and humiliated by all the accusations of fraud, withdrew from the media. And shortly thereafter, the phenomena, whether real or fabricated, began to allegedly subside. Tina faded from the headlines. And for a while, she seemed to disappear entirely. But her story wasn't over. Far from it.

In April of 1992, eight years after the so-called Columbus poltergeist activity, Tina, now going by the name of Christina Boyer, was back in the national spotlight and for a much more troubling reason than the first time. She had been arrested in Georgia and charged with murder, murder of her three-year-old daughter, Amber. The little girl was found lifeless in Tina's apartment, her body showing signs of severe head trauma.

Someone had beaten her to death. The only question was who. Tina's boyfriend at the time, David Herron, also lived in the apartment and was eventually convicted of aggravated assault and cruelty to children. But it was Tina who was charged with murder. She claimed she hadn't killed her daughter, that David had done it, that she had been manipulated, abused and broken. But the judge, the prosecutor, the police and then a jury did not believe her.

She was convicted of felony murder and sentenced to life behind bars. The Columbus Dispatch ran a follow-up article titled, From Poltergeist to Prison. The public response was chilling. It wasn't just disbelief. It was not just anger. It was something colder, as if people had always sensed something off about her, that this terrible crime or something like it was almost inevitable, expected. But others, especially those who remember the haunting, began to whisper something darker.

What if the haunting had been real? What if it was not just emotional energy? What if something evil had attached itself to Tina back in that house on Arlene Avenue and it had never let go?

What if that poltergeist wasn't just a burst of psychic trauma, but an actual entity, something ancient, something truly malevolent, something that fed on Tina's pain that had grown stronger over the years, something that whispered to her when no one else could hear, that waited in the dark corners of her bedroom when she was just a scared little girl that twisted her fear into violence?

Something that didn't vanish when the cameras left, but instead burrowed deep inside her like a parasite, growing, waiting, until it emerged and pushed her over the edge. People who lived in the Rush home years later reported no paranormal activity. But then again, maybe that's because the house was never haunted. Maybe Tina was. And maybe whatever haunted her in 1984 followed her all the way from Ohio to Georgia, all the way to that apartment, all the way to Amber.

Today, Christina Boyer remains in prison, maintaining her innocence. Some advocacy groups claim her case was mishandled, that she was a scapegoat, that she was punished for a crime she didn't commit. But others say, no, not a scapegoat, not a victim, a vessel for something evil. Who knows? Perhaps Tina Rush did fake it all in 1984. But what if she didn't? What if something entered her back then and never left?

What if it just waited and watched and then finally pushed her into committing about the worst crime, the most evil act that a person can commit, the murder of their own child? Well, that was a twist I wasn't expecting. Mm-hmm. That's fucked. Uh-huh. But, I mean...

Yeah, I mean, I don't know her other, like, I don't know her backstory, you know? Like, I mean, yes, adopted, but, like, I don't know. Moved through a lot of foster homes, you know, was abused in some of them. You know, definitely not a great overall childhood. Yeah. Definitely had some, you know, psychological problems and would do, you know, act out, which is not uncommon for kids who have childhoods like that. Absolutely. To act out in destructive ways, to get attention. So I understand the argument for...

She was troubled, and then she did something that a troubled person does later. Right. And there was never anything paranormal. Right.

But with all these, it's like that whole like mental health versus paranormal or a combination of the two. Yeah, or just like the paranormal's ability to take hold of you because your mental health is not in a great space. Yeah, we've talked about that before where it like, you know, seeks out people who are less likely to be believed. Yeah, it seeks out people who are already tormented. Yeah, who are already going through it. It's just, it's like a little inroad. Because I think we see that, well, I believe that we see that just everywhere.

outside of the paranormal in general, it's like, you know, you'll have a friend who just like always ends up dating the wrong kind of person. And it's like, but your friend is like this amazing human, so kind, so loving, but also maybe they're easily taken for, you know, it's like, we know different versions of this that are less nefarious, but it's like, it, it all tracks for me, you know, like why that would happen, you know, why somebody who's going through it is more likely to be taken advantage of by someone

An evil entity, a spirit, a dark force. And we've talked about that before, how unfair that is. So unfair. Where it's like, okay, you're already going through the ringer. You've already, you know, you were not dealt a great hand at birth. Yeah. You know, you're getting piled on. And then that's a terrible thought or a terrible possibility to think that there's these entities out there that can be like, oh, this person is already getting constantly shit on by life. Yeah. Let me add to it. Yeah. Add to their misery. It is terrible.

