The Ghosts of Ballarat
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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. I'm Lindsay. Hello, Lindsay. Thanks for all the recent ratings and reviews. It has been awesome to see a lot more pour in lately. They definitely help us find more new listeners and are very much appreciated. Yes, they do matter. So please keep them coming. We are super grateful for them. Yes. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

And now, what true horror have you selected for us? Actually, you know what? I want to thank also, we have a lot of new Roberts and Annabelles. And we've been feeling very grateful lately for our Scared to Death fans just being such an awesome supportive group. Yes, you guys are the best. Don't tell the Time Suckers. I like you guys more.

I like the time suckers too. What true horror have you selected for us from the awesome paranormal fan story sent into my story at scaredtodeathpodcast.com? Yes. Well, this week I have three, which is down from five last week. Okay. My first story is,

involves a strange fever dream that leads to a family discovery. It's hard to explain, and it's not the scariest story, but it's definitely very strange. Okay. Okay. And then my second story, oh my gosh, it is classic tale, older sister, younger sister. It was kind of cracking me up the way it all came together, but...

The younger sister makes friends with something in the mirror that is not funny. Oh, all right. And then my third and final tale, Who's in the Basement? A shorter story. And yeah, it's interesting. Just stay to the very end. Basement tales usually pretty good for horror.

Yeah. Always a dark, scary, uncomfortable place. For my first of two tales, we're going to head to the old mining city of Ballarat, Australia, to explore some old reports of hauntings from the 19th century and some even stranger reports of some ghost hoaxers. Oh. Oh, yeah. You'll see what I mean. It's ridiculous. A very entertaining story, I think.

And then I will share a supposedly true modern encounter tale of someone who might give you something new to worry about when you think of deceased relatives and other spirits always watching you. Uh-oh. Yeah. So once you are socked up and feeling protected, I will begin. I already have some thoughts on that second one. You're probably right. I love these socks. I've gotten them several times from fans. They're just my favorite crystal socks. Like mismatched, super cute. I love a crystal. Awesome.

Okay. So what do you know about Victoria, Australia? That I want to go to there?

Do you? You go back and forth with Australia. You worry about the bugs. No, I want to go. I say I don't want to live. Oh, okay. It's different. I don't think that there's a lot of bugs and snakes in the hotels because I think that it would deter tourists, so I feel good about that. But living there, you know, I always think of the classic online video that you've seen of somebody taking a piece of art or a TV off the wall and whoosh, out comes a huge-ass snake. So I'm not into that.

Well, if you happen to be a geography buff, you might know that Victoria is the second smallest state in Australia and yet the second most populated after New South Wales. Its capital is Melbourne, Australia's second largest city after Sydney. And if you happen to be a history buff, you might know that Victoria was home to many Aboriginal Australian nations who have been living there for about 40,000 years before Europeans showed up and spoke over 30 different languages.

The British would establish Victoria as a colony in 1851, but the first British settlement had actually already been established a half century earlier, back in October of 1803, under Lieutenant Governor David Collins at Sullivan Bay.

There were just over 400 people in that first settlement, five government officials, nine officers, two drummers, 39 privates, five soldiers, wives, and a child, 307 convicts, 17 convicts' wives, and seven of their children. Similar to Port Arthur in Tasmania, which we covered on an earlier episode, the presence of so many prisoners performing such back-breaking labor in such an isolated place might make you think that Port Phillip would be Victoria's most haunted city by far.

but that designation allegedly goes to the city of Ballarat, currently home to just over 110,000 Australians. The word Ballarat comes from an aboriginal phrase, bala and arat, meaning resting place or an area for groups to meet. In 1851, gold was discovered near Ballarat at Mount Alexander, one of the world's richest shallow alluvial goldfields, which is a goldfield where the gold has been eroded into sediment, such as a riverbed.

as opposed to still being trapped inside hard outcroppings of rock, which are a little tougher to mine. Gold had been discovered in Australia three decades earlier in 1823 by James McBreen in the Bathurst region of New South Wales. The government, however, suppressed the news of that discovery and several subsequent discoveries because Australia was still largely populated by convicts.

Due to fears about how the news of a bunch of easily harvested gold might affect the prison population, with officials no doubt worried about uprisings and lawlessness spreading like wildfire, the news was buried until after the California gold rush began in 1848. I can't actually believe they kept a secret like that for as long as they did.

The Australian gold rush began in February of 1851 when prospector Edward Hargraves claimed to find gold in a place he called Ophir, located near the city of Orange in New South Wales. By May of 1851, the news had made it to the local papers and 300 diggers arrived, eager to make their new fortunes. This development accelerated the process of convict colonies being phased out with towns and cities beginning to revolve around a new and steady stream of prospectors arriving by the boatload each and every week.

These men, sometimes their wives and children, desired more than sparse towns offered to prisoners, wardens, and the few civilians who had come before them. They wanted proper homes. They wanted railways, libraries, inns, pubs, and more. They wanted everything that we associate with a thriving town. And near Ballarat, Mount Alexander, as I mentioned, proved to be one of the world's richest shallow alluvial goldfields, yielding around 4 million ounces of gold, most of which were found in just the first two years of the rush.

As a result, Ballarat quickly became a thriving boomtown that rivaled Melbourne. But with so many newcomers and many of them desperate to strike it rich, it also became pretty chaotic. In 1854, following a period of civil disobedience in Ballarat over gold licenses, a large group of local miners launched an armed uprising against government forces, which led to the deaths of 22 of those miners. Unlike a lot of other boomtowns, however, Ballarat's prosperity did not fizzle after the initial mostly easily mined gold was all gone

It continued until the late 19th century. Grand public buildings with elaborate facades were built to line the streets. Generous recreation areas were open to the public and the area's initial ramshackle tents and timber houses made way for impressive structures of solid stone and brick that remain there to this day. And Ballarat also became, which is why I'm sharing all this. I know it's just been a history lesson so far. It became a town wildly obsessed with ghosts. Perhaps it's not hard to see why.

Aside from all the accidents and misfortune that can befall a miner, long one of the world's deadliest professions, mining itself is kind of a ghostly endeavor.

You go out into the wilderness to find something long buried, something gleaning around the edges of your vision. Perhaps you descend into a darkened tunnel full of strange shadows cast by your headlamp, accompanied mostly by the sounds of your own breathing and your footsteps in the rocky, uneven ground. Sounds that echo in the tunnel to the point they sometimes sound like they're coming from someone or something else. Easy to see how one's imagination could run wild in a setting like that.

If you're lucky, you come back out of the tunnel, maybe with something to show for it, maybe not. Maybe you're forever changed by your experience, kind of like with paranormal exploration, when you might see or hear or feel something that you can't explain, and that changes you forever. In the 1860s, David Blair, a Melbourne man, went on a lecture tour across parts of gold-crazed Australia with a presentation titled A Plea for Ghosts.

In it, he would say, without a study of the laws of man's spiritual being, it was impossible to explain and understand man's physical nature. How then could we say that we would deny all possibility of the existence of a spirit land? He found a devoted listenership in Ballarat, where his presentation was especially well-received.

a place where people had been hearing the echoes of shouts and screams from the hills for decades, where immigrants from all different corners of the earth had brought their own folklore and superstitions with them as they came to make fast money, a place where the presence of the recently displaced indigenous people were still written on the landscape in artifacts and monuments that stood like graves.

People living in and around Ballarat believed in ghosts so much that when in 1881 a local preacher spoke out against spiritualism and ghosts in front of the Galloway Monument in Ballarat, an angry mob of locals literally chased him down the street. Perhaps they were afraid of retribution from one of the local ghosts. Time now for the tale of the ghosts of Ballarat. One of these ghosts was the widely reported Burnt Bridge Ghosts.

