The Monitor
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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 Lulu Marie. Hello, Lulu Marie. I love my new nickname. It is the 299th episode of Scared to Death. Pretty crazy.

I tried to make sure this week's stories were a little extra creepy, and I will try and make sure that next week's stories are even more disturbing and make sure that I have a little more story than normal. Okay, well, that's nice of you. Yeah, I'm excited for this episode. I mean, all the episodes, but like, you know, certain numbers seem to have more weight. I mean, 300's a big deal. Yeah, yeah. We've been doing this for 300 years. 300 years. Yeah.

You have a couple quick announcements, and then we're off. I do. Okay. Well, my first announcement is a little bit on the somber side. Dan and I wanted to take a quick moment to let all of our creeps and peepers in Kentucky and Missouri know that we are thinking of you as you recover from the tornadoes that ripped through your area on May 16th and 17th. We know, based on some social media posts and emails, that some of you have been affected by these storms, and we want you to know that we are holding you in our thoughts and your community as you work through this. Mm-hmm.

And then I have this month's charity announcement. This month's charity announcement will be a tiny bit different. I'm going to give you a short recap on it here. And then I would love for you to stay at the end of the episode. We're going to share more about our fan, Paul Johnson, who wrote into us not even asking for money. And then we...

decided to support his cause. Yeah. So this month we are donating to the Hamilton County Youth Center. They will be receiving $11,750 while $1,300 is headed to the scholarship fund.

This month's donation was inspired by our fan, Paul Johnson. And while I don't normally explain the entire story behind a donation, this month I would like to share Paul's message. So stay tuned after the shout-outs at the end of the episode and hear more about this amazing charity. Awesome. Awesome sauce. And what fan submitted a horror? Chosen from stories submitted to mystoryatscaredtodeathpodcast.com. Do you have for us this week, Lulu Marie? I have my first tale today.

begs the question, how connected are we to our kids? This is a tale of a mother-daughter bond that is freaking the mom out.

Oh, okay. I have a vague understanding of where this could go, but that's intriguing. Uh-huh, uh-huh. And we have something similar not that long ago, but this is a different story. And then my second tale is just a good old classic haunted house, but a really good one. Okay, okay, cool. My first of two stories comes from Pennsylvania, and it involves a woman who starts to believe that something in her new house is coming for her family and trying to take it from her. And I won't give away more than that.

The next story will take us to Brazil to exploring one of the most disturbing urban legends I've ever come across. The legend of Barbara of the Pleasures. Okay. Yeah, Barbara's story, not very pleasurable. When her looks began to fade, did an aging woman in the early 19th century, once heralded as a legendary beauty, do the unthinkable to regain her youthful appeal? Oh, man.

Yeah, it's pretty dark. So now I have a deal for you. Okay. You tell me what spoopy socks you have on this week, and then I'll tell you two tales. Oh my gosh. It's like we've never done it that way before. Yeah, yeah. Okay, these socks are so funny. They come from a fan, Erin, who brought them to Nashville. And she said to me, I'm giving you these socks.

but you have to look the videos up online. So these are hysterical chicken leg socks. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Those are funny. Okay, but what is so funny is if you guys, you have to do this. Stop the show right now and go do this. Go on like YouTube or even just Google chicken leg socks at the gym. People are wearing these on like the Stairmaster. And because they're black with yellow legs, they blend into girls' socks.

And I guess dudes too, like black leggings. And it looks like they have little chicken feet. Yes. It is so upsetting and hilarious at the same time. Awesome. Cannot recommend enough, especially if you're looking for a good laugh. All right. This first story I have was posted by someone who identified themselves only by their first name of Rachel. She says that what happened to her began in 2023. So not that long ago when she lived in a quiet Pennsylvania suburb just outside of Harrisburg. Time now for the tale of...

of the monitor my name is rachel and for a while i had everything i ever wanted i was young and in love and married to my best friend lance lance and i had met when we were in college together we first met when i dated a roommate of his not the typical beginning of a love story i know and it made for a few awkward moments for sure but it worked until it didn't

We'd been together for a little over six years and married for two of those years when we were able to buy a house. It was a cute three bedroom split level, definitely outdated and needed a lot of work. The woman who had lived there before was one of the original owners, along with her husband, and she'd been living there for over 50 years when she died in the home.

She'd been living there alone, I'd come to learn, for most of that time, and it didn't seem like she'd updated literally anything in the past 30 years at least. Or painted. Or even done a deep clean of the place. Like I said, it needed a lot of work. But it was all that we could afford when it came to a house checking off of all of the important boxes for us. Had a big backyard for a dog we hoped to get, a finished basement, and plenty of space for Lance and I, the baby we were expecting, and the second child we were planning to have together.

We moved in that May. I was about five months pregnant at the time, and I remember how normal the house felt. I really want to stress that. There was nothing creepy about it. Not at first. No weird feelings. No strange smells. No sudden chills. It was just a house. A dated but comfortable after we cleaned things up house. Our son, Thomas, was born that September, and like a lot of new moms, I was exhausted, overwhelmed, and sleeping in short little chunks between feedings.

I'm also naturally a very light sleeper. I've always been that way. Every little noise wakes me up, beyond annoying. But I've never been able to figure out how to sleep as deeply as some people do, like Lance. He could always sleep through a war going on in the next room. And now with the newborn down the hall, I was having more trouble sleeping than ever. I'd hoped that the baby monitor would help with that, give me some sense of comfort, being able to hear Thomas sleeping peacefully. But it made things worse. Everything bad in that house started with that baby monitor.

Lance and I had a standard audio only monitor, no video. I didn't want to be one of those parents who stares at the screen all night. I just wanted to be able to hear if my baby cried and be comforted by hearing him, as I mentioned, sleeping peacefully. But within the first few weeks of Thomas sleeping in his nursery, I started waking up to strange sounds. At first, I assumed it was just Thomas moving around in his crib. But when I would, of course, as a new and nervous mom, get up and walk down the hall and check on Thomas, he was always lying perfectly still.

His eyes were usually open and he was awake, which was a bit odd, but he was still and he was quiet. But even if he had been moving, the sounds still didn't feel right. While at first I couldn't figure out what they were, the sounds grew a bit louder as time went on and I began to hear them more and more frequently. It was almost like the monitor was barely picking up some signal from a radio station that was far away. And for some reason over time, that signal was slowly getting stronger.

And pretty soon you could make out that it was actually a radio station. And then later still, you could tell what kinds of songs were being played. And a bit later, you could at least take a guess as to exactly what song was being played. But instead of music, I guess this would have been more like talk radio because I didn't hear any instruments. Instead, I started to hear what sounded more and more like someone whispering. They were quietly speaking, breathy, rhythmic sounds that reminded me of someone talking very quietly to themselves.

The problem was, just like Thomas hadn't been moving, he wasn't crying or making any other noises when I'd go to check that could be making those sounds. It wasn't necessarily scaring me yet, but it was about to. Especially because this always happened at around the same time, between 3 and 3.15 a.m. What was really frustrating was that I was the only person who kept hearing it. Lance was always asleep. He'd always been a deep sleeper, like I mentioned, but now he was sleeping more deeply than ever.

If I ever wanted him to go check on Thomas, I had to really shake him. It was almost as if he was slipping into an actual coma every night. I kept telling Lance about what I was hearing, but he didn't think it was anything to be worried about. To be fair to him, I've always been a bit jumpy and quick to get scared. In my imagination, Cannon definitely has worked against me in the past. Lance has always been much less likely to get worked up about, well, anything. He's very skeptical, very steady.

His laid-back, unflappable demeanor was one of the things that attracted me to him early on. Normally, I liked it. I could be too dramatic. He could be too stoic. We balanced each other out. But this was different. He wasn't just being calm. He was being dismissive. Still, early on, I thought maybe he was right. I hoped he was right. He was convinced that the noises I was hearing were nothing more than the monitor picking up some sort of interference, like someone using a CB radio or talking on their cordless phone.

And that seemed plausible, at least at first. But then one night, I woke up to what I swear was not only a woman's voice, but a woman's voice humming a lullaby. But then it stopped as soon as I sat up. By the time I made it to the nursery, Thomas was awake like normal. He was staring up at the ceiling, his tiny fist clenched, very similar to the other times I'd heard something and then got up to check on him. But this time the air felt heavy and sad.

I don't know how else to describe it. Like I'd walked into a room where something terrible had just happened. I picked him up, then sat down in the rocking chair we'd put in the nursery, and I nursed him and rocked him for a while until he fell asleep. And then, unable to fall asleep myself, I kept rocking him all the way until sunrise. I knew I wouldn't have been able to fall back asleep if I'd returned to my room. I wanted to make sure he was safe. I wanted to make sure that whatever I'd heard, or hopefully just thought I'd heard, wouldn't come back. And it didn't. At least not that night.

But over the next few weeks, it happened again and again and again. And it got steadily worse. The whispering became more distinct. I still couldn't make out the words, but the cadence was unmistakably speech. Someone or something was talking to my baby. I even recorded it once.

I still have the audio file saved in my phone. I'd attach it here if I knew how. Maybe. I'd be worried that you wouldn't hear what is so clear to me. I'd be worried that some of you would make me feel like this is just all in my head. Like Lance used to tell me. When I played it for Lance, he got really annoyed. Said it was obviously just static. And that I was working myself up over nothing. He told me that I just needed sleep. That I was becoming paranoid. But I know what I heard. What I can still hear today.

and there was more going on than just the baby monitor picking up someone's voice. Other stuff was happening, like how Lance had started sleeping way more heavily than usual. Almost nothing could wake him. It was so bad, I actually worried that we had a gas leak, and I made someone from the utility company come out and check. I remember one night shaking Lance by the shoulders and yelling his name after the monitor picked up a giggle. Lance barely stirred. It was so weird.