But if, you know, if we take that train of thought and that, you know, evil entities are, you know, the devil's work. Yeah. You know, it's like, then that would make sense. It all tracks. Yeah. This story got huge news. Yeah. It was, you know, during the poltergeist portion of the story, you know, made papers nationwide. It's crazy. Especially because this photo I'll show you, this first photo became really famous. And then actually there was an episode of Unsolved Mysteries.

That was produced before she was found guilty of murder. Dang. And then actually aired after she was already charged and stuff. So it was, you know, kind of messy that way. But yeah, but it got lots of attention. Then, of course, when she was found guilty, you know, another round through the media cycle. Yeah, it just brings it all back up. And then her whole life gets analyzed all over again. Totally. Yeah.

So actually, I lied. This first photo is just a photo that showed up in the paper of Tina Rush. Yeah, she's a cute girl. Yeah, yeah. Taken from like the spring of 1984. This is about the time of the Columbus poltergeist activity. And then this next one is the infamous photo taken by Jim Messiah. Interesting last name too. I was like – I know. That is pretty funny. I know. For anybody like – it's like his name is actually Messiah? It's spelled M-A-S-S-I-A-H Messiah.

But there's other people with that last name out there and they pronounce it, yeah, Messiah. I mean, yeah, phonetically, that makes sense, yeah. So this was put in the Columbus Dispatch and then it was added to other newspapers around the country of that phone flying through the air across Tina's lap. I mean,

I mean, this photo feels just like, forget about the paranormal aspect of it. Yeah. I'm like, well, we're all wearing Sambas right now. So check. Yeah. My kids are wearing this outfit today. So just kind of like throws me for a second there. Yeah. I mean, this is a hard to replicate photo, especially at that time.

Right. Right? You know, like now we would say this is Photoshopped. This is AI. This is, you know, all these different variables. But – and I'm not saying that they didn't have the ability to Photoshop photos then. Yeah. But it's just so odd. Right. And I think, you know, some people are like, well, did she – Pick it up and throw it? Well, or like pulled – he was right there taking pictures. Right.

And he later, when, you know, found out that, like, you know, he was also the guy who caught her with the lampshade faking something. So it would be weird for him to call her out for faking something later, but then initially be like, oh, check out, this thing happened. So he didn't catch anything with this photo. Yeah. But some people think, like, well, did she somehow pull on the cord to make the phone fly across her? But it looks like it's going to – I don't know. It's a weird photo. It looks like it would be hard to fake. It's also weird because there's another phone in the photo.

photo i know i know they had two landlines in there yeah if in any way shape or form this is stage i actually think a lot of thought then would have had to have gone into it of like okay how can we make this look as peculiar as possible uh-huh yeah yeah so uh uh this next photo this is a photo of tina and her daughter amber taken shortly before amber's death oh my

Yeah, crazy, crazy that that happens. And then this last one is a photo of Tina taken in Pulaski State Prison in Hawkinsville, Georgia in just 2022. Damn. So it's just crazy to think about just a whole life that has just been hard. Yeah. Right? Like we bitch about like, oh, you know, our kid's health emergency or I shouldn't say bitch. We vent, we share, we commiserate with other people about like life.

Mm-hmm. I cannot wrap my head around the idea that this young woman, everything was hard, and then it got harder and harder and harder. Yeah, it's crazy that her life was, you know, bouncing from a – being abandoned by her parents, bouncing through these foster homes. Mm-hmm.

And then, you know, finding some stability in the rush home, but then getting pregnant, you know, basically like went from their home to being like a young pregnant mom, single mom to then just four years after the age of 18 being found, you know, killing her daughter possibly and then going to prison for the rest of her life.