An article was printed about an alleged sighting of this ghost in the July 8, 1871 edition of the Bendigo Advertiser. Here's an excerpt. Having secured a Crimean veteran, Charles Baird, for their leader, a squad of twelve paid a nocturnal visit to the scene distant about five miles. At intervals, the specter made its appearance as was its want, enveloped in white and carried a light that shone with uncommon brilliancy.

and from the house issued a noise that produced by wheeling a barrow up and down a stair. My informant, the leader of the adventurous party, states that he was completely paralyzed from what he saw. His legs trembled and his hair stood on end. So convinced is he that all he saw and heard was unearthly, that to use his own words, he would rather face a charged militrus in the hands of an enemy than enter the chamber in which the specter was seen. I hear that two deaths under peculiar circumstances, one a case of self-destruction,

took place in the haunted building and that the bodies are interred in the field adjoining. In another area, Ghostsiding, people were said to be so struck by a feeling of intense terror upon entering the site of a brutal murder in the nearby town of Lallal, just 10 miles outside of Ballarat, that they became paralyzed, unable to move. They heard a disembodied voice speaking words they couldn't understand. They heard footsteps coming from a room that looked by all accounts to be empty, and they fled.

Indeed, so many people around Ballarat were reporting ghost stories that some city officials began to think of it as a public problem. And even more interesting, to me at least, citizens began contacting authorities with sightings of ghosts that would definitely turn out to be, well, not ghosts. For example, one supposed headless ghost was actually a poor house cat who had gotten its head trapped in a lobster tin. Another report of a, quote, female headless horsewoman with a fine body reported

was later revealed to be an abandoned mannequin laying out next to an old log. And I'm guessing by fine back then, they meant a woman with a slight build, as opposed to thinking they had witnessed a real sexy headless ghost. Perhaps these sightings were partly a product of a lack of modern amenities. After all, Ballarat didn't have any street lighting back then. Flashlights were still a long ways off. By the flickering fire of a gas lamp or a candle, what doesn't look somewhat suspicious?

Still, you have to wonder why they were so insistent that these things in the darkness were ghosts, not criminals or vagrants, but supernatural entities. What had the people of Ballarat been seeing? What did they know? Why were they far more crazy than the citizens of any other town in Australia at that time?

After authorities began to crack down on these ghost sightings, advocating that people do things like discharge their guns into the sky when encountering something supposedly paranormal, since if it was a ghost, nothing would supposedly happen. But if it was a person, the hoaxer would reveal themselves. Something very strange now began to happen. Their advice did not lead to fewer ghost sightings. It led to more.

Suddenly, it seemed like ghosts were everywhere. You could hardly walk anywhere at night without thinking you were hearing them nearby in the shadows. A soft rustling like leaves scraping over the ground or an upsetting whispering. The shadows would often look almost liquid, spilling out from dark, spilling out from darkened corners, concealing something that looked vaguely like a person, but wrong. And sometimes these wrong things actually emerged from the shadows.

Suddenly, a fast-moving mass of swirling white might come for you, screaming and throwing rocks. This is what you might encounter if you came across the so-called Wizard Bombardier, a nickname given to an entity by the press in Victoria at that time because this figure dressed in a white robe and wore a tall sugarloaf hat. The figure scared countless workers traveling after the sun went down along the nearly 90-mile passage between Ballarat and Kilmore.

For a long time, whenever someone, whenever some especially brave soul would chase after this thing, it would disappear off into the darkness. But then finally, two men did manage to get a hold of one. The wizard bombardier turned out to be nothing more than a local young man, especially dedicated to scaring the complete shit out of strangers. Despite the fact that this young man was then beaten within an inch of his life for his devious prank.

Something you would think would dissuade anyone else who was thinking of trying something similar, this kind of sighting would not stop. All kinds of new ghosts were now terrifying the new residents of Victoria, in addition to other possibly real supernatural entities. Perhaps one of the most intriguing of these ghosts was the so-called Heart and Hills ghost, spotted west of Ballarat on many occasions in the 1870s.

Those who glimpsed the figure lurking on the desolate land where British settlers had battled the native Gwondichmara people in the Umarala War thought it seemed like a vision from this bloody past. The return of a kind of fierce warrior who once slaughtered or broke the hind legs of settler sheep before melting back into the landscape.

Finally, the so-called native police had managed to track and surround these indigenous warriors. They did massacre many of them, then moving the survivors to the government-run Lake Conda Mission Station. Now it seemed like the warriors of old were back, but that was not the case. The fierce warrior was actually a local woodcutter by the name of Robert Downey.

And like the others, he was severely beaten by vigilantes as he protested that what he had done was nothing more than pull off a harmless prank. Though nobody who had known Robert before had ever heard of him pulling pranks prior to this. They all wondered, why would he do it? And why, despite the beatings, despite the public ostracism that undoubtedly followed, would these pranks still continue? As the Kyneton Observer reported on June 10th, 1899,

In Ballarat East on Tuesday night, several Europeans and Chinese met an unearthly figure in Humphrey Street, which gave forth a phosphorescent light, causing the Chinese to collapse in terror. At Red Dan, a local push is roaming after dark, or at Red Dan, a local push is roaming after dark in glowing white garments, to the great alarm of women and children. Then in 1904, yet another ghost was on the prowl.

This ghost is described as wearing a long overcoat with rubber boots and wielding a cat o' nine tails, which is a type of small multi-tailed whip accosted young women. And it was alleged sexually assaulted and exposed himself to some of them between mayor street and Lyddiard street in Ballarat. A reward of five pounds was issued for information leading to his arrest. And some male police officers patrolled the region dressed as women in hopes of catching this man in the act, but they never would catch him in the act.

But they would learn who this ghost was, not long after finding a strange letter addressed to the mayor of Ballarat, which read, Dear Sir, I see that you and your bally counselors have fixed a reward of five pounds on my head, but you didn't say whether dead or alive. And furthermore, you said you'd have me plugged with a lead on sight. Mr. Mayor, I give you warning that the first man I see with his hand in his pocket or otherwise looking suspicious, I will plug a bullet through him.

I hope you will caution the rake bite portion of your counsel of my intentions. Yours truly, the ghost. Soon after this letter showed up, it was discovered that the ghost was Herbert Patrick McLennan, a mild-mannered and well-spoken local clerk who worked on Lyddiard Street. He was well-connected, respected, and generous. He had no reason to do what he had done, but he did it all the same. Everyone, unsurprisingly, was shocked, and the strange ghostly behavior still wasn't done.

Around this same time, one local woman reportedly began to dress up as a man and visit bars where she would chat men up before revealing her true identity. She was eventually arrested for disturbing the peace and was carted off to the Ararat Lunatic Asylum. She wouldn't be held there long, and her behavior became stranger after she was released. She began to now dress up as what's described in sources as a monster. She made this kind of hideous paper mache mask. She'd put it on along with a white sheet she had soaked in some kind of glow-in-the-dark paint.

Then she would hide under the Peel Street Bridge, where she would then jump out screaming at unsuspecting pedestrians, nearly giving several local citizens heart attacks. And she wasn't the only one acting like that. Another woman started wearing a glow-in-the-dark wedding dress. She would also paint her face and her arms white, then play guitar up on the roof of a building when she wasn't scaring the shit out of people in alleys below. In 1895, a retired miner in Ballarat by the name of Frederick Parks was stabbed by a man dressed as a ghost.

The remarkable ghost costume of the assailant featured white clothes, face and arms soaked in white phosphorescent paint, and a coffin lid strapped to his back. Newspaper reports indicate the ghostly figure was assaulting a young woman when the minor went to intervene and grappled with the assailant. The ghost then drew a dagger, stabbed Mr. Park before making an escape over a nearby fence. No one ever determined who that ghost was. What the hell was going on?

