Episode 06
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Veg ER for pets. All right, Milo, we're here. I cannot believe you swallowed your whole toy. Welcome to Veg. You must be Milo. Let's get you to a vet. Do I wait here? No, you stay with your pet. Hi, I'm Dr. Sturck. Hey, Milo, I'm going to sit on the floor with him so he can be more comfortable for the exam. I wasn't sure how serious it was. Looking at the x-rays, he's going to need surgery. But the good news is, he should be okay. We're lucky there's a Veg, Milo. Veg ER for pets. Open 24-7.

Hey guys, stay tuned to the end of this episode to find out the winners of the real-life Radio Rental VHS tapes and the one-of-a-kind Radio Rental Store Manager action figure. Thanks guys. Enjoy the show. Ah, welcome friend. Welcome. It is I, Terry Carnation, and I have been expecting you. I'm packing up right now, as you can see, getting ready for my big excursion to the Dominican Republic.

Long overdue, let me tell you. I've been cramped up in here for the last few months, but nevertheless, I'm quite excited to spend the day today with you, my dear fan, my dear listener, my dear friend. Now, would you be able to feed the cat while I'm away? Just shove some Skittles and jerky through the mail slot. He can drink from the toilet. Today is all about celebration. I have some champagne here somewhere.

Oh, it appears I finished that particular bottle this morning. Never mind that. I have quite the finale in store for you. I've chosen one of my favorite tapes to share today with all of my adoring fans. Hopefully I didn't pack it away now. Hmm. Oh, here it is. Oh, this is good. Sometimes you think you know someone. You sit next to them for a year or years maybe. But then all of a sudden one day they surprise you.

And after years of friendship, years of coexistence, you realize you may have never really known them at all. So this is probably 2002 maybe. I mean, I'm about 22 years old. I was in the telecommunications industry. It was my first real job out of college, my first corporate job. The normal cubicle setup. My cube mate next to me, we became pretty good friends. He was maybe 45, 46. Long gray hair, long,

well put together, shirt tucked in, prim and proper, and kind of looked up to him a little bit. And we were cute mates, so we became good friends. He was mid-40s, I was 22. I kind of looked up to him a little bit. We just kind of hit it off really well. He was a real nice, cool guy, and we hung outside the office, happy hour sometimes. I had him over for a barbecue. He kind of did the same at his place. In the office, everybody knew us as kind of being friends. He was well-respected in the office.

He was trying to get custody of his kids. And it was about a three-month battle with his ex-wife who lived in Canada. You know, we had pictures of his boys up. We knew he had kids. He came in and said, hey, I'm trying to get custody of my boys. You know, it's time. I remember him saying that, like, it's time. They're ready. And I just thought, that's pretty cool. You know, I have a really close relationship with my dad. And he had a 13-year-old and a 15-year-old. One day he came in after a long battle. He came in. I got my boys. We were all excited in the office for him.

We had a little party for him. About a week later, the boys come back in town, and he had me over for dinner. So I got a chance to meet the boys. You could tell they hadn't seen their dad in a while. They were very on their best behavior. He was as well. He was trying to make everything perfect for them. It was just a good night. I was really excited for Don that this happened. About a month later, he comes to work, and he goes, I'm going to go to Russia, just out of the blue.

And I'm like, wow, you're taking the boys with you? He said, no, no, they're going to stay here. Which to me, I thought that was crazy. You know, a 13 and 15 year old, you just now get custody and you're going to go on a week long trip to Russia. It just seemed strange. So he said, yeah, can you keep an eye on them? And I said, sure, I'll go over there and make sure that they don't burn down the house or something, you know. While he was gone, you know, I took the boys to a movie one night. I took him to dinner one night. Me and the boys, we kind of bonded while he was gone.

A week goes by and this is where kind of things start to change. This guy walks in, remember he's got normal gray hair, big locks, gray hair. He comes in, his hair is dyed. It's completely black. His shirt's untucked. He's got the top three buttons unbuttoned. His hamburger meat, his hair, his chest hair is just hanging out. And he's got a big gold chain. And it was just wild.

He gives me a big hug and I'm like, "Look at this guy, you know, he must have had a great time in Russia." And I just couldn't wait to hear his stories about Russia. Immediately I noticed something was different. He was speaking in Russian. And granted, this guy isn't Russian. Never heard him speak in Russia, talk about Russia, anything. He's speaking in Russian. Even when he's speaking in English, he's speaking in a Russian accent.

And at first, everybody's laughing. You know, sometimes you'll go to, you know, England or something, you'll come back with a little English twang or something. But no, he was even speaking to customers on the phone in Russian, in a Russian accent. And throughout the day, we thought, okay, that's, you know, it's funny, but it's time to give it a rest. But no, it just gets thicker and thicker. So the day ends, I don't think much of it. But that evening is when things really get disturbing.