So she had no period in her life. And I'm not like apologizing for her. I mean, you know, if she was found guilty of killing her daughter, then if that's true and then the way it happened is true –

What a terrible, terrible thing to do for anybody, regardless of their backstory. Like nobody gets an excuse. You're never excused. No one gets a pass. Yeah. But it's just crazy that her life was – there was never a period of it just being easy. Yeah. Where she was on her own, financial stability, and just enjoying life. Yeah. Life was never good for her. Yeah. Or so it seems. Oof. Woof. Well, let us all be grateful for the good days that we have. Okay.

Well, moving away from that. Yeah, yeah. Okay. Get into some. I know. I didn't know that was going to be true crime element until I already got into the story. And I'm like, oh, after last week. Like, son of a biscuit. Not that anyone's complained, but we're not shifting gears into like a true crime slash paranormal podcast. It's just total coincidence. Yeah, yeah, yeah. No worries. No worries. No, let's settle in for the second half of the show. Do you have your Layla? I do have a blue one this week. Blue Layla.

Feels like it should be a song. Blue Layla actually sounds like a drug or something. It does. I'll take one Blue Layla. Okay. Are you sure? Are you sure you want to go on this journey? All right. Well, let's see what the hat man is up to. Okay. Okay. Hello, Dan and Lindsay. Greetings from the Sunshine State. And now for the story of The Hat Man Hates My Writing.

When I was 11 years old, we lived on a cattle ranch way out in the middle of nowhere. Since town was so far away, homeschooling just made the most sense. Yes, I'm a weirdo homeschooled kid. I had a pretty unique childhood though. I was obsessed with ranch life while I also had a passion for history. Mix those two together with plenty of idle time and a huge imagination, and I started writing my own westerns.

Fast forward a few years, I still wasn't very good at writing. My family was extremely religious, so naturally, I wrote some of the most innocent, corny westerns on the planet. Despite their innocence, one of them started to give me nightmares. And not just any nightmares, the exact same one over and over again.

I would see what I thought was my main character. He fit the description perfectly. A tall, dark-haired man with brilliant green eyes, always wearing a trench coat style overcoat and a gambler's hat.

I thought he was the shit. That was until the dreams started. In the dreams, I'd be asleep when my bedroom door would begin to open painfully slow. Through the cracked door, I'd see glowing green eyes and the outline of a man wearing a hat. Every time, I'd wake up feeling deeply unsettled. And every time, my door would be slightly ajar, despite always closing my door before bed.

I tried not to think too much about it. My dad was a night owl and often walked through the house to check on me and my brother before cleaning his guns in the living room. I'm not kidding.

I assumed that maybe it was him opening my door. Plus, I wasn't scared of anyone breaking in. No one was getting past my dad. The dream kept happening, the exact same sequence night after night. And each time, the man would open my door just a little bit more. The next morning, I'd wake up and my door would be open just a little bit more than the night before.

Now, back to this religious thing. We were very religious, like ankle-length skirts, fire and brimstone sermons, the whole nine yards. No shade, but not for me. Back then, I was taught that if I did not give my imagination to God, Satan would use it. Naturally, I started to worry that these dreams were some kind of divine warning. Maybe I wasn't supposed to write this book. Maybe it was somehow bad.

But I was a little rebel, and I wasn't going to let a dose of fear stop me. I was obsessed with this story, and I was hellbent on writing it. So the dreams continued. My door kept opening further and further each night. I wasn't sure what would happen once the man opened the door all of the way, but I knew I'd eventually find out.

I was sleeping soundly as usual when my door began to open. Slowly at first, just like always, until it slammed against the door. It was fully open now. I shot upright in bed as a massive shadow figure rushed into my room. He was huge, tall, broad-shouldered, and wearing that same damn hat. His face was hidden in the darkness, except for those piercing green eyes.

He moved fast, closing the distance between us in just seconds, and I was frozen. I felt his anger, like a wave of heat radiating from him. He grabbed my shoulders and locked eyes with me for a brief moment. He yanked hard on my shoulders, pulling me forward, and then he threw me back against the wall. My back hit the windowsill so hard it knocked the breath out of me. I woke up gasping, still sitting up, my door wide open.