Some have looked to the years before the ghost hoaxes began for an explanation, back when numerous Ballarat religious officials had been inundated with requests for exorcisms. Thinking that the reports were overblown, the religious officials had refused. Maybe now they wish they hadn't. Eventually, by the 1910s or so, the phenomenon of all these ghost hoaxers ended, and no one seemed to understand why it ended so suddenly.

Any more than anyone ever figured out, why did it all begin in the first place? What the fuck is going on in Australia? I know, isn't that weird? I kind of love it, though. I've always thought of the Australian people as very fun, very loose, you know, anything kind of goes, a good storyteller. I was like, actually, this feels quite fitting. It feels on brand? Yeah. Makes me rethink my decisions about whether or not I want to live there. Would you guys have me? Yeah.

I like to cuss a lot. Yeah. Oh, that works. Yep. Yep. And, uh, I'm, you know, I like to party. I like a good time. Uh, what else? Um, before you have any questions or comments, I want to show you some pictures that might lead to more stuff. Okay. Okay. Uh, this is,

This first one, okay. And I will say this story feels fitting for an episode that releases on April Fool's Day. Absolutely. No, it's fun. And I like the variety. Like, it doesn't always have to be so serious. So this first one, artist Antoinette Stockle's impression found within an article about all this published on prov.vic.gov.au. Jeez. This is a woman who engaged in ghost hoaxing under bridges wearing that white phosphor sheet and the hideous papier-mâché mask. This is awesome. So that's just her rendition of that.

This next one, artist Antoinette Stokel's impression of Ballarat hoaxer Herbert Patrick McLean or McLennan, that local clerk who allegedly exposed himself to ladies and even assaulted them with a cat of nine tails. Yeah, I mean, that was the one that I was like, oh, dude, why'd you have to go too far? Yeah, he was wearing a white glowing outfit complete with a white frock coat, knee-high Indian rubber boots and a white top hat. Doesn't really look like a ghost here, just like a creepy dude chasing ladies with a whip. But I guess he glowed.

Yeah. To me, he feels like it feels like some. Yeah. I mean, it was sexual in nature. But even if you hadn't told me that, I would feel like this was some sort of like sex masquerade. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. He's using all this stuff to try to, like, sneak in his own deviancy. He's a fucker. This next one. This is an example of an article from the Sunday Times. That's why she's a cunt. Yeah. Yeah. They're the Australian. Yeah. Listen, that's one of my favorite words. And if you don't like it, you should look up the history of it. You'll feel better. Yeah.

This next one, example of an article from the Sunday Times with an illustration about a ghost hoaxer being thrashed in Australia on November 27th, 1898. I like that it says the residents decided not to hand him over to the police, but to administer a sound thrashing. Can these people being beat within inches of their life? I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm

I would immediately stop if I was playing this game. Australia, 19th century, from a lot of things I've read over the years, very much sounds like the Wild West and America at the same time. It was like vigilante justice was the kind of justice that got dished out. You know, sometimes. Sometimes that's what we need. This next one, this is an old newspaper illustration of a ghost hoaxer. Again, beaten by a mob.

Oh, God. Bad luck for the ghost. Yeah, just people chasing this guy wearing a sheet with like clubs and stuff and sticks. One person in the back has a pitchfork. Good Lord. This is great. And then one more. Again, artist Antoinette Sokol's impression of the Ballarat hoaxer who assaulted a woman on Eureka Street while dressed as a ghost in phosphorus paint with a coffin lid strapped to his back. That's an elaborate costume. I like it.

He's got big claws. Looks like some kind of things on his hand to make his hands look scarier. Just crazy. So silly. Mm-hmm. So silly. So silly. I like the wizard...

The Wizard Bombardier? It's just a great name. Uh-huh. Absolutely fantastic name. But I just kept thinking about it. I was like, there's no way that you started doing this thinking like, they could beat me to death. I know. Or maybe that was the rush. Like, you know, if you're living around that time, you know, maybe you're like, okay, I'm probably getting my ass whooped if I get caught. But then that gives me that extra adrenaline boost to not get caught. I just don't have that in me. Some people do like to walk that line. Yeah, I don't have that in me. Yeah, I don't know. I did when I was a teenager.

I think you do a little bit now. Yeah, I ran from several people after like doing terrible like, you know, just acts of vandalism or whatever. Now you do things that just like drive me and Kyler crazy. Like parking in places that say, do not park here, you will be towed. And you're like, it'll be fine. And Kyler and I from the backseat are just losing our minds. So you still tow the line is my point. Okay, yeah, fair. I won't.

Do you have any comments? No, that was great. I thought that was really fun. Well, I guess I do have two unrelated comments of things that I love in Australia. Okay. Okay. All my workout stuff comes from Australia. Ah. Cleo Harper. I love their gear. Ladies, get it. Your boobs have never looked so good in a sports bra. I promise you. And I love Rhythm. This like brand of, you actually like it too. I like them too. Yeah. Yeah. I just think that all, this is my assessment. Having never been there. Yeah.

And only bought a handful of things from brands there. I think that they have a better understanding of the shape of a woman's body. They don't seem to be into like the way fish thin thing that we got into like heroin chic. I just feel like they're like, no, women should be curvy and strong. And I think there's less, I get the feeling there's less emphasis on perfectionism over there. And I really like that.

Somebody tell me if I'm wrong. I know we have Australian listeners, so tell me if I'm wrong. I want to go over there so bad when we get the chance. My limited interactions with Australians over the course of my life. I love them. Yeah, I tend to get along very well with a high percentage of them. Yeah, me too. And I don't know if it's just that they have a...

My approach to life is more similar to theirs. Don't take things so seriously. Don't take things so personally. But also good people. Yes. Really good people. Totally. Really good, kind, generous. We've gotten, you know, over the years, so many emails from fans over there. Every email that I get from one of them, I'm like, I really like you. Yep. A lot of like rough around the edges, just like great hearts. Exactly. Which is. That's my favorite kind of person. Well, I think that's because that's who we are. Yeah. Yeah. Okay.

You ready to leave a bunch of old and pretty funny Australian ghost lore for an odd and also, I think, very funny, in addition to being creepy, modern encounter claim? Sure. Where are we going? I don't know. The location, not exactly given. I just know that probably America by the sounds of it. Sounds good. Let's go. Before we move on to more scares, we need to take a quick in-between story sponsor break. If you don't want to hear these ads, please sign up to be a Robert or Annabelle on Patreon to get the episodes, all the episodes ad-free, additional bonus episodes, and more.

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No setup for this anonymous claim. Just going to jump right in. Time now for the tale of He's Watching Us. I remember the first time the thought of death really fucked me up. It was when my uncle died. I think I must have been in sixth or seventh grade. I had never known anyone who had ever died before, except for those two hamsters I had when I was four who ate each other. But that wasn't the reason it shook me up.

I also it also wasn't because my uncle and I were super close or anything if that's what you're thinking If i'm being honest, I wasn't even all that sad when he died. I didn't really know the guy I mean he lived in texas and we lived in florida Uh, we maybe saw him every three or four years if that My life really didn't change that much after he was gone except I got one less card on my birthday and christmas The reason my uncle's death fucked me up so bad was because he happened to die around the same time I just started jerking off now I don't know if this is a common experience

Maybe it's one that I should have just kept to myself and my therapist if I could ever afford one But here's what happened growing up I was raised to believe in God in heaven and hell and all that and when my uncle died my moderately Christian parents Comforted me by saying that he wasn't really gone because he would always be with me wherever I went Whatever I did always watching over me from above. Do you see where this is going? This was not comforting news. I

It had already taken me a while to make peace with the fact that God was watching me every time I beat my meat. But now Uncle Jason was watching me too? With his big ass milky white eyes and beer belly and red face and don't tread on me t-shirts and pit viper sunglasses? No fucking way. I remember all I could think about at the funeral, which was not open casket, thank God, was what a fucking bummer it was that I was never going to be able to masturbate again. And how the loss was extra sad because I had just learned about Pornhub.