Also, he started to seem different during the day despite sleeping like the dead He was tired all the time and pretty soon. He started to call off work, which was very unlike him He was a project manager at a construction company and very career driven But suddenly it was like he didn't care much about work at all. He wanted to be home. He always wanted to be home He didn't want to go out with his friends anymore Didn't want to even really talk about getting a babysitter and having a date night He just wanted to be home always home and now now I was starting to get scared

I told him we needed to get out that we were too young to start becoming hermits. I told him that I was starting to think that something was wrong with the house, but he wouldn't hear it. He said I was acting crazy. I remember one time he said, and I think this, these were his exact words. This place is good for us. It's the first place that's ever really felt like home. And then I swear he added, she'll take care of us. When I asked him what that meant, who she was, he said, I misheard him.

But then when I asked him what he did say, he changed the subject and started talking about something else. That's when I decided to start doing some digging. I went for a walk one afternoon when it was sunny and not too terribly cold out, pushing Thomas in his stroller. I knocked on the doors of a few neighbors I hadn't met yet. Under the guise of introducing myself, I casually asked them about the house. Most people didn't have much to say, other than they'd never met the woman who had lived there before us. She was quiet, kept to herself, didn't go out much.

Few of them said she seemed kind of mean, never waved to anyone, never seemed to be smiling, always looked irritated or like she was in a foul mood. But then I met Mrs. Kent, a woman in her late 60s who lived four doors down and had lived in the neighborhood for over 30 years. When I brought up our address, her face changed and she said, oh, that house. And then she gave me a look like he was deciding whether or not to tell me something.

She ended up inviting me in for tea, and after a bit of small talk, she told me about the previous owner. And that was when I finally learned that the woman's name was Marjorie. I'm sure her name was somewhere on the paperwork we signed when we bought the house, but Lance had handled most of that, and I guess I just never looked. She said, which I already knew, that Marjorie had lived in the house for decades, almost half a century. But then she told me why she'd lived there alone.

She said her husband had left her back in the 80s, not all that long after their infant son, their only child, had died suddenly. Sid's, or something like that. Supposedly, he had passed away in the nursery. Immediately, I knew that it had to be the same room we were using for Thomas' nursery. And now I really started to feel scared. I was already convinced that our house was haunted in some way, but now I knew who was haunting it. After the baby's death, Mrs. Kent said that she heard Marjorie would almost never leave the house.

She said that she heard from some other women in the neighborhood who were more familiar with her, who knew her at that time, that she got lost in her grief, that she started to talk to herself, that she would talk about her baby as if her son was still alive. It was like she just couldn't accept his death. Her being unable to move forward led to her marriage falling apart, and her husband eventually moved out and divorced her.

The rumor was that he had to pay her alimony for the rest of her life because she never remarried, never dated, never got a job, never had friends over, never seemed to leave the house to do anything other than get groceries or go to doctor's appointments. And she never stopped talking to herself and talking about her baby as if he had never died. And then finally she died alone in the house in 2017. They didn't find her body for almost a week. They finally did a welfare check after the neighbors next door started to complain about the smell and they supposedly found her in the nursery.

And decades after her little boy had died, it was still a nursery. Still had a crib, a changing table, and a bunch of toys. And an elderly woman's dead body lying on the middle of the floor, clutching her dead son's baby blanket in her arms. Now, I don't really know Mrs. Kent. That was my only interaction with her. Maybe she's a big gossip with a flair for the dramatic. I can't be sure. But what I will say is I believed every word she told me, and I still do. It felt like the truth then, and it does now.

I had already grown pretty uncomfortable with our house by that point, and now I wanted out. Now I was convinced that Marjorie's ghost was haunting my home, specifically that she was haunting the nursery, and I was worried that she was scaring my son. She was definitely scaring me. That night, I stood in the nursery for a long, long time after Lance went to bed for the night, just watching Thomas sleep. I'm not sure if any whispers had come through the monitor that night. I wasn't in my room to hear them if they did, but in the nursery, I could feel something.

I couldn't hear it, but I felt it. I felt her watching me. She wasn't a presence I could see, not yet, but I could feel her. And then came the night I heard her clearly for the first time. The first time I could actually make out what she was saying. I'd woken up again just after 3 a.m. The monitor was crackling softly, that same whispering sound, but then, clear as day, I heard a voice, a cold, old female voice, distinctly and quietly whispering, You're mine now, little Thomas. I'll never leave you, and you'll never leave me.

I froze. My stomach dropped. I sprinted down the hall to the nursery, but the door wouldn't open. It was locked. And immediately I panicked. We never, ever locked the nursery door. Why would we? It only locked from the inside. And it wasn't like Thomas could lock it. He couldn't even flip over yet. So someone else was in the room with him. Someone who wanted to take him. I started screaming Lance's name and banging on the door. I threw my shoulder into the door to try and bust it open, but I wasn't strong enough.

I kept screaming Lance's name. I could now hear Thomas crying in the nursery, which both comforted me and upset me further. At least I knew he was still inside, but he was scared. Marjorie was scaring my baby boy, and that made me angry. I ran back to our bedroom and shook Lance awake. He sat up slowly, blinking like he had just come out of anesthesia. I told him the nursery door was locked, that someone was in there with our baby. I would have said Marjorie, but then he wouldn't have taken me seriously. He looked at me like I was a stranger.

Then as he seemed to stare through me instead of at me in a low, flat voice, he said something I'll never be able to forget. You should leave, Rachel. She'll take good care of him. She's his real mother and she's my wife. We're a family.

I backed away from him, my heart pounding, and ran down the hall to the garage. I grabbed the first thing I could find that I thought would bust down the nursery door, a sledgehammer that Lance had from work, from demolition. I charged back towards the nursery, stood in front of the door, raised it high, then smashed it down against the doorknob. It took me three or four swings to knock it completely off the nursery door.

Lance stayed in our room. I wondered if he had somehow fallen back asleep. I burst through the door and I'll never forget what I saw. There was an old woman standing in the corner, actually holding Thomas in her arms.

For the next few moments, I forgot all about ghosts. She looked so real, so alive. Even if she was disturbingly thin, gray skin with long, stringy hair and eyes that looked like black marbles. Her mouth was moving, murmuring something to Thomas, who stared up at her completely still. When she turned to look at me, the air in the room got so cold my breath came out in a fog. She hissed, actually hissed, and stepped towards me.

If she thought I was going to turn and run while she held my son, she was sorely mistaken. I roared for her to get away from him, lunged forward, and grabbed my baby out of her arms. The second I touched him, she shrieked like a wild animal and backed into the corner, disappearing into the shadows like smoke. That's when Lance appeared behind me, yelling, screaming at me to give him the baby, saying things like, She needs him! She's the one who can take care of him!

I pushed past him and ran. I ran back into the garage barefoot and sobbing, grabbing my keys along the way, clutching my baby to my chest. I hopped in my car and drove straight to my mom's house three towns over and never went back. I tried to get Lance to leave the house, but he wouldn't. I tried to talk to him to work things out so we could all stay together, but he insisted that we only talk at the house. I wouldn't do that, and I ended up filing for divorce within the month. Lance didn't fight me on that. But what he did fight me for was custody.

He insisted on joint custody of Thomas told the judge. He was stable The house was fine that I was suffering from postpartum psychosis and maybe to an outsider. I did seem crazy I mean who says a ghost tried to kidnap their baby Thank God my mom was able to help me pay for a good attorney and I ended up with primary custody But now Lance get Tom Lance gets Thomas two weekends every month and every time I have to hand over my son I feel sick because I know she's still in that house

Still watching, still waiting, still whispering, still trying to make my son her son. Little Thomas is just barely starting to speak more than single words, so I can't ask him yet if she's visiting him, but I know she is. He cries when he knows I'm driving him over to his father's house.

What do I do? I can't force my ex-husband to have someone exercise his home. I can't claim that a ghost is abusing my son. And if I refuse to let Thomas visit his dad, I'm worried he could get a better custody arrangement and things will get even worse. How do you deal as a parent with a ghost who won't leave your son alone at your ex's house? A ghost who your ex in a strange way left you for. That is so wildly fucked up. I know.

Girl, you need to be sewing crystals into every inch of your kid's clothes. Put them in the diaper bag. I can't believe she didn't. I am not judging in any way, shape or form. Like I get it. New mom, exhausted. Her marriage is falling apart. Every ounce of her life savings is tied up in this fucked up house. Like I am not judging.

I am surprised that she didn't share, like, I had a priest come in. I saged the house. I smoke-cleansed the house. Yeah. I mean, maybe just, like, not in her wheelhouse, you know? Maybe it didn't occur to her. But even now, I'm like, okay. Also, Lance, if he's not working, how's he paying that mortgage? Like, my hope is that eventually, and I hope her name's no longer on the house, but I hope he forecloses on the house and is forced out of the house. And then there's this, like...