Shaking, I convinced myself it was just a dream. I got up and checked the living room, hoping my dad was still up, praying he'd opened my door. But he was asleep, and the house was silent. Somehow, I managed to go back to sleep, and then the next day, my friend came over for a swim. As we were floating on rafts, tanning and chatting, she pointed to my back and asked, "'Where'd you get that bruise?'

My stomach dropped. What bruise? Where? I asked her. She placed her hands on the exact spot on my back where I had slammed into the windowsill the night before. That night, I deleted...

That night, I deleted my Western tale from my computer. I got rid of all my notes, too. And just like that, the dreams stopped. For years, I assumed it was a religious thing. I became extremely careful about what I wrote, sticking to godly themes. But my passion remained for old-school Westerns, for foul-mouthed outlaws, stone-cold lawmen, gunfights, train robberies, and hopeless lovers. I've

Eventually, I turned 18, left the church, and started my own path. I never made the connection with the possibility of the hat man visiting me until I was listening to an episode of Scared to Death where Dan described the hat man. I always thought the hat man was something that attached to people, but who knows? Maybe he was pissed that I stole his identity and put him in a cheesy western. Regardless, it's clear the hat man hates my writing and he wanted to let me know it.

Thank you both for the amazing content. I'm a space lizard through and through. And naturally, Dan's Nightmare Fuel with Ezra is my favorite right now. Hoping for more similar to that in the future. You guys are incredible. Keep the creeps coming. Oh, thank you.

Yeah, that, yes, hopefully there will be more Ezra stories at some point. And then, yeah, also I had the thought about the devil taking hold of your imagination. If that is a thing, then nightmare fuel is just pure devil. That is who's helping me write those stories. Oh my God. That's such a scary idea for me. You're actually a tiny bit possessed by the devil. And with each nightmare fuel you write, he becomes more, he gains more traction in your brain.

I will say I did write down a note from this story. Like I'm inspired. So many of the nightmare feels in some way, shape or form are inspired by stories that we have, like the true stories of scared to death. Like the stories from our fans? Stories from fans, stories I found. You know, I find like the researchers find. Yeah. It's just like taking all that lore and twisting it into fiction. But I did make a note on this one. I'm like, ooh, haunted by somebody's own story. Uh-huh. That's fascinating. Yeah, yeah. Like you're like-

It's a cool concept of like, you know, you're an author and you're writing your first horror novel. And then the novel. Things start to happen. Yeah. The novel, I don't know, takes shape, comes to life. But you could like, because if that happened, you would be like, oh my God, I've been too deep in this story for too long. Right. You know? Right.

So many times authors go to like remote cabins or, you know, quiet cities, towns, whatever. Yeah. They want to, you know, like, okay, like Anne Rice in New Orleans. Right, yeah. And she's from New Orleans, but like, of course, that would be such an inspiring place to write from. Like there's all these different things that people do to make their writing feel even more authentic. Mm-hmm.

What if like the most authentic thing to do to write a horror novel is to like live in a haunted house for a period of time? Yeah, yeah, yeah. And then write about it, like base it in your surroundings. Fuck. It would absolutely fuck you up. Yeah. Well, yeah, I love this story. I just love a little kid, you know, trying to write these westerns. And I hope – they didn't name themselves in the story, right? They gave their initials only, so. Okay, okay. Okay.

But this space lizard, I hope that they kept those stories. At the very least, they're amusing to read years later. Yeah. I would love it if I had fictional stories that I tried to write from like 8, 9, 10 years old. That'd be so cute. And to check those out now. They'd probably be so terrible in the best ways. So terrible. Yeah.

But yeah, but that concept of like in real life of if you were writing about something and it got in your imagination, but then it's somehow like either your imagination drew a real thing to you or it's somehow – I don't want to say like created. I mean – Like manifested. God, there is this – oh, I cannot think of what it's called. There is this belief by some and I shared a story, a famous example of it from Texas I believe where

And there's a term for it and I'm blanking on it right now. I'm sure I'll like be able to look it up after the recording and be like, oh yeah. But it's like, oh my God, it's on the tip of my tongue. It's like a thought form where you can like actually conjure something terrible into existence.