Then I remember thinking that maybe I could still masturbate if I just asked Uncle Jason to look away first. But then I thought that wasn't going to work because how would I even know if he agreed? Next, I remember thinking maybe I could find a new way to communicate with him. Like maybe when I ask him to shield his eyes, he could make the lights flicker. And that would be our signal that it was all good to go. And that got me thinking how cool it would be to be able to talk to ghosts in general. And I think by that point, my cousin Lenny was wrapping up the eulogy and it was time to go to the reception.

After all that, every time I snuck into the bathroom with Pornhub pulled up on my iPod, instead of boobs and butts, my prepubescent brain could only think about Uncle Jason, staring down at me from the ceiling, his fat double chin jiggling while he shook his head in disgust. I got over it eventually. I don't really know how, maybe just out of the sheer willpower of hormonal horniness.

But still, seven years later, once in a while, I'll be jerking off and the thought will creep into the back of my head that all my dead relatives, a club that now includes both my grandfathers, one grandma, my childhood best friend's mom, and my dog Winston, in addition to Uncle Jason, can all see me. And I immediately lose my boner. I don't think I even believe in God anymore. So I shouldn't be worried about people in his heaven perving on me while I get after it. But still, sometimes I do.

The bottom line is, I mostly got over my fear of dead people watching me masturbate. But then I met this girl named Amy. Amy's amazing. Like, really, really amazing. We started dating about a month ago. I've known her since freshman year, but we never really became friends until last semester when we were assigned to sit next to each other in art class. She's really fucking good at art. It's sick. Anyway, after a semester of laying down the groundwork, being super funny and charming in class and stuff, I finally asked her over winter break, and obviously, she said yes. She's the first girlfriend I've ever had.

Maybe that's kind of embarrassing at 17, but whatever. I don't care. I really want to be a good boyfriend, and I think I'm doing a pretty good job. I always drive when we go on dates, open the door for her and stuff, buy her flowers, send her good morning texts, all that stuff. The only thing that sucks is that her parents don't really like me. You see, Amy's family is Catholic. I mean, like, really Catholic. The first time I came over to her house, I saw there was a cross over the front door, and I jokingly said something like, you guys put a cross over every door in the house? Turns out the answer was yes.

Amy laughed. Her dad did not. Her dad's name is Phil. He does something in finance, I think. Her mom's name is Daphne, and it took everything in me not to say, rut-ro-raggy, the first time I met her. Daphne's actually pretty nice to me, but I know she thinks her daughter deserves more because Amy told me so. And I know her dad doesn't like me because he told me so. Pretty messed up, right?

Anyway, even though they pretty much think I'm there to corrupt their daughter, Amy and I mostly just hang out at her house. Her parents don't like it when she comes over to my place because, I don't know, I think they think it's like a crack house or something. It's not. We live in the suburbs. Because of her parents, Amy and I have never really been alone. Either we're in public and there's a bunch of strangers around, in the parking lot at school and there's a bunch of losers around, or in her house and her parents are around. At least until last weekend, that's how it always was.

Amy was supposed to go to this family friend's church fundraiser with her parents, but she got strep throat today the day of So she had to stay home as soon as her parents were gone She called me to come over the fundraiser was an hour away So they were gonna be gone for a while Even though i'm super susceptible to strep throat because of my massive tonsils. I got my ass over to her house asap It was early evening ish So I ordered us some takeout to be delivered and we curled up on the couch to watch a movie. I was so anxious I

She cuddled under my arm, so pressed up against me that I could feel her body heat radiating off of her, which could have just been her fever, but whatever. We were watching Bob's Burgers, because she had never seen it, and it's my favorite show. But we didn't end up doing all that much watching, if you know what I mean. Before I knew it, she was sitting on top of me, kissing me and stuff. It was so hot, I didn't even mind that once in a while, I got a taste of the snot dripping out of her nose from her upper lip.

I was so into it, we both were, when all of a sudden, we were interrupted by this horrible crash. Amy jumped up off of me, frantically looking outside, I guess, to see if her parents were home. They weren't. What was that? She asked, while walking back to me, her face all red and eyes watery. I rubbed my hands on my jeans and tried not to stare at her boobs in her tank top. I don't know, did something fall?

Amy scanned the room. Her eyes landed on a heavy black picture frame face down on the carpet at the base of the fireplace. Oh no, she exclaimed, picking up the frame and brushing it off. Is it okay? I asked. Yeah, she nodded and sat down next to me with the picture still in her hands. She was staring at it with those watery eyes. No, wait, not watery, teary. She was crying now. Amy, are you okay? I asked. She sniffled and held the picture at an angle so I could see it better. It was a portrait of an old man.

He was making that face that all old white guys seem to make when they're used to getting their picture taken. Dead-eyed, mouth open, not smiling. That's my grandfather. Grandpa John, we called him. He died last year. I really miss him. Amy rested her head on my shoulder while she stared at the picture. I put my arm around her and started rubbing her back again, still trying not to stare so obviously at her tank top. I'm sorry. He sounds like he was a great guy, he said. He was. She sniffled again, sighed deeply, then placed the picture on the coffee table.

Without warning she then climbed back on top of me and we got back to making out or at least we tried to It was pretty hard to focus when directly behind her was her dead grandpa staring me down And I know this sounds fucking insane. But every time I caught a glimpse of his wrinkled old face I swear it looked angrier I finally had to pull my face away from hers and ask her if we could move the picture She looked confused at the question for a second then silently got up grab the picture and put it back on the mantle Once again, she got on top of me and we started making out

After a while, she asked me if it was okay if she took my shirt off. Trying to be super cool, I said she could do whatever she wanted. Then right when I was about to ask her the same thing, another crash erupted in the living room. We both looked up, confused. It was the picture of her granddad, laying face down in that same spot on the floor. We both stared at it. Amy looked like she was about to cry again, so before that could happen, I jumped up and said, don't worry, I got it. But when I grabbed the picture off the ground, I screamed.

It wasn't her granddad staring up at me. It was my fucking uncle Jason. Only worse. In his eyes, those big ass eyes, there were no pupils. Only filmy, puss-fooled pools of milky white. His skin was stretched so tight it looked like it was going to burst like a pimple. He was smiling at me. His smile was stretched out too big. He had too many teeth. He had drool coming out of his mouth. I dropped the frame and Amy came running over yelling, What's wrong? What's wrong? But she wasn't looking at me. She was looking at that fucking frame as she lifted it off the ground. I screamed, Don't! Backing up like it was a bomb.

She looked down at the photo, then up at me, confused. "Who's in the photo?" I asked, my voice trembling. Amy looked down and then back up at me. "My grandpa John." "Oh," was all I could say. I don't know how long we just stared at each other, or more accurately, I don't know how long she stared at me and I stared at the floor, too ashamed to meet her eyes. And then the moment I finally looked up, the overhead lights in the living room flickered. Amy made the sign of the cross over her chest, and then she said, "I think you should leave. I don't know when my parents are gonna be back home." I nodded, and I left.

The farther away from her house I got, the more stupid I felt. I fucking blew it. I blew my chances with this girl because of my dead Uncle Jason. How stupid could I be? I wanted to punch some drywall. By the time I was pulling into the driveway of my house, all the weird fear I felt about the thing I thought I saw disappeared. Now I just felt pissed off. And still pretty horny. But mostly pissed off. I turned off the ignition and slumped back in my seat, fuming over being such a dumbass. Eventually, when I felt I had calmed down enough, I sat up to go inside.

Luckily my whole family was asleep So no one bothered me on my way up to the bathroom I turned on the light Turned on the tap And laid my hands on the counter I watched the water swirl down the drain And I thought about my chances of getting laid Before I went to college going down the drain with it I thought of Amy's tank top I thought about jerking off But then the lights went out In the dark I fumbled for the switch Flicking it up and down and up and down Trying to get it to turn back on Finally it did

Since all that, I haven't been able to figure out what to believe.