This is the movie version of it. There's like some big epiphany of like, oh my God, what was happening to me when I was in that house? Right. Yeah. I guess I would. I mean, eventually, yeah, he would get, I mean, if he's going to work less and less, he's going to get fired. He's going to not have income. The house is going to go into foreclosure. And at some point, I know that stuff can take a while, that process. Yeah. Several years. Of getting someone truly kicked out of their house that way. Yeah. But like, I guess she's got to kind of root for that, that maybe once...

He's finally out. Because it is a weird situation where it's like you can't force him. He doesn't want to exercise it. Right. He likes this thing. Yeah. Or he's been, he's convinced somehow. Is it succubus?

Yeah, yeah. I mean, we're not saying that they're having any actual sexual interaction, but it has that feeling. Oh, yeah. But if this claim is like legit, then his mind has been worked on for a long time by this thing in the house. It's like working on him, working on the baby. Probably wasn't working on her because he just wanted her gone. Yeah. Because like she's the threat where it's like she wants to step in and be her in this situation. Right. I'm like, yeah, I thought that was a super creepy situation. I kind of want Lance to get a girlfriend. Yeah.

And then, but he wouldn't, he'd have no incentive because he thinks he has one. Like in this situation, he never wants to leave the house. I know. But I was like, Oh, if he could get a girlfriend and then if she was like, Oh my God, Rachel. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You know, forge a little relationship there. Yeah.

That is a really, really crazy story. Uh-huh. Exactly. So upsetting. No pics attached to this story. Sorry. And Rachel must have actually felt so crazy because postpartum is so incredibly real. Yeah. And affects you in such a, can affect you in such a variety of ways. I'm sure for a while, I mean, she doesn't say this in the story, but I would bet for a while in her mind, she's like, oh my God, this is what postpartum is. Yeah. Yeah. Like exactly. Right. You're like trying to like rationalize away. Yeah.

These things that are happening. I mean, she sounds incredibly smart and intuitive and, you know, on it. And I think that that's like when it's scariest is like when you're somebody who like, quote unquote, knows better. Yeah. She cannot find a reason. Yeah. Yeah. And I and I guess also like what I was just thinking about what you said about the why wouldn't you bring someone over to cleanse it?

It was creepy for a long time, but it escalated real quick right at the end. That's true. That's true. Like by the time it went like bananas. Yeah. She was gone. I think I'm just so different that way. And again, like not saying in judgment, just different ways of approaching life. Like early on, you'd be like, ugh. Yeah. If any,

Anytime our house feels a little icky, anytime we have a dinner party, anytime we have guests stay, after they leave, I'm opening up all the windows and doing a smoke cleansing. I'm blessing the house. And honestly, that could just come from, and this is so silly, but that could just come from the way I was raised, which my mom, anytime there was any activity at our house, I don't mean paranormal. I mean just people coming. My mom would be like, okay, it's Sunday. Open all the windows. Let's clean the house. Let's get all the germs out. She wasn't doing anything.

a emotional, spiritual cleanse. She was doing an actual cleaning of the house. So, but I think that's just ingrained in me. Like that's what you do. Yeah. Before and after every guest. I don't think prior to this show, I would have thought to do that stuff very quickly.

Like, like, okay. Maybe I wouldn't have either. That's very fair. Yeah. Prior to being immersed in this, you know, on a weekly basis, if weird things would have happened, I would, I would have held on a lot longer to thinking that it was in my head. And even when things started to happen, I think I would just be hoping that they would go away. Sure. I think I would honestly feel embarrassed to reach out to a priest, a pastor or a spiritualist. Okay. That, no, that's a really great point. Thanks for bringing that up. Yeah. Yeah.

Okay. Are there any photos? Yeah, no pics attached. But I wanted to try. I mean, obviously, we hear about chat GPT. And I know, I know many people are against AI.

but it's not going anywhere. And I've just hearing about it more and more and people using it. And since these stories, you know, don't need pictures in this, right. It doesn't carry the tail. No, it doesn't carry the tail. No one's listening for the pictures. And since we pay a real human being, uh, Logan Keith to create custom artwork for each episode, I didn't see the harm in copying and pasting the story into chat GPT. And then just asking it, can you create an image from this story? Like what would something look like? It's,

fucking crazy like how well it works. Okay. So let me show you this.

Oh my God. I know. Oh, that's so upsetting. Okay. So you took this, you went to what? Like chatgpt.com? Yeah. I just went into chatgpt. You guys can tell I'm really well versed in technology right now. And I copied and pasted this story. This like Reddit story or whatever it is. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I didn't find it on Reddit, but yeah. Exactly. Like a forum. Put it in here. And then I was like, I think I actually might've said, can you...

create an image of the old woman ghost looking at the mother who's scared in her room. Something like that. I cannot believe how realistic it is. This was one take. This was just what came out just with one prompt. And this just shows up in the chat, GBT. Like to me, I'm like, I want to start asking questions like, is this Photoshop? Like what, what, what does it use to make it? Like, I don't understand that side of it. No, it just creates a JPEG.

But I was like, man, that's crazy. If I saw that as a movie poster. Right. You know what? She'll take care of him. Part one. It's like, yeah, I'm going to see that movie. Yeah. I just, I just technology. I've always been fascinated with it. Like I was like the first kid, you know, even though we were poor, had like a saved up lawnmower or lawnmown money and went in with my grandparents on like a Commodore 64. That is so cute. Yeah. Grandma Betty would play her bridge game. Stop it. And I would have my skate or die game.

She actually would play it too. She'd go back and play, but it's like,

So, you know, since I was, and I had the Atari before that when I was like five or something. So I've always been interested in like new technology and I've been slow to try this. But I'm like, I get the concerns, but I also, I'm like, how cool is that for this situation? Yeah. Amazing. Yeah. Like the morals and the ethics behind AI and all that, that's like, that's a completely different show. Totally. I don't even want to like dive into it here. But yeah, I thought that was a real cool image. It is really cool and really effing creepy. Yeah.

Honestly, it just looks like a picture of a, oh, it's too real. It's too real. Are you ready to leave one creepy tale involving a baby set in Pennsylvania and head to Brazil to explore an even darker tale involving so many babies? Yes. 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 all these episodes ad free, additional bonus episodes and more.

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

Okay, like I said up top, this next story, one of the darkest urban legends I've ever come across. Before we dive into three brief modern day encounters with this chilling spirit, let's start with the lore that supposedly is based in a lot of historical truth. And of course, some believe that everything associated with this story is absolutely true. I certainly hope that is not the case because this one, time now for the tale of Barbara of the Pleasures.

It's the late 1700s in colonial Brazil, a city bustling with life, vendors, nobles, slaves, sailors, and a young, beautiful 20-something immigrant arrives from Portugal. The exact year is 1790. The woman is Barbara Vicente de Urpia. She arrived in Rio de Janeiro, the capital of the Portuguese viceroyalty, accompanied by her husband, Antonio de Urpia, a Portuguese nobleman.

The reason for the couple's arrival in Brazil is uncertain. One version of the legend says that she had poisoned her own sister back in Portugal and that her arrival in Rio was a way to throw authorities off of her trail before she was caught and executed. Another version claims that the young woman had an extramarital relationship approved by her husband with a high-ranking Portuguese nobleman who had sent the couple to the colony at the behest of even more important authorities to prevent the scandal from becoming public knowledge. Whatever the reason,

When they arrived, Barbara's legendary beauty caught the attention of Rio de Janeiro's high society, which opened the doors of elite salons to the couple well-connected as they were with the viceroy, the Count of Resende. Barbara attracted the lustful gaze of practically all the men of the elite, but she fell in love with someone who was poor, a free black man whom she had met at a traditional musical performance called a serenade.

Blinded by passion, determined to have her romance, Barbara is said to have now killed her husband in cold blood with a stab in the back of the neck while he was asleep. Having supposedly managed to cover up the crime, Barbara, now a widow, lost access to the Viceroy's court. Few believed in her innocence, especially after the discovery of suspicious details about her sister's criminal death years earlier, and now she was shunned. It is said that the authorities, pressured by the Viceroy to find a scapegoat,

accused and then executed a man who lived on the streets for the nobleman's murder to at least spare her life. Having fallen into disgrace, Barbara went to live with her new lover in the Cidade Nova region, a seedy area at the time near Rio, now actually a part of Rio, with a bad reputation. Then at the turn of the 19th century, Barbara is said to have also murdered her lover in the midst of a heated argument, aggravated by jealousy and financial issues.

But once again, Barbara is not held responsible. Through unknown connections, she is set free. And some other poor guy is again captured and executed in her place. Now she has no one. She still has some money, but it won't last her long and she needs income. Still coveted by many men of money, she turns to sex work and becomes the favorite mistress of several wealthy merchants, officials of the crown, and even allegedly some Catholic bishops.

Then, with the arrival of the Portuguese royal court in 1808, she begins to serve the nobility and, it is said, even members of the royal family. She takes residence in one of the luxurious homes that line the refined Lavradio Street, the Rodeo Drive of Rio at the time, where she received many secret visits from many mysterious and elegant men. They called her Barbara of the Pleasures. But, give it enough time and beauty will fade.

And to beauty making her living in sex work, especially back in the days before anyone used any form of protection, back when there was no medicine to treat sexually transmitted infections, beauty tends to fade harshly. Over the years, Barbara had contracted several serious diseases such as syphilis and leprosy. She was also growing old. She was losing both her youth and her beauty.