By just imagining and believing in it strongly. Okay. Yeah. So there is like precedent for that being a thing. It's such a weird thing. So strange. Yeah. I thought it was both like creepy, you know, has creepy elements. Yeah. Also very cute. And like also like what if like the hat man really was coming to see her? Maybe he did feel called to like –

I just love the idea that he was annoyed with her. Like, hey, listen, don't dumb down my image. I'm really scary. I'm going to show you how scary I am. So don't put me in your cheesy Western. So it was cracking me up. All right. You want to do one more? I would love to. Okay, great. Greetings, suck face and queen of the suck. I love both the podcasts and thought you both and your listeners would find this story interesting. Thank you.

I was the firstborn grandchild on my mother's side. Her father was a bitter old man, a paraplegic as the result of a stroke earlier in his life, but we were inseparable. He and my grandmother lived in a two-bedroom condo where he was confined to a hospital bed that they kept in their kitchen.

I was the only ray of sunshine in his life, and I stayed with them often while my parents worked five days a week. My grandfather would often have my grandmother walk to Target to buy bunches of Hot Wheels that she would then hide around the condo for me to find as a reward for cranking up his bed.

When I was five, he passed away from complications of lung cancer. It was late in the day when the news came, so my parents opted not to tell me until the next day, fearing I wouldn't be able to sleep. The next day, I woke up and my mother told me that I told her, "'Grandpa was just here!'

I remember none of this, but I've heard this story many times from my mom. She said I told her that grandpa was in my room and that he came to tell me goodbye. I asked him if I should wake up my mom and he said, no, she wouldn't understand. I wonder if it was this experience early in life that left me more open to the possibility of connecting with spirits. Now fast forward to my first marriage. We had just bought a house, an older house, and we didn't have any kids.

The large backyard had an expansive blacktop that ate up two-thirds of the yard. It was peculiar and made no sense to us as to why anyone would pour a blacktop over so much of the grassy yard. But soon enough, we'd find out why. One afternoon, I was lying in the living room, watching TV, curled up with our dog. I was wide awake. No one else was home, and all of the windows were closed.

Out of nowhere, from the end of the hall, I heard the distinct sound of a little girl giggling. I tried to reason it away. Then I heard it again. I thought it must be coming from my elderly neighbor's house. They regularly had their grandkids over. I moved from the couch to investigate, predicting I'd see the grandkids playing outside, but no one was home at their house.

For the next six months or so, strange things happened around the house. Items were found out of place. Our dog would sit at one end of the hallway, barking at seemingly nothing at the other end of the hallway, that kind of stuff. And then we had a baby girl and things grew to be really interesting.

Almost two years after little Maggie was born, there was a Sunday morning that changed everything. My mom and dad often stayed over with us on the weekends and slept in a bedroom in our basement. On that particularly beautiful fall day, we were getting ready to leave for church. My wife and my mother were getting into the car in the front of the house while my dad and Maggie were in the backyard playing.

I had a washers game back there. You know the game. Much like horseshoe, it's a box of sand with a coffee can in the middle, and you toss metal washers into the can. Well, remember the big blacktop lot in the backyard? That's where this game took place. My dad was tossing the washers, trying to land them in the can. Maggie was running them back to him when he missed. Yes, my dad was playing fetch with my daughter, essentially.

Imagine the sound of a three inch heavy metal washer would make bouncing across the blacktop. It's a very distinctive sound. I walked to the backyard telling them it was time to leave. Maggie returned all the washers to the box. As we walked around the side of the house, we heard that distinctive sound again. Ting, ting, ting. Dad and I stopped dead in our tracks, sharing a confused look.

We walked back to the blacktop and found one washer in the middle of the blacktop. After church, we returned home and began talking about what had happened. I told my dad about the giggles I had heard years ago. He then told me a story of his own. When my parents stayed the night in that downstairs room, Maggie would often climb out of her crib in the morning, work her way down the stairs, and jump into bed with my parents.