Do we really have people watching us, watching us all the time, even when we jerk off or have sex? Why don't the dead have anything better to do? I love this story. Did you ever worry about that? Well, I guess you didn't have a lot of people die when you were growing up, huh? Yeah, I didn't have a lot of people die and...

I was, you know, off and on into the church. But yeah, but that one part of the story does resonate where I do remember worrying when I first started to masturbate. Yeah. That God was real. And, you know, because you're told he's always watching. Always watching. And I'm like, why is he watching me do this? Uh-huh. Why is it so creepy? Right. So creepy. Such a creepy thought.

Okay, well, you know, I grew up in the church. Yeah. And also had a lot of family die. Mm-hmm. I absolutely thought for sure. I was like, oh, great. They can see me doing it. I'm like, well...

That's their problem. I never let it stop me. Absolutely. I don't think it stopped me either. It was just like an uncomfortable thought. Yeah, but it never derailed me. Yeah. You got to do what you got to do. Well, yeah. Also, when you discover that part of your body, you know, and like what your body can do and how it feels, you're like, literally nothing can stop me. There's not a chance in hell.

Okay, so- Or heaven. No pictures are associated with the story. Obviously, I hope not. But there's a bunch of memes out there about God watching you masturbate and they crack me up. Yes, let's go. So here's this first one posted by someone named Tyler Dunn on X. And it's just a picture of Jesus and it says, looks like you're masturbating. Just pretend I'm not here. Oh my gosh. It's so funny because it's like, you know-

Very like photoshopped tarot card looking vibe with Jesus with his head cocked to the side and his eyes like, what are you doing? What are you doing? And then I thought this one was funnier. This is a meme about ghostier relatives watching you.

It just says your relatives when they become ghosts and have to watch you masturbate. And it's just old man looking just so sad. He's so thin. He's so pale. Yep. He's not happy about what you're doing. Oh, buddy. That's from img.ifunny.co. And here's another one from that same site about family ghosts peeping.

And it's a guy on his computer with the sheets pulled up. He's got lotion in his hand. And then kind of like those old Sears photos, the translucent person in the background, it looks like some grandparents. And it says, when you're jacking off and you feel like your dead relatives are watching you. Oh, this is great. And then one more. This just really made me laugh. That's creepy. It's a creepy picture, like old-timey picture. The lady's eyes are glowing. She's looking straight into the camera. And it says, the ghost sitting in the corner of my Airbnb watching me masturbate to pictures of her from the 1870s.

And that one I related to as well because, you know, as a kid, I didn't have like porn by the time I started to masturbate. There was no online stuff. Yeah. I didn't have access. So it would just be like if the random image in any magazine could be – a lot of times there's National Geographic and I just thought the woman was attractive. Yeah. That would be my source material and it could be some lady from like the 1800s. That is hilarious. And then I would think like, oh, my God, if she – if her ghost is around –

what would she be thinking? She was so, so upset with me. Would she? Or maybe, maybe she was flattered. Yeah, exactly. Maybe she was like, thank you. I still got it. Still got it. Born in 1824. Hundreds of years later. Oh my gosh. Uh,

And that's it. Masturating is so funny. It really is. It really is so funny. Can I tell a funny story? Yeah. Can I embarrass you? Oh, God, yes. Okay, this is so funny. I know what you're going to say, yeah. Okay, okay. So Dan and I have both, like, since we came back from our holiday in Costa Rica, we've, like, had a run of, like, not feeling great. You got a head cold. I've had a touch of it. My hip has been acting up. It's just been, like...

Comical. We're just like one thing after another. And of course... Extended period. Yeah. Well, yeah. And I was gonna say, and of course, like, you know, when you go on vacation, you're... Well, women were usually like, okay, hotel sex, no interruptions, all the things, la, la, la, la, la. Of course, I got my period 24 hours after we landed or like 24 hours after we left. I was like, cool. And then because of like the age I'm at in life, my body is not consistent. So it would last for like nine or 10 days. It was just...

terrible uh so we've been like off our like sexual connection intimacy we've been trying but it's been really hard and i was in bed we'd both taken our little sleepy time gummies we were in bed i was like in that like hazy sleep monroe when she says sleepy time gummies we're stoned we're some we're somewhat stoned and paint the picture i think everybody knows okay yeah um

I was just trying to avoid us being fined by the state of Idaho because now it's a $500 fine just for having it. Oh, okay. Gotcha. Um, anyways, uh,

Monroe hadn't been feeling well, so she had gone to bed early. So it's just like, it's very quiet in the house. People with children, you know that when they're, whether your kids are with you full time or not, like any sound, you immediately pop up because you just think like, oh God, my kid needs me. So I'm in that hazy sleep space and I hear like a little like scream, like a, and I was like, so I sit up really fast in bed. I'm like, oh my God, what was that? And I realized that Dan is no longer in bed with me. So I'm like,

huh, that's weird. I didn't want to get out of bed, but I did. And I walked over to the bathroom door. I was like, Hey baby. And then you didn't say anything for us. I was like, baby, are you in there? And you were like, yeah. And then I was like, was, was that you? What was that? Was that Momo? Like I was so confused and you're like, Oh yeah, it's just, it's me. It's my phone. And I was like, okay. And then I went back to bed. Uh huh.

And then I came into bed and I was just like, hey, no, when I came in, you asked me. I think I asked you or maybe it was the next morning. No, it was that night. It was that night. I guess I was pretty stoned. I was like, what were you doing? And I was like, I was beaten up. And I was and I was so tired. I was so stoned. Like, I wanted to, like, do that to help go to sleep. Guys, guys. Oh, yeah. Guys will that will be.

They'll understand that. Yeah. I was blanking on all words. Yeah, like having that release helps you then fall asleep. Yes, absolutely. But I'm getting pretty stoned too. And I think, I didn't necessarily nod off

But I was, I just like closed my eyes, but I'm still holding the phone. And when I held the phone, I squeezed the phone and inadvertently squeezed the volume up button. And so I shocked myself too. I was like, oh my God, what's, oh no, that's right. I'm watching this. And now it's like, instead of being silent on mute, it's full volume. Oh.

And then I hoped you didn't hear. I was like, oh my God. And then sure enough, after that, you're like, hey baby. And I was so embarrassed. And then when I went back in there, I was like, yeah, I was being off. But then you said you didn't even finish. You said you were so tired and so stoned and so sick. And then I was so embarrassed after all that. I was like, forget it. So it was all for nothing.

Listen, you guys, signs of a healthy relationship is when you can just have these great stories and no one's upset. Like I wasn't upset. I wasn't hurt. He was actually trying to like show me a kindness by like not trying to instigate something because I wasn't feeling great. Like it's so fucking funny. Yeah.

Okay. So now before we go into your stories, yeah, we're out of horror for a second. Um, camp, we were talking about, uh, bad magic summer camp, bad magic summer camp. Okay. We'll keep it quick after that little story. But if that, okay. If stories like that crack you up and you're looking for other people who, you know, would find the humor in a story like that. It's like, it's this community. This community is so incredible. Uh,

We feel like we just haven't done a really good job of explaining truly how beautiful camp is and how special it is. Yeah. And then just the logistics of it, what a great value it is. So we just wanted to take a second to explain what it's like to be at camp. Yeah, because people will compare it, you know, cost-wise and experience-wise to like a cruise ship.