I'm sitting at home. It's dark. It's pretty late in the evening. I just remember all the lights were out. I'm sitting on my couch watching television, and I get a ring. It's the oldest son. I said, "Hey, hey, buddy. How's it going?" And he was whispering, and I'll never forget this. He said, "Help, this isn't our dad." I wanted to drop the phone. I wanted to hang up. You know, I didn't want any part of it. I mean, I still get chills right now because I can hear that voice, and I can hear him. He was desperate.

And he said, "Help, this isn't our dad." And it was like a backtrack in a movie where everything's like, whoa, he gets his kids, he leaves for Russia, he comes back a totally different guy, new look, a new speech. So I try to get more information, like, "Hey, what do you mean? What do you mean he's not your dad?" Just said, "Can you come over here? We're scared. We don't know what to do." So I go.

It's about a 30 minute ride over to the house and in my head is racing and I didn't know what I was going to be walking into. It was pretty tense. My mind was fried a little bit. I was definitely wondering what am I getting myself into here? What am I going to walk into? So I go to the apartment, I knock on the door. He opens the door, arms out, big hug. You know, he's got that Russian accent again and he goes, come in, I'm making borscht.

And at the time I didn't know what borscht was. Turns out later I found out it's a Russian dish. The guy's in there making a Russian dish. He's Russian. The accent is even more thicker. The boys are kind of peering around the corner from the room. I mean, scared to go into the kitchen, into the living room. At this point, I'm really investigating. I'm trying to figure out what's going on with Don. His eyes are different.

Chest hair hanging out, big gold chain, and he's full-fledged Russian mobster now. I was in my head thinking, okay, it's not him. And the boys just told me. They're living with him. He's been back a day, 24 hours at least. They're telling me this is not my dad. I do remember investigating him, looking at his eyes and saying, is this Don? He's speaking like a mobster. He's carrying himself like a Russian mobster.

I didn't know what was really going on with him or if it was even him. He's just a different guy. I go talk to the boys. They are terrified. They feel trapped. And I said, you know, we got to get a hold of your mom. Have you called your mom? After the custody battle, I found out this that night, the mom had moved to Israel. Now this was early 2000s. The Google search wasn't as good. Not everybody had cell phones. So they had a hard time getting a hold of their mom. There's nothing I can do at this time.

He said, "I think your dad just needs some rest. It's a long trip." I'm 20 years old. I don't want to deal with this. I drive home. It feels like I'm in a Fellini film or something. I don't know what's coming and going. My theory at first was he was Russian all along. Maybe a Russian spy or a Manchurian candidate or something like that. And his mission was over. And once he comes back to the States now, he can just be full-fledged Russian. He didn't care.

You look into the guy's eyes, he had a creepiness about his eyes, a kind of a blank stare. He never broke character once. I go to work the next morning and he's still in the same getup, carrying himself like a Russian mobster. He's just not himself. It got to a point where by lunchtime, my manager, our boss, sends him home. And of course, everybody at work is coming up to me saying, "Hey, you know, what's up with Don? Why is he acting like that? It's so weird."

And I don't have any answers for him. We do decide to go do a little happy hour, some of the guys and gals at work. And it just gets even creepier. We're at a little happy hour spot. We're talking about him. We're kind of telling the story. Everybody's got an opinion on what happened to Don. I'm talking, it gets quiet, and I can tell, like, he's behind me. And he's just standing there.

with this stare, with these eyes, dark black hair from the dye, his Russian mobster get-up outfit. He's just standing there looking at us, our table. And I remember that night, it turned from it was funny to a little bit annoying. You know, like you got this accent, annoying, to now I'm just angry. I'm like, come on, man. Like, what is wrong with you?

We all leave, we spread out, and then I go home. I have my girlfriend over at the house, I remember that, and it's pretty late, and there's a knock on the door. He just shows up at my house that night. He says that I owe him money. It was a weird, long, convoluted story of why I owed him money. And now I'm thinking, oh man, now I don't want to make this guy angry. I got to get him away from my house. At this time, I am starting to get a little scared.

So I took him to the bank right up the street, and really it was just to get him away from my house. You know, I talked to my mom about this, of course, and my mom's like, "You know, you need to call the cops. You don't need to be involved in any of this. Distance yourself." To me, I couldn't. It was my friend. I knew something was wrong. I knew how hard it was for him to get the custody of his kids. But still, back in my head, I didn't know what was really going on. I give him the money, and he leaves.