One morning, shortly before the washer incident, my dad was awake but still in bed. He heard the shuffling of little feet coming towards the room and awaited the familiar feeling of Maggie pouncing on the bed. But it never came. He rolled over to see what she was doing and saw a blurry, dark shadow of a figure in the doorway. The shadow was the height of a toddler. Seconds after, he saw...

Seconds after he saw it, it dissipated into nothing. Not believing what he saw, he went upstairs to find Maggie still asleep in her crib. A few days later, I was talking to my elderly neighbor who had been living there since the 60s. I asked him if anyone had ever died in my house. He replied, not in the house.

Then I told him about the little girl giggling and the short shadow person. And he said, okay, if you'd said anything but a little girl, I wouldn't believe you. And he then proceeded to tell me about an incident that happened there in the 70s. At the time, the house was a dentist's office. This explained the blacktop parking lot I had in my backyard. The dentist lived in the house across the street with his family. He had some serious mental health issues.

One early evening after his wife had come home, they had an argument. The dentist decided the best way to end the argument was to attack her with a butcher's knife. His wife grabbed their four-year-old daughter, Marianne, and ran across the street to the office knowing the receptionist was still there. They locked the doors and called the cops.

The cops came and arrested the dentist. In all the confusion, they lost track of Marianne. They frantically searched the house until they found her, unresponsive. She had hid in a back room, the same area where the giggles had come from, and stumbled upon a bottle of her father's medication. The bottle was now empty. Little Marianne died of an overdose on the way to the hospital.

For the next few months, strange things happened so often that if nothing happened in the house, we wondered what was wrong. The occurrences were always playful though. There was never any sense of dread or fear. Many times my mom would be in the basement and feel something lightly hit her in the back. She would then find a penny on the ground. Everyone except my wife had interactions with Marianne. My wife thought we were all nuts.

Maggie would often be seen playing by herself, carrying on a complete conversation with no one. Not uncommon for a child with an incredible imagination, but given the circumstances, I always wondered. And I waited for her to tell me her imaginary friend's name was Marianne, though she never did.

I managed to contact the receptionist that was at the dentist's office all those years ago. She did confirm the story I had been told. She said she didn't believe in these sorts of things and anything I was experiencing, I had brought on myself.

I also asked my Lutheran pastor about things that were happening that I couldn't explain. He told me the church didn't recognize ghosts. He said that demons will take advantage of a known situation and portray a deceased individual to torment the living. I wasn't so sure until two things happened that changed the playful mood.

One night, as I laid sleeping, I was awoken by a presence in my room. I felt an enormous pressure on my chest pinning me to the bed. I couldn't raise my arms. I couldn't turn my head. I was either too afraid to open my eyes or I couldn't physically open them. It seemed like an eternity before it was gone. I finally opened my eyes and nothing. My wife was asleep. The room was still and silent.

Then the next night I carried Maggie to her room to put her in her crib. She had a habit of needing a glow bracelet to go to sleep. You know, the ones that you bend and crack and then they start to glow and then you would add the little coupler to make it a ring.

I sat her down in her crib and she stared at me. I cracked a new stick, joined the ends and put it next to her. She looked puzzled. I asked her what was wrong and she said she was waiting. I asked her what she was waiting for and she said she was waiting to see if it would move, that the one I gave her last night moved all by itself. My creepy senses went through the roof as I yelled out, you are no longer welcome here. Get out.

And then nothing else happened in that house. Two years later, my wife and I were divorced. I moved into a new house, and I wondered if Marianne would follow me, though it had been a long time since she had shown up.

I was tidying up a few things around the house. I kept my loaves of bread on the top of the refrigerator. I noticed the last one had started to get moldy, so I put it in the trash can and squished it down to make more room. I grabbed a beer and I went outside to visit with my new neighbors. Later, I came back in the house, grabbed another beer from the fridge, and caught something out of the corner of my eye. On top of the fridge sat a loaf of bread, a not-squished loaf of bread.