And they'll be like, well, yeah, but we're not going to any destinations. Correct. But also when you're on a cruise ship, if you're with like a little group, like a podcast, whatever, generally, unless they have the rare case have run out the entire ship, which is wildly rare. Yeah. You have this, you're like a group inside a group. And so it's surrounded by all these strangers and all these things have nothing to do with you and your group going on at camp. It is just bad magic. It is the entire staff, everything there, this big operation, this big property, everything

For the time that we are there, they are focused only on our community. So every other person there is either staff or another Bad Magic fan. And obviously, like, we're doing a really cool cruise later this year. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's cool also, but they're just different. Different strokes for different folks. So, like, you know, for some people, we've heard, like, the cruise is just much more attainable because they can bring their kids. Totally. And, like, you know, branch off or whatever. And we totally get that as well. And that is going to be a different kind of amazing experience. We just haven't done it before. Yeah.

this we know and we can speak to. It's like all you can eat, all you can drink, every activity is already covered. There are no extra costs unless you choose to get a tattoo and get branded into our cult or buy merch. But otherwise, it's every, like all the, you know, all the concerts, let's call them, like with all these bands, um,

Live stand-up show, which we'll be announcing the head, the... Yeah, we're getting our guests lined up right now. Thank you. We'll announce the lineup soon. Saturday night, we have a very special secret surprise guest for you guys. And it's just, it's about community building. Yes, it's about getting away and taking a break from your kids and your everyday life, but it's community building. And we're not kidding when we say people have moved clear across the country to...

to be closer to a group of friends that they made, to pursue a relationship, marriages, children. I mean, it is... The stories are absolutely unbelievable, next level, beautiful, exciting. And yeah, I mean, it is just so fun. And obviously we're there, so that's super awesome. But yeah, I mean, we get to like meet you guys and it just builds this deeper bond and it, I think, restores your faith in humanity. And I don't know. I just...

If I was a person in the world looking for deeper connection, this is a place that I would want to be. Yeah, absolutely. It's a very, very special weekend. And then this year, our theme is like a 70s theme. So at the rave party on Saturday, it's going to be all 70s themed out. And it's a really good time. If you have any questions, feel free to email us. Please join the Facebook group for camp and ask previous campers questions. You can get your tickets at badmagicproductions.com. And yeah.

And we're going to be sharing some, you know, things at camp and it's going to be a really good time. Awesome. All right. Sure is. Let's get back into horror. Okay. Who's your Layla? I have a yellow Layla. Layla. Okay, let's go.

Hey, Lindsay. I mean, let's be real here. We know who reads these things. I'm a huge creeper and fan of all things horror. I didn't discover Scared to Death until last year, but I've since gotten into Time Suck and Dan's stand-up, and I'm loving every minute of it. Oh, wow. Thanks. Yeah. Thank you both for all you do, and especially for your advocacy and your charity work. Mm-hmm.

I am an identical twin, and I laughed out loud when you and Dan said in a previous episode how creeped out you both are by twins. Mostly because I hear it fairly commonly. When my brother and I were very young in the late 80s, something happened which actually reinforces your idea that twins are inherently creepy.

All names have been changed for privacy. A little backstory about my family. I grew up in a tiny town in Appalachia, and my mother's family, the Harrisons, are the original founding family of the town. The town is named after her family, and the land the town sits on was given to her family in a land grant after the Revolutionary War. So you could say our family roots run pretty deep there, and thus why the change in names for the story.

I never knew my mother's dad, Warren, as he died before I was born. I was lucky enough to meet my great-grandmother, Belle. Belle Stone Harrison was the matriarch of the family after her husband, Abraham, my great-grandfather, died sometimes in the 60s. When my twin brother, Grant, and I were children, we had very, very active imaginations. It wasn't uncommon for us to spend all day playing pretend in the Appalachian foothills.

One day, my brother was very sick with a high fever and my mom was taking care of him. As my mom tells it, it happened like this. Mom, Grant, come here. It's time to take your medicine. Grant, my name's not Grant. Mom, yes it is, Grant. Now it's time to take your medicine. Come on. Grant, my name's not Grant. My name is James McLeod.

Naturally, my mother made a very little of this. We were always playing make-believe after all, and Grant had a high fever. He must have been hallucinating and mixing up fantasy and reality. Although it did seem strange that he'd imagine a name like McLeod. As anyone who grew up in an isolated Appalachian town can tell you, there are only about 15 last names in the entire community, and practically everyone is a cousin to everyone else.

The name McLeod was not a common name at all. In fact, to date, I can't recall ever encountering a family with that name in our community.

Fast forward like 10 years or so. Belle's health is failing and my mother is helping her settle her estate. In a large package of documents, my mother comes across her father's birth certificate dated 1927. She glances at it and notices something strange. For one, the name listed is Warren Lester Harrison. That's funny, she thought. She was always told that her father's middle name was Leslie.

Likely, just a simple mistake. These things aren't uncommon. She continued reading. On the line below, she read, Father, Abraham Harrison. Accurate. Mother. She stopped. The name listed was not Bellstone, the woman she'd always known as her grandmother. Instead, in perfectly legible 1920s script, handwritten was the name Harriet McLeod.

When confronted, Bell insisted that the doctor who filled out the birth certificate must have made a mistake. But how? Mistaking Leslie for Lester was one thing, but you don't just mix up the names Bell Stone and Harriet McLeod. Also, Warren's birth had been at home, as were most in the 1927 rural Appalachia. There was no attending doctor to mix up the paperwork. The birth certificate would have been filled out after the fact.

In the following weeks, Bell asked a family friend, who would have been like five or six at the time of Warren's birth, to go to the county courthouse with her. And there, he swore that he'd been present at Warren's birth and could attest that Bell was actually his mother. That day, Warren's official birth certificate on record was amended to remove any trace of Harriet McLeod.

Did I mention that my mother's family is very well connected in the area? Luckily, my mother has a copy of the original unaltered birth certificate, our only clue to this mystery.

Since hearing this story in full, my brother and I have begun an exhaustive search for Harriet McCloy. We did find a woman of that name and of the correct age in the 1920 and 1930 census tracts from a nearby county. However, by the 1940 census, Harriet disappears. Likely she just moved somewhere, but as of this writing, we have no idea where.

Sadly, most of the people involved in this story have passed away, so it's up to us to dig up the truth. Belle has other family living in the area, and we're considering DNA testing to see if we share any genetic markers with them, which we would if Belle was actually our great-grandmother.

We still don't know who James McLeod is or what, if any, his connection might be to Harriet. But if my brother hadn't said his name in the middle of a fever fugue when he was six, we might have never looked twice at what has become an intriguing family mystery. I'm not sure if I believe in ghosts or possessions, but a part of me feels like James McLeod's spirit, whoever he was, won't rest until we get to the bottom of it. A dedicated creeper, Aaron.

Thanks, Erin. Yeah, not like especially scary, but like a fun, I don't know, murder mystery kind of vibe. Yeah, just one of those where how would this kid know that name? Like of all the names...

He didn't shout out John Smith. Right. And clearly it was a family secret if the matriarch, Belle, then denied it. And once she was confronted with this name being on the birth certificate, which adds to the intrigue. And she goes as far as going to the court

courthouse having the record change and forcing someone else to falsely testify that they were there for the birth. Right, right. Something is amiss. Oh yeah, there's some dark secret in Aaron's family tree there. Uh-huh. Yeah, and it might just be an affair or, you know. Something that embarrasses some of the family there. But yeah, like outside of the supernatural, how would this kid have an

Like in a fever state. Right. Come up with that name. Yep. Yeah. So I like it for doing something a little bit different. Yeah. A little bit fun. We're having a fun episode today. Yeah. Thanks for sending it in, Erin. Okay. You ready for another one? I am. Let's go. Hello, Spooper Gang. Hello. My youngest sister, Ronnie, who is the youngest of seven kids, has always been a weird, spunky person. Everyone called her Sunshine growing up. She was always happy and full of brightness.

When she was about four, we experienced a year of loss and tragedy in our neighborhood. Our neighborhood was a tight-knit group, so close that the effects on all of us were quite great.