Her various illnesses were beginning to give her a frightening appearance. Her hair was drying out and thinning. She had warts and bruises all over her body. Her teeth were brittle and breaking. Open syphilitic sores were bleeding and eating at her flesh and cartilage. Her nose essentially collapsed. Her clients, now repulsed, abandoned her. She could no longer make the money she once made. She could no longer afford to live at her home on Lavradio Street.

and that was how she found herself selling her body on the street at Tellez Arch, a simple stone archway in downtown Rio that today marks the entrance to a popular street filled with both tourists and locals, a symbol of old Rio that has been well-preserved.

But back when Barbara found herself there, it was a fetid alley amidst the ruins of a great fire that in 1790 had transformed the area into a haunt of prostitutes and beggars where anyone could help themselves to the women who lured near the arch or lurked near the arch and were willing to do just about anything in the corners of the alley for what would equate to just $10 or $20 today.

Barbara had sunk lower than she could have ever imagined, and she was desperate, willing to do anything to restore the youth and beauty that had long allowed her to live like a wealthy noblewoman. And her desperation led her to seek help from Rio's dark practitioners of blood magic. She would leave her consultations with these strange, mystical men and women with macabre recipes.

She was told that if she bathed in boiled animal blood, it would cure her leprosy. It would cure her syphilis. She would become young and beautiful again. She was told many similar things. She tried many similar things, but nothing seemed to work. Still, she kept seeking, and her searching led her to a priestess who suggested something that was supposedly infallible, but also something so dark, disturbing, and disgusting, no decent person would ever even consider it.

She was told that if she was truly willing to do anything to restore her youth and beauty instead of animals, Barbara would need to bathe in the still fresh and warm blood of children. The younger and more innocent, the better. And beginning in 1828, local officials now began to register a series of young children's disappearances, children whose bodies were never discovered. Panic spread throughout the city. Children could no longer walk unaccompanied, and many families began to lock their sons and daughters at home, fearing the worst.

It was then that, according to reports, Barbara began to look elsewhere and do something even more disturbing. She began to steal newborn babies from the so-called Foundling Circle at the Holy House of Mercy, a Catholic orphanage where there was a small door used for unwed women to leave their unwanted babies to the care of the nuns. Between 1738 and 1848, more than 20,000 babies would be abandoned in this way.

But in 1828, the number of babies abandoned at the Holy House of Mercy decreased dramatically, which soon began to be associated with the cruelty of, not Barbara of the Pleasures, but a woman now known simply as the Witch. Then in 1830, an old woman's body was found floating in the bay next to the fish market in what is now known as Square 15. Her face was disfigured and unrecognizable, but everyone felt certain that it was Barbara.

especially since the disappearances of children had stopped a few days prior. But in short time, babies began to disappear again. And rumors swirled that Barbara, the old witch, was back. That just like she had cheated an execution twice, if not three times, now she had again somehow cheated death.

She was back in some unholy and undead form, an unholy form that still desperately wanted to regain her lost beauty and youth that now also needed to regain her actual life, a wraith who believed she could come back if only she bathed in enough children's blood. Many over the years would claim to witness her prowling in the shadows late at night near the Tellus Arch and near the Holy House of Mercy, even long after they closed their founding circle in 1848.

Every so often when a young child or baby in the area would go missing and their body would not be found, there were whisperings that the child or the baby had been taken by the witch, the monster and murderer of babies once known as Barbara of the Pleasures. People feared that children were taken, drained of blood, and that their bones, skin, and what remained of their flesh was then tossed into the bay to sink to the bottom and feed the fish.

And some think the witch still prowls the Telus Arch area today, feeding off the young in a ghoulish way, still attempting to become beautiful again, to truly live again almost 200 years after her death. We found three modern encounter claims on a Brazilian paranormal forum, posts left from those who believe they've encountered Barbara in recent years. Let's begin with a post from a woman named Mariana, who left her post in 2013.

My name is Mariana. I was in Rio de Janeiro last summer for a photography project on colonial architecture. One evening, I went out alone with my camera to shoot the Tellez Arch. It was quiet. Strangely quiet. The usual foot traffic was gone and the archway stood almost too still. As I focused my lens, I noticed an old woman standing under the arch. Pale face, long black dress, something covering her head like a veil. She looked out of place. I raised my camera to take a picture and she vanished.

I thought maybe she had ducked into the shadows, but when I reviewed my photos, I found one frame where she was staring straight at me. Her skin was full of open sores and scars. Her smile was crooked. Her eyes hollow. Many of her teeth were missing. A vendor nearby saw my face and asked if I was okay. When I described what I saw, when I showed them, he said, that's Barbara of the pleasures. That night I had a horrible dream where she was crouched on my chest, whispering, you have such young blood.

I woke up gasping, and now I wonder if it was more than just a dream. I had bruises along my ribs that lasted a week. The next claim comes from 2018, from someone who identified themselves only as Daniel. I was in Rio for my cousin's wedding and went drinking with him in the city center. Around midnight, I ducked into an alley near the arch to pee. Gross, I know, but I'd had many beers, and the lines to the first two bathrooms I tried were long. As I zipped up, I heard humming. A woman. It was soft, like a lullaby.

That's when I saw her. She stood under the arch, barely moving. Her hands kept twitching. Her face looked stitched together to me. One eye was white, the other staring right at me. Then she turned and looked at a young child who was out alone at such a late hour. I wondered if they had run away from home, or if the child and their parents were living on the streets. When she took a step towards the child, her feet made no sound. Her mouth moved, but nothing came out. I became very worried. I yelled out, "'Hey, what are you doing?' And before she could reach the child, she just disappeared."

Poof. Gone. Just like that. And then the child disappeared into the crowd. I felt very strongly that if I had not yelled, she would have taken that child, and something very bad would have happened to him. I also could not understand how she could have disappeared like she did. It wasn't natural. I never forgot about what I saw that night. Much later I heard about the legend of Barbara of the Pleasures. I knew in an instant it was her, and then I saw a sketch someone had made of her, who said they had seen her as well, and it was her. It was Barbara of the Pleasures."

And now one more from 2009, left by someone named Gabriela. I was only 12. My parents took me to Rio during school break. We were walking to the older part of the city. I wandered ahead. I saw this beautiful old arch and walked towards it. A woman stepped out. She crouched low and opened her arms like she wanted a hug from me.

I don't mean to sound cruel, but she looked very bad. Her skin was covered in sores that were bleeding. Her eyes were sunken in. Her nose was badly deformed. Part of her upper lip looked like it was missing. You could see her teeth. They were cracked and dirty and some of them were missing. But still I was about to go towards her. It was like she had cast a spell on me. But then I heard my mother scream my name. The woman hissed and vanished.

That night in the hotel, I woke up to a nosebleed. And at the foot of my bed again, I saw her face floating in the dark, grinning, tongue out, hands reaching. She disappeared when I screamed. It was not until years later I found out about Barbara of the pleasures. It was her. I know it was her.

Three sightings, same location, same terrifying figure. Is it possible that Barbara of the Pleasures was not only a real historical figure, but that some version of her still roams the earth near the Telus Arch in Rio de Janeiro, still looking for children to kill, for young blood to take in an evil attempt to restore her beauty, her youth, and her life?

That was fun. Yeah, yeah, it's a crazy story, at the very least. Yeah, very crazy story. I want to know more about Barbara of the Pleasures. Is she, like, female serial killer? What is going on with her? I know, yeah, several deaths there that she got away with. And, yeah, and if that, or if the legends about her are true, I guess just, like, legendarily seductive. Just, like, very, very coveted for quite a while. So interesting to just think about a different time and a different time.

and that you could just like, you know, murder your sister and then get on a ship and go somewhere else. And they were like, oh, well. Yeah. I mean, it was so hard. DNA, forensics, like this is all, you know, not coming into play, obviously. So it's just like. And it probably took like two months for them to get from like Portugal to Brazil. Who knows, like a month or a long time. Right. And in that time, they're like, ah, fuck it, forget it. Oh, yeah. Like the effort it took. I mean, and people did do that all the time. People would like, you know, commit crimes and like,

one area. I mean, in the, it's funny in the American colonies, you didn't, you didn't have to go across the ocean. Nope. You just had to go to like the next town over. Yep. And it's like, as long as you're not causing trouble in our little village, we don't care. We don't care. Just stay out of here. And also just, you know, communication and all, it's just so, so hard. You know, we don't have, you know, the same ability to like do a, what do they call it? An APB, you know? Oh yeah. It's like, yeah.

Just these things that we take for granted now. They didn't even have like a proper post office. Correct. Yeah. Yeah. There's no phones. There's no telegraph, no emails. Oh, God. So crazy to think about. Yeah. Oh, all the chaos. Okay. I know this is not that important, but I don't know why this detail just stuck out to me so much. Her husband approved her affair? Yeah. There was no, I thought that was curious too, but I mean, you know, there's all kinds of relationships. Yeah. And I kind of wondered, I'm like, was he somewhat of her like pimp?

Oh. What kind of relationship was this? Like, was he profiting somehow off of this? Or, you know, back then he could have been gay. It could have been a marriage of like... Status and convenience. Some kind of arrangement. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Where he's like, I know you're going to do this, but maybe don't like get caught kind of thing. Who knows? I thought maybe it was like he wanted to watch. Could have been that too. You know, we all have our kinks. But yeah, I just... The whole story was crazy. I love that...

299 episodes in. Yeah. We are learning about lore from other countries. Yeah. You know, and I mean, that's a... Barbara is terrifying. Barbara. Barbara. I love that name. It's not the same, but it like gave me like Yalorona vibes where I was just like, oh, you know, just like women showing up in strange places, abducting children. Yeah.