She's back. And then one day it stopped.

I received a call from my dad. He and my mom lived an hour away out in the country on 13 acres. He said he was in their kitchen by himself with the windows closed, no breeze, no nothing. He set an empty can on the countertop, turned his back, and walked away. He said it was like someone threw the empty can across the kitchen. It bounced across the floor eight feet away. And that was the beginning of Marianne attaching herself to my dad.

He still regularly has items being moved from place to place, sees a shadowy head and shoulders peeking from around a corner, and so on. He and my mother recently went on a vacation to Yellowstone, and he even saw the same shadow person standing at the foot of his bed there. They also have a lake house that Marianne has been known to show up at.

To this day, 15 years after the first giggles, Marianne is still with us. Dad says he never believed in this stuff before, but he can't deny nor explain everything that has happened. I suppose if we have to have a ghost in the family, at least it's one that doesn't seem to wish us any harm. Matt. Wow, thanks, Matt.

That was a very cool story about the passing from one person to another. I don't think we've had one that's passed in that way. I don't think so. Like Matt, his daughter Maggie, and his dad. Yeah, we've had ones that have been like multi-generational. But it's like one person passes and then the next generation, they'll see something in the same house usually or something like that. It's usually like one location. Exactly. But not like –

while in this case, like Matt and his dad are both still living, living in different places, not living in the original location where Marianne, you know, the spirit they're saying is Marianne was found. And then, you know, Matt moves after the divorce, right?

thing seems to follow him there. One day, the little shadow person, this ghost of Marianne is no longer there. And then at that same time, that's when his dad starts to see things and then it continues to this day. That's, yeah, that's fascinating. I thought so too. I have to wonder if Marianne is mostly attached to Maggie because I'm going to go out on a limb here and assume that Matt

Even though divorced, you know, gets plenty of time with Maggie. And I'm going to then also assume that Maggie then spends time with Matt's dad, her grandfather. And so I wonder if Marianne is just kind of always looking for Maggie, a playmate. And I wonder if as... Okay, so it's been 15 years. Okay, so Maggie is... I don't know. Okay, let's see. They didn't have Maggie right when they moved in. They lived there for a little while. It was two years after they moved in that they had Maggie. So Maggie is probably...

Yeah. Yeah.

And it's crazy how often something like – there will be almost like a theme, this unintentional theme. And like how sad that like two little girls – I know. Both meet tragic ends. Yeah.

In our stories. In one episode. In one episode, we had no idea that the other person was telling these stories. I know. Weird. I know. Also, Matt, I don't know when you sent this story in. So I just want to say, in case you haven't figured it out, part of the reason your bread is getting moldy, my friend, is that the top of the refrigerator slash freezer gets hot because of the coils and it will make your bread get moldy faster. So just a little tip. Yeah.

I also like that Matt shared this game of washers as if that's a super common game and maybe it is in some place. Okay, I had to look it up too. I was like, oh, I wonder if Dan's going to know what I'm talking about. And I looked it up and like I – It's genius. It's a simple way to play horseshoes. Exactly.

Yeah, it's an old coffee can or any kind of little bucket, really. Oh, if you look it up, I Googled it because I was like, washers. I was not. Yeah, metal washers. So I would look up washers game. There are very expensive versions, like a $200 version of this game. Oh, interesting. In a little like wooden box that seems more like a...

a tabletop, even though it says outdoor. But I mean, this just feels also like a little like cornhole-esque or whatever. It does. You know? Washer pitching, they call it, is according to Wikipedia. Yeah, and it does. It's like a, looks similar to a cornhole board with the one hole, slight slant in some of these pictures. And yeah, you're throwing these big metal washers and

And they have like, you know, custom pitching washers now. Funny. So I'm sure what happened was it started off with just like metal coffee cans and like legit just like got some washers in the shop. Totally. And enough people played it where somebody was like, well, we should, you know, kind of format this. And I could sell something that makes it a little easier. Yeah, somebody just like made it nice and then just kept going from there. Yeah, I know. I was like, okay, I kind of want to play this game in our backyard. Yeah, easy game to play. Yeah. I feel like...