Our next-door neighbor had a sledding accident and became a paraplegic. One of our dad's friends died by suicide. A lady down the street died of cancer. The man across the street died of a heart attack. And then there was the couple one street over where the husband performed a murder-suicide while the couple's two-year-old was left in a high chair until someone else came.

By the end of the year, we were all a little different. But not Ronnie. Ronnie was the sunshine we all needed. But being her older sister, sometimes the sunshine grew to be a bit annoying.

One day I was in the bathroom getting ready when Ronnie would not leave me alone. I tried everything, but it was useless. In a final attempt for some peace, I told her that her reflection was actually her friend that was trapped, hoping this would entertain her. I told her that she needed to talk to her mirror friend so she wouldn't be lonely. And from that day on, and for the next three-ish years, Ronnie was constantly talking to her friend in the mirror.

In the beginning, it was very innocent. But as time went on, Ronnie changed. She was no longer sunny and bright. She would get up in the middle of the night and make her way to the bathroom to talk to her friend. She started sneaking into mine and my siblings' rooms to watch us sleep. We'd wake up to her face right in front of our faces, staring at us. It grew worse by the day. One memorable night, she was caught in the backyard digging holes.

Our dad was furious. He asked her what in the hell she was doing. Her response? Bonnie told me to dig you your new homes. Dad hid the shovels in a high place where Ronnie, only being five, wouldn't be able to get them. After that, mom began to escort Ronnie to the bathroom so she couldn't talk to Bonnie. But of course, Ronnie found ways to connect with Bonnie.

One evening, we heard Ronnie in her room talking to herself. Our mom went to check it out. She found that Ronnie had taken the long mirror that had hung on the door in our mom's closet. Our mom immediately took it away from Ronnie. Ronnie screamed, Bonnie wants out! Bonnie wants out! Bonnie wants out! A very dark cloud was hanging over Ronnie.

I woke up at 3 a.m. that night only to find Ronnie's face above mine. I began to scream when Ronnie quickly covered my mouth. Don't! He's here, she said as she pointed to the hallway outside my room. I tiptoed to my open door and slowly stuck my head out to look down the hall. A dark shadow figure in the shape of a man wearing a long coat filled my eyes.

He started to move slowly down the hall towards me. I slammed my door and ran straight back into bed. Ronnie, already in my bed, whispered, Did you see him? I nodded my head and then told her to go to sleep. The next morning, I awoke to Ronnie crying. I asked her what was wrong, and she said, I told Bonnie to go away. She said someone was going to get hurt, and then she sent that man.

Having no idea what to do, I told my mom. My mom said that it was just Ronnie getting to my imagination, tricking me into seeing something that wasn't even there and that Bonnie herself had clearly had a nightmare. A few days later, the phone rang with sad news. Our grandpa had had a stroke and was in the hospital. We immediately went to see him. Ronnie was devastated, as she and grandpa were very close. She thought his stroke was her fault and started trying to break mirrors around our house.

Shortly after being admitted to the hospital, Grandpa passed away. Whatever sunshine Ronnie had left was snuffed out.

But then, one morning, Ronnie woke up her sunny self. The darkness had completely dissipated. She told me that she'd been awoken in the night by a figure sitting on her bed. The figure stroked her head, just the way Grandpa did whenever he was trying to comfort her. She began to cry. The figure spoke to her, saying that Bonnie and the Dark Man were gone and would never be back. The figure stroked her head again and said, "'Beam, you're safe for now.'"

Grandpa was the only one who ever called her Beam. I never saw the figure in the hallway again, and Ronnie stopped talking to Bonnie in the mirror. Rochelle and Ronnie. Wow, thank you, Rochelle. I guess, and Ronnie, if Ronnie, well, I don't know if Ronnie helped write that story or just those... Collectively, the sisters came together to relay it. Beam, I'm guessing like Sunbeam? Exactly, that's what I imagined too. Yeah, it's a super cute nickname. So cute.

Yeah, if I had an older sibling, which I don't, but if I had an older sibling tell me that I had a friend trapped in the mirror that looked like me that I needed to talk to, I would have lost my mind. Well, I imagined you doing this to Donna. I was like, this is totally what you would do to Donna. Like, go talk to your friend. She's trapped in the mirror. But I would have done it to terrify. I would have known that was scary as hell. Like...

No, Rochelle didn't think so. No, not everybody has that feeling about mirrors. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, that's a creepy, interesting story. I want you to think about five-year-old Monroe digging holes in our backyard in the middle of the night. Oh, my God. That would freak me the fuck out. Freaked out. Yes.

Because immediately I'm like, what kind of psychotic break is my poor little baby having? We're scheduling a therapist appointment very quickly after that. Next day. Emergency. Yeah, we're starting there. Yeah. Like, what is going on? Uh-huh. Yeah, I mean, one thing to be...

You know, both Kyra and Monroe actually, their whole lives has talked in their sleep. Uh-huh. Oh, my God. They still do. That's one thing. And then to get up and sleepwalk is another. But then to get out of the house. Monroe sleepwalks sometimes. Yeah. Yeah. That's like next level. Uh-huh. You're going out of the house and doing some activity. I know. That's really...

And really concerning a little kid. Uh-huh. I don't know why it just seems so much worse. Man, yeah, concerning for the kid, also just creepy. So creepy. I'm digging you in your new homes. If I got up in the middle of the night, which I usually do to get like a snack, use the bathroom, and I looked out. You have a whole middle of the night routine now. I do. It's ridiculous. Lately, I've been falling asleep without eating again, which is making me feeling good. But sometimes I just have to. But if I looked out, okay, like we have that one neighbor, like there's a

Always a kid on the swing set. Dude. If I looked over there in the middle of the night and then now there was a kid digging holes in that yard, I am terrified of that house. Can you, do you feel comfortable the next time you get up for a midnight snack going upstairs and seeing if that kid's out there swinging?

If I remember, yeah. Oh, man. You guys, it is all day, all night, all day, all night. For years. For years. Like, just a stream of kids in that house who apparently love swings more than any other kid I've ever seen in my life, or they're escaping something. I know. That's always my concern, is that, like, something terrible. But you can't call CPS and be like, this kid swings too much. Something's going on. The kids are on the swing too often. And it's just, like, one kid by themselves out there. But, like...

So I don't even know if there's like multiple kids in that house or if we've just seen the kid grow up. I don't know. Maybe that's even sadder to me if this one kid has just been swinging constantly and that swings for the last like eight years. Could be. Could be. Could be. Yeah, I like that story. It'd creep me out. Okay, one more and then we're out of here. Okay. Hello, king and queen of the creeps.

This story is from 2000 when I moved into an older house for super cheap, sight unseen. I know. The house was a one bedroom, one bath, single story home with an unfinished basement. For the price, I should have known something was wrong. However, I didn't have much money. I took what I could get.

The day I moved in, I noticed dark paint and dark floors made the house feel smaller and darker than it already was. And there were just four windows in the house. Two in the living room, one in the kitchen, one in the bedroom, which only added to the overall dark vibes of the home. I had a couch, a bed, and a TV. And that's all. There was no reason for me to go into the basement as I didn't have anything to store away.

I went down anyways just to get a look at it. The walls were painted bright pink and that was the only thing of note. I had no plans for this basement whatsoever. I went upstairs, relaxed on the sofa and watched TV. My first night was going fine until I thought I heard someone say, get out. It was muffled though and I wasn't 100% sure I had heard it.

I played it off as being something in the show I was watching. I went to bed around midnight and all was fine. No strange dreams, no voices telling me to get out, no nothing. Over the next few days, from time to time, I'd swear I'd hear a whispery get out, but I would brush it off.

About a week after moving in, I heard what sounded like someone walking around in the basement. I ran towards the basement, but when I got to the door that opens to the basement steps, I froze. There was no way anyone could access the basement without me knowing. There were no windows or other access points to get into the basement. Like, no back door to this house. Nothing.