You better watch out. Us women, we will come for you. I was surprised by how many details. Like if somebody, you know, obviously with any of these, somebody could have just made it up. But with the lore, I'm like, man, somebody really went to the trouble of like giving dates. Quite a backstory to this person, right?

That you usually don't see in urban legends. Yeah. Yeah. Usually don't see like, you know, specific. Okay. She, she came from this country. She was seen in this court around this time. And then, you know, years later she did this and then this person was executed and they were friends with this specific, you know, noble. Yeah. No, I have a story coming up. I don't know when, but, uh,

That takes place in Croatia. It's just like, oh, God, the lore. Yeah. All around the world. We all love a good story. Yep. And have for all of human history. Yeah. I got three photos. This first one is just of the Telus Arch. So it's not, it's like a simple stone archway. Not really elaborate. Pretty plain, but still standing all these years later. Okay. Yeah. It looks like there's like shops and stuff in there that are in this photo not open. Yeah. Boarded up. Yep. Closed for the day or whatever.

Um, this next one is an anonymous sketch made of Barbara of the Pleasures stealing a baby from that so-called Wheel of the Exposed. Uh, this baby hatch or the foundling's wheel that was outside of this Catholic orphanage. And I've read about similar structures in Ireland and other places like, you know, Catholic countries back in the day. Yeah. Where, yeah, they would have these, I guess it would be like...

What they did in place of, you know, years later, it would be at like the fire station. Right. What do they call it? Safe, not safe haven. Maybe something like that. A place that people knew you would like. This is a place where people drop off babies. Yeah. There's a word and it's driving me. Somebody out there is listening. They're like, it's this. And this is like a laundry chute or something. This is like they had like this big stone wall that surrounded. Okay. Safe surrender. Big stone wall. And then it has had this little doorway thing that popped out with, um.

Like, I can't think of what to equate it to. I'm trying to think of a modern thing that this thing looks like to describe it verbally. I don't know. Like a mailbox, almost. Yeah, but you can see another set of hands reaching through. Like you're handing the baby to somebody. You're not throwing it down a chute. I know. It's like a fast food drive-thru. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's like if you walked up to a fast food drive-thru and just handed your baby to the person in the window. Yeah, just like a service window. Service window, yeah. Yeah, yeah. And then this next one.

This is a sketch of some sex workers hanging around the Telus Arch that was made for a Brazilian newspaper back in 1790.

So not the greatest sketch back then, but just showing like, yeah, it was a really like rough part of town at that point. And there had been a big fire that had decimated a lot of the nearby buildings. And it was just like people, you know, who were living on the street and selling their bodies very cheaply in just a place of a lot of despair. Yeah. No, it looks sad. Mm-hmm. Aye yi. Aye yi yi. So I thought both those stories were pretty disturbing. I liked them.

Are you ready to dive in? I am. Okay, get all situated. Do you have a Layla? I do have a traditional OG Layla. Oh, OG Layla. OG Layla. Smells good. Okay, all right. Well, glad to hear it. Let's go. Hello, scared to death. Hello. I originally drafted this email in November of 2023. I could never get the courage to hit send. And I guess I'm glad I didn't because now I have an update to add.

I found your podcast by searching for someone talking about sleep paralysis and nightmares, which I struggle with more than I'd like to. I found an episode of yours and was immediately hooked. I have now finished the backlogs of Scared to Death, Time Suck, Is We Dumb, Dance Comedy, and The Short Sucks. Jeez, thank you. So, safe to say, you have a lifetime listener in me. I love horror movies and stories, true crime, all of it. And you wouldn't think I would after the childhood I had. I grew up in church and my mother was strict.

I started having nightmares at seven years old, and they grew so bad that at one point my mother even brought a pastor to our home to bless it. The nightmares haven't gone away over the last 20 years, but they don't normally affect me for more than a couple of hours or a day or two at most. I have struggled with anxiety and depression for over 20 years as well, with the majority of those years going untreated, which I know can cause memory loss.

I've always wanted to try hypnotherapy to see if it would help me remember, but after this experience, I don't think I will be. I reached a point last year when I tried pretty much every antidepressant pill you can name.

My psychiatrist recommended TMS therapy, which a quick Google search will quickly describe as transcranial magnetic stimulation therapy as a non-invasive brain stimulation treatment that uses magnetic pulses to activate specific brain regions.

After much debate, I decided to follow through with this. I did the treatment for three months. For the first few weeks, I went five days every week, and then it tapered off to two days a week. I wore a sort of helmet for 20 minutes, and every 20 seconds, the machine would send electric pulses through my brain to activate the part of my brain that wasn't working due to the depression. A

Imagine your brain licking a 9-volt battery at the same time there's a woodpecker trying to get out of your head. It wasn't the most pleasant few months, but it helped a bit in the end.

However, I can still feel a sort of aftershock, if you will, every now and then. As far as being a believer in all the supernatural, I would like to preface by saying I was baptized about three years ago, and with my childhood being very religious from my mother, I do struggle with the whole ghosts vs. demons vs. whatever.

I don't know what they are, but I do know they are there. They've been around me for a long time. And there's one woman in particular, though she doesn't seem malevolent. I'm not the only one that has seen her, despite not saying anything about her to the other three people that have seen her.

These were three separate people in three separate places in three separate cities I have lived. I would like to point out here, though, that this woman did not manifest until I had my daughter, who is now nine. Honestly, after all the fan stories that I've listened to, I thought that she would be the one I'd end up writing to you about. But that isn't the case.

I got off work an hour early on Friday, which was perfect because I was exhausted. And this would give me a chance to lie down for an hour and a half before my daughter's swim class. I rushed home, kicked off my socks and shoes the second I got into my bedroom, turned on the box fan and the ceiling fan, turned off the lights, and plopped into my bed. I snuggled under the blankets, set an alarm, and put a pillow over my eyes. I was so excited to sleep that I ended up tossing and turning for an hour.

Finally, I drifted off and the terrible nightmare began immediately. I was lying on a couch talking to a therapist. I had finally decided to go through with the hypnotherapy I've wanted to do for so long. I was so excited that I was worried I wouldn't be able to relax enough to make it work. But the therapist had a calming voice and I was quick to settle in. I laid on the couch and closed my eyes.

"'I'm going to count down from five,' she said. As I settled into tranquility, she told me, "'Focus on your breathing. Clear your mind.' I did as she said, and then slowly she counted down. Four, three, two, one. Everything was dark. I couldn't tell where I was, but I knew I wasn't on the couch anymore. I was standing somewhere else.'

"'Where are you?' I heard her distantly ask from the other side of my dream state. "'I don't know,' I responded. "'It's dark. Focus on your breathing. Tell me where you are.' I heard. I took a deep breath and settled in. I couldn't see, but I knew where I was. "'I'm in a room,' I finally responded. "'There's a hallway.'

I didn't understand how I knew that. I still couldn't see, but it felt like I knew the place. I knew my surroundings without seeing them. Good. I need you to go down the hallway and find a door, the therapist told me. Oh, there's many doors, I told her. Which one do I go through? You'll know when you find it, she reassured me. I turned and walked down the hallway. I passed a few doors before I stopped.

There was a door to my right, but it felt so dark. I stood in front of the door and turned to face it. Feelings of dread and sadness overwhelmed me. Did you find it? I heard her ask. I shakily whispered, Yes. I need you to open the door now, she told me. My hands reached for the doorknob to turn it, but my foot was placed outside the frame, as if I was ready to hold the door shut from something trying to get out.

Open the door, she told me again. I wanted to scream my response, but as I tried to open my mouth, I realized my mouth was stitched shut. I started to cry. Open the door, I heard again. I don't want to. I don't want to go in there. I mustered out between whimpers and closed lips. You have to open the door, she told me.

tell me what's behind the door. Before I could protest, the door swung open from the other side and I fell through. I remember it being bright. I could see. I was happy and confident. I had a full day there and it was great. At the end of my joy-filled day, I went to my room and laid down on my bed, fans on, pillow over my eyes, and I started to fall asleep. But

Before I could fall asleep, though, I started to hear a weird clicking noise coming from my fan. Click, click.

It was slow at first. It started to get faster. It sounded like a movie projector. Click, click, click, click, click. I noticed that with each click, I could feel the shock in my head of the TMS therapy. My eyes started to dart back and forth with each click. Click, click, click, click, click, click, click. With each click, each dart of the eyes, I was wavering between realities. I was in my bed, on the couch with the therapist, back in bed, on the couch, over and over and over again, and I couldn't stop it.

I tried to wake up. I didn't even know I'd fallen asleep. I couldn't move. I couldn't open my eyes. Seriously? I thought. Sleep paralysis? Now? I'm going to be late for swim. No, I have an alarm. The alarm will wake me up and snap me out of this. It has to go off soon.

The minutes I spent in the petrified state felt like hours. The clicking finally stopped. I heard faint music, but it wasn't my alarm. It was an old song I didn't recognize, a woman singing lightly. I was interrupted by the sound of my alarm, and I woke up.

Finally, I thought, but I couldn't move. I still couldn't open my eyes. My alarm faded away. No, no, no, no, no. I thought to myself, how do I go from sleep paralysis in a dream to sleep paralysis in real life? I'm going to be so late.

My anxiety of being late jolted me out of my sleep paralysis. I threw the pillow off my face, ripped off the eye mask. I was sweating, shaking, hyperventilating as I sat in bed. I still couldn't open my eyes. I still couldn't see. What the fuck was happening to me right now?