Your family would love this game. True, true. Yeah, I'm curious if they've heard about it. Yeah, maybe. You want to thank some Annabelles? I do. I do want to thank the following Annabelles. We'll be sharing our charity announcement later this month. But in the meantime, thank you so much for your support on Patreon for making this all possible. The man under your porch. Snuggle Boo Boo Bear and Peep. Blake Ryan.

It's like really hard to follow those two with just like a very normal name. Blake Ryan, Megan Pau, Pau, P-A-U-G-H, Poff. It's a tough one. Pau, maybe. Yeah, I don't know. Probably Pau. Keegan Fugenzie, Vincent Detoy, Keely Kehen, Pura Vida Sapo,

And Pixie. Nice. Nice. They're mouthful this week, y'all. I got Tenacious Tanya. Funny. Isaac Reeder. Fabby Tovar. Skia Wallace. Abigail Jones. Dawn Gearhart. Jennica Swartz. Samantha Sheets. And saving this one for last, Big Mommy Milkers. Yes.

Y'all are too much. All right. I have a handful of spoopy shout outs. To Rylan from your mom, Brianna. Happy seventh birthday to the most beautiful but creepiest dark humored girl. This is great. To Cambo, the ghost eater from Grammy Cracker. Oh my God. Happy, happy birthday. I love you to the moon and back. I was emailing back and forth with Grammy Cracker and-

Much like myself, she loves a good nickname. And so it's just nonsense. It's so cute. I love these nicknames. To Michael from Sarah, we upgraded to house 2.0. We left behind a lot of firsts, but cheers to many new ones. And as Theo would say, I love you the freaking mostest. Oh, cute. To Cody Ray from Mallory, happy 10-year anniversary. I love you beyond what words can express.

To Diana, from Diana, happy birthday to me. Even though I've lost my job of 18 years, I will be okay. You are living your happiest, healthiest life. So much potential for the amazing years ahead. It's going to be okay. Just keep picturing yourself on the other side of this. Mm-hmm.

And lastly, to you, Dan, from me. Happy birthday. This show comes out your birthday week. Well, thank you. It comes out the 13th. Yeah. And Saturday we'll be having dinner with friends and one family member. And yeah. That's great. Happy 48, young man. Thank you. Thank you.

And that is our show. And if it sounded different, we recorded this one and the last one in a remote location. We're just bringing our – trying to figure out a little travel kit. And so just tweaking it a little bit to make it the best. So if you had a feeling of like, hmm, this sounds different, you were right. You were right. Yes. We've been in New Orleans for the last two weeks and we're hunkered down for Jazz Fest. We survived. Yeah. And I'm sure that we'll talk about it a bunch on –

the May bonus episode and just how cool it was to be in this city and how rejuvenated and inspired and full of hope and love. Yeah, good for creativity. Ah, man, this city's so great. So thank you for having us, New Orleans. It's been a pleasure to be here. And yeah, we ran into a fan at a little bar yesterday.

Oh, God. Around the corner from the Cortana Theater. And she was so cool. Yeah. Yeah. It's been a great couple of weeks. Mm-hmm. Thank you all 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.

Thank you to Logan Keith for scoring today's show. Thank you to Heather Rylander for organizing the My Story emails and to book editor Drew Atana for polishing and preparing listener stories for book number six. Thank you to Molly Box for finding the first story I shared this week. I was able to find the second. We're on Facebook and Instagram where we post pics that accompany episodes and more at scaredtodeathpodcast.com.

Also have a private Facebook group, Creeps and Peepers, full of fellow horror lovers. Big thanks again to the All Seen Eyes, the Creeps and Peepers moderators. Enjoy your nightmares, Creeps and Peepers. Hope you were scared to death. Bye.

If spirits threaten me in this place, fight water by water and fire by fire. Banish their souls into nothingness and remove their powers until the last trace. Let these evil beings bleed through time and space. Evil may pass through but have no home here within. Scared to death. Mad Magic Productions. Kids in a warehouse just doesn't sound great. Just doesn't. Doesn't.