The next morning, I go to work. He doesn't show up to work. I call the boys, and they're still a little frightened. And they say he didn't come home last night. And I'm kind of fearing the worst. They said, can you come get us? We just want out of here. I come. I get them. I leave a note for Don that says, hey, man, you're fucking up here. You know, you need to get things straight. I have your boys, and you got to start acting right.

Once I had the boys at my house, that was probably when things came to a head. That night around 10 to 12 o'clock, it was late. It had been raining and storming. I get another knock. This time it's louder. I mean, it's a boom, boom, boom. I just look through the peephole, and it's him. It had been raining that night really bad. The wetness of his black dyed hair is just flowing in his eyes, and it's all in his face, and he's just drenched.

He was an angry Russian mobster and I had just kidnapped his kids. It was scary. He's saying, "You kidnapped my kids. You kidnapped my kids and you have my kids. Give me my kids." And I told him through the door, I didn't open the door, I throw him to the door, "Hey, yeah, I have your boys, but they don't want to go with you. They're scared. You know, I'm scared." I tell him, "Listen, I'm about to call the police if you don't leave." And at this point he slows down and he says, "Okay, I'll be better tomorrow. I'll be better tomorrow." I felt crazy.

Is this real? Is this really going on? Is this Don? Is this really Don? Like looking him up and down and trying to remember back to all the times I met Don. Well, what are the clues? It was a perfect Russian accent. He was speaking in Russian. Not just a Russian accent like you're playing around. It was like his Russian brother or something. The hair was different. It was a totally different guy. What did this guy do with Don?

The boys were thinking, what did this guy do who's acting like our dad and telling us that it's their dad? What did they do with our real dad? At this point, I mean, he knows where I live. I am really scared and I'm debating. I think I need to call the cops. I think I need to get them involved on this. The next morning, he comes to work. He is, again, just out of control at work. The boss comes over and fires him.

He gets fired, and he doesn't take it very well. He takes one of those tin cans, you know, the holiday tin cans with popcorn in it? He takes one of those and he throws it at the boss. Popcorn goes everywhere. They call the cops. And the police come and put him in a straitjacket. And that was the last time I saw Don. After he left, of course, the whole office, you know, people are saying it is a Manchurian candidate or it's his evil twin brother or something. There was a lot of other theories about what happened after that, maybe a lot of rumors.

What I saw was a normal guy within a week comes back as a totally different, totally different guy. The boys ended up getting a flight out. The ex-wife sent some tickets. We got them on a plane and got them back to their mom. The ex-wife kind of filled me in on his life. Now, I knew him for two years. I was just this great guy, well-respected, well-put-together guy, but...

He wanted to take care of his kids so well that he felt like he needed to give them a mother. So he went to Russia to get a mail-order bride. While he was there, he forgot his medication from the States. And I didn't really know about mental illness at that time, but once he got to Russia, he didn't have his medication. When his mind flipped, he was Russian. That was his new normal. That was his new life. He was a Russian.

To see a person that you respected, who was living a normal life, to see how that can just change in an instant, it really opened my eyes to just how tragic mental illness is. Early on, again, it was funny, it was annoying, you know, then it was, I was just angry. Then it was tragic. I hope you found these stories stimulating. Once again, this exclusive collection is entirely free of charge.

But be that as it may, we're still a local business. We're struggling a little bit. So if you don't mind, here's a quick message from our sponsors. Why get all your holiday decorations delivered through Instacart? Because maybe you only bought two wreaths, but you have 12 windows. Or maybe your toddler got very eager with the advent calendar. Or maybe the inflatable snowman didn't make it through the snowstorm. Or

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Visit the Valley BMW Center today for attractive lease and finance offers. Dea- dear, dear, um, dear listener, death, death, dear listener, death. The biggest of all topics, whether it's accidental or purposefully covered up or some other option, is something that every family must deal with eventually. And at the Case Family Funeral Home, discretion is their middle name, but also hope.

Hope is also their middle name. And also, Economics. Economics is their middle name. They have three middle names. The Case family cares about your experience. They offer a myriad of options for your dearly departed. Including an inside the coffin safety lock and key, motion-sensored interior lighting, and a reserve oxygen tank. Just in Case. Case Family Funeral Home. Thank you very much. Oh my god, I'm so glad I finished.

Thank you so much for bearing with us through these ads. Please patronize all of the advertisers. Okay, next one. Here we go, popping it in. In 2013, I moved to a new city to start my first real job after college. I was working as a public health nurse at the time doing home visits to families in the central city.

And I moved into this wonderful old apartment building in this working class neighborhood. It was old and creaky and just had a lot of character in that I just really loved it. It was small. It was only like eight units. Old, old place. No air conditioning. Needed to sleep with the windows open. I never saw my neighbors. The first summer I was there, things were less ideal.