I was about to open the door when my rational brain thankfully kicked in. Instead, I locked the door and put a chair under the knob, like just in case. If someone was down there, they couldn't get to me now. I went back to watching TV and forgot all about it. Ridiculous, I know. The next day, I convinced myself it was all in my head. That is, until I heard the sounds of someone shuffling up the steps, followed by knocking and banging on the door.

I started to question my sanity. My first thought was to call the person I was renting the house from, and I hammered him with questions. Why was the rent so cheap? Had previous tenants complained of any issues in the house? Was there something in the basement? They told me they'd never heard anything in the house, no previous renters had ever made any complaints, and that the rent was cheap because the landlord said he was too lazy to fix up the house. Fair. I hung up with the landlord, a bit unsatisfied with the answer he's given me.

I had recently been going through some personal stuff, so I don't know, maybe it was affecting me more than I realized. I was trying to rationalize things to myself via my internal dialogue when the sound of screaming and banging on the door interrupted my thoughts. I walked over to the door and yelled for whatever it was to leave me alone. I had to take control, right? Isn't that what you have to do to get a spirit to leave you alone?

But then the screaming changed, and it became a threat. Let me out or I'll kill you, it said. I GTFO'd right away. I went straight to a friend's house, and I made up a somewhat believable story about having the inside of the house painted and how the fumes were making me feel sick. Could I stay with them for a few days? I had hoped that this would give me time to think. I called my landlord and told him I'd gotten a new job that required me to move. He said he'd be happy to let me out of my lease immediately.

However, I'd have to pay three months rent and I wouldn't get my security deposit back. There was no way I could come up with that kind of cash. So back to the house I went. The moment I walked in the door, I could hear the banging on the basement door, but it wasn't as loud as before. Maybe I could just ignore it. I went about my day hoping for the best. I went to work and I came back later that night. No knocking or yelling coming from the basement. Yes, I exclaimed out loud to myself.

But the quiet was fleeting. A light knock on the door followed by some raspy, light breathing. I slowly inched closer to the door, the knocking ever so faint. I couldn't quite make out what it was saying. I pressed my ear to the door, trying to hear what was on the other side over the sound of my heart pumping in my ears. Silence. Silence.

I don't know why, but I felt the sudden and irresistible urge to rip the door open. And there, lying on the steps, was a person. A living person. Well, barely living. He turned his eyes to meet mine and sputtered, Water, please. Water. Water.

I slowly got water and poured it into his mouth to keep him from drinking too fast and choking. After a moment, I berated him. Do you know your name? Are you okay? How did you get in my basement? Can I call for help? But he begged, no, please don't. Just give me a bit and I'll leave.

I took too much acid, I guess. I must have wandered into your home while you weren't home. I was having a really hard time wrapping my head around this story. He'd been down there for the better part of a week? Was this guy real? Was this a demon? Like, what the fuck was happening? Why didn't you try harder to get my attention? I asked him. I screamed and yelled and banged on the door, but you ignored me, and then you locked me in, he said.

I replied, sorry, I thought you were a ghost or just my imagination. Are you okay? What's your name? Can I call someone to come get you?

That's... Oh my God.

I'm so glad at the end that was April Fool's because I was like, wait a minute. I was like, no acid trip lasts a week. And no one who ends up in someone else's house because they were on acid... I can see that happening for sure. Totally. Ended up in somebody's basement because you're tripping balls and you're so out of your mind. Sure. But then once you come down, you're not just going to stay there for the week. I'm like...

And then at the end, he's like, I'm going to call my wife. She's going to be mad at me. Mad at you? She reported you missing six days ago. Like, there's going to be authorities involved. Oh, that was good. That was good. So Joseph wrote this, and then I took some liberties with it and, like, adjusted it. And I was like, oh, my God, this is— Because as I was reading it, until I got to the very end of that— I did the same thing. Until I got to the acid part, I was like—

Because I kept waiting for like when he said that there was a real person there. I thought like, oh my God, satanic cult. Somebody's been kidnapped. Like this is actually like a different, this isn't paranormal. This is some sort of, then I was laughing so hard. That was good. It was fun. Good job, Joseph. April Fool's. April Fool's. Yay.

You got all of us. You got the listeners. You got us. I hope you got the listeners. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And honestly, like, I don't ever include fictional stories like this. But April Fool's. Yeah. And I just like happened to be reading, you know, going through fan stories and was reading this. And then I was like, oh, my God, do we record on a show that comes out on April 1st? Yeah. And when it lined up, I was like, well, I can't say no this time. Well, I've never done anything like that on Time Suck.

Never told a fake story. Not once. Not for April Fools. No, why would you? I mean, that's just like a cruel joke. Nope. All right, Dick Bird, you got some shout outs for us? I do. That really got me. It's good, right? Yeah, it was really good because I was believing it and then I was a little confused about the length of time. And then like at the end, I'm like, wait, wait a minute. There's already been crazy stuff, but I did believe it. I'm like, okay, this feels like a real fan story. And I was like, what?

what? And I got confused. I'm like, no fucking way. And then, but then I'm like, but like you, I'm like, well, maybe there's like a hostage or something like they were forced down there. Yeah. But then it was the line of like, I got to call my wife. She's going to be so pissed. I'm like, what? I was just staying quiet because I'm like, I don't want to shit on a fan story, but I'm like, get the fuck, no one is going to do that. Okay. All right. Well done. Yeah. I loved it. Yeah. As soon as he said the thing about like, I took too much acid. Right.

Okay, I'd like to thank the following Annabelles for supporting us here over on Scared to Death on Patreon. Thank you so much to Becky Pogue, Fuzzimus Prime. That's great. That is cute. Dakota Howley, Zach Stevens, Kim Schmitz, Shannon Shore, Stacey Nairn, Nicholas Harvey, Potato, just Potato, and Nick Click.

Potato could be Papa Tim. True. Spud. Oh, spud. All right. I'd also like to thank the following Annabelles for continuing to support us so that we can keep doing what we do. Sanaya Wilson, Jonathan King, Rachel Lachance, Matthew McLaren,

I'm sorry, McErlean. It's pronounced McDonald. It's Ronald McDonald. M-C-E-R-L-E-A-N. McErlean. McErlean. Got it. God, wow. I don't know why that was so hard. Mandy Rusick, Misty McClellan, Jessica Alatorre, Ben Wallace, Jaden, and Shaylin Saltz. Ooh, Shaylin, that's a mouthful. Shaylin Saltz.

A lot of alliteration names. I know. You guys are really testing me. Yeah. But thank all of you for supporting the show. And now for some spoopy shout-outs. Spooops. To elegance from your diggy boy, Matt.

I know this pregnancy was not easy, but you did amazing and I love you so much. Your strength and love keep me grounded. I could not have asked for a better anniversary gift than our baby boy, Kylo. Freya and I love you both so much. Cute. That is cute. To Kim from your favorite child, Jen Jen, happy birthday, mom. You're my best friend and favorite person to hang out with.

And to Shai from Shai, I am a forever creeper who's beyond grateful for scared to death and endless scares. Aw, thank you. So sweet. And that is our show. Happy April Fool's. Thank you for continuing to send in your personal tales of terror to mystoryatscaredtodeathpodcast.com. You can email us for everything else at infoatscaredtodeathpodcast.com. Thank you to Logan Keith scoring today's show. Thanks to Heather Rylander for organizing the My Story emails. To book editor Drew Atana polishing and preparing listener stories for book number six.

Thank you to Sophie Evans for finding the first story I shared this week and Molly Box for finding the second. We are on Facebook and Instagram where we post the pics that accompany the episodes and more at Scared to Death Podcast. We also have a private Facebook group called Creeps and Peepers full of fellow horror lovers. So get in there. And big thanks as always to the All Seen Eyes, the Creeps and Peepers moderators. Enjoy your nightmares, Creeps and Peepers. Hope you were scared to death. Bye. Bye.

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