That's when I felt it. The presence. It wasn't the normal woman I was used to seeing. This energy felt dark, angry, maybe sadness turned to anger. And then I felt another presence and another and another. Four of them. I screamed in frustration as I could feel them getting closer to me. I pried my eyes open with my fingers and finally I could see. Of course, there was no one in the room.

I jumped out of bed, grabbed the cord to turn on the light, and the light bulb burst immediately. The room went pitch black, too dark for me to see at all, and I felt the presence of whoever or whatever was there gather close around me. I dropped to my knees and opened my mouth to scream, but no sound came out. They crowded over me, and then I woke up. For real this time. I threw the pillow off my face and grabbed my phone to check the time. My alarm hadn't gone off yet.

I still had three minutes. I sat up in bed and tried to calm myself. I was sweating, shaking, nearly having a panic attack. As I finally slowed my breathing down, I stood up and reached for the cord to turn the light on. Terrified the bulb would blow. It didn't.

The room lit up. I sighed with relief. As I started to ready myself to leave, though, I heard it. That same song from the dream, ever so faintly, coming from the corner of my room. I freaked and got the fuck out, grabbed everything I needed, and jumped in my car to leave, calling my boyfriend to tell him all of my crazy on my way to swim.

My heart was pounding, and as I was driving, I started to feel that shock in my brain every 20 seconds, just like the treatment. The feeling that the door gave me overcame me again.

I met my daughter at swim and mustered up all of my strength to not let her see the terror I was still feeling. I caught my reflection in the glass a few times and my agony was very apparent, but luckily my daughter didn't notice. I gave her a hug and a kiss and let her go with her father as I got back in my car. The feeling of shock was wearing down and I could feel the headache coming on. It was finally ending. I was so tired, but of course now I was too scared to sleep.

What was behind that door? Part of me wanted to open that door. My hands were on the knob ready to go. My lips sewn shut so I couldn't protest going in there. Maybe part of me wasn't ready to see that. Did that part of me know what was behind the door? The part of me that anchored my foot against the door frame that kept my eyes shut? What was on the other reality? Did I have a choice of what reality to stay in?

I don't know how much I should question it. I do know that I don't want to fall back into that nightmare ever again, and I don't think I'll be trying hypnotherapy either.

A year and a half later, I have told this story now twice. Well, three times, including you. I told my boyfriend and one co-worker. I have a nine-year-old daughter, but I keep her away from all of my supernatural mental illness mess. Well, I thought I did. This was the second time something like this had happened. We were in the car waiting for the school bus, and my daughter, with no prompt, says, Hey, Mom, do you know the family of four that haunts you?

What? I asked with surprise. I had forgotten about this dream since it had been so long. And she calmly said, you know, the grandpa, the mom, the little boy and your normal lady. It hit me like a ton of bricks. I snapped back into the dream. How do you know that? I asked, following up with a, I mean, I'm not haunted, but like, how did you know about that nightmare I had? That was over a year ago.

I never got my answer. The school bus came, and I honestly didn't want to bring it up to her again. I know I said that was the second time that this happened with her. The first time, she randomly mentioned something about watching my grandma die. She insisted she was there in the hospital.

My grandmother passed Friday, March 13th, 2020 in the nursing home, but I can see why she would have thought it was a hospital. My daughter was at preschool that day. I never mentioned anything of what I saw about watching my grandma take her last breath. I told her she must have been thinking about the funeral because lucky me, my great aunt insisted on lifting up my three-year-old to see the body in the casket. Cool.

She kept on it, insisting she saw her die in the hospital. I let it go, figuring it was some sort of horrible imagination that she had. And then it happened with the dream. And then again not long ago. We were making dinner while my boyfriend was at work. She asked me if she was going to get siblings when we got married. And I told her maybe. She asked if I was scared to lose the next one like I did the last time.

I was at a loss for words. I had just had a miscarriage four months ago. I never spoke about it around her. I hardly told anyone for that matter. I finally asked her what she meant, and she said she couldn't remember the word, but it was like when I was going to have a baby, but then it passed away.

I asked if she was talking about a miscarriage, and she said yes. And then of course she had a thousand questions about it, which I was reluctant to answer because I wanted my questions answered first. Like, how the hell did you know that happened? I inquired, and she said, I don't know. And that was literally all I got from her.

So now, I not only have my own dark friend, whom I've only felt but not seen since that dream, but a nine-year-old that has a strange attachment to some horrible things I've seen, has seen her own ghosts, and had her own supernatural experiences, and has struggled with the occasional, but extra creepy, sleepwalking. I

I haven't quite figured out what's going on, who to ask, or where to even begin. But I have a feeling that won't be the last of my memories my daughter randomly taps into. I know mothers and daughters have a special bond, but like this? Thanks for reading and getting me through my workday and my homework and my drives. Keep up the spoopiness. Much love, Kate.

Thank you, Kate. Bizarre, right? So bizarre. So bizarre. So many different types of bizarre in one set of stories there. Yeah. I mean, there are like, I mean, I say studies, but I don't know how, like, I haven't dived into them thoroughly and like tried to vet them about like, you know, telepathy. There's like more of that stuff coming out recently, you know, where, I mean, we were talking to a friend about that a few weeks ago about telepathy.

supposedly like people being have like a mind to mind connection with their pets. Oh yeah. Yeah. Which seems crazy. And also people who are like nonverbal, like on the autism spectrum, being able to somehow telepathically meet on the hill. Right. There's all these weird stories out there. Yeah. And you know, people are looking into more and more of this stuff. And it's like these extrasensory abilities combined with possible like

ghost stories and stuff. It's like there's so many different types of mysteries and several of those types show up in Kate's, you know, encounters and stuff here. So like, who knows what the hell is going on? The one part, like when she had that dream, that's so terrifying when you feel like you've woken up from a really terrible dream only to find yourself in what feels like another terrible dream. It is so brutal. And then there's like that. I've had that a few times happen over my life where you just feel that panic. Yeah. Of like,

am I stuck here forever? What is going on? I just want to be out of this. I just want to be awake. Yeah. And then, and then like, and then when you finally do wake up, you're like, but am I awake? Or is this like a third dream I'm stuck in now? It's just so disorienting and confusing and just scary. Yeah. Yeah. With,

With the dream about hypnotherapy and, like, this door... Oh, God, that was intense. It was so intense. And also, like, very much how we see hypnotherapy described in, like, TV shows or, you know. So it's like you can kind of put yourself there and then, you know, she...

To me, my guess is that there's some sort of like childhood trauma that is like fueling it, like what's behind the door. It's like something that, or young adult trauma or just trauma, like something that, Kate, you're probably putting off dealing with, something you don't want to. Maybe, you know, because our brain will protect us from horrific memories. So it feels like this weird, in the dream, it feels like...

you're being protected from something that happened to you. I don't know if that's actually, you know, something that needs to be dealt with, but it had that kind of vibe of like this regressive therapy. We're going to get to the root of it. Blah, blah, blah. It was so crazy. And I was just thinking, I'm like, hopefully this isn't the case, but like, you know,

obviously none of us are perfect. We all have like physical limitations or abnormalities or mental limitations or abnormalities or so many different, like I think about like a new car, a brand new car with all loaded. There were so many bells and whistles, which is so fun, but it's also more things to go wrong. And we are so much more loaded than any kind of loaded car. Our brains are so complex. And I was like, God, what if that little regulator that

your brain has to like this is real life and then this is dream life uh-huh what if it doesn't work correctly and and things from your dream life start to just bleed into your regular life and you can't figure out how to like recalibrate things you can't figure out like what's reality and what's not oh my god that that would be so terrifying i think it could happen to different degrees i would imagine and i think that has happened to people where they have like a uh

whatever part of the brain does that isn't working properly. I wonder if that goes hand in hand with like narcolepsy, like how people just like fall asleep, you know, like your brain kind of... Yeah, shuts down at the wrong time. Yeah, short circuits in that way. As you were talking about that, it made me think back on a story. I don't know if you told it or I told it, but a guy who ended up just like staying awake, I think was on my side. Oh, was on your side. Yeah, for like days and days and days. Yeah, because his real...

reality and dream life were like blending or the dreams were so hard and if he just didn't fall asleep it would be okay yeah the brain is crazy it's very very very complicated muscle uh-huh and yet some of us are so dumb so how complicated is it just kidding all right one more yeah all right let's go

Hey, Dan and Lindsay. Hello. Longtime listener of Time Suck and was elated when Scared to Death aired. You guys don't disappoint. Love the stories and the banter between the two of you. Keep doing what you're doing. Aw, thanks. In a few episodes of Scared to Death, you guys were talking about a listener that you met after one of Dan's comedy shows. The couple told you guys about their daughter who'd been having some creepy experiences. I think they're talking about the Twinkle grandparents. Oh my God. Was that from like

Tacoma. Tacoma, a long time ago. Yes. Okay. That's like, I think like 20. I remember that conversation. 20? 2019. 2019. Because I think it was pre-COVID. Yeah, I think so. Life. Pre-COVID, post-COVID. So strange. This family story reminded me of my own.

My husband and I started our real estate hunt in the spring of 2010. We wanted a space to call our own. Somewhere our two little girls, Nicolette, four, and Michaela, three, could run and play without disturbing neighbors. By June 2010, we closed on our 1930s brick bungalow in a smallish suburb of St. Louis, Missouri. The charming house was perfect for us. Each room had a massive picture window and original wood doors.