Around 2 or 3 in the morning, I woke up to some loud voices. I thought I could hear two, a man and a woman. A high voice and a low voice going back and forth with each other. Pretty loud. Not a conversation. It was more of like a fight, like an argument. And it was loud enough to wake me up, but it wasn't particularly violent or concerning. It was just there. I assumed that it was from the bus stop below my open window.

And so I thought, oh, it must be, you know, some spat. None of my business. I remember looking out the window and seeing people at the bus stop, but I couldn't read into their body language enough to know if it was them or not. I remember thinking, oh no, this neighborhood is not as perfect as I thought it would be. After a few minutes, it quieted down and I just went back to sleep.

It happened probably five or six more times that summer. Always 2:00 or 3:00 a.m., always two voices, always loud enough to wake me up, but I could never really make out any words. "Oh, these people again. Have they not solved whatever issue this is? It is not worth waking me up. Why consistently choose this time to solve this disagreement?" There were a few times where I was so irritated that I would yell, "Hey!" out my window, and the voices would stop.

There were also some times where I would wake up around that like 3 o'clock witching hour and it would be silent, but I would feel like there had just been a noise. When things really got uncomfortable was when it got cold out. It was too cold to sleep with my window open. Then I heard it again and it was louder. And it took me a couple of nights before I realized it was coming from the downstairs apartment below me.

I just remember in those hazy morning hours realizing it is louder tonight and my window is shut. So this is not coming from outside. Then it was clear that the direction was down and was the downstairs apartment. I had assumed it was two partners arguing about something and why they would be arguing at that time, I didn't know. What was confusing about it was that there were also noises that were not voices.

It wasn't moaning or screaming. It was just expressing without any words with like a slide to the pitch, like mouth and throat like open. It's like, "Aaah!" Then in like many different octaves, kind of like a, "Aaah!" It was very odd. At the time I was going back to my coworkers and saying, "I do not know what is going on in my apartment, but you guys need to listen to this 'cause it's so strange."

Some strange arguing partners and none of my business. One day I happened to come home at the lunch hour and I came in through the back door of the apartment and I heard it again and it was mostly the higher pitched voice that day. It sounded like someone was getting the shit beat out of them that day. It was a woman's voice and it sounded bad. It was too uncomfortable to listen to and not do anything about. That day I made it the gut choice to knock on the door.

and to ask if someone was okay. The door was probably four or five paces from where I had entered the building. So however many seconds it took me to get there is when I decided I was going to do something. I immediately pulled out my cell phone and I dialed 911. I didn't push call. I just had it in my hand just in case. I was nervous about what I might find, but I had to know. I had to know at that point.

I could hear just standing outside of her door, looking at her door. I could hear it. And I knocked really hard on the door and said, "Hey, hey, what's going on in there?" As I yelled and knocked, it wasn't as if time had slowed down. My yelling and the noises met each other and there was no more noise. And she opened the door and was just there. It was so quick. It was so fast she was at the door. She must have just been like right on the other side of it.

She was this middle-aged white woman, graying hair. Her face was flat. There was nothing about her face that would say that she was just in danger. She was a shorter woman, and so I could see past her head, past her shoulder into the apartment. And it was calm. It was a normal apartment. Kat was sort of sitting casually on the couch.

There was nothing out of place. There was a couch. There was an Afghan thrown over the couch. I mean, this was just a normal apartment. It was not commensurate with the sounds that I heard coming up to it, which I think was very jarring. Yeah, it was unusual. And I just said, "Are you okay?" And she said, "Yes." And I said, "Are you alone?" And she said, "Yes. Yes, I am." And then very quietly and politely shut the door in my face. And I just stood there so confused.

what was going on about what I had heard, what I had been hearing, the way that she answered the door. It was so fast. No one could have hid. There couldn't have been anyone else in the apartment. I knew she wasn't hiding someone else in the apartment. It was too fast. And the apartment was too open for anyone else to have been there. I knew, I knew that someone is ill and there's only two options. Either she is deceiving me or I am deceiving myself.

about what I think I'm experiencing. Honestly, I was thinking one of us is out of our goddamn minds because who, someone, something is, something is going on. Again, what I had been hearing and what I had heard, I knew what I heard. - For months now, she'd been hearing voices coming from the downstairs apartment, convinced it was two people arguing. But there were also some sounds that were a little harder to explain. Voices shifting octaves, this sliding pitch. None of it made any sense.

But what was even more puzzling was that in the downstairs apartment, where the noises were coming from, lived a little old lady and her cat. No one else at all. So, was it just all in her head? She'd soon find out. That night, I heard this again. These very distinct higher voice and lower voice. And again, these sort of angry whines or cries or whatever you would call them. I didn't know how much longer I could not know for.

And that night I went down and just listened and I thought maybe if I don't interrupt, I will find out what is going on. That is when I heard it. And it was a couple seconds of hissing noise in between this higher tone and this lower tone. It sounded as if there was some sort of pressurized can that she was inhaling in between these noises.

My stomach kind of dropped a bit. And that's when I realized that, you know, my neighbor was huffing something. Probably a solvent. They're very dangerous. They cause hallucinations and they have this uncomfortable side effect of dropping your voice down to this kind of demon register. She must have been struggling with this for many months. She was alone. She really was alone in there the whole time.

Dear listener, I have an announcement to make. Unfortunately, we're no longer being supported by the Case Family Funeral Home. I regretfully announce that it has closed down since our last installment. However, I am happy to declare that Radio Rental is now being represented by Oberlin Probiotics. So if you're feeling bloated, gassy, or constipated, Oberlin can help.

if your diarrhea is negatively affecting your public pool usage, they can also help. Don't let gastrointestinal health affect your productivity. Go with Oberlin probiotics. Because as Gore Vidal once famously said, "First coffee, then a bowel movement, then the muse joins me." Oberlin probiotics. Now, I hope you aren't afraid of no ghosts. I ain't afraid of no ghosts.

So I'm a retired criminal investigator from DuPage County, the next county west of Cook County where Chicago is. I grew up in a house in Cicero since I was like in first grade through high school. I'm probably one of the biggest skeptics because I believe that cops basically are skeptics. I mean, that's their general default. You know, you're talking to someone, you assume they're lying to you. It's kind of the investigative mindset.

The best I can remember, I was probably between like 12 and 15. I know what happened. I can explain what happened, but I can't give you a reason as to why. I want to say it was the late 70s, maybe 77, 78. I was actually in the living room watching TV with my youngest brother, and I wanted to go get a glass of iced tea. My mom always had a two-liter pitcher of iced tea in the fridge. I'm like, I'm going to get something to drink.

So I go in the kitchen, I pour myself a glass of iced tea and I look over at the stove and I assumed it was my mom at that point. She was wearing a house coat and she was cooking something on the stove in a pot. So I didn't see her face, I just saw the house coat. She was about the size of my mom. Her hair looked similar from the back so it didn't really strike me as weird. I poured the glass of iced tea, went back in the living room and went back to watching TV but then I realized that I'd left the remote.

Two young guys, a lot of work to just get off the couch and change the channel, you know, so we need the remote. So I said, "Ah, I left the remote in the kitchen, you know, I'll go back and get it." And my brother's like, "No, no, I'm going to get something to drink. I'll grab it. Where'd you leave it?" I said, "It's on the counter." So he runs, he gets a glass of iced tea and he comes back with his glass of iced tea, but no remote. So he did the same thing I did. And I'm like, "Where's the remote?" And he says, "Oh, I left it in the kitchen." So we both get up and we go back into the kitchen to grab the remote. And we both kind of stopped, looked around and this woman wasn't there.

There was no dishes in the sink. There was nothing on the stove. I just looked at him, he looked at me. We both had this bewildered look on our face and before we could even say anything to each other, we hear the people coming down from upstairs and it's my parents, my mom and dad, and my mom's completely dressed and they're moving furniture. We both looked at my mom and then we both looked at each other again and I'm like, "Dude, you did see, you did see what I saw, right? Did you see mom in here cooking when you came out here?"

He just kept looking at me like scared to death. Couldn't even say a word, but just kept nodding his head yes. He's just staring with his eyes really wide at them coming downstairs and he just kind of shook his head yes. I said, mom, were you just down here a minute ago cooking? She said, no, I've been upstairs moving furniture with your dad. And I'm like, there was a woman here cooking and we both saw her. She goes, you guys are nuts. And that was the end of it.

And we still tell the story to this day. And my mom still thinks we're crazy. It wasn't like what people picture to be a ghost or something where they're half transparent or floating above the floor or something. It just looked as real as you and I sitting here. The woman in the kitchen I thought was interesting because it was two different people seeing the same thing. Most people explain ghost sightings or paranormal experiences to imagination, hallucinations, something like that.

It's very difficult for two people at two different times to witness the exact same thing without any corroboration. If I would have said, "Hey, there's this woman in the kitchen," and put that in my brother's mind, but we both saw the exact same things, which to me means there were some sort of physical manifestation, because if I could see it and he could see it, it had to exist at some point other than in our head.

So there had to have been something physical going on. And like I said, I'm not going to say it was a ghost. I'm not going to say it was the spirit of someone who died in there. I've had friends say, well, maybe it was a wormhole or something, you know, a temporary opening that allowed you to see into the past and then it closed up. It's as good as any other explanation, I suppose, other than a woman breaking into our house, cooking and cleaning really fast and leaving. There were different times he was alone in the kitchen, I was alone in the kitchen. We saw the same thing, so...