Four bedrooms, two baths, a semi-finished basement, ample parking space, and a huge tree-lined backyard surrounded by a retirement community. I excitedly began decorating each room, painting walls and hanging pictures. We let Nicolette and Michaela pick out their own rooms...

We let Nicolette and Michaela pick out their own room colors, purple for Nicolette and bright green for Michaela. Our family of four was busy making memories in our new home and bursting with happiness until one summer morning in July when I noticed Nicolette seemed to be super tired and anxious. I asked if she was okay. She nodded and ran off to play with her sister. I made a mental mom note to keep an extra eye on her.

The rest of the day was normal until we edged closer to the bedtime hours. Nicolette started talking about wanting to sleep with the light on. At first, I assumed she wasn't used to sleeping by herself since in our apartment, Nicolette and Michaela shared a room and sometimes even slept in the same bed with each other. I did my best to calm her by finding a nightlight for her room.

It wasn't until the middle of the night when I was struggling to sleep because of the Midwest heat that I heard Nicolette shuffling around and clicking on her room light. I waited a few minutes before getting up, thinking that she was just adjusting her pillows and blankets. As I listened, I heard her dresser drawers open and close, then the hallway closets being rummaged through. I got up and found her kneeling in the hallway, crouched over a basket full of hair scrunchies, combs, and barrettes.

I sleepily asked her what she was looking for. She spun around, surprised to find me in the hallway with her. Nicolette explained she needed to find a hairbrush, then quickly kept searching. Assuming she'd had some sort of dream, I turned on my soothing mom voice, told her we could find the hairbrush in the morning, and then coaxed her back to bed before climbing back into bed myself. Not even 15 minutes later, Nicolette's light was back on and I heard her rummaging around again.

I went to find Nicolette looking in closets with a face full of anxiety. I met Nicolette, bent down to her, and gently asked her why she needed the brush. Nicolette, while nervously fiddling her fingers together, glanced behind me and quietly said, "'She, she, she needs the hairbrush.'"

Nicolette meekly pointed behind me down our dark hallway. I saw no one. Nicolette worriedly continued, "'Mommy, I need to find the hairbrush. She wants to brush her hair.'" Completely creeped out, I took Nicolette back to bed, and this time I laid down next to her. Nicolette, with her little voice, thick with worry, whispered, "'Mommy, I need the hairbrush. She won't leave me alone until she brushes her hair.'"

big bloody owie on her head made her hair messy mommy i did my best to remain calm and relax her the next morning my husband woke me up asking why i slept with nicolette we both quietly slipped out of nicolette's room letting her continue to sleep while i began to tell my husband of the events of last night as i assume many husbands do he brushed me off thinking i was overreacting

Over the next few months, many nightly events like the previous happened to Nicolette. I myself never saw any creepy guests, but would feel something watching me. Sometimes I would feel an older male presence like he was looking over his territory. One afternoon, while Nicolette and I had a few minutes to ourselves, I learned that many creepy guests came to Nicolette for help.

Nicolette told me in her sweet voice that she decided to help the ones that are nice, but the scary mean people that scream at her, she won't look at them and won't help them. She would pull her blankets up over her face and sing nice songs to herself until she fell asleep.

This yanked on my mama heartstrings. I nearly broke down in tears. I began researching how to fix this, how to make my little girl feel safe again. After all, this is the key part of parenting. During my research, I read multiple techniques to ward off creepy guests, such as burning sage, saying prayers, and asking for peace, salt around the perimeter of the house, politely asking them to leave, bringing in a priest, and so on.

I decided to start off simple, and if that didn't work, I'd continue on. First, I added prayers to the girls' nightly bedtime routine. After a week or two of bedtime prayers and periodically checking in with Nicolette, the creepy guests seemed to be a thing of the past. I took this as a success and assumed that the creepy guests were no longer an issue.

Fast forward to March 2012. My husband and I learned our family was growing. In preparation for the new baby, we bought all the necessary baby items and Nicolette happily moved into a bigger room down the hall. November 2012, sweet baby Malia arrives. We bring Malia home and adjust to being now a family of five.

Late one night, while up feeding newborn Malia, I heard some noises coming from Nicolette's room. After a few minutes of listening, I checked on her while still holding Malia. After entering her room, I hear her gasping and crying. Hurriedly, I flicked on the light. Nicolette was sitting on her bed, struggling to calm herself. Full of worry, I sat next to her, asking her what was wrong, what had happened.

In between sobs, Nicolette said, an older lady came to see me. Tears were streaming down her cheeks. Nicolette continued, she was nice at first and would ask me to do things, but then the old lady wanted me to do bad things, wanted me to go outside, wanted me to be a bad girl. I didn't want to be bad. When I don't want to do what she wants, the old lady gets furious.

matte her face changes she gets big and black and her teeth get sharp and her hair gets messy and then the lady now nicolette slowly stood up and contorted her neck at an odd angle with a jerky body her movement brought her face full of anger inches from mine she screeches you little bitch you listen good girls listen

Immediately, sweet Nicolette returned and nervously looked down at me to see if I believed her. I scooped her up in my free arm and did my best to comfort her. In the morning, I told my husband about the creepy guests, and this time he did not shrug me off. We began praying as a family and saged the entire house while asking all the creepy guests to leave. Since then, we haven't had a single creepy guest.

However, I still sense that something is there, though it no longer feels harmless. Andrea. Andrea. Man, that quote from little Nicolette. Fuck. Oh my God. That, um, you little bitch listen, good girls listen. I know. Hearing your young daughter say that after describing what sounds like a monster from a horror movie. I know. Like, oh my God. Yep. Yep.

The thought of like, yes, that was so creepy. What got me like more was the initial like digging around, rummaging in the middle of the night, just like thinking about like a little kid being so frantic, knowing that like if I don't find this, I don't. The hairbrush? Yes. If I don't find it, if I don't find it, like shit's going to get worse. Like just that scared feeling.

frenetic energy that like can really only come from just being so scared that if you don't complete something, it's like at this age in my life, what I feel when I feel that it's like when I have a deadline that I have to hit, you know, when I owe something and I'm like, oh, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck. And I just feel so overwhelmed that like my hands get shaky. It's hard to focus. Like seeing that and a little kid is so upsetting. Yeah. Especially in the middle of the night. Yes. And then, and then looking for a hairbrush because this

A ghost of somebody with a head wound. With a big owie. Right. A bloody head needs it. But like that, yeah, that is really creepy. Yeah. Man, that would be, I haven't said this in a while, but I know I said this a lot, but that would be like a great scene in a horror movie. Yeah, it really would. Of just parents waking up and then just having like a small child, some four, five, six year old girl. Yeah. Just frantically going to the closet, going to the place. It's like, I got to find it. She needs it. Yeah. She needs it. She really wants it right now. Yeah. Yeah.

Good stuff. Yeah. And happy for them. Sounds like they got under control. Yeah. So sending prayers, Andrea. I hope it continues to be that way. I hope that all your prayers and sage continue to work. Okay. Want to thank some Annabelle's for your special announcement. I'd like to thank Bren Fogle for supporting us here on the show. Thank you so much. Carrie Currens, Elise. This is E-E-L-E-S-S-E-J.

E, uh, Eel, Eel S, Eel S Edge. I don't, I'm not sure. Okay. Fair enough. I've never seen that one. Emily P. Scene, Mab, Bree Nicole, Kirsten Schmidt, Yasmin Listerna Rivera, Kobe Cochran, Diana Lopez, and Stephanie Rivera. And the, and the Eel S Edge.

That might be like a totally real name, but I was thinking it would be pretty funny if you know that somebody's going to say name, just like mash the keyboard for a little while. Just a collection of letters that there's no way anyone could like pronounce that into a word and be like, that's fine. That's my name. That's fine. What was the one? It was like M Mab. What?

M-A-B, Mab. Oh, Mab. You said like that one and then another one. And so I thought it was all one. Oh, no. Emily P. Scene. Emily P. Scene. Emily P. Scene. And then Mab. And then what was after Mab? Brie Nicole. Okay. I thought it was Mab, Brie Nicole. And I was like, Mab.

Mabry? I thought you were going to say Mabry. Mabry. So confused. Carrying on. Thanking more Annabelles for making our monthly donations possible and our scholarship fund possible. Tony Corbell, Daniel Phillips, Shauna Sharkey, Cody Lay, Sarah Mullen, Crystal Perrine, SlimShady13. How many SlimShady user handles are out there? Thousands. Love it. Count Swagula.

Ariel Georgoff, Bobo Doe, Bobo Doe. Bobo Doe. Bobo Doe. And Patricia Ernst.

And then a few spoopy shout outs. Sorry, Bobo dough reminds me of. It's Bo, Bo, dough, like a deer. Reminds me of Biba Doobie. Oh, Biba Doobie. Filipino British singer songwriter. Yeah. Biba Doobie. When Biba Doobie first started popping up on our like Sirius XM, like Alt Nation, we were like, what is her name again? Biba Doobie? Biba Doobie?

Okay. To Liam from your mom, Sammy, happy birthday to the coolest kid around. I couldn't imagine having a better B-Day buddy. Hope it's an awesome day. To Steph from Rob, happy birthday to my beautiful wifey. Having you in my life is the best thing that has ever happened to me. I love you more than words can explain.