I love ghosts. Beautiful creatures. I actually have a ghost. We have a ghost right here at Radio Rental. Did you know that? Oh, yes. A real force of nature. Sometimes she'll knock down that entire row of tapes on the side wall. It can be a bit of pain in the ass, actually. What I could use is a ghost who knows QuickBooks. And a ghost that can organize my iPhotos and sync up all of my Apple accounts. Ha ha ha.

If you know any ghosts like that, send them over because I can afford to pay them in ghost dollars. Anyway, moving on. Now you can get Cox Internet and one unlimited mobile line for $80 a month, all with Wi-Fi equipment included and no annual contract. If only getting it all was always that easy. Like having a night out and getting a good night's sleep.

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Tide's got you covered. You don't need to use warm water. Additionally, Tide Pods let you confidently fight tough stains with new coldzyme technology. Just remember, if it's got to be clean, it's got to be Tide. We all have plans in life. Maybe to take a cross-country road trip or simply get through this workout without any back pain. Whether our plans are big, small, spontaneous, or years in the making, good health helps us accomplish them.

At Banner Health, we're here to provide more than health care. Whatever you're planning, wherever you're going, we're here to help you get there. Banner Health. Exhale. Fascinating stuff. Thank you patrons all. Some really intriguing products. If only Radio Rental could afford a commercial like that, then maybe we wouldn't be struggling to make ends meet and I could leave this shitty hellhole of a video rental job.

No, not that this isn't a worthy pursuit, of course. No, no, I chose this path for now. I'm simply building myself back up like a phoenix rising from the ashes. My adoring fans, don't worry. Dark Air with Terry Carnation will be back on soon enough. But for now, we'll dive back into the tapes, shall we?

We were going to dog sit out in the middle of nowhere. We'd gotten there early to take the people we were dog sitting for to the airport. Right as we're getting ready to drop him off, they say, "If you see the neighbor, don't worry about him. He's kind of weird, but he's completely harmless." We drive back to the house, play with the dogs for a bit, playing Frisbee. They love fetch.

It gets closer to about 5:00 and I start bringing bags in. And I hear somebody slam a door and say, "Where'd you go?" And I'm like, "Oh, that's none of my business." I hear him yelling to this phone, "I do care about my kids." Oh, that's really none of my business. I try to just turn around and start going inside. Then I hear the dogs start going crazy.

I turn around and he's standing at the end of our driveway just staring at me. And the dogs are running at him and they're barking viciously. These dogs, they are trained very well where even though I'm not their mom, they will listen to me like I am. So they start running right at him and I'm like, "Buck, Billy, get back here." And immediately they do. And he says, "I know him."

And then he just goes, you all right? And I was like, I'm totally good. Hey, how you doing? And I said, are you all right? And he goes, I was asking you. No, I'm totally good. We're dog sitting this week for them. And he just stands there and just stares at me. And it's just like awkward for like a minute and a half. It felt like forever. And then I took my stuff inside and he's just staring at me.

So I tell Tara, I'm like, all right, let's relax. Let's watch some TV. Tara is my girlfriend and we've been together for three, coming on three years now. It's not the greatest environment for our relationship once we get out to the boonies. Depending on the side of town you're on really is the reaction you're going to get.

If we're downtown, people are pretty cool about it, usually just leave us alone. But as soon as you start making it out to where the cornfields just stretch on and on, that's where we get people who have followed us home, yelling names at us the whole time. I've had people yell threatening stuff at me, like, "I'm a dyke and I should go die because nobody wants me to live."

Start watching some TV, and about an hour later, the dogs just start barking like crazy again, like when they saw him, like viciously, and they run from the couch to the kitchen. I see the neighbor on a moped just staring into her car. He drives around her car a few times, just looking in, and I'm thinking, "Oh, shit. She's got an equality sticker on the back of her car."

I'm just gonna assume he doesn't like women, doesn't believe in equal rights, and now we definitely have a target on our backs 'cause he knows we're in a relationship. After he circles her car a few times, he goes to my car. He circles my car probably two or three times looking into it. I tell her, I'm like, "You should probably text the owners." They reply with, "If you feel unsafe,

call the police department, call this specific one. They know him. They'll come talk to him. Before they had left, they did tell me, "Here's a gun if you need it." So I grabbed the gun at this point, and then he drives off. We start watching TV again, and he comes back. This time, he parks his moped next to my car and takes a couple steps, like, into the yard, and he's just staring at the house.

He's doing the thing with his head where he's like just twisting it back and forth. He looks like he is full of hate. He would only take like one step and then he'd stop and he'd stare and he'd twist his head. Then he'd take another step, but then he'd stop. And I heard him yell something, but then he'd go really quiet. Each time he came back, he was getting closer and closer to the door.

At this point, when he's on the porch, the sun has set. So we go upstairs, but one of the dogs is so old it can't get up. So he's down there whining because he's all by himself while the other one's right next to us. And I look down, and he's standing on the front porch. The way he was just standing and, like, twisting his head back and forth, and I can hear him. Like, I can make out the fact that he's talking to himself. He's still twisting his head back and forth.

He lights a cigarette, and then he starts lighting matches. Just one by one, he'd light it, and then he'd throw it down on the porch. He'd talk, and he'd twist his head, and then he'd light it and throw it back down on the porch. He stood there, he smoked a whole cigarette while burning matches and throwing them on the ground, and then he walks back to his moped and leaves.

They asked us if we wanted to do it again, and they pay us very, very well. I'm trying to pay off my student loans, so I was like, yes. Without even consulting her, I will do that. No problem. We're watching TV again. We're watching our favorite show, How to Get Away with Murder. Our anxiety is already really high. Some shit just went down, and she gasps.

So we're watching TV and I just like feel like I need to glance over. I don't know, I just got this like, kind of like the hair standing up on your neck. Just this weird feeling of someone's watching me. I look over to the door and I gasped really loud. And I just felt all of my blood rush. So I said, what is it? I saw Ray's shadow.

in the stained glass. Why is he just peeking through and watching us? And how long has he been there? So I hop up and I said, "Get your phone ready to call the police, just in case." And I grabbed my knife and I put it in my sweatpants that I'm wearing and I had it open.

And I walk out the back door. This was the first time I'd ever seen him up close. He's still by that side door, kind of doing the same thing with his head, just trying to peek into it, you know? And I said, "What the fuck are you doing, man?" And he said, "Uh..." And I said, "What are you doing, Ray? Why are you at the front door?" And he says, "Can you let me in?" And I said, "No, that door doesn't work. What are you doing?"

And he said, "Uh, I'm looking for my nephews." Like it was a question. And I was like, "Well, we haven't seen anybody." And I said, "How old are they?" "Like 10 and 12." In my head, I'm thinking, "They haven't been here." I've not heard any kids at all since we've been here. And I said, "No kids have been over here. If I see them, I'll tell them to come home, but nobody's here."

Once I said, there are no kids here, Ray, there was like this sudden realization on his face. He went from like being super concerned and angry to, oh shit, maybe there aren't any kids here.

He starts walking towards me and he's got one arm kind of behind his back leg. And now he's standing about a foot away from me. My girlfriend was standing on the porch the whole time with one dog. The other dog is next to me. When he would move, the dog would start barking at him again. And he'd go, "You know me, I know you." His eyes did not seem there. Like it definitely wasn't somebody who is sane.

He kept looking around everywhere. And as he's standing there, his arms are kind of swaying. I mean, his arms would just kind of move like he wasn't really controlling them too much. They just like swayed by his side. I see that he's got one arm back though. And as he moved away from the bush, I saw him bring that arm out with the machete.

Half my brain was working against the other half. Half of it is like, breathe, stay calm, collect yourself, just be real with him as you would with anybody else. But then half of it is like, run. This guy has a machete and he's clearly fucked up. The whole time I'm like glancing up at his face, but really I'm watching the machete. It was buckled, you know, it's latched.

And I'm like, I have a knife. It's out already. If he goes to unbuckle this, I'm going to stab him and run. He starts walking back. So we go inside. We start trying to watch the show again. And she says, I really like this show. I can't pay attention right now. And I said, OK, well, why don't we watch something feel good? As I said that, here comes Ray walking past the main window.

He's not, like, looking into the house, but he's standing there. He would swing his machete, and then he'd put it down. When he saw me in the dining room walking from the living room to the kitchen, he stopped, and he held whatever pose he had. At this point, when I see him swinging this around, I say, "We need to call the cops. We're out in the middle of nowhere. This is terrifying."

I call the cops, and I'm like, "Hey, this is our address." Cops say, "Hold on, we got to transfer you. You're in a different county." And I'm like, "No, we're right on a county line. The owner of the house told us that I need to tell you this police station needs to come out and talk to this guy because they've had multiple interactions with him." And she goes, "Well, unfortunately, you're not in our jurisdiction." He's literally striking poses

Like, he would hold it up like if he were a sword fighter getting ready for a sword fight. And he'd hold it there and then swing. He'd just swing like full force. And they're like, well, don't worry about that. Just leave all the lights on. Make sure all the doors and windows are locked. We'll send somebody out there. Call disconnects. And it's like he starts...

pointing to the heights of where like a 10 and a 12 year old would be. Like he's giving them a lecture. He would point at two separate nobodies and then he'd point to our backyard and then he'd yell at them. But then he grabs the machete and he throws it up and then he strikes at the fake people that he was just talking to. Right where their heads would be, like where he was pointing where these fake faces were.