And lastly, to Aiden from your mommy, daddy, and your two little brothers, happy ninth birthday, booger butt. You're growing up too fast. We love you more. Oh, I'm sorry. I love you more, mostest, and to infinity and

and beyond happy birth and aiden we met aiden last year uh when we all went to silverwood oh yeah at halloween time they flew across the country to come hang out with us sweet little cutie pie god that was uh so fun but also i was like oh man when you go to these haunted like popular haunted houses yeah it is 75 standing in line or more or more 80 85 standing uh-huh hate to say but i don't think we'll do it again this year it was just so it's like it's cost

prohibitive in that way. It's so expensive and then you don't get your money's worth. I didn't feel like. Yeah, I thought so too where it's like, oh, cool. We're going to be here for hours and we're going to see three houses. Yeah, and...

And they go so quick. Yeah. You're like standing in line for an hour and then it takes you two minutes to go through it and you're like, oh. I know. And I don't remember being especially scared. I know. I was more, and maybe this is just like, because I don't see well in the dark. Yeah. But I was more just like worried about smashing my shins into things because it would be so dark in some parts of those attractions. I'm like, I'm not scared. I'm just like frustrated. I'm anxious. Yeah. I cannot see literally anything. Yeah.

Haunted houses, I suppose, are for the young. Okay. And then, so before we go into the thank yous. Yeah. If you guys want to peace out now, be my guest. But also, we would love if you would stick around and just listen a little bit about this month's charity. Again, we don't always do this, but this one just felt especially special. Yeah. So again, this month, we are donating to the Hamilton County Youth Center. It's...

a 501c3 under the direction of one of our very own supporters and fans, Paul Johnson. Paul sent in the following email and it just really touched our hearts. As all of you know, we try our very best to spread the donation love around children's veterans, animals, and so on. And we aim to give those in our community and those adjacent to our community, some support, support,

Sometimes we make these donations and we forge a relationship with the nonprofit because they're so touched by our efforts. We saw that with TAT, Truckers Against Trafficking. They are still in touch with us. And sometimes we make donations and it's not even acknowledged, which is like kind of heartbreaking, but also, you know, people are running businesses. So when Paul's email made it to my desk, I cried a lot of tears. And I just knew that we as a community would be honored to give a little love to Paul and the Hamilton County Youth Center.

When our fans are at the heart of a donation, I try personally to call them and share the good news with them. And Paul was one of the best phone calls ever. It was just absolutely the cutest. I went something along the lines of like the phone's ringing and, you know, this unknown number. It's like, hello, like appropriately nervous of like who's calling me. And, you know, I was like, hi, is Paul available? And this nervous voice is like, this is Paul, right? You're just like, you know, you don't know what's coming.

and it was so cute. I was like, Hey Paul, this is Lindsay Collins calling. And you hear a little, it was like the cutest little audible gasp. I was like, Oh my God, this is so adorable. And then I just shared with him that I was calling with some good news and he got really excited. And then I was telling him about the donation and then the tears started. Like both Paul and I are crying and we chatted for a few minutes, but both trying like really not to cry. And just so that you guys know, like, as you're hearing this, like this

is literally what I live for. Like, yes, I love podcasting. I love being on a team with Dan. I love being a part of our community, but it is that community aspect, those humanitarian efforts that bring me the most joy. It is like my motivation for podcasting to then have the Patreon grow so that we can make bigger and better donations. It is...

Just so incredible to me. And so here's the email that started it all. If you're not a Time Sucker, if that's not a podcast you listen to, I would highly recommend going over and listening to the Mr. Rogers episode. And that's where this comes from. So this email was sent over to Time Suck and Paul writes, Master Sucker, I'm a little behind, but I just finished your suck on Mr. Rogers. I, unfortunately, was not able to listen to Mr. Rogers growing up because my parents believed that he was a communist. Oh.

Yeah.

Your Mr. Rogers suck hit me very hard in the allergy department. On TimeSuck, that's like an inside joke way of saying crying. No. Cutting onions, allergy department, you get it.

Growing up, we moved every six to eight months. We went from church to church, and every church had the same theme. Nice enough to you while you were in the building, and all but telling you to go fuck yourself the second you got outside. I vividly recall being in third grade, listening to the pastor preach about all of the fires of hell and the homosexuals, Democrats, Catholics, Mormons, and other various sinners who are going to burn forever looking around at everyone thinking, they believe this shit?

There was very little talk of doing good in the world, only eternal damnation for anyone who had different beliefs.

Then we moved to Aurora, Nebraska when I was 16. Aurora is a small town of about 4,000 people where I encountered more of the same thing until I met a man named Merwin Davidson. Merwin ran a nonprofit youth center where everything was free. My family was incredibly poor and I wasn't able to participate in most things either due to financial restraints or the constant moving.

It was different at that youth center, both the activities and the man running everything. Merwin was a modern-day superhero. He took small groups of us everywhere with him, visiting skate parks all over Nebraska, shopping trips for supplies, paintballing in the woods, disc golf in the parks.

Merwin was in his mid to late 70s, and he did all of this with us. He was out there getting destroyed in paintball. He rolled around on a skateboard. I eventually learned that Merwin was a missionary and a pastor in his younger years, but he never really mentioned it unless someone asked. He spoke through his actions and not his words. I wish I was kidding, but he was the first person in the world who treated me as if I mattered. Of course, I didn't realize this as an incredibly...

I didn't realize this as an incredibly angry and resentful teenager. It wasn't until years later when I was finally processing my hectic and damaging childhood that I started understanding how much he meant to me and how much he helped me in a time where I desperately needed help. He had no idea what my home life was like, didn't know the full scope of what constantly moving and having no friends did to me. He didn't care that I was a very outspoken and hateful kid. He was kind. He was patient. And he listened and he helped where he could.

Unfortunately, he passed away before I could tell him the effect he had on my life. I moved back to Aurora in 2018 and often drove past the old youth center, reminiscing about the time spent there.

One day I drove by and the lights were off when they should have been on. I was deeply saddened when I asked around and learned the youth center had closed, realizing that my kids would not get to enjoy the same things I did. So I did what anyone would do and I reopened it. I have been the director of the center for three years now and it's booming. We have an average of 120 kids every weekend and offer a ton of free summer programs so every kid can participate regardless of their social income or any other status.

I may not be the same kind of leader as Merwin was, but I sure hope he'd be proud to see his legacy live on. Our theme is Be Excellent to Each Other, which is painted as a giant mural on an interior wall. Every summer, we have a new theme, past ones being Do Good Recklessly, Be More Kind, and this summer is Actions Speak Louder Than Words.

Merwin Davidson was my own personal Mr. Rogers, and I hope that one kid will someday say that about me. Thanks for all you do. Hail Nimrod, and praise be to good boy Bojangles, Paul Johnson.

So after reading that email, I know I'm like fighting tears now. It was just so beautiful and so inspiring to like hear about somebody in our community, just going out and making such a difference, which so many of you do. I mean, the emails that come in with charitable suggestions, requests, you know, we have a laundry list, but it sometimes one just really touches you. And we do try to make the donations connect back to something that's either happening on scared to death or time suck. And so it was just so inspiring.

fucking cool to give this money to Paul. And we've emailed a little bit since. And it made like summer projects that they didn't think they were going to be able to do possible. You know, summertime is a really hard time for kids where without the structure of school, it can lead to,

a lot of idle hands, you know, kids not getting meals. I mean, there's just so many things that happen. So we're just really grateful to all of you who listen and who have the financial ability to support us on Patreon. You make these donations possible. And if you're curious about what Paul is up to, or if you live in that area and that's something you want to engage in, you can find them on Facebook, facebook.com backslash Hamilton County Youth Center, or you can go to H-C-

Youth Center. So Hamilton County HC Youth Center dot com. And I just went there and it was so funny because I just I read that same thing on the most recent time suck and early release came out on. I guess it would be a little bit before this episode this past Thursday as I record this on Monday, May 19th. And I teased him where there was no one like the website had almost no information. It was very confusing and it was very hard to figure out what they were even about.

Like, what were you donating to? And I'm like, come on, Paul. I'm like, let's get your website. That came out. He must be a space lizard because that came out on Thursday. So whatever Thursday was, May 16th, 15th, whatever,

I'm just doing quick math. I'm on the website now. It's already changed. Good job, Paul. Yep. He has an about us section, uh, the address, the phone number, all the information is on the website. So well done, Paul. That was very fast. Well, also, you know, I will say this too. And it's like, I, I love seeing this proof of like what a donation can do. Yeah. Because I thought the same thing. I was like, come on. And then we talked and I'm talking within 24 hours of us talking. All the summer programs were up there. It was completely different. And I,

And we had been going back and forth because normally we make the donations online. And he was like, could you please send a check? Like, so we can really utilize all the funds, yada, yada. We're going back and forth. And I like said, I was like, I will wire the money if you need the money now, you know, because, because I could see he's already putting the money to use. Like, it's so fucking incredible what we can do as a community when we come together like this. It just like, my heart is so full. Yeah, that's awesome.

Well, after that, I'm not going to read through our credits, our longer credits. We love you guys. Thanks, everybody who helps. Yep. I found the shows, the episodes today. Thanks, Logan and the team, everybody who does everything. Good job, gang. Good job, gang. You know who's here. Enjoy your nightmares, creeps, and peepers. Thanks, everybody, for making this community so awesome. Hope you were scared to death. Bye.

Add magic productions. She needs it. Yeah. She needs it. She really wants it right now. Yeah. Yee.