I get a call from dispatch and they say the officer is getting ready to arrive. Is he still in your driveway? And I see headlights down the dirt road. One was an SUV, another was a canine unit, and then another was a Mustang.

The Mustang whipped it like it was an emergency. So one of the cops in the very first SUV at the front of the line, he gets out and he starts walking towards the backyard with his flashlight, no gun or anything, just his flashlight. And then I see another one get out of the K-9 unit and it starts walking towards where the pool and the orchard is. We're standing in the kitchen

The cop turns around with his flashlight and had already pulled his gun out and yells, "Drop your weapon!" And then I hear a man start, like, screaming in pain and crying, like, wailing. Then we see an ambulance coming down the dirt road.

Eventually, you know, after the ambulance takes off, one of the cops comes back. He comes up to the door and he asks if we wouldn't mind writing a statement. "Yeah, that dude's pretty wacko. We're gonna take him in." We had to tase him. "So if you wouldn't mind just writing down the statement, I'll be back with some paper and pens here in a second."

I have a friend who her hobby is looking into public records, police records, stuff like that. And so she found him. You know, she found his mugshot from that night. Turns out he was actually really high on meth. And apparently he had over five grams of meth on his person when they tased him.

He also tried to run, apparently, so they arrested him for having meth and for running from the police. And they did ask us, after we had written our statements, "If we need you, can you testify?" And I was like, "Uh, you have our statements, but..." If he's gonna get out and see my face again, no thank you, I won't do that. Honestly, I think we've tried to start, like, repressing that shit.

Do you guys still watch those vlogs? Not since. It's a classic scary story, staying in a house out in the middle of nowhere. Then it gets dark and something threatening lurks. But for these two women, it wasn't merely campfire lore. This time, the threat was real. And thanks to their own good instincts, they made it out alive. And the machete-wielding man on drugs in the middle of nowhere was put away.

Ooh, a wild ride, that one. What a terrifying experience for that couple. But seriously, it had me on the edge of my seat.

Radio Rental will return in several months with new tapes, new stories, and in the meantime, may I interest you in renting the deluxe Demon Baby package? That's two movies for the price of one. Rosemary's Baby by Roman Polanski, and then my personal favorite, Jack Hill's 1967 Spider Baby. Hmm? Interested? No? Well, maybe next time. Anyway, dear friends, dear fans, all my love.

Yours, Terry Carnation. Stay spooky.

For some of these, there is more to the story. Tune in next week to find out. We'll be exploring some of these stories even further and playing some raw tape from my interviews. And don't worry, we've been hard at work on our next batch of Radio Rental episodes. Tune back in next week to learn more about what's next for Radio Rental. And, as promised, here are the winners of our one-of-a-kind Radio Rental VHS tapes. Adam Appletech BrownMe214 Bongers9000 Chloe Vidana

And drumroll, the winner of our Radio Rental Store Manager Action Figure is Square Bear Alley. If you heard your username, please send an email to radiorentalwinner at gmail.com. Again, that's radiorentalwinner at gmail.com.

Radio Rental is created by Payne Lindsey and brought to you by Tenderfoot TV in Atlanta.

Executive Producers Payne Lindsey and Donald Albright Hosted by Rainn Wilson as his character, Terry Carnation Produced by Payne Lindsey, Mike Rooney, and me, Meredith Stedman Written by Meredith Stedman with additional writing by Mark Laughlin Sound Design by Cooper Skinner Original Score by Makeup and Vanity Set Additional Production by Christina Dana and Mason Lindsey Cover Art by Trevor Eiler and Rob Sheridan

Voice acting by Ryan Jones, Casey Willis, and the Tenderfoot TV team. Shout out to Tiny Doors ATL for the creation of our real-life miniature radio rental store. You can check that out and more on their Instagram at tinydoorsatl. Special thanks to Grace Royer and Oren Rosenbaum at UTA, as well as support from the Nord Group, Station 16, Beck Media and Marketing, and the team at Cadence 13.

If you have a Radio Rental story that you'd like to share, please email us at yourscarystory at gmail.com or contact us via the form on our website, RadioRentalUSA.com. Follow us on Instagram at Radio Rental and on Twitter at Radio Rental USA. You can also follow the beloved Terry Carnation on social media. Just search at Terry Carnation